|
|
|
|
|
|
A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF RENUNCIATION
HERBERT B. WORKMAN.
MY WIFE
WHOSE LOVE MAKES LABOUR LIGHT AND
DOUBLES ALL LIFE’S JOYS
Of the following pages the lecture actually delivered consisted of Chapter I., § 1, and of the whole of Chapter Y. These sections I have printed unaltered. This will explain a few slight repetitions, as also certain hortatory paragraphs not strictly in keeping with an historical work.
The subject of persecution in the early Church, treated as a whole, has been somewhat neglected by English writers. The legal aspects of the matter, the relations of the Church to the Empire, and the nature of the courts and procedure by which the Christians were condemned have been fully dealt with in the researches of Ramsay, Hardy, and others, who approve on the whole of the judgement of Mommsen. The opposite view, though still maintained by certain writers of repute (see infra, Appendix E), has not found any English historian, so far as I know, to defend it at length. Persecution also, treated merely from the standpoint of the Church, the experiences of the martyrs, has, of course, never lacked presentation in this country from the days of Foxe onward. Such works, as a rule written for edification, are generally
viii
PREFACE
too uncritical to serve the student.1 Moreover, it is impossible adequately to present a subject by treating it merely from 'within, especially when, as is the case with persecution, it can only be understood by taking into account all the factors both in the inner life and outer environment to which it was due.
Such a treatment of the subject as a whole, in its legal, historical, ecclesiastical, and experiential aspects, is what I have attempted in the following pages. In extenuation of deficiency I may plead the narrow limits within which I have been forced to compress a subject that might well have been expanded into several volumes. But the severe compression may have the advantage of obtaining readers who could not be induced to study a larger work. While I trust that no aspect of the subject has been neglected, special attention has been drawn to those aspects of the inner life of the Church which led to persecution. In writing this section I gladly acknowledge indebtedness to Harnack’s Expansion of Christianity for many suggestions. On the legal question I have followed in the main the lead of Mommsen, Eamsay, and Hardy, with the qualification to which I refer further in Appendix E. As regards historical matters, I have drawn attention in the notes to the works of Mommsen, Schiller, Marquardt, Bury, and others who have shed so much light on the Boman provinces and their government under the Empire.
1 One of the most recent, A. J. Mason, The Historic Martyrs (1905) is constructed on a plan so different to the one I have adopted that the work might be used as complementary to this lecture.
PREFACE
IX
Unfortunately, Eoman history, as taught in schools and colleges, owing to the narrow range of works read as classics, too often stops short with the establishment of the Principate.
My greatest difficulty, as must be the case with all writers on the subject, has been the critical. The examination of the historical value of the many Acts of the martyrs is indispensable, and on the Continent has been dealt with from many different standpoints by such writers as v. Gebhardt, Euinart, de Eossi, Neumann, Preuschen, Aube, Allard, Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Le Blant, to say nothing of the labours of the Bollandists, and of the writers in the Analecta Bollandiana. In England isolated Acts have been treated by Lightfoot, Conybeare, Healy, "Mason, and Gregg as part of their investigation of certain limited periods. In this matter, the very crux of the whole subject, I have weighed each case for myself, and settled to what extent I could accept its historicity whether in whole or part. Unfortunately, my limits of space have made it impossible for me, as a rule, to give the reasons for decision, though I have usually given references to works in which the matter is discussed. In many cases, all that can be claimed for the view adopted is a certain measure of probability, or even of possibility. This last, for instance, is all that can be urged for the history of St. John that I have given in the text. Some of my readers may perhaps consider that, on the whole, I incline too much to accept what many Protestants have been accustomed to dismiss as valueless tradition. Others,
X
PREFACE
again, may blame me that I have followed in some cases the critical lead of Aube and Harnack. The middle position I have adopted corresponds largely to the middle position I hold in other critical matters. In fact, speaking merely as a historian, I think the same principles must be applied in the treatment of every problem of criticism, whether in the New Testament, in literature, or history in general, or in the Acts of the martyrs. Tradition seems to me to have a value which is too often neglected, unless, indeed, the origin of that tradition can be duly explained. But the estimate of the value of tradition and its limitations is too large a theme upon which to enter in a preface. I have pointed out in my notes many instances where tradition has preserved, sometimes in a distorted fashion, some historical remembrance ; many instances, also, where it is but the result of “ tendency ” expressing itself in concrete and picturesque form.
Some critics may complain that in my notes, in spite of the limitations of space, I have occasionally introduced some matters only indirectly, at first sight, connected with persecution. In every case I have done so designedly. The emphasis of the unity and continuity of all knowledge seems to me of the utmost importance, especially in the case of young students. Especially is this necessary in the study of Church history, the danger of which is too often a certain abstraction leading to a false detachment of the life and theology of the Church from the social and political environment amidst which it grew up, and
PREFACE
XI
bj which it was more profoundly influenced than some theologians are wont to acknowledge. To this interdependence I have more than once designedly drawn attention.
As regards the notes in general, the preparation of which has involved months of toil, I am sorry that my limitations have prevented me quoting the salient passages in the Fathers and classical writers. But no reference has been given the value and pertinence of which has not been duly weighed. May I plead with young students, especially in my own Church, that they take some of the notes and work through them systematically ? They will learn more from this means than from any mere reading of the text. Such a plan means work, but after all the verification of a note is a light task compared with the task involved in writing in the first instance. His slight acquaintance with Greek or Latin should not deter the reader. With the many excellent translations of classical writers and of the Fathers now accessible (e.g. Clark’s AN CL),1 a rough but serviceable acquaintance at first hand may be easily acquired. This will be made the more valuable if in certain more difficult or ambiguous passages direct reference is made to good editions of the original. As regards the Acts of martyrs, the student cannot do better than keep at his side the cheap but excellent selection in v. Gebhardt’s AMS. Euinart AM and the vast A.SS are for the expert only. I may add that quotations
1 Bohn’s Eusebius is a shocking translation, but better than none.
xii
PKEFACE
from original sources are always enclosed in ‘ ’; other quotations are marked “
I have ended my survey with the (alleged) Edict of Milan. All divisions of time are more or less arbitrary, and the Edict of Milan was certainly not the end of persecution. On the other hand, to have continued to the triumph of Constantine over Licinian would have introduced new factors that belong more strictly to a new chapter in the world’s history.
If this little volume should in any way assist in reviving the interest of the Church in its early heroes, above all, if it should point once more to the need of a greater measure of renunciation as the essential condition of all successful aggression—a renunciation as necessary to-day, though under different forms, as in the first struggle between the Church and the World—I shall feel that I have obtained a full reward.
Westminster,
July, 1906.
PAGES
Abbreviations and Editions.....xv-xx
Chapter I.—The Master and His Disciples . 1-48
„ II.—Caesar or Christ .... 49-104
„ III.—The Causes of Hatred . . . 105-196
„ IV.—The Great Persecutions . . . 197-282
„ Y.—The Experiences of the Persecuted 283-352
Appendix A.—The Dates and Authorship of certain
Disputed Works .... 354-358
„ B.—The alleged Martyrdom of St. John
in a.d. 44 ............358-361
„ C.—The Martyrdom of St. Peter and
St. Paul............362-364
„ D.—The Persecution of Nero . . 364-365
„ E.—The Laws under which Christians
were condemned .... 365-366
„ F.—The Population of the Empire ; the Proportion of Christians; and the
Number of Martyrs . . . 367-369
„ G. The Apologies of Aristides and
Quadratus............369-371
„ H.—The Punishment of Women . . 371
„ J.—The Fathers and the Empire . . 372
Chronological Table............373-377
Index....................378
N.B.—Works whose titles are fully quoted in the notes are not given in this list. The abbreviations and editions of classical and patristic writers are not given. They are familiar to all students, or easily accessible. For patristic writers the student may consult Swete’s Patristic Study. My references are, as a rule, to the edition of Migne. In a few cases, however, I have quoted the superior CSEL, notably in the epistles of Cyprian. As the numbering in this edition is very different from that of Migne (adopted in Clark’s AXCL), care should be taken in verification. The Historiae Augvstae (Leyden, 1671, 2 vols.) I have always quoted by the separate writers, Lampridius, Vopiscus, Pollio, &c.
C. J. Arnold NC Anal. Boll.
Paul Allard I. HP „ „ II. HP
„ „ HI HP
B. Aube EE „ PE
See Ruinart.
Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha. See Lipsius and Bonnet; Tischendorf.
Die Xeronisclie Christenverfolgung (Leipzig, 1888).
Analecta Bollandiana (Brussels; in progress).
Hist, des Persecutions pendant les deux premiers Siecles (Paris, 1892,2nd ed.).
Hist, des Persecutions 'pendant la premiere moitie du iiic Siecle (Paris, 1894, 2nd ed.).
Les dernieres Persecutions du Trot-sieme Siecle (2nd ed. 1898).
L’ftglise et L’Etat dans la seconde moitie du iiie Siccle (Paris, 1886, 2nd ed.).
Hist, des Persecutions de L'Eglisejusqu’a la Jin des Antonins (Paris, 1875, 2nd ed.).
Acta Sanctorum, i.e. the great incomplete Bollandist collection. Qnoted by the month and its volume (e.g. June v = 5th vol. of June).
XVI
ABBREVIATIONS AND EDITIONS
G. Bigg CTRE
G. Boissier FP V. Bartlet AA Clark AN CL
CSEL
CIL
F. Conybeare MEC
F. Cumont TM V. Duruy HR
A. W. Dale SE L. Duchesne LP
„ FEG S. Dill ESN A „ RS1VE
Dig.
DB
DCB
DCA
J. Drummond FG
Church's Tash in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1905).
Fin du Paganisme (Paris, 1891; 2 vols.)
Apostolic Age (Edinburgh, 1900).
Ante-Nicene Christian Library (Edinburgh).
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna; in progress).
Corpus Imcriptionum Latinorum.
Monuments of Early Christianity (London, 1894).
See infra p. 81, n.
Histoire des Romains (Paris, 1871 ; Eng. trans. by J. P. Mahaffy, London, 1885; 6 vols.).
Synod of Elvira (London, 1882).
Le Liber Pontificalis (Paris, 1886; 2 vols.).
Fastes Episcopaux de Gaule (Paris, 1894; 2 vols.).
Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (London, 1904).
Roman Society in the last Century of the Western Empire (London, 2nd ed., 1899).
For the Digest Juris Civilis,edL. Krueger and Mommsen (Berlin, 1889; vol. L).
Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible (Edinburgh, 1898 ff.; 5 vols.).
Smith and Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography (London, 1877; 4 vols.).
Smith and Cheetham, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (London, 1875;
2 vols.).
Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel (London, 1903).
ABBREVIATIONS AND EDITIONS
XVll
EB
F. W. Farrar EDC Geb. AMS
E. G. Hardy CRG
J. A. F. Gregg DP
F. J. A. Hort JC
A. Harnack CAL
„ EC
„ MC
B. W. Henderson PN
P. J. Healy FP
R. Lanciani PCR
Lipsius & Bonnet AAA
Lactantius MP
Lucian PP
J. B. Lightf. Clem.
„ Ign.
Encyclopaedia Biblica (Edinburgh, 1898 ff.; 4 vols.).
Early Days of Christianity (London; ed. in 1 vol., 1888).
0. v. Gebhardt, Acta Martyrum Selecta (Berlin, 1902).
Christianity and the Roman Government (London, 1894).
The Decian Persecution (London, 1897).
Judaistic Christianity (London, 1898).
Die Chronologie der Altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius (Leipzig, 2 vols., 1897, 1904).
The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries (E. T., London, 1904; 2 vols.).
Militia Christi (Tubingen, 1905).
Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero (London, 1903).
The Valerian Persecution (London, 1905).
Pagan and Christian Borne (London,
1892).
Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha (Leipzig, 1891 ; 3 vols.).
de Mortibus Persecutorum (see infra App. A. II. ft.).
Proteus Peregrinus.
In Bp. Lightfoot’s Apostolic Fathers, Part I. (2 vols., 2nd ed., 1890. N.B. —The first edition is not now of much value).
In Bp. Lightfoot’s Apostolic Fathers, Part II. S. Ignatius and S. Polycarp (3 vols., 2nd ed., 1889).
xviii
ABBREVIATIONS AND EDITIONS
E. Le Blant SAM
} i
C. Merivale RE T. Mommsen PRE
Migne PL & PG
A. J. Mason DP J. Moffatt HNT
G. J. Neumann RSK
N. & B. RS
Palladius HL Paul. Se?it.
Supplement aux Acta Martyrum Sin-cera; in Mfmoires de Literature (1881, vol. 30).
N.B.—The chief contents of the above are more accessible in Le Blant’s Les Persecuteurs et les Martyrs (Paris,
1893), a work I had not met with until this lecture was in print.
Imcriptiones Christianae GaJliae.
Bomans under the Empire (new ed., 1890; 8 vols.). *
Provinces of the Boman Empire (London, 18S6; 2 vols.).
N.B.—In German works quoted as vol. 5 of his history of Rome.
Patrologia Latina and Patrologia Graeca. I have quoted the number of the volume and the column (not the section).
The Persecution of Diocletian (London, 1876).
Historical New Testament (Edinburgh, 1st ed., 1901).
Der Bomische Staat and die allgemeine Kirche (Leipzig, 1890; vol. i. only published).
J. S. Northcote and W. R. Brownlow, B&ma Sotterranea (London, 1879;
2 vols.).
Eistoria Lausiaca (Migne PL, lxxiii.).
Julius Paulus Sententiae. The best editionisthat by Mommsen, Krueger, and Studemund, Collectio lib. Juris antejustiniani (Berlin, 1891). A convenient edition is that by Huschke in the Teubner Texts, Juri&pru-dentiae Antejustinianae (Leipzig, 1879, 4th ed.).
ABBREVIATIONS AND EDITIONS xix
E. Benan L’Ant. „ Evang.
„ EC „ MA
W. M. Bamsay CBP „ „ ChE
G. B. de Bossi RS „ ICUR Buinart AM
E. Schurer JVC
H. Schiller RK
E. C. Selwyn CP
C. Tischendorf EA „ AAA
L’ Antechrist.
Les Evangiles et la seconde generation Chr&ienne.
L'Eglise Chrdtienne.
Marc Aurele et la fin du monde antique. All the above volumes of his Origines du Chrigtianisme I have quoted from the edition of Caiman Le'vy (Paris, 1882).
Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (London, 1895-7; 2 vols.).
The Church in the Roman Empire (London). I have used the third (1894) edition.
St. Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen (London, 7th ed., 1903).
The Letters to the Seven Churches (London, 1904).
Roma Sotterranea (Rome, 1864-80, 4 vols.).
Inscriptions Christianae Urbis Romae (Rome, 1857).
Acta Martyrum Sincera. I have used the second edition (Amsterdam, 1713). A more convenient edition is that of Ratisbon now reprinting. Unfortunately, the pagination in the different editions is not the same.
The Jewish People in the Time of Christ (E. T. Edin., 1890, 5 vols.).
Geschiclite de Romischen Kaisers eit (Gotha, 1883, 5 vols.).
Christian Prophets (London, 1900).
Evangelia Apoci-ypha (Leipzig, 1853).
Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha (Leipzig, 1851).
XX ABBREVIATIONS AND EDITIONS
TS
TU
C. J. Tissot PRA
J. G.W.Uhlhorn CCAC Th. Zahn Ein.
„ fgk
B. F. Westcott Ch.W
Cambridge Texts and Studies, ed. Dean Robinson (in progress). Quoted by volume and year.
Texte und Untersuchungen zur Ges-chichte der Altchristlichen Litteratur. Ed. v. Gebhardt and A. Hamack (in progress). Quoted by the volume and the year.
La Province Romaine D'A/rique (Paris,
2 vols.).
See infra, 177 n.
Einleitung in das Neue Testaments (Leipzig, 1900; 2 vols.).
Forschungen Z. Gesch. des N. T. Kanom and der altkirchlichen Literatur (Leipzig, 1881-1902; 6 vols.). Edited by J. Haussleiter and Theodor Zahn.
The Church and the World; an essay in his Ep. John (London, 1883).
CHAPTER I
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
Thoul if Thou wast He, who at midwatch eame,
By the star-light, naming a dubious name!
And if, too heavy with sleep, too rash With fear—0 Thou, if that martyr-gash Fell on Thee eoming to take Thine own,
And wo gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne,
Thou art the Judge I
And he that taketh not his eross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me.—Matt. x. 38.
A glorious band, the chosen few On whom the Spirit came,
Twelve valiant saints, their hope they knew,
And mocked the eross and flamo;
They met the tyrant’s brandished steel,
The lion’s gory mane,
They bowed their neeks, the death to feel :
Who follows in their train ?
CONTENTS
§ I, p. 3. Martyrdom the highest form of renunciation—The time-factor in the calculation of pain—The example of the Saviour—
‘ The crucified Sophist ’—The Cross the differentia of Christianity —The Gnostics and the Cross—Story of St. Martin.
§ II, p. 10. The trial and death of Jesus—The union of two systems of law—The arrest—Legal nature of the arrest—The illegal private examinations—The trial before Pilate—The charge of
7najestas—Definition of majestas — The three counts against Jesus—Jesus acquitted — The illegal change of venue — The illegal retrial before Pilate—The mockery—The formal sentence —Similarity of trial between that of Jesus and of the martyrs —The Acts of Pilate.
§ III, p. 21. Martyrs the imitators of Jesus—The legends of the Apostles’ martyrdom—Origin of these legends—Their value— The sons of Zebedee—A shadowy martyr—St. James—Story of Hegesippus—Judaistic Christianity—The mob and St. Paul— The action of Felix—Festus—The appeal to Caesar—Result of the appeal.
§ IY, p. 36. The martyrdom of St. Paid—His alleged joumey to Spain—The fire of Rome—His second trial—The two counts in the indictment—His execution—The place of his burial— Martyrdom of St. Peter—Domine, quo vadis ?—His execution and burial—The banishment of St. John—Deportatio or relegation— Date and causes of banishment—His release—His death at Ephesus.
Pp. 1-48.
I
In the history of the Christian Church the student is brought face to face at the very outset with the extremest forms that renunciation can take. No scale has yet been devised that can weigh the relative value of different methods of self-surrender. That which is ease and simplicity to one man may be the needle’s eye to another; the source of exquisite pain for one may be for his fellow a matter of little consequence. The outsider who would construct a table of renunciatory values is face to face with the same difficulty which besets any utilitarian theory of morals, that pain and pleasure are absolutely relative terms. However this may be, in one thing most men are agreed: that the voluntary surrender of life itself represents the highest renunciation. ‘ Skin for skin, yea all that a man hath will he give for his life,’ is still true, in spite of all the efforts of Schopenhauer and others to demonstrate its illogical character.
The consciousness of the Christian Church has decided the question. In all ages men have looked upon the martyr as the highest expression of the spirit of self-surrender; in every country and century he has won for himself that homage and esteem which renunciation, whether in greater or less degree, never
d 2
4 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
fails to procure. ‘ Blessed Martyrs,’ wrote one, long ago, * ye who have been tried by fire like fine gold, ye are now crowned with the diadem that cannot fade away; for ye have bruised beneath your feet the serpent’s head.’1
The consciousness of the Christian Church cannot be seriously questioned. There are cases, it is true, in which it is easier to die than to live; where the daily discharge of duty against overwhelming odds, the daily carrying of a burden that only death can remove, the daily suppression of a pain that is gnawing the heart, the daily struggle of broken wings against the prison bars, is a task far more difficult than one heroic rush into the midst of the foe, one short hour of pain, and then kindly peace for ever. The time-factor, in a word, cannot be ignored; and probably if the amount of pain could be calculated, there are saints all around us the sum of whose sufferings drawn out through years outweighs the brief tortures that have immortalized the noble army of martyrs. But this time-factor is one that in practical life it is generally impossible to estimate. The Victoria Crosses are for the heroes of the moment; there are no rewards for the lifelong sufferers that war brings in her train. So also in the Christian Church. The valuation of the time-factor must be left with God; we have no instruments wherewith we can measure it. But one thing the dullest can understand—the worth and reality of the renunciation
1 Ruinart AM 222. Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom, iv 4, “ The praises of martyrdom.”
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
5
and self-sacrifice which count life itself of no value, and which have obtained, in the fine figure of Ter-tullian, ‘ the crown of eternity itself.’1
In part, no doubt, the value that the Christian Church has always attached to martyrdom must bo attributed to the example of Jesus, if for the moment we may contemplate the Crucifixion not in its eternal significance as atonement, but under its aspect as an episode in human history. The story that moved the world was the Cross. In hoc signo vinces may be a legend of later growth; none the less it was an historical fact. A crossless Saviour would be a crown-less king; for Christ the ‘ hour ! of His crucifixion was the ‘ hour ’ of His glory, the one ‘ hour ’ of His timeless being.2 For Him also was fulfilled the saying, ‘ The crown blossoms on thorns.’ In spite of the sneers of Lucian at the ‘ crucified Sophist,’3 the Martyr of Calvary laid His spell on the world from the first; a fact the more remarkable when we remember that mere suffering could never have appealed to an age that was steeped in cruelty, and for whom crucifixion, the punishment of slaves, was one of the commonest sights of life. Through His cross the Man of Sorrows became the crowned King, “whose pierced hand lifted empires off their hinges, and turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still governs the ages.”4 The spear that pierced
1 Tert. ad Marl. 3. * John xvii 1, xiii 31.
3 Lucian PP (Ed. Dindorf iii 337) Tby 5’ aveffKoKoirta/xevov ikuvov (Tu<pi<TT)]V. Cf. ib. iii 330, Tbp &v6puirov tiv Iv Ua.\ai<rTlvr) ava.<nto\oirio-devra.
* J. P. Richter, quoted in Geikie, Life of Christ, i 2.
6 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
His side was in reality the death-wound of the old paganism. “ Pan, great Pan is dead,” is one of the undertones in the cry of triumph, “ It is finished.” Very beautifully is this expressed in a recent poem:
Girt in the panther fella,
Violets in my hair,
Down I ran through the woody dells,
Through the morning wild and fair,—
To sit by the road till the sun was high,
That I might see some god pass by.
Fluting amidst the thyme I dreamed through the golden day,
Calling through melody and rhyme,
“ Iacchus I come this way,—
From harrowing Hades like a king,
Vine leaves and glories scattering.”
Twilight was all rose-red When, crowned with vine and thorn,
Came a stranger-god from out the dead ;
And his hands and feet were torn.
I knew him not, for he came alone :
I knew him not, when I fain had known.
He said: “ For love, for love I wear the vine aud thorn.”
He said : “ For love, for love My hands and feet were torn: ”
For love the wine-press Death “ I trod.”
And I cried in pain: “ O Lord my God.” 1
The Cross is the peculiar property of the Gospel.
* None of the so-called sons of Jupiter did imitate the being crucified,’ argued Justin; the idea was as new in the thought of the world as its power was
1 R. A. Taylor. Poems (1904) p. 52.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
7
tremendous.1 “ The old logicians,” writes Dr. Bigg, “used to say that everything should be defined per genus et clifferentiam. Christianity is a religion; this is its genus, this it has in common with all other religions. It is the religion of vicarious sacrifice, or of the Cross, this is its differentia; in this addition lies the peculiar nature which makes it what it is, and distinguishes it from every other member of the same class.”2 The popular verdict is one with that of theological science. Theories of the Atonement have been devised more or less satisfactory in their efforts to explain in finite symbols the infinite love and sorrow that lie at the heart of God. But even those for whom such theories are meaningless have rarely failed to render homage to the Divine Sufferer.
The speculative consequences of this position that Christianity is essentially the religion of the Cross are very great. Doctrines shared by Christianity with other religions, the beliefs in immortality and Providence, the value of law and virtue, necessarily become of secondary importance as explanatory causes of its success. This can be adequately accounted for only by that one feature in which Christianity differs from all religions that have gone before or which have risen since. The foundations of the Church are laid deep in Calvary.
1 I Apol. 55. On the underlying cause of this disdain for the Crucified in Greek philosophy (ef. I. Cor. i 23), see Martineau Types of Ethical Theory (1885) i 10. Celsus (Origen Cels, vii 53) gives a catalogue of heroes, including Epictetus, whose deaths establish a superior claim to divinity.
* Bigg’s Church's Tusk under Roman Empire (1905) xi.
8 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Of equal importance are the practical consequences. If the Cross is the essence of Christianity, crossbearing is the mark of every disciple of Jesus. The theology of an early disciple could scarcely fail to be otherwise than loose. Only slowly, under the pressure of circumstances, did the great doctrines become clear-cut in the consciousness of the Church. But immature as might be the current ideas on the Trinity, the Person of Christ, the nature of the Atonement, and the Personality of the Holy Ghost, on one matter there could be no hesitation or uncertainty. Jesus Himself had said it; no man could be His disciple who should not bear His Cross. Selfdenial, renunciation, martyrdom, the * emptying one’s self ’1 for others, in a word, the Cross in one form or another, not for the sake of “my soul” merely, but for the sake of “ my brother’s soul ” as well as mine, —this was the mark by which the Shepherd would know His sheep. Alas! for that soul in whom the Master, when He came, could not find the print of the nails, and the wounds of His passion. Selfsurrender, self-sacrifice, is not the bene esse, but the very esse of Christianity. “ The old Gnostics called the Cross Horos, the Boundary or Dividing Line. The Gnostics were a curious people, but they were right here.”2 The Cross is indeed the dividing line, both
1 Phil, ii 7, inzvuKxzv.
2 Bigg o.c. xv: Dr. Bigg gives no references, but see the Leucian Acta Johannis (TS v. 5 c 13), 8iopi<r/jibs irwrwv iariv, k.t.A. ; Irenaeus Haer. i 3, 5 : ‘ In so far as he supports and sustains he is Stauros (the Cross), -while in so far as he divides and separates he is Horos,’ &c., with the subsequent metaphor of the fan which the Gnostics ‘ explain
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
9
in the life of the world, of every individual, and of the Christ Himself.
There is a beautiful story in that charming work of Sulpicius Severus, the Life of St. Martin of Tours, which will serve as an illustration of our meaning. One day as Martin was praying there stood before him in his cell a radiant being, ‘ clothed upon with a kingly vest, with a diadem of gems and gold upon his brow, shoes inlaid with gold upon his feet, and whose face was lit with joy.’ As the saint stood in silence,
* Martin,’ said the vision, * dost thou not know whom thou beholdest ? I am the Christ.’ But Martin still stood erect and speechless. ‘ Martin,’ the voice repeated, ‘ why dost thou doubt that thou beholdest Me ? I am the Christ.’ ‘ Not so,’ replied the saint, ‘Jesus our Lord never said that He would come again resplendent in purple and gold. I will not believe that I have seen any vision of Christ, except He come clothed upon with the form in which He suffered, and bearing the marks of His Cross.’ At once the vision vanished, and by the fumes with which his cell was filled Martin recognized that it had been the devil.1 Martin’s insight was correct; the Cross is the true mark of the Lord. Even the
to be the Cross.’ For tho different subdivisions of this Horos, seo ib. i 2, 4.
1 Sulpicius Soverus Vita Martini c. 24 (ed. Halm in the Vienna CSEL 18GG). Tho devil was rather given to taking tbe form of Christ. In the Vita Pachomii IS (Migne PL lxxiii) wo find him playing the samo trick on Pachomius, who reasons that ‘ the vision of Christ frees from all fear, whereas I am troubled.’ Tho defeated devil usually leaves hie smell behind him.
10 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
triumphant Christ must still wear “ the dear tokens of His passion.”
At this point it will be convenient to examine the nature of the charge and the legality of the trial by which our Lord was condemned.1 The matter is of importance, not merely in itself, but by reason of its relation to our theme. For, as we shall see, in His trial and execution our Lord was the first-born of many brethren, condemned on essentially the same charge and at the same court as the majority of the early Christians. But in one detail the case of our Saviour was unique. The two most influential law systems of the old world, the venerable law of Moses and the august jurisprudence of Eome, had both to face the problem, “ What shall we do with Jesus that is called the Christ ? ” To accomplish His destruction they were both violently wrested into injustice, to meet the greed and allay the fears of those charged with their administration.
So long as our Lord was in Galilee the Sanhedrim had no legal authority over Him.2 But once in
1 For the trial of Jesus in its legal aspects the student should consult A. Taylor Iunes The Trial of Jesus Christ (1899). Its conclusions are summarized in Buss Boman Law, &o., in N.T. (1901). G. Rosadi The Trial of Jesus (trans. E. Reich, 1905) is diffuse and not very valuable. How close in form and many of its phrases (legal) the trial of Jesus is to the trial of the martyrs may be seen by every student who will compare Le Blant SAM § 59 (even making all discount for mere coincidence) with the Gospels.
2 Schiircr JPC i (2) 1S5.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
11
Jerusalem, He came under their control. For the Romans, wise in their generation, governed their empire by a system of devolution or modified home rule. In Judaea every effort was made to conciliate local feeling. The members of the Sanhedrim were allowed the full exercise of their judicial functions, so far as their own people were concerned,1 with the limitation, of importance in the case of St. Paul, that they had no control over Roman citizens, nor had they any right of inflicting the death sentence.2 But this last was really less effective a check than it might appear. A politic procurator, ever anxious to prevent disturbance in his province, usually ratified the death sentence of the Sanhedrim.
The arrest of Jesus on the warrant of the Sanhedrim, perhaps on the charge of riot in the Temple,3 was therefore legal.4 So assured were the higli-priests of their rights that they obtained from Pilate a cohort of soldiers under a tribune6 to protect them in their enterprise, and to assist the Temple police. The large military force may seem excessive; evidently the hierarchy expected an outbreak of the
1 Schiirer JPG ii (2) 262-3. For tho powers of the Sanhedrim see ib. ii (1) 1G3-95, or briefly Mommsen PRE ii 187-8.
2 John xviii 31; and for the evidence Buss o.c. 184-8; Schiirer JPG i (2) 188 ; Westeott in loc. cit.; Blass on Acts vii 57-8.
3 This cleansing was tho real offence. It hit hard tho pocket of Annas and his ring. See Edcrsheim Jesus the Messiah i 371-2. As to when this event took place, see Drummond FG Gl-2.
* Innes o.c. 21, doubts this for reasons that I do not understand.
5 John xviii 3, 12, <rire?pa, properly GOO men, must not bo taken
too literally. See also Westeott in loc.
12 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Galileans, who neither recognized nor were accustomed to their jurisdiction. Of more importance is it to note in this persecution of the Son of Man that feature, so marked in later days, of the union of Jew and Roman.1 In Judaea, as afterwards throughout the world, the civil and ecclesiastical authorities were one in their effort to destroy the religion of Jesus. The actual arrest in the garden of Geth-semane seems to have been the work of the Roman soldiers, the Temple police at the critical moment yielding to a panic.2 They had often heard the Saviour speak; they had seen His deeds; they dreaded His power. From all these fears the more ignorant Roman soldiers were free. But with the handing over of their captive to the officers of the Sanhedrim the work of the regulars for the present was finished.
The private examination of Jesus before Annas was altogether illegal. In Judaea, unlike France or Scotland, no preliminary interrogatories were allowed.3 The trial before the Sanhedrim would have been legal if the court had been a formal meeting, and not a packed quorum of twenty-three, to say nothing of the doubt whether the day was not one on which all courts were illegal. As it was, its conduct made it a judicial murder.4 Contrary to all the rules of
1 See infra p. 119. * John xviii 6, 12.
3 See Innes o.c. 24-2G, who quotes the learned Spanish Jew jurist Salvador; Institutions de Moise i 366. In the edition I have used (Brussels, 1829) the reference is ii 60.
4 Edersheim ii 552-6. Innes o.c. 30 ff. The Jews think this. See the Talmudic evasions, ib. ii 558 n.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES 13
Jewish law, the court was held, in part at least, by night, or at any rate before daybreak. According to St. Luke, the formal decision—for no witnesses were recalled—was not given until dawn.1 But even then it would have been illegal. Jewish law laid great stress on the necessary adjournment, over twelve hours at least, before the sentence of condemnation.2 The judicial use of the confession of the accused, even after solemn adjuration, was expressly forbidden. In this too Jesus was one with His brethren, who were condemned on their confession alone.3 Again, as Salvador tells us, “the least discordance between the evidence of the witnesses was held to destroy its value.”4 The sentence itself, strictly speaking, was ultra vires, though too much must not be made of what in practice was often rather a technicality than otherwise. But the carrying out of the death-sentence without the consent of Pilate was difficult and dangerous, as Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, knew to his cost, and as his son Annas was afterwards to learn.5 Annas, the father, had lost his office some fifteen years before for this very reason;6 and Pilate
1 Luke xxii GG.
2 Salvador, the champion of the justice of the trial (Jugement de J€sus 18G2 i 391, or Imtit. Mo'ise, 1829,1. iv c 3 ii 89) ignores this. Ho states, against all the evidence: “It is certain that the Council
would assemble again the next day.” 3 See infra p. 101.
4 Imtit. i 373, or (1829) ii G9. Innes reminds us (p. 40) that the fact that Jesus was tried on a “ general warrant,” though illegal in
England, was not so in Judaea.
* See infra p. 27, death of James. For this irregularity he was
deposed by Agrippa (Joseph. Antiq. xx 9, 1).
8 a.d. 1G, deposed by Valerius Gratus (Joseph. Antiq. xviii 2, 2).
14 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
was not a procurator given to humouring the Jewish pretensions. The priests had no option, therefore, but to obtain the Eoman endorsement. As a rule this would have been granted, with little, if any, inquiry. But, whether by blunder or design, in bringing the case before Pilate they changed the charge from blasphemy1 to treason. If they had alleged the first only, the count upon which Jesus had been condemned by the Sanhedrim, Pilate might have ratified their sentence offhand, as a matter merely of Jewish religion or politics. But in that case the death would have been by stoning, as ordained by the Jewish law, not the death on the Cross of malefactors and slaves, the only death which would overwhelm with ridicule His Messianic pretensions.
The charge of treason threw upon Pilate the necessity of a formal trial, of hearing the case de novo without reference to the examination of the Sanhedrim. Crimen laesae majestatis (lese-majcste), or high treason against the Emperor, was the most grievous offence known to Roman law, theoretically second to sacrilege, but in reality one with it. In earlier days majestas, as the offence was usually called, embraced any ‘crime against the Roman people, or their security/ —we quote the comprehensive definition of the great Roman jurist Ulpian,2 as, for instance, conspiracy,
1 Blasphemy in Jewish law probably included the attempt to supersede that law (Innes 44-6). It was really theocratic high treason, or crimen laesae majestatis divinae. See infra p. 101 n. Under this category St. Paul, even more than our Saviour, could have been condemned, or for that matter any reformer.
2 Dig. slviii 4, 1. See also Paulus Sent, v 29.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES 15
the giving aid to enemies, or the aiming at the abolished office of king. With the fall of the Republic, and the accumulation in the person of a sacred Emperor of all the offices of the State, the law of majestas became the most potent instrument of tyranny, as vague as it was comprehensive. Any disrespect to the Emperor or his statue,1 even spoken words without acts, brought the offender under its penal clauses. The refusal to pay the taxes or tribute to Caesar might also, by a lawyer’s ingenuity, be brought under the same head. The penalties were fixed by law as either banishment or death.2 How hardly all this bore on the Christians we shall see later.
On their first bringing the prisoner before Pilate the Sanhedrim attempted to obtain His condemnation on a general unspecified warrant. But when Pilate refused to touch such a case they were driven to formulate a specific accusation. By Roman law and usage each count in an indictment had to be tried separately. Of the three counts alleged against Jesus —perverting the nation, the forbidding tribute to Caesar, and the making Himself a king—Pilate fastened upon the last as the most important and comprehensive. The fact, if true, would be fatal. As procurator or imperial legate he was bound to
1 Dig. xlviii 4, 5-G. Most important for the early Christiana.
5 For the crime of majestas see the various comments of Roman lawyers on the Lex Julia majestatis in Dig. xlviii 4. Readers of English only may consult Merivale BE v 217-G4, or briefly Dill RSNA 33; Innes o.c. 85; or Buss o.c. 208-12.
16 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
conduct such a case himself. The trial took place in the Praetorium—either some hall in the Castle of Antonia, or, more probably, the Palace of Herod the Great1—and would appear to have been but brief. In answer to the formal charge our Lord put in a plea known to English law as confession and avoidance, admitting in effect the truth of the accusation, but pleading “new matter to avoid the effect of it, and show that the plaintiff is, notwithstanding, not entitled to his action.” 2 * My kingdom,’ He said, ‘ is not of this world.’ He pleaded that His kingdom dealt with spiritual things, as, for instance, the truth. After some discussion, not unmixed with scorn, Pilate accepted the plea. Evidently Jesus was a religious enthusiast, or wandering philosopher whom it would be absurd to destroy by so imposing a legal process. Let the Jews deal with the matter themselves. So far as majestas was concerned, Pilate pronounced the sentence of acquittal—‘ I find no crime in Him,’ absolvo, Not guilty.
Up to this point Pilate had kept true to the immortal traditions of Roman equity, which more than aught else constituted the secret and strength of the Empire. But the sentence of acquittal led to an outburst of the mob, which seems to have swept Pilate off his feet. Hearing the word Galilee, he tried to change the venue, to send the prisoner from the place of arrest to the place of His crime ; a step which would have been perfectly legal if only taken earlier, but
1 Edersheim ii 5C5 ; BB s.v.; infra p. 19, n. 4.
2 Buss o.c. 214.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
17
which after acquittal became a travesty of justice. But Herod Agrippa was too prudent to meddle in a charge of majestas. He turned the matter into a pleasant pantomime by arraying Jesus in ‘ gorgeous apparel’—either the purple robe of a king, or the white garment of a candidate—and sent Him back to Pilate. “ The Idumaean fox dreaded the lion’s paw while very willing to exchange courtesies with the lion’s deputy.”1 The after proceedings were a still deeper mockery of Roman justice; “a veritable phantasmagoria of injustice and brutality to the accused, of alternate conciliation and expostulation towards the prosecutors, ending in the defeat of the Judge. ” 2 For two hours Pilate faced the mob, trying to accomplish the impossible, the reconciliation of acquittal and condemnation, of popularity and duty, of Roman law and Jewish fanaticism. His wife even came to the assistance of her husband’s conscience.3 But all was in vain. At length Pilate yielded. Roman judges, pronouncing the death-sentence, called the sun to witness the justice of their acts; Pilate paid some homage to his conscience and the majesty of Roman law by taking refuge in a merely Jewish practice. He called for water, and threw the responsibility of his verdict on the priests and elders. Mob rule and priestly hatred had conquered. Utilitarian theories 4
1 Innes o.c. 9i. The purple suits better the charge of majestas. See Plummer St. Luke in loc. 7 Buss o.c. 22-i.
3 Roman wives had only recently been allowed, or rather not forbidden, to accompany their husbands to tho provincial governments. Buss o.c. 227.
4 Utilitarian theories of morals and politics are always ready, if
C
18 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
of justice and politics had won their greatest triumph. Christ was at length informally condemned on the charge of majestas, in spite of His previous judicial acquittal. In years to come, when facing the mob of Lyons, Smyrna, or Antioch on the same charge, and with the same issue as their Master, the Christians would comfort themselves with the thought that they were treading in His steps. In this, as in all else, He was their forerunner and example.
In His punishment also Christ suffered with His brethren. They were tortured as part of their examination. From this the lingering remnants of justice in Pilate’s mind had spared Him, though the mockeries of Herod’s soldiers were not without elements of brutality. But after the informal verdict He drank the cup to the dregs. He was bound to the whipping-post and lashed with leather thongs loaded with balls of lead or spikes of bone; then handed over to the soldiers to furnish a half-hour’s jest in the barrack-room. Naturally the sport took its colour from the legal proceedings. The declared rival of Caesar should enter His kingdom. So the soldiers clothed Him with purple, some worn-out garment of Pilate, then crowned Him with thorns,1
the occasion so demand, to crucify the Christ for the sake of a vested interest. It is not surprising that the ablest defence of Pilato will be found in the Utilitarian writer Sir J. Stephen’s Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873), pp. 89 ff.
1 In the first recension of the Acta Pilati c. 10 (Tisch. EA 231) the coronation with thorns does not take place until the crucifixion. So also Codex Bezae (TS ii (1) 271). In the second recension of the Acta Pilati (Tisch. EA 280) the incident runs as in St. Matt. St. Lulce does not mention it.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
19
and kept marching round Him, pretending to kneel as they passed. According to one authority,1 Pilate even sank so low as to join in their sport, characteristically combining with his undignified brutality a last effort at release. But all was in vain. The Jews pointed out that there were other counts in the indictment with which Pilate had not dealt, even if he were disposed to pay no further heed to the charge of treason,2 on which, in fact, he had already pronounced informal condemnation, and which they for their part were inclined to press, if necessary, by appeal to Rome. Pilate was entangled in the meshes of his own weakness. To let off a prisoner whom he had already condemned, however informally, for mqjcstas, would be too dangerous for him to contemplate. There was no help for it but to pronounce the formal sentence. So Pilate ascended his tribunal,3 an elevated seat on a mosaic pavement, commanding, it would seem, a view over the whole city.4 In accordance with Roman forms, the public was admitted, and the prisoner brought in, still wearing His robes and crown. The verdict was read.5 As the superscription on His cross shows, Jesus was condemned for mcijcstas. The
1 John xix 1-12. * So I interpret tho curious John xix 7.
3 Justin I Apol. 35 and tho Gospel of Peter (cd. Robinson and James 1892 p. 17) read that ho set Jesus on the scat as part of the rnockcry. But this, though possible in Greek, should be rejected. Roman judges had scarcely sunk so low. On the other sido sco Expositor (1893) 29G ff.
4 John xix 13. Edcrsheim ii 578 n. But see BB s.v. Gabbatha.
8 See Le Blant SAM 1G7, 223-4, who shows that this was tho custom with tho Christian martyrs. Cf. Tert. Apol. 2, ‘ de tabella recitatis ilium Christianum, &c.’ This written verdict could not be
20 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
death penalty was inevitable, nor was it more cruel than the penalties in England, until recent days, for the same offence. The due forms would be observed. “Ilium duci ad crucem placet,”1 said the Judge, to the prisoner. “I, miles, expedi crucem,” “Go, soldier, get ready the cross,” he would add as he bade the officials execute the sentence without delay. With the writing of the official titulus, a board giving the crime, usually carried before the prisoner,2 and the forwarding a precis of the case to Rome,3 or at least entering it in the archives at Jerusalem or Caesarea,
altered. See Le Blant SAM 167, ‘ Judex quam tulit de reo tabellam rcvocare non potest.’ ‘With this ef. Pilate’s t yeypa<pa y4ypa<pa (John xix 22).
1 Le Blant SAM 224.
2 Common also in the case of Christian martyrs. Cf. Thekla (infra p. 91 n); Euseb. EE v 1, 44 (Attalus; see infra p. 104 n.).
3 Such reports were common, and form the basis of the most authentic of the Acta Martyrum. See infra p. 285 n 1; Justin I Apol. 35; 48 ; Tert. Apol. 21, Euseb. ME ii 2, all assume its existence at Rome. Cf. the Syriac Sermon of Simon Cepha (Cureton. Ancient Syriac Docs. 38 or Clark ANL xx (2) 52). Justin and Tertullian may allude to the Anaphora Pilati (with its sequel Paradosis Pilati), a work which has many remarkable coincidences with the recently discovered Gospel of Peter (Gibson Apocrypha Sinaitica pp. x-xii), and is probably older. The legends of the Anaphora (“ Giving up ”) have a very early date therefore. For the Anaphora in Greek see Tischendorf EA 413-31, or Fabrieius Cod. Apoc. (1719) ii; and for an older Syriac text (with translation) see Gibson o.c. 1-6. A translation from the text of Tischendorf of the Pilate literature will be found in Clark ANCL xvi 223 fF.
Mrs. Gibson dwells (p. xiv) on “the author’s truly Christian appreciation of the scope of divine forgiveness.” But in reality the whitewashing of Pilate was one form of Judenhetze in the early Church. See infra p. 116. Here the hate takes the form of stating that it was the Jews, not Pilate, who put Jesus to death (see Paradosis Pilati c. 9, in Gibson o.c. 7, 8,12, or Tisch. EA 430). The Abyssinian
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES 21
Pilate’s task was finished. So the Man of Sorrows passed out to His death, carrying as usual1 His own cross—not the cross rendered familiar by the exaggerations of artists, for the Romans wasted no wood on their criminals. In one sense the charge of majestas on the ‘ title ’ was true. The King had come to His own at last. Lifted up in shame, He drew all men to Him in adoration.
Ill
By a sure instinct the Church discerned in the death of the martyr the repetition, not the less real
Church even went so far as to canonize Pilate (his festival is June 25) as well as his wife Procla (Neale East. Church i 806), while in the Paradosis Pilati c. 10 (Gibson o.c. 13, Tisch. o.c. 431), when Tiberius cuts off Pilate’s head, angels receive it, and a voice cries, ‘ All generations shall call thee blessed ... for under thee all these things were fulfilled.’ Similar lenient views of Pilate will be found in Tertul. Apol. 21, ‘Pilate, a Christian in his convictions’; in the Epistolae Pilati it Herodis (ed. Dr. James in TS ii 66-75). How far all this was from the truth will be evident from our rendering of the trial.
As Euseb. HE ix 5 tells us, the Acts of niate extant under Maximin were forged by the heathen, as a weapon against Christianity. See Harnack CAL i 603 IF. Ab part of the persecution they were ordered by Maximin to be taught to the school children of every city. They must be carefully distinguished from those now extant in two recensions better known as the Gospel of Nicodemus. See Tisch. EA 203 If. According to Euseb. HE i 9, they were only ‘ lately forged.’ References to these ‘ Acts ’ (i.e. the last ones) occur in several of the records of the contemporary martyrs; e.g. Andronicus (Ruinart AM 442 ; ITiA.aTou virofj.vfifj.ara KaTaicetvrai, says Maximin). Infra 2S0.
1 See Artemidonis Oneirocritica ii 56 (infra p. 128, u.), who tells ns that to dream of carrying the cross was common, and in the caso of those who go to sea a good omen; on tho principles of Shak. Temp, i 1 : “Ilis complexion is pcrfeet gallows. He hath no drowning mark upon him.”
22 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
because faint, of the central Sacrifice of Calvary. * As we behold the martyrs,’ writes Origen,1 ‘ coming forth from every Church to be brought before the tribunal, we see in each the Lord Himself condemned.’ So Irenaeus speaks of the martyrs as * endeavouring to follow in the footsteps of Christ,’ and of St. Stephen, as
* imitating in all things the Master of Martyrdom.’ 2 In the early Church the imitation of Christ, as a formal principle in ethics, played but a secondary part, so far, at any rate, as the average member was concerned.3 The martyrs and confessors alone were thought of as actually following and imitating Jesus ; they alone were the ‘true disciples’ of the Master.4 It was enough for the servant that he should be as his Lord.
One consequence of this last idea made its appearance in the Church at a very early date. We refer to the legends of martyrdom of the first Apostles.5 These are manifestly the production of an age which could scarcely conceive of a perfect renunciation which did not issue in the cross or the stake. Such Christians interpreted too literally the cry of love: Let
1 Orig. In Jerem. Homil. xiv 7 (Migne PG xiii 411).
2 Adv. Eaer. iii c 18, 5; c 12, 13.
3 See Harnack EC i 107 n. The modern strength of the idea is due to Thomas a Kempis.
4 See especially Ignatius Eph. 1, Bom. 4, 5, Mart. Polyc. 17, and infra pp. 343 ff.
5 We see the same tendency in the exaggeration of the number of martyrs among the early popes in the Liber Pcmtificalis, in whose lists only ten before Silvester (Constantine) are not ‘ crowned with martyrdom.’ Duchesne LP i Infro. § 4, owns that many must be abandoned.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
23
us also go, that we may die with Him. They reduced the way of the cross to one well-trodden path. They remembered, perhaps too literally, our Lord’s ordination charge to His disciples, with its foreshadowings of the hour when they should stand before kings and governors for His name’s sake, and its warning of the greater fear than the fear of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do.1 We in these latter days, for whom self-surrender must take a different form, not the less complete because of gentler type, may rejoice that God’s demands upon His servants are not all the same. They also serve who stand and wait, and the Apostles who died in peace at home are not less truly His heroes than they who, like St. Paul or St. Peter, counted their lives to be but dross for the sake of Christ.
These legends, moreover, must be discredited, inasmuch as they are largely the outcome of the parousian beliefs which dominated the early Church. We see in them the attempts to show that the Gospel had been preached to every nation, even by the first Apostles, and that all things, therefore, were ready for His coming.3 But the absence of early tradition is almost proof of their falsity; at any rate, we are not now able to distinguish the kernel of fact which the legends, many of them of Gnostic or Ebionite origin, may contain.3
Slight, however, as may be their basis of fact,
1 Matt, x 1G-32.
2 See infra p. 233.
* See infra Appendix C § vi.
24 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the student would do well to remember the wise words of Dr. Montague James:
“Not many will deny that these books possess considerable historical value. The high-road will serve us well if we want to visit our cathedral cities; but in order to get an idea of the popular architecture of a district we must often digress into obscure and devious by-paths. The apocryphal books stand in the relation of by-paths—not always clean or pleasant—to the broad and well-trodden high-road of ordinary patristic literature. If a future historian wants to realize vividly what were the beliefs of many large classes of ordinary Christians in our time, he will derive great help, I doubt not, from the “ Sunday Stories ” of the last thirty years: and not less information can be gathered from the apocryphal books as to the popular beliefs of average Christians in far earlier times.”1
The same remark is equally true of many of the less authentic Acts of martyrs. .
The record of the earliest martyr, Stephen, is in the Scriptures. In his case the lead in prosecution would appear to have been taken by the synagogue of the Roman freedmen,2 possibly through the influence of another Roman citizen, a young man from Tarsus, a most bitter enemy of the new Way. Immediately after the stoning of the proto-martyr a general persecution, which reached as far as Damascus, drove all except the Apostles from the city. By what means
1 Apocrypha Anecdoia in TS ii (3) p. viii.
1 Acts vi 9. For the Libertini, strictly the descendants of the Jew slaves sold at Rome by Pompey, who had won their freedom and citizenship, see Schiirer JPG ii (2) 276 n; DB or EB s.v. Possibly the reading is wrong. See commentaries in loc. In favour of the reading note the active part taken in the city politics of Pompeji by the Synagogue of the Libertines (Lanciani PCB 310).
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
25
the twelve were able to stay on and yet escape destruction we know not.
From the Acts1 also we learn how Herod Agrippa
I., the grandson of Herod, killed James, the brother of John,2 with the sword, and would have seized St. Peter, whose time, however, was not yet come. According to Clement of Alexandria,3 the man who had led St. James to the judgement-seat, possibly, though not necessarily, his accuser, was so impressed with his testimony that he too professed faith in Christ, the first of many led to the truth by the “ witness ” of the “martyrs.” ‘Both therefore were led away to die. On their way he entreated James to be forgiven by him. James, considering a little while, replied, “Peace be to thee,” and kissed him. So these two were beheaded together.’ Thus St. James drank at last of the same cup, and was baptized with the baptism of Christ.
O great Apostle I rightly now Thou readest all thy Saviour meant.4
With St. James there seems to have perished a disciple of our Lord belonging to the highest caste in
1 Acts xii 1-19. The date is fixed by the subsequent death of Agrippa I. (Ads xii 20-4, Joseph. Antiq. xix 8, 2) as early in 44. See BB (s.v. Chronology) i 416.
2 For an examination of tho view that St. John tho Apostle was also killed at the same time, see infra Appendix B.
3 Euseb. EE ii 9, from Clement’s lost Hypotyposeis (or “ Sketches ”) bk. vii. A similar story is told in Pscudo-Abdias Hbtoriae Apostolicac lib. iv c. 13. Tho details read rather suspiciously like a transference to earlier days of later conditions and incidents. See infra p. 346.
4 lveble, Christian Year, St. James’ Day.
26
PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the hierarchy, who bore the somewhat common name of John. Possibly this mysterious martyr suffered later, perhaps at the same time as the other St. James. But the date, the place of execution, and the identity of this John are alike matters of dispute. Some have boldly claimed that this early martyr was the Apostle John, i.e. John the son of Zebedee; others have recognized in him the shadowy ‘ Elder John ’ of Papias; not a few have denied his existence. Unfortunately the solution of the question is so wrapped up with the most momentous issues of New Testament criticism that it has become the favourite battle-ground of opposing schools.
Of the martyrdom of the other James, the brother of our Lord, the first Bishop of Jerusalem, we have an account in Hegesippus,1 the exact historical value
1 Hegesippus, Hypomenmata, “Memorials,” bk. v., a lost work quoted in Eusebius EE ii 23. But the support which Eusebius, following Origen (Cels, i 47), claims from Josephus Antiq. xx 9 is in part a spurious Christian interpolation, while the genuine part is not in harmony with Hegesippus. See Lightfoot Gal. 36G n.; Mayor St. James xxxviii-xli. Lightfoot, who rejects the story, conjectures (ib. 3G7 n.) that Hegesippus’ account is “ the grand finale ” of the Ebionite work, The Ascents of James (discourses supposed to have been delivered on the Temple steps), traces of which we find in the Clementine Recognitions (ib. 330). I may point out one mark of Ebionite influence in the description of James. We are told ‘ that he never wore woollen, but linen garments ’—one of the peculiarities of tho Essenea. The Ascents of James is a notoriously Anti-Pauline work of the extreme Jewish-Christian school (see infra p. 122 n.), as is evident from the scurrilous tale regarding St. Paul found in the same by Epiphanius JIaer. xxx 16.
The date in Hegesippus, ‘immediately before Vespasian’s invasion,’ cannot possibly be correct. From Josephus l.c. we learn that in the interval between the death of Festus and the arrival of his successor
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES 27
of which it is difficult for the historian to appraise. But though the details may be doubtful, some of them evidently written for polemical ends, we may accept, though not without misgivings, the truth of the main outlines.1 By the strictness of his life and his exceeding piety—‘ his knees had become as hard as camels’ in consequence of his habitual supplication ’—St. James had won the respect of all parties. So the rulers came to James and said, ‘We entreat thee restrain the people who are led astray after Jesus . . . for we all have confidence in thee. Persuade them not to be led astray. Stand therefore upon a wing of the Temple, that thy words may be heard by all the people.’ Then they placed James upon a wing of the Temple and cried out to him, ‘ 0 thou Just One,2 since the people are led astray after Jesus who was crucified, declare to us what is the door to Jesus3 the crucified.’
Albinus the high priest Annas, the son of the Annas in the Gospels, made this vicious “ tiger-leap ” against the Christians thus temporarily-deprived of Roman protection. For this Annas was deposed. But the date of the death of Festus is doubtful (see DB i 417 flf., Schiirer jrc i (2) 183 n.). I incline to date as in the summer of 61 rather than in 62. See infra pp. 33 n., 34 n.
1 From the fact that there is also a short account of the death of St. James in Euseb. IIEii i, from Clement Alex. Ilypotyp. bk. vii, we may accept the martyrdom as certain. Some of the details seem to mo in keeping with the character of St. James.
• Oblias, which Hegesippus confusedly translated as tho Righteous, i.e. the one who fulfils the Mosaic Law. Two later Bishops of Jerusalem (3rd and 11th) bear the name (i.e. Justus) in memory of their predecessor (Euseb. HE iv 5). But possibly it means ‘the defcneeof the people.’ Tho title of ‘Just’ is, however, in Clement
I.e., on whieh see Lightf. Gal. 280, n.
* Tho phrase is difficult. It may be translated “ the door of which Jesus spake” (John x 7, 9), or else, possibly, as Mosheim suggested,
28 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
But James announced with a loud voice, ‘ Why do ye ask me respecting Jesus the Son of Man ?1 He is now sitting in the heavens, on the right hand of a great Power, and is about to come on the clouds of heaven.5 In their rage at his testimony they hurled him down from the tower and stoned him. But he kneeled down and prayed. ‘ I entreat Thee God and Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ ‘ Stop your stoning,’ cried one of the priests, ‘the Just One is praying for you.’ ‘But a fuller ran up, and beat out his brains with the club which he used to beat his clothes.’ The story may be little more than a romance ; but it was a romance with a purpose. The tale was intended to show that “in James, the Lord’s brother, we have the prototype of these later saints, whose rigid life and formal devotion elicits, it may be, the contempt of the world, but of whom nevertheless, the world was not, and is not, worthy.”3 The death of St. James thus set the seal on the doctrine of renunciation. The cross, as Tertullian exhausts his eloquence in showing us, is the sacred legacy of all who are His, without which there could not be perfection.3
The murder of St. James was the last great event of which we possess any knowledge in the long persecution of the Christians at Jerusalem. Seven years
Jesus is an early misreading for Jcscliua, i.e. salvation. See Mayor Ep. James (1897) xxxviii, n.
1 The use of this title of James is peculiar. If more than a reminiscence of St. Stephen’s words (Acts vii 5G), it shows (what we should not have gathered from the N.T.) tliat the title was in use in the Early Church.
!l Liglitfoot Pin!. 36S. 3 Tert. Scorp. cc. 10, 11.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
29
later1 ‘those who believed in Christ’ migrated to Pella, driven out by the tyranny of the Zealot party, who were now supreme in the doomed city. As we shall see later, their sufferings at the hands of the Jews did not cease with the destruction of the Temple.2 From the days of St. Stephen until their final extinction the Judaistic Church knew no peace, save perhaps during the brief years spent in exile. The murder of James was more than a crime; for the future both of Christianity and Judaism it was a disaster. Judaistic Christianity, the earliest form of Christianity, was doomed. Henceforth Christianity could be of but one type. But the gain of Christianity by this concentration of itself upon one line of development was purchased by the loss of that sympathetic toleration which the existence of another type would have rendered needful. Upon none did this loss of the spirit of Jesus fall more hardly in a later age than upon the Jews themselves.3
A few years before their murder of James the Just the Jews tried hard to destroy the apostle whom they considered the great enemy of their creed. St. Peter and St. John had already left Jerusalem,4'possibly because with growing light they felt out of touch with its rigid Judaistic Christianity, when a fortunate
1 i.e. between tlie capture of Telia by Yespasian in the spring of G8 and the gathering of the army of Titus at Caesarea in the spring of 70. See Hort Judaistic Christianity 175; Euseb. HE iii 5; Epiphanius Haer. xxix 7.
2 Infra p. 118 IF.
3 Infra p. 159.
4 Inference from Acts xxi 18.
30
PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
chance delivered, as they thought, St. Paul himself into the hands of the priests. The story of the persecution of the great apostle is told at some length, and throws much light on the methods employed by the Jews in their attacks upon the Christians. Not that this was the first time that St. Paul had suffered at their hands. In one of his letters he refers to the imprisonments and scourgings by which the Jews had tried to destroy his Gospel.1 But this new persecution so manifestly formed a crisis in the life of the Apostle and the Church that St. Luke devotes special attention to it.2
Some years before there had happened in Jerusalem a notable instance of lynch law. The mob, incited by the Sanhedrim, had stoned to death the most farsighted of the Nazarenes, trusting to the weakness or indifference of the procurators to overlook this glaring defiance of order. The leader on that occasion was one Saul of Tarsus, against whom, now that occasion demanded, the same methods might be employed. A report spread that St. Paul had introduced into the Temple one of his uncircumcised converts. The rumour was cunningly devised, for the Romans had given the Jews the power of putting to death any Gentile, even though a Roman citizen, who profaned by his presence the sacred building.3 The mob did
1 II Cot. xi 24. But the fighting with beasts at Ephesus (I Cor. xv 32) must be taken figuratively.
* Acts xxi 17 to xxvi. Well expounded in Buss o.c. 322-402.
3 See Mommsen PRE ii 189, n., for a copy of the tablet engraved with this notice, now at Constantinople. A photograph in Encyc. Jew. xii 85 shows the axe-cuts of the soldiers of Titus.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
31
not stop to investigate its truth. They fell upon the apostle and tried to drag him out of the Temple into the court of the Gentiles, intending there to beat him to death. But a company of soldiers on duty in the neighbouring castle of Antonia, the walls of which overlooked the sacred precincts, had observed and reported the tumult. They ran down the steps, secured the cause of the disturbance, and bound St. Paul with ‘two chains,’i.e. with handcuffs, to a soldier on either side. On the giving the order that he should be removed to the citadel an ugly rush was made by the mob. But the soldiers lifted St. Paul into their arms and carried him up the steps to the castle. At the top Lysias the tribune, who was himself with several centurions superintending the proceedings, allowed the fettered prisoner to address the people, an irregularity which in the upshot drove the mob into fresh riot. St. Paul was hurried into the castle and orders given for his examination by torture. From this he was saved by pleading his Roman citizenship. Lysias was in a difficulty. As a citizen St. Paul must be set free or some definite charge under Roman, not Jewish, law brought against him. The attempts of Lysias to conciliate the Sanhedrim, and at the same time obtain a definite charge, ended in the renewal of the riot, and the carrying off of the Apostle once more to the castle. But the Jews were determined not to be baulked of their prey. Where the mob had failed forty desperadoes might succeed. But the plot was revealed, and St. Paul despatched for safety under an armed escort to Caesarea. With St.
32 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Paul was forwarded an official statement from Lysias of the charges against him (elogium) ‘ to his excellency the procurator Felix.’
Felix, in accordance with the usual forms, registered the charge and sent at once for the prosecutors. On their arrival, five days later, the trial began. The proceedings were probably in Latin, a language with which we must suppose St. Paul to be familiar, for he elected to defend himself. There were three counts in the indictment. The second, that of heresy (alplatwg), was rather a matter of Jewish law. With this the prosecution linked two others, a charge of majestas, and an accusation of sacrilege, or profanation of their Temple. But the priests, strange to say, had overlooked the need of witnesses, two of whom at least by Roman law were necessary to prove the case. The rhetorician, Tertullus, did his best by adroit flattery of the enfranchised slave, whom fortune had placed on the judgement-seat, to secure condemnation. But even Felix, who, in the words of Tacitus, * exercised the power of a king with the temper of a slave,” dare not so degrade the law. By rights St. Paul should have been acquitted, but the procurator, whether in the hopes of a bribe or from a desire to conciliate the hierarchy, decided on a remand. He urged the absence of a material witness, the tribune Lysias.
For two years St. Paul lingered in prison. Felix was too busy dealing with the serious riots in Caesarea between Jew and Syrian to concern himself with St.
1 Hist, v 9.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
33
Paul. But on the arrival of the new procurator, Festus,1 at the suit of the Jews a new trial was ordered. This second trial, though Festus himself was a better [man than the degenerate Felix, was much more disorderly than the first. The forms of law were not observed, no witnesses were produced, and yet Festus, in his anxiety to please the Jews, offered to transfer the case to Jerusalem, and have it tried before the Sanhedrim as an ecclesiastical offence. St. Paul cut short this travesty of justice by an appeal to Caesar. After a short consultation the appeal was allowed. In spite of the inconvenience and expense, Festus could not do otherwise. Only if St. Paul had been taken in arms against the authorities could the procurator have quashed the appeal of a citizen.2 Doubtless, as Prof. Ramsay points out, “the right of appeal was hedged in by fees and pledges.” This expense St. Paul must have met, possibly by the sale of his hereditary property.3 But Festus had as yet no specific charge to enter in the litterae climissoriae, or apostoli,4 letters stating the case forwarded with the
1 The date of the arrival of Festus is uncertain. See DB i 417-0, Schiirer JPC i (2) 182, Harnaek CAL i 237. I strongly incline to 59 for the recall of Felix, 57 for St. Paul’s arrest. Lightfoot’s dates (Bib. Essays 217-20) seem to me too late. See also Zahn Einleitung ii 638. See infra p. 31, n.
2 The case to the contrary recorded in Suet. Galba 9 is clearly an illegal arbitrary act. The right of appeal was an extension of the tribunician powers of Caesar.
3 Ramsay St. raul the Traveller (ed. 7) 310-3.
* Paulus Sent, v 33. See also Du Cange, g.v. for its similar mediaeval use in the Roman Church. The N.T. term is indirectly, it seems to mo, conneeted with this use. See infra p. 120 n., for the Jewish use of apostoli, which probably served as the link.
D
34 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
appellant. That he might fill up properly the charge-sheet (elogium), Festus laid the case before Agrippa and his sister Bernice. An informal hearing was arranged, and the prisoner introduced. In the middle of the Apostle’s impassioned exhortation Festus interrupted the proceedings. Evidently St. Paul’s books were turning his brain ; but at any rate nothing criminal could be discovered for entry in the elogium. So with the well-known sneer of Agrippa at St. Paul’s impulsiveness, or disregard of logic1—the precise nuance is uncertain—the audience terminated.
The final issue of the appeal seems tolerably certain. After a delay of close upon three years, counting in the time occupied in the voyage to Rome, the case was heard.2 Of the causes of delay, as well as the parties to the prosecution, we know nothing. Even after the hearing had commenced there were many delays before the decision was given. But in his letter to the Philippians St. Paul was confident of the issue, and full of thankfulness for the way in
1 Acts xxvi 28. The use of the word ‘ Christian ’ is itself a sneer. See infra p. 58 n.
2 I take St. Paul’s first trial and acquittal to have taken place, at latest, early in 62, probably at the close of 61, certainly not in 63. My reasons, apart from the question of the date of Festus (supra p. 33 n.), arc: (a) The change in the character of Nero that occurred on the death of the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Burrus, in 62, the rise of the infamous Tigelliuus, and the retirement of Seneca. (b) The release of St. Paul would take place before the triumph of Poppaea, who favoured the Jews, if not herself a proselyte. Poppaea’s influence was at the full when on June 9, 62, she obtained an order for the slaughter of Octavia, Nero’s wife. During the greater part of 62 and 63 Poppaea could do anything, and assuredly St. Paul would uot escape. See infra pp. 38 n., 57 n.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
35
which his trial hacl turned out already to the furtherance of the Gospel. The successive adjournments had enabled him to lay his case, not once nor twice, before the Supreme Court.1 He expects shortly to see both Philemon and the Philippian brethren—not a word, be it noted, of any plans for a journey to Spain.2 The Apostle would be tried before Nero—or, in his absence, before the Prefect of the Pretorian Guard ; as we unde: stand it, the upright Buitus. The court would be a room of Nero’s palace, not, however, the Golden House of later days. Associated with the emperor were twenty assessors,3 selected from the senators. Formerly the votes of the senators were taken by ballot. But Nero preferred to receive from each a written opinion, and on the next day to deliver his judgement in person. From the Pastoral Epistles we gather that Nero pronounced for acquittal. He could scarcely do otherwise on the elogium of Festus, though perhaps the length of the trial shows the powerful influences brought to bear against the Apostle. The matter was too palpably a Jewish squabble, another instance of the wild hatreds of this fanatical people, to be of much concern to the
1 Phil, i 12-3, understanding (with Mommsen Berlin Akad. Sitztingsber. 1895 p. 501, Ramsay FT 357, Findlay BB iii 713, and others) by the Praetorium, not the Praetorian Guard (R.V.) or the Palace, but the Praetor’s Court, or Supreme Court. (Seo supra p. 1G, for use in the Gospels.) Philip, therefore, was written during the trial. Lightfoot’B influence (/7«7. p. 99-104) for the Praetorian Guard is still strong; e.g. see Vincent Inter. Crit. Com. Philip, p. 51.
5 Infra p. 3G, n. 4.
3 See infra p. 37 n.
36 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
central authorities. Two years later this official indifference gave place to a contrary policy.1
IV
The murders of St. Stephen and St. James, the persecution at Damascus and elsewhere, and the early imprisonments of St. Paul, were the results of Jewish hatred. The infant Church was now to experience the more dreaded enmity of the Empire. For the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul the earliest evidence, thirty years at least after the event, is a letter—somewhat too rhetorical, alas !— from the Church of Piome to that of Corinth :2
Let us come to the athletes who lived but lately, the noble examples of our own generation. . . . Let us set before our eyes the good Apostles. There was Peter, who by reason of unrighteous jealousy endured not one nor two but many labours, and thus having borne his witness (fiaprvpria-as) went to his appointed place of glory. Paul also, by reason of jealousy and strife,3 pointed out the way to the prize of patient endurance. . . . He won the noble renown which was the reward of his faith ; having taught righteousness unto the whole world, and having reached the bounds of the West;4
1 Prof. Ramsay (FT 362) treats the acquittal as a “charter of freedom ” for the preaching of the new creed. On this he builds a whole superstructure of theories. I prefer to read into it indifference to Jewish minutiae joined with regard for the rights of citizens and Jews. See infra p. 56 for further on this.
2 For the date of the Ep. Cor. of Clement see infra App. A H.
3 See infra Appendix D (b).
4 £ir\ rb repfia tt\s Sutreus. On this much debated passage (Spain, &c.) I would only add that to me the passage seems too rhetorical (‘ whole world,’ &c.) to be more than a proof that the Roman Church believed in the early coming of Christ, and that the Gospel had already been preached to all nations by the Apostles. See infra
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
37
and when he had borne his witness (jiapTvpfoas) before the rulers,1 so he departed from the world and went unto the holy place, having been found a noble pattern of patient endurance.2
With the acquittal of St. Paul after his first captivity (a.d. 62) the Apostle vanishes, though as one immortal, from the pages of certain history.3 The rest, his journeys East and West, his sudden arrest at Troas or Nicopolis, his second entrance as a captive into Rome, the letters of this second captivity,
p. 232. The absence of tradition, the silence of Eusebius HE iii 1 (in this case more than negative), of the Philippians (supra p. 35 n), and the Pastorals, the tradition in Spain of St. James (on which see DB of s.v.) seem to me fairly conclusive. Surely otherwise Gaul and Spain would have claimed St. Paul as theirs, some legend or tale would have survived. Clement’s statement—the absence of details all through is exasperating, and one of the results of Roman rhetorical education—seems to me an inference from Romans xv 24. (See EB 4599-600.) For the other side see Lightfoot Biblical Essays (1893) p. 423 n. (really written, however, in 1862, and somewhat unsatisfactory in consequence), who brings St. Paul to Marseilles, taking
II Tim. iv 10, ‘ Crescens to Galatia,’ to mean Gaul (p. 432). In N the reading, it is true, is els TaWia. Cf. Neander i 116-7. But surely the Greek Churches of the Rhone valley, which were fairly flourishing in 177, and in bp. Pothinus had a link that went back into the first century, would have known of this and had a tradition. (Infra p. 295 n.)
1 i.e. unless mere rhetoric, the “ assessors.” See supra p. 35. Some have tried to discover in the use of this phrase (ja>v riyovnevwv') a mark of time. Its use would fit in with 67, when Nero was in Greece, and so would not be mentioned. But the writer is too vaguo and rhetorical to be trusted in so fine a point. See also infra p. 38 n.
* Clem. Rom. Cor. 5, witli Lightfoot’s notes, or EB 1598.
3 The two most deplorable gaps in early Church history are (a) the loss of the rceords of the early Roman Church, especially of its martyrs; (b) our complete ignorance of affairs at Alexandria before 180, exccpt by conjectures based upon the Ep. Barnabas, &c. These losses should constantly be borne in mind. In the case of the first the loss is partially made up by the researches of archaeologists.
38 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the manner of his trial, the date of his death, are matters of dispute, the exact details of which in any case are lost. One thing, however, is clear from a comparison of Philippians with II Timothy.1 There had been in the interval a complete change in the policy towards Christianity of the Roman Government. This change was due, as we shall see,2 to the great fire of Rome (July, 64). As part of the persecution which then broke out, orders were given for the imprisonment of the Christian leaders. Poppaea, Tigellinus, and their Jewish friends3 were not likely to forget the prisoner of two years before. At the time St. Paul was away from Rome, but steps were instantly taken for his arrest. The Apostle was brought back to the city in the autumn or winter of 64.4 Very different was his entrance into Rome from
1 Even Harnaek allows that II Tim. contains soma genuine traditions.
2 Infra p. 53.
3 Infra p. 57.
4 The weak point in Lightfoot’s chronology of St. Paul (e.g. in his es3ay written in 18G2, “ St. Paul’s History after the Close of the Acts,” published in Bib. Essays, 1893, pp. 421-37), seems to me to be that ho allows St. Paul far too mueh freedom after tho firo (o.c. 423 n., 430). In his Chronology of St. Paul's Life (o.c. 215-33) he puts tho martyrdom (following tho untrustworthy evidence of Jeromo de Vir. 111. 5, ‘ in tho fourteenth year of Nero,’ and Euseb. Chron.,' in the thirteenth year ’) as in the spring of G8 or the autumn of G7. But a late dato is not necessary for tho defence of the Pastorals, while I have already shown reasons for rejecting the visit to Spain. I accordingly date St. Paul’s death as very early in G5, possibly Feb. 22 (see A.SS June v. 5 pp. 409, 473 for an ancient festival on this date), his arrest in the lato autumn (Titus iii 12) of G4. Another reason against a late date is that with the outbreak of the great Jewish war in 6G the Jews would lose their influence ; see supra p. 34 n., infra pp 57, 110 n.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES 39
that which had been his lot on the former memorable occasion. No kindly officer-courier1 now did his best to make things smooth for his captive. On the contrary, the police had not even allowed him time to find his overcoat or necessary documents.2 The just and humane Burrus was dead. No Christians came down the Appian Way to meet him; the fear of the awful terror still lay heavy upon them. Instead of liis own hired lodging there would be a noisome dungeon. His friends had deserted him, some, as Demas, for fear of the persecution ; others even had turned traitor and were willing to appear in court against him, He was hated by the mob, treated as a malefactor,3 and as such now put upon his trial. That he had a trial at all instead of the summary punishment of his brethren witnesses to the importance attached by the Government to a show of legality in the persecution of the leader.
There seem to have been two counts4 in the indictment. By ancient rules each was tried separately.5 The first count probably, as Conybeare and Howson suggest, was complicity in the fire.6 But even the false witness of Alexander, the coppersmith, who had turned informer (delator) because of his recent
1 ‘ Augustan band,’ Acts xxvii 1, on which seoMommson in Ramsay PT 315.
2 II Tim. iv 13. By ras ixefxfipdms I understand tho proofs of his citizenship. For <pe\6vns (a rough overcoat), which some interpret as a sort of bookcase, sco Grimm s.v.
3 II Tim. ii 9; cf. I Peter iv 15; infra p. GI n. 4
‘ II Tim. iv 16. 5 Supra p. 15.
* Cf. ‘ malefactor,’ II Tim. ii 9.
40
PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
excommunication by the Apostle,1 could not upset the alibi which St. Paul was able to establish. So on this charge he ‘ was delivered out of the mouth of the lion,’2 a phrase which possibly may point to the trial taking place before Nero himself. In the interval between the two actions he wrote his immortal last words. He had ‘fought the good fight,’ he had ‘run his race.’ He had no delusions, no hope save to depart and be with Christ. There remained the ‘ offering up,’ and then ‘ the crown of righteousness.’ The second count was either majestas—almost anything could be brought under this head—or the new crime of being a Christian, the crime of ‘ the Name,’3 in itself a mere variation, as we shall see later,4 of majestas or high treason. On this indictment there could be but one verdict.
Eound St. Paul’s last days legend has woven thick a web of fancy, unless indeed, as well may be, loving tradition has thus preserved for us the real facts. After his condemnation he would probably be confined in the dungeon of Roman citizens and captives of eminence, the famous Mamertine. In itself there is little, save perhaps the distance from Rome, to prevent us from accepting the story consecrated by long ages that St. Paul ‘offered up’ his life in the green and level spot, with low hills around it, about three miles from the city, known in those days as the Aquae Salviae, now as the Tre Fontane.5 As he left
1 II Tim. iv. 14, I Tim. i 20. 2 II Tim. iv 17.
3 See infra pp. 55 n., 104. * Infra p. 101 n. 2.
6 The tradition is first mentioned by Gregory the Great, Ep. xiv 14
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES 41
Eome, almost the last object upon which his eyes would rest would be the pyramid of Caius Cestius, in its origin a record of the luxury1 of the jeunesse doree, which thus became “a monument unconsciously erected by a pagan to the memory of a martyr ” who suffered, like his Lord, ‘ without the gate.’ As a Roman citizen Paul escaped the more cruel fate of his brethren, and died by the sword.2 According to tradition, a convert of distinction, Lucina3 by name, took up the body by night and buried it in her garden on the Ostian Way, where to-day stands in
(Migne lxxvii), though its sourees are much older. The Liber Ponti-ficalts, i 150, places the execution ‘hard by’ the burial-place. The Tre Fontane certainly seems a long way for lazy soldiers to go to execute a Jew. Possibly the Three Fountains were popular shrines of heathenism, to which at a later date the Christian tradition was transferred, on the plan of Gregory Thaumaturgus (see infra p. 133).
In certain MSS of the Acta Petri et raidi we find added a late variation or addition consisting of the story of a Perpetua and her handkerchief (see Tisch. AAA 35, Lipsius and Bonnet AAA i 213; also in Clark’s ANCL xvi 276). To the simple statement of the older Acta ‘ that Paul was beheaded on the Ostcsian (Ostian) Way,’ cf. Lib. Pontif. supra, we find the addition: 4 at Aquae Salviae near a pine-tree.’ Lanciani PGR 157 poiuts out that iu 1875 the Trappists, who occupied the memorial abbey of the Tre Fontane, in tho course of excavations discovered a mass of coins of Nero together with several pine eones fossilized by age. But this only proves that the pines were there when the later Acta was written, and that its author was a realist. Possibly this Gnostic romance is the real source of the tradition mentioned by Gregory.
1 Hare Walks in Rome ii 414 for the story.
* He was one of the honediores. See infra p. 64 n.
* Lueina possibly is a mere eonfusion of name with a later Lucina, who, in 252, aeeording to a late aecount, buried tho remains of St. Paul and St. Tctcr in her garden. See LP i 66, 150-2, and infra p. 262 n. Probably, however, tho tradition alludes to l’omponin Graecina, in whose story a ‘ Lucina ’ occurs. See infra p. 61 n. 3.
42 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
big name one of the most stately churches of Christendom.
Constantine, when he built the first basilica of St. Paul’s, is said to have placed the body in a coffin of solid bronze.1 If so the coffin was stolen or destroyed, probably with its contents, at the time of the sack of the church by the Saracens in 846.2 All that can be seen to-day is a slab of marble, with the words somewhat rudely carved thereon—
PAVLO APOSTOLO MART.*
But Western Christianity itself is really his monument.4
The date and circumstances of the martyrdom of St. Peter are even more uncertain.5 According to an ancient story, the truth of which we see no reason to doubt, the Apostle saw his wife suffer first, one of the many victims of Nero’s cruelty. ‘Then was the blessed Peter glad because she had been called and was now going home. So he lifted up his voice and cried to her in an encouraging voice, addressing her by name, and saying, “ 0 thou, remember the Lord.” Such was the marriage of the blessed ones and their perfect love.’6
1 Duchcsne LP i 178.
2 See Gregorovius Romo in MA (Trans. Hamilton 1895) iii 89 n., LP ii (s.i\ Sergius II.) says nothing as to tho matter, unfortunately.
3 LP i 195 or Lauciani POR 157.
4 For the sources and evidence see Appendix C.
* The festival of “ St. Peter ad vincula,” as well as the churches of that dedication both in Rome and London (Tower of L.), refer to St. Peter’s imprisonment in Acts xii. The reference to Nero is of late origin. See A.S3 June vii 410.
* Clem. Alex. Strom, vii 11, 63, quoted also in Euseb. HE iii 30.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
43
Very beautiful is the story of St. Peter’s own release, though, unfortunately, its historical value is not without doubt. When the persecution of Nero broke out, the Apostle, who had arrived in Rome, as we read it, towards the close of St. Paul’s first captivity,1 was persuaded to flee. So in the dead of night Peter left the city, and hastened down the Appian Way. But when he came to a place where to-day there stands a chapel with the legend Domine quo vadis,2 then—
Tlie traditional name of the wife (Concordia) is probably derived from Clement’s ‘ perfect love.’
1 The Lib. Pontif. i 118, as Duchesne owns, 119 n., expressly states that St. Peter entered Rome ‘ Nerone Caesare.’ So also Lactant. de mod. Persec. 2. But he certainly was not there when tho Acts of the Apostles ended. I see no reason for doubting that tho Apostles worked harmoniously in later life, and that St. Poter, knowing St. Paul’s intention to leave Rome, hastened to take his place, or possibly, as Chase suggests ('DB iii 77S), to confer with him as to the best way of welding Christianity together. I prefer this to Lightfoot’s idea (Gal. 337) of a double Church, Jewish and Gentile, with a double foundation (one Peter, the other Paul) and a double succession of bishops. This last, it is true, would Bolve a few puzzles in the early lists, but would introduce now difficulties.
2 This familiar story is first found in the Gnostic Acts of Peter in the so-callcd Linus document. (Sec Lipsius and Bonnet AAA i 7 and infra App. C § VI.). This Gnostic romance was written at the latest about tho middle of the third ccntury (Harnack GAL. i 552 ff.), if not a ccntury carlior (Chase in DB iii 774). The story is also found In the catholic Acts of Peter, a late fifth-century romance, based, however, on second-century traditions (DCB i 27), where, however, it is absurdly put into the mouth of St. Peter on the cross (Lipsius AAA i 215).
The story has passed into Western literature through tho Pseudo-Ambrose Sermo contra Auxentium Invasorem (see Ambrose, ed. Bene-dictino, ii SG7), and will be found in the A.SS Juno vol. v pp. 427-8. Chaso, DB iii 775, suggests as origin the dramatization of John xiii 36-8 (in Vulgate ‘ Domino quo vadis ’). A more likely solution would
44 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Lo on the darkness brake a wandering ray ;
A vision flashed along the Appian Way.
Divinely on the pagan night it shone—
A mournful Face—a Figure hurrying on—
Though haggard and dishevelled, frail and worn,
A King, of David’s lineage, crowned with thorn.
“ Lord, whither farest?” Peter, wondering, cried,
“ To Rome,” said Christ, “ to be re-crucified.” 1
* Whereupon Peter ’—we cite the Pseudo-Ambrose—‘ perceived that Christ must be crucified a second time in his little servant. And he turned and went back and made answer to the Christians as they questioned him, and forthwith meu laid hands upon him, and by his cross he glorified the Lord Jesus.'
Thus Peter, as our Lord bad prophesied,2 was ‘ girt ’ by another, and * carried ’ out to die along the Aurelian Way, to a place hard by the gardens of Nero on the Vatican hill. At his own request he was crucified head downwards, as unworthy to suffer like his Master.3 Where he died he was buried * under
seem to me to be the following : (i) St. Peter clearly was absent from Rome when II Tim. was written, (ii) yet in tradition he was executed at the same time as St. Paul. This temporary absence, the cause of which may have bceu that hinted at in the story, gave rise to the legend, which was possibly developed when “flight” became a burning question. (Infra p. 343 n.)
1 William Watson. Foems.
- John xxi 18, 19. Tert. Scorp. 15 points this out.
3 Origen, in Euseb. EE iii i, amplified in Jerome Vir. III. 1, Farrar (EDO in loc.), discovers a contradiction with Tert. Praes. 3G. ‘ Ubi Petrus passioni Dominicae adaequatur.’ But ‘ adaequatur ’ may well mean ‘ conformed,’ and does not tie down to details. This was exactly one of the ‘ mockeries ’ (ludibria) in which Tacitus tells us (xv 44) Nero delighted. For similar cases cf. Euseb. BE viii 8. The tale of St. Peter’s crucifixion is also in the ancient Syriac Sermon of Simon Cepha (Cureton Ancient Syriac Documents 40 or Clark ANCL xx (2) 55) In its present form this work is of 5th-century origin
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES 45
a terebinth,’ close to the obelisk of Nero, where to-day the world’s most splendid temple rises to his memory.1
According to an old tradition, St. Peter had been accompanied to Eome by the Apostle John. He too was seized by the police and condemned to be plunged into a cauldron of boiling oil at a spot near the Latin Gate.2 By what Providence St. John escaped we know not, but in the Apocalypse as we interpret it, we have “ the cry of horror of a witness who has known the Beast, who has seen the bleeding bodies of his brother martyrs,” 3 and who in his exile at Patmos tells us of the afflictions and consolations of the children of God. In his fierce song over the burning of Eome—in Patmos he dreamed not of the
and of monophysito colouring (DCB i 20), but founded on older materials. See also Lipsiua AAA i 215.
1 For sources and critical discussion see Appendix C.
2 Tert. Praes. 36. Cf. Jerome In Matt, xx 23, ado. Jo inn. i 26, Origen In Matt. Horn. 16. Tertullian, who believes auy fable, states that he was plunged iuto the cauldron. This and other similar tales are an inference from Mk xvi 18, a passage certainly not by St. Mark, and absolutely alien to our Lord’s teaching. For its possible author (Aristion, see Papias in Euseb. HE iii 39) see Swete St. Marie ciii ff.
Tertullian’s tale possesses possibly some basis of fact, the details of which are lost, but which would explain St. John’s subsequent career. Some event happened which appealed to the popular superstition, and saved the apostle from death. That the Latin Gate was not built until 271 is, of course, no argument against the incident. Possibly there is an allusion to this incident in the title /udprvs given to St. John by Folyerates in Euseb. EE iii 31. In Pseudo-Abdias Bist. Apost. v 2 (in Fabrieius Codex Apoc. N.T. ii) an early form of this Gnostic tradition places it at Ephesus. This would be easier to understand than Rome. But see further in Appendix B.
3 Renan L'Ant. 198. For the date and authorship of the Apocalypse see infra Appendix A I.
46 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
new magnificence with which Nero had rebuilt it—as well as in the hatred of the Empire which breathes through every page, we see clearly some of the reasons which explain the attitude of the Government to the Christians.1 Intensely Jewish as is the imagery and tone of the book as a whole, the Apocahjpst3, nevertheless, means the definite break of the Church and Judaism. In the new Jerusalem the Apostle saw ‘ no temple therein ’; ‘the ark of the covenant ’ is now in ‘ the temple of God that is in heaven.’2
St. John’s banishment to Patmos was itself a result of the great persecution of Nero.3 Hard labour for life in the mines and quarries of certain islands, especially Sardinia, formed one of the commonest punishments for Christians. The writer tells us that he was ‘ the brother and partaker with you in the tribulation,’ of those who were suffering elsewhere for the sake of Christ, a statement which would appear to rule out voluntary retirement.4 At work in the quarries
1 See infra p. 99 ff. 2 Apoc. xxi 22, xi 19.
3 Euseb. EE iii IS, quoting Irenacus Eaer. v 30, 3; dates as in Domitian. This can be reconciled with the internal evidence of the Apoc. itself. See App. A I (6). I would suggest, as a second way of reconciling the evidence, that while the Apocalypse was mainly written in or about 69 (certainly before 70), the opportunities for a convict in Patmos to transmit such a work to the mainland were few—the letters to the Seven Churches would be short notes sent separately, easily concealed—and consequently the publication of the work as a whole in Asia was not until 95 or so. The persecution of Domitian then raging would give rise to the impression that ‘ the vision was seen in our time,’ as Irenaeus states. For similar misdating through the same cause see infra p. 329 n.
4 Apoc. i 9. Against EB 2514.
THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
47
or engaged in other convict task—mines in the island there are none—the seer dreamed his dreams and saw his visions. He stood on the shore of the sea and beheld the Beast rise out of the waves, he saw the battle joined, he heard the clash of arms in heaven and hell, he rejoiced in victory won, and the descent of the City of God. In the long weary years of exile his faith in the future never grows faint; he brings in rather a new world to redress the balance of the old.
We know nothing of the events which secured St. John’s release from this convict settlement. The fall of Domitian and the annulment of his acts 1 may have led, as Clement of Alexandria tells us, to an amnesty for the Apostle,2 after a quarter of a century of suffering. More probably, in our judgement, he had been banished not so much by direct imperial as by magisterial sentence3—perhaps by the magistrates of Ephesus—which in some way or other became reversed. There are grounds also for thinking that the Apostle returned to Ephesus from Patmos, already
1 This explanation will also apply if St. John wa3 banished in the regency of Domitian in a.d. 70. See App. A (G).
2 Clem. Alex. Quis Dives Salvetur c 42. (Ed. Barnard TSv p. 32.) But rod rup&wou is unspecified in the best MSS., and may mean Nero in spite of Euseb. EE iii 23.
3 Patmos was not an imperial convict settlement. Moreover, the word used (Tert. Fraes. 3G) is relegatio, not the stricter Jeportatio. This did not carry loss of property or citizenship (Dig. xlviii 22, 17; 22, 14). Moreover, says the Digest (xlviii 22, 7), ‘there is this difier-euce between deportatio and relegatio, that relegatio to an island may be either perpetual or for a time.’ See also Neumann BSK i 147, 215. It would bo easier also to explain the annulling a magisterial sentence than an imperial.
48 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
his home before his exile,1 some years before the death of Domitian.2 But whatever the cause or date of release, for the apostle of love life ended in peace. He lived through the horrors of two great persecutions, and died quietly in extreme old age at Ephesus, possibly as late as the reign of Trajan—3
And now the man Lies as he lay once, breast to breast with God.
1 An inference from his Epistles to the Seven Churches in the Apoc. The objection that he is not mentioned in St. Paul’s Ephesians (so-called) or Colossians falls to the ground if (assuming their genuineness) they were written at Caesarea (57-9), for which early date there is much to be said. In that case they would merely fix the terminus a quo of St. John’s possible residence. This is confirmed by the silence of St. Paul in Acts xx 17-38.
2 The beautiful tale of St. John and the robber (Clem. Alex. I.e. supra) cannot, I think, have taken place in extreme old age ; to which more appropriately belongs Jerome’s ‘ Little children, love one another ’ (Jer. in Gal. vi 10), and Cassian’s tale of the tame partridge (Coll. xxiv 21). The tale of Cerinthus and the bath-house I should reject, in spite of Irenaeus Haer. iii 3, 4. St. John, as a Jew, would scarcely go to the public bath-house.
3 See on this matter, as well as on other problems connected with St. John, Appendix B. The Catholic redaction of the Leucian or Gnostic Acts of John (J)CB i 29) cannot rest without adorning the tale of his departure with legendary particulars exalting his virginity, &c. See Tisch. AAA 272 ff; Lipsius and Bonnet AAA ii (1) 156 fif. Clark ANCL xvi 449.
CHAPTER II
Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves ... for they will deliver you up to councils (ei’s crvvtopia.) and in their synagogues they will scourge you; yea, and before procurators and emperors (riye/xovas 5e teal fiatnAtTs) shall ye be brought for My sake. . . . And ye shall be hated of all men for My name’s sake (8ia ovo/xd Hov). Fear them not therefore.—Matt, x 16-2G.
BacriAevovTos eis tous alHvas ’Ir}<rov Xptarov
(See infra, p. 103).
Considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith; Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.—Heb. xiii 7, S.
Think not that I came to Bend peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.—Mall, x 34.
E
CONTENTS
§ I, p. 51. Conflict of Christianity and Rome unavoidable—The origin of the struggle—The fire of Rome—Nero’s policy—The Flavians and Christianity—Judaism as a religio licita—Early result of this upon Christianity—Christianity and Judaism distinguished by Roman officials—Causes and date of the distinction—The case of Pomponia Graecina.
§ II, p. 62. The Christians charged with anarchism—Treated as outlaws—Results of the charge—Christianity put down by police measures.
§ III, p. 66. The Empire and sodalities—The danger of unlicensed clubs—An age of clubs—Were the Christians punished for belonging to illegal clubs ?
§ IV, p. 73. The Roman Empire and toleration—Orontes flows into the Tiber — Religious opportunism — Toleration and political considerations—The case of Druidism—Toleration and contempt —Toleration merely a Roman form of Home Rule—Toleration of a universal creed impossible for the Empire.
§ V, p. 81. Roman toleration of Isis and Mithra—Examination of this—The different treatment of Christianity—Causes thereof— The effects of syncretism—The revival of paganism.
§ VI, p. 88. Religion and patriotism—The intolerance of Christianity —The charge of ‘ atheism ’—The reasons for the charge—‘ One god, lonely and forsaken’—“Mediatised gods”—Christianity and ‘ the monarchy.’
§ VII, p. 94. The worship of Rome and Augustus—Its growth— Antinous — Christianity and the imperial cult — Necessary antagonism of Caesar and Christ—The festivals of Caesar and the outbreak of persecution—‘ The reign of the Eternal King.’
§ VIII, p. 103. Summary of the chapter.
Pp. 49-104.
I
Persecution in its origin must be ascribed to the Jews; it was really an attempt of the hierarchy to crush out the new sect. But within a few years persecution ceased to be Jewish, and became Imperial, thus realizing the determination of the Jews from Calvary onwards. In opposition to the infant Church there arose the might of Rome. The conflict was inevitable, the direct result of the genius of Christianity. A Christianity which had ceased to be aggressive would speedily have ceased to exist. Christ came not to send peace on earth but a sword ; against the restless and resistless force of the new religion the gates of hell should not prevail. But polytheism could not be dethroned without a struggle; nor mankind regenerated without a baptism of blood. Persecution, in fact, is the other side of aggression, the inevitable outcome of a truly missionary spirit; the two are linked together as action and reaction. To tho student of ancient history all this will appear intelligible, perhaps even axiomatic. “ Tho birtli-throes of the new religion must needs bo agonizing. The religion of the civilized world was passing through Medea’s cauldron.1 ” Out of the cauldron there would
1 Henderson PN 355.
52 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHUROH
come a new world, but not without fire and blood. Persecution, in short, is no mere incident in the life of the Church which might possibly have been avoided. Not so do we read either history or Christianity. Persecution rather was the necessary antagonism of certain fundamental principles and policies in the Empire of Caesar and the Kingdom of Christ. But on this more anon. We shall do well first to clear up certain matters connected with the early martyrs which have given rise to much controversy. The date at which persecution began, the extent to which it prevailed, its exact legal character, are questions of moment to which we shall attempt a brief answer. We shall then be in a better position to explain the reasons for persecution and its true inwardness from the standpoint both of the Empire and the Church.
Scholars are now fairly agreed that by the time of Domitian1 it had become the settled policy of the Roman emperors, and of the wonderfully efficient police administration which they controlled, to treat Christianity as itself a crime. But in our judgement Domitian was not the originator of a new departure. The establishment of this policy in the first instance
1 Before the researches of Neumann, Lightfoot, Mommsen, Hardy, Ramsay, and the majority, perhaps, of modern seholars, especially in Germany, were given to dating persecution as not earlier than Trajan’s Rescript (see infra p. 212), or even Septimius Severus. On this as a basis many theories were founded, e.g. that any doeument which mentioned ‘the Name’ as the ground of death (I Pet. iv 15, 16, Apoc. ii 13, Matt, x 22) must be later than Trajan’s Rescript. For the history of this theory up to 1S85 see Lightfoot, Ign. i. 7 n. Nero’s persecution was got over by claiming that it was either an isolated cage or not of Christians at all (infra Appendix D (a).
CAESAR OR CHRIST
53
was due to Nero. On the evening of July 19, 64, there broke out in Rome a disastrous fire, the least effect of which was the burning down of no small part of the congested quarters of the city. The fire marks a crisis in the fortunes of the Church, the beginning of an era of persecution which lasted for over two centuries. In a well-known chapter of Tacitus,1—the meaning of which is by no means as clear as we should wish, though its genuineness seems beyond dispute—we read :
‘Neither human assistance in the shape of imperial gifts, nor attempts to appease the gods, could remove the sinister report that the fire was due to Nero’s own order.2 And so, in the hope of dissipating this rumour, he falsely diverted the charge on to a set of people to whom the vulgar gave the name of Chrestians,3 and who were detested for the abominations which they perpetrated. The founder of this name, one Christus by name, had been executed by Pontius Pilate in tho reign of Tiberius; and the dangerous superstition, though put down for the moment, again broke out, not only in Judea, the original home of the pest, bnt even in Rome, where everything horrible and shameful collects and is practised.’
The charge of incendiarism broke down completely, both with the Roman judges and the populace.4
1 Tac. Ann. xv 44. But Suet. Nero 16 does not connect the Christians or their persecution with the fire. Nor does Tert. Apol. 5.
2 On the question of Nero’s complicity see Henderson o.c. 482 ; Furneaux Tac. Ann. ii 72.
3 This seems to be tho correct reading. See Harnack EC ii 19, and cf. Suet. Claud. 25, ‘ Chresto impulsore.’ Cf. infra p. 58. Tacitus silently corrects by giving the right name of Jesus as Christas. In any case, Christiani at that early date should rather be translated ‘ Christ’s faction ’ than Christians.
* Arnold NC 20 considers that many of the Christians, whether under tortnre, or because, as Milleuarians, the}' had actually been guilty, confessed to the charge. He falls back on the words of Tacitus (i.e.), ‘ Igitur primum correpti qni fatebantur’—‘ Those were
54 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHUROH
But
The lie
Had time on its own wings to fly,
and was made the occasion—not without some ground in the incautious utterances of enthusiastic Millenar-ians—of an accusation more dangerous by far, odium generis humani, ‘ hatred against civilized society,’1 or, as we should phrase it to-day, the crime of anarchism. Not specific acts of incendiarism, but “the question whether a man was a Christian became the most essential part of the charge against him.”2
The policy of thus treating the Christians as anarchists, begun by Nero, was continued—developed, perhaps, in some small details—by the Flavian
first brought to trial who were admitting the charge ’; where some would translate correpli as ‘arrested.’ We do not deny that the Christians may have been guilty of wild talk about the burning of the world, &c., which may have been misinterpreted (see Duruy Hist. Rom. iv 511, Milman i 456, Henderson o.c. 435). See infra p. 153. But the charge may have been Christianity, not incendiarism, for Tacitus goes on to add, ‘ deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens haud proinde in criinine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt,’ —‘ And then from information gained from them a great number of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of incendiarism as on that of danger to civilization.’ [The MSS. for convicti read conjuncti, which Ramsay takes to mean ‘were involved in their fate’(C7ii? 233, n.) But see Furneaux in Zoc.] For the idea that the Christians turned informers see infra App. D (c).
1 This phrase of Tacitus (Z.c.) might be translated, as by Tillemont, Duruy, and others, ‘ hatred of all men for the Christians.’ But Tac. Hist, v 5 (re Jews) settles the matter. Cf. Tert. Apol. 37, ‘You have chosen to call us enemies of the human race, rather than of human error ’; ib. 35, ‘ publici hostes.’ Minuc. Felix Oct. 8, 9 supplies illustrations. For ‘genus humanum’= the Roman world, cf. Luke ii 1 and Hardy CRG 74, n.
2 Furneaux Tac. ii 529.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
55
emperors Titus and Domitian,1 and by the Antonines after them, as a cardinal principle of imperial government. In this they were aided by the revulsion of feeling which Christianity had aroused against itself among the masses of the people, and the rumours already current of its impure orgies.2 Long before
1 Hilary of Poictiers (c. Arian. 3) adds Vespasian. Ramsay (ChE 256, n.) treats this as an error for Domitian. But Hilary may have had access to materials now lost (Ligbtf. Ign. i 16), or may have referred to local troubles in Gaul (ib. Clem, i 350). This last seems to me very doubtful; see supra p. 36 n 4. The passage in Suet. Vesp. 15, which Ramsay (o.c. 257) restores as further proof of Vespasian’s persecutions, can scarcely claim to be more than a plausible guess. On the other hand, there was undoubtedly a persecution of Jews under Vespasian (Euseb. HE iii 12, on which see Schiirer o.c. ii (1) 279) which may well have included Christians. The authority for coupling Titus with the persecutors is a passage in Sulpic. Severus Chron. ii c 30, G : ‘ Everten-dum templum . . . censebant quo plenius Judaeorum et Christianorum religio tolleretur,’ etc. Severus, it is true, is a late author, but there are grounds for believing, as Bemays has shown, that this passage is a reproduction from the lost books of Tac. Annals. See Ramsay ChE 253-5, Lightf. Ign. i 15, n. But the interpretation of the passage seems to me doubtful, though I do not doubt the continuity of the imperial policy. Further evidence for persecution under Flavian emperors besides Domitian will depend on the date we assign to the Apoc. and I. Peter. On this see infra A pp. A. In addition there is the important inferenco from Pliny's letter. Sco infra p. 210 n. It is scarccly needful to add that the martyrdom of Gaudentius, the fabled Christian architect of Coliseum (see Hare Walks in Borne i. 232) is a myth.
1 see no reason to accept Ramsay’s view that while Nero punished Christians for definite offences, or rather charges, iucendiarism, magic (see infra p. 133), &c., the Flavians began to punish for Christianity itself—‘ the Name.’ (Ramsay o.c. 251 ff.) The view is rejected by most modern scholars. Mommsen (Expos. July, 1893), Sanday (ib. June, 1893), Ilardy (o.c. 90, 125), Henderson (o.c. 251, 448, “ the name was enough”), Furneaux (o.c. ii 529), all hold that after G4 (Henderson exaggerates into “ before ”) Christians were punished for ‘ the Name ’ alone. See supra p. 40.
2 According to Tac. (I.e.) ‘ quos per flagitia invisosvulgus Chrcstianos
56 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the close of the century the prophecy of Christ had come true: the Christians were hated of all men ‘because of the name’ (Matt, x 22).
Leaps and bounds are as alien to history as in nature. We must not, therefore, imagine that Christianity suddenly became a persecuted religion in the year 64, though hitherto it had enjoyed a certain measure of protection, possibly even favour, from the Roman Government. True it is, as the Acts of the Apostles shows, and as Gibbon claims, that in the earlier days the Christians found that “the tribunal of the pagan magistrates often proved the most assured refuge against the fury of the synagogue.” 1 But the cause of this was not any official countenance of Christianity as such, but a careless indifference to what appeared the mere minutiae of Judaism. Judaism was a religio licita,2 and Christianity at first seems to have been confused with it3 and thus to have obtained a certain measure of protection as against the Gentiles from the authorities. But the hatred of the synagogues soon undeceived the Roman world, and persecution, instead of being, as hitherto, the work of the mob stirred up by Jewish gold, became the duty of the Empire. To this last, in fact, the bureaucracy was driven by the political charges
(sic) appellabat,’ this hatred ms a real thing in 64; unless indeed Tacitus is reading in the feelings of his own age. But see infra p. 61.
1 Gibbon ii 83. Cf. the death of James, supra p. 27, n.
2 For the privileges of Judaism, see infra p. 108. The phrase religio licita is derived from Tert. Apol. 21 ‘ insignissima religio, certe licita.’ The Roman law only speaks of collegia licita.
3 Cf. Suet. Claud. 25_quoted infra App. D (a).
CAESAR OR CHRIST
57
which the Jews brought against the new sect, a weapon the value of which they had learned on Calvary.1
We can date with some certainty this distinction in the official mind between Jew and Christian as first becoming clear in the summer of 64. The acquittal of St. Paul in 61 or 62—an event we may fairly assume as probable—is proof that in that year Christianity, a distinct name for which was only slowly coming into use, could still claim that it was a religio licita, or, as St. James would have put it, still recognised as a branch of Judaism. But soon after, as Tacitus shows,2 Christians as such, as distinct from the Jews, came under the ban of the Empire. The Jews, working probably through Poppaea, the famous mistress and wife of Nero, whose superstitious nature led her to dally with Judaism, or through Aliturus, a favourite Jewish mime,3 took the opportunity of the great fire and the need of a scapegoat to save themselves and at the same time to wreak vengeance on the Christians. At any rate, both Nero and Eome now clearly distinguished between the religio licita of Judaism and the new sect, the majority of whose members possibly were already Gentiles.4
1 Acts xvii 7, xxv 8.
* Tac. Ann. xv 44. The lost section of Tac. Hitt, v, as preserved for u3 in Sulpic. Seveni3 Chron. ii 30, G-8 (supra 55 n.) is proof that the two were distinguished before 71. See abo I Pet. iv 1G.
3 For the influence of Aliturus on Poppaea and his continued interest in Judaism see Josephu3 F//a c. 3. For Poppaca’s Jewish leanings, ib. Antiq. xx 8, 11 (Oeoo-efins').
* But see infra p. 233 u. At any rate they were Greek-speaking Jews.
58 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
The destruction of Jerusalem would remove the last elements of confusion. The breach between Judaism and Christianity was now complete, while the forced registration of all Jews, and the payment by them of two drachmas a head to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus at Rome, would enable the officials to discover whether a Christian was or was not entitled to the protection of the religio licita. A more speedy method of identification was also available. The second generation of Christians, led by St. Paul, had discontinued circumcision. The Christians also, hitherto distinguished by mere sub-titles of Judaism, The Way, Nazarenes, and others, had now found, or rather had foisted upon them, a distinctive name of their own.1
1 The course of events becomes clearer if we remember that the Christians did not start with a ready-made label. The title Christian,
i.e.4 Christ’s faction’ (cf. Pompeiani,&c.), was a bitter nickname of Latin formation (and so but vernacular Greek), invented either by the wits or magistrates of Antioch (inference from its Latin form), which may have been originally (Suet. Claud. 25, ‘ Chresto impulsore ’), and was still popularly, mispronounced as “ Chrestian ” as late as Terlullian. (Cf. Justin I. Apol. 4, * TVe are accused of being Christians, yet to hate what is Chrestian (excellent) is unjust.’ Tert. Apol. 3, ‘For you do not even know accurately the name you hate ’; ad Nat. 3 ; Lactantius Instit. iv 7; so X in I Pet. iv 16 and Acts xi 26, and the best MSS. in Tac. Ann. xv 44. Cf. Le Blant SAM 312.) The name at first was resented and ignored by the Christians (eg. Acts xxvi 29) while to the Jews the Christians were NafapaToi. (Acts xxiv 5, Tert. e. Marc. iv 8). The name had however caught on among the mob of Rome by 64 (Tac. I.e.') and was accepted by Gentile Christians by the time of Ignatius (Eph. ii, Bom. 3, Polyo. 7), though the Christian Jews still called themselves Nazarenes, even after their retreat to Pella, and possibly still survive under that name at Bussorah (Encyc. Brit. s.v. “ Mandaean ”). For further on the history of the word see Lightf. Ign. i 415 ff.; DB s.v.; Harnack EG ii 5 n., 15-19; i 94 n.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
59
Many writers of repute have objected to the early date at which in our judgement the distinction became clear between Judaism and Christianity. Some extremists, constructing facts to suit their theories, have held that the two were confused until the time of Trajan;1 others, as a concession, have moved the date forward to Domitian.2 Such arguments do strange injustice both to the power of the Jews to make themselves understood, and to the vigilance of the officials of the most marvellously organized and centralized empire the world has ever seen. No reader, for instance, of the Epistle of Barnabas,3 could imagine that such violent hatred of the two sections4 would not make itself manifest to the lynx-eyed police ; no historian who realized the vast numbers of the Jews and their world-wide power6 could suppose that the Jews allowed the hated sect to be classified with them. The English people, to say nothing of English governors, do not confuse Brahmins and Buddhists. Roman officials, we may be sure, would be quick to note the rise of a new sect. As Professor Lindsay points out:
“When we remember the wise political dread of religious combinations which the emperors from Augustus downward showed; their discernment that religion was tho most powerful political motive
1 Supra p. 52 n.
2 Neumann HSK i 5 ft’., 14 IF., who thinks that it was due to the investigations of Domitian’s officials in collecting tho poll-tax.
* The date of Barnabas is doubtful; seo infra p. 11G. But the Acts of the Apostles (a late date for which seems to me absurd) will do as well for the argumont. See supra p. 5G.
4 Infra p. 115 IF. 5 Infra p. 113-4.
60 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
power in the East; the presence in every province of men trained to note the beginnings of all movements which might disturb the state; and when we glance at the objective picture of that old system of ruling provinces which modern India furnishes—none but an armchair critic would deny it. British officials in India know of all the small beginnings of religious movements in their districts long before the public know anything about them, if they ever acquire the knowledge.” 1
If, then, we date the distinction between Jew and Christian as first becoming officially clear in or about the summer of the year 64, we can understand what really took place in the interesting case of Pomponia Graecina.2 This high-born Roman lady, the wife of Plautius, the conqueror of Britain, may claim with some certainty to have been the first Roman of whose sufferings for the sake of Christ we have any record. In the year 57 Pomponia was arraigned before the Senate on the charge of ‘ foreign superstition,’ and in accordance with usage, handed over by that court to the judgement of a family tribunal. She was acquitted, but for the remaining twenty-six years of her life never put off her seriousness of demeanour or her deep mourning.3 Critics of repute have claimed that this ‘ foreign superstition ’ was Christianity, and in the judgement of Lightfoot “ this surmise, probable in itself, has been converted almost into a
1 Church and Ministry in Early Centuries (1902) p. 134, n.
2 For this case see Wandinger Pomponia Graecina (1873) 30 ff, Lightfoot Clem, i 30-2, Merivale vi 271-3 (who rejects), Henderson o.c. 344, 492 (doubtfully), Allard Les Catacombs (1896) Sl-2,1 HP 26 ff; N. and B. RS i 83, 278-82.
3 Tac. Annah xiii 32, ‘ longa huic Pomponiae aetas et continua tristitia fuit. . . . per quadroginta anuos non cultu nisi lugubri, non animo nisi maesto egit.’
CAESAR OR CHRIST
61
certainty by an archaeological discovery of recent years.” For de Rossi has shown that in the so-called crypt of Lucina, a first-century fragment of the catacombs of Callistus, we have the name of a descendant or near kinsman of Pomponia Graecina.1 Evidently, then, there were Christians in her family within a generation of her trial. Furthermore, this crypt must have been built by a lady of rank and wealth, and as the name Lucina does not occur elsewhere in Roman history,2 De Rossi suggests that this is none other than the baptismal name3 of Pomponia Graecina, who, as Tacitus tells us, died in a.d. 83, or about the time of the erection of this crypt. If then, it may be objected, Pomponia was a Christian, how can we account for her acquittal ? Wandinger’s answer, adopted by Lightfoot, is ingenious and probable. The real matter referred to the judgement of the domestic tribunal was not her faith. This neither the Senate nor the family were careful to distinguish from Judaism, a recognized religion. She was really tried because of the rumours already abroad accusing the Christians of impure orgies,4 which shortly
1 See the plate in de Rossi IIS xlix 27.
For tho two inscriptions in this crypt dated 107 and 111 seo de Rossi ICUR i 3 IT—or Allard Les Catacombs G7-8.
2 It was, however, common among Roman Christians. Cf. Duchesno LP i 150, 1G4. Wo find in Romo a church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, as well as a catacomb of Lucina, both indications of tho high rank of this Lucina.
3 Harnack EG ii 41 doubts this, but seo infra p. 170 n. No infer-onco eau bo drawn from St. Luke’s Theophilus, as tho name was common among pagans and Jews (DCA ii 1373).
* I lJet. iv 14-16. When St. Paul arrived in Rome (say 60 at latest)
62 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
afterwards led to such an outburst of popular hatred.
Thus the fire of 64 did not create, but brought to a head the growing suspicion and dislike by both people and government of this new religion, and at the same time threw out into sharp relief its distinction from Judaism. Indecision on the part of the executive was now at an end ; it was to the advantage of Nero, in his desperate need of popular favour, that it should be. In its place we have a policy of persecution. The persecution, though by no means widespread—Christianity itself, be it remembered, as yet only existed here and there—was not confined to Rome, but extended to various cities and districts of Asia Minor, rather, however, as a police-measure than because of any formal rescript.1 Within a generation of Calvary the sheep were in the midst of the wolves.
II
The imperial idea that Christianity was a danger to the State and civilization itself, an anarchist institution, was maintained with varying insistence, some modification in detail, and occasional intervals of toleration, from the days of Nero to the final victory
lie was told by the Jews that the new sect (alpeaeus, distinction not yet absolute) was ‘everywhere spoken against’ (Acts xxviii 21-2). Cf. Tac. Ann. xv 44, quoted supra p. 73 n.; II Tim. ii 8, where St. Paul complains that he is classed with malefactors.
1 For this and other questions with regard to the persecution of Nero see Appendix D.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
63
of the Church under Constantine. To the changes and fortunes of this policy in the first three centuries, as also to the reasons which gave it plausibility and credence with both statesmen and people, we shall return later. Meanwhile the student should notice certain consequences of moment.
The charge of anarchism exposed the Christians to one peril in special. It put them outside the law and brought them under the arbitrary executive jurisdiction of the magistrates and police superintendents.1 These, as Mommsen has pointed out, were entrusted with large powers of immediate action (coercitio), on their own responsibility, against all persons whose conduct was likely to lead to political trouble.2 Just as in modern Russia the Nihilist or the innocent reformer can be arrested and sentenced, even banished for life to Sakhalien, on mere “ administrative order,” without the pretence of trial, or the need that the bureaucrat quote any law at all,3 so with the early Christian. Their trial (cognitio)4 could be conducted in private, the results alone being made public.5 In the case of Christians torture and death were within the magistrates’ competence, though, curious to say, they were not allowed to inflict banishment (deportatio)
1 Eirenarchae, on whose functions for the summary arrest of thieves, etc., see Hardy o.c. 76, n.
2 Mommsen PRE i 351-3; Paulus Sent, v 21; Ulpian Dig. i 18, 13; Marcian Dig. xlviii 13, 14. See also infra p. 240 n. 1.
* Iu spite of recent events, I leave this scntenco as originally written (July, 1905).
4 See for this word infra p. 212 n.
5 Mommsen Bom. Staalsreclit (ed. 2, 1887) ii p. 964 or § 920. See also Ramsay ChE 216 n.
64 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
until the time of Marcus Aurelius.1 And the penalty was fixed; * in the case of base-born Christians (liumi-liores), the fighting with beasts in the arena, or the being burnt alive ; in the case of Eoman citizens (honestiores), the headsman’s sword.’2
The reader who has followed our argument will find an answer to the further question, Were persecutions the exception or the rule? In theory, Christianity was a hateful thing, a danger to society and the State, to be crushed out wherever found. In practice, vigilance varied considerably; there were spasms of enforcement of the law followed by reactions of indifference on the part of both Government and people. Persecution was also to a large extent a local matter ; an outburst of popular hatred driving the magistrates to put into force enactments that would be distasteful to some if only because of the extra work that they involved, to others because of their consciousness of their futility. A modern illustration may make the matter clear. The Christian was looked upon very much as an Anarchist or Nihilist is looked upon by the police of Paris or St. Petersburg. He is kept under strict observation; the police can proceed against him any day without
1 Infra p. 226 n., and Modestinus in Dig. xlviii 19, 30. This was because deportatio involved the loss of citizenship as well as goods. For the case of St. John (relegatio) see supra p. 47 n.
2 Paulus Sent, v 29, 1, makes this very clear. In case of treason ‘ humiliores bestiis obiiciuntur vel vivi exuruntur, honestiores capite puniuntur.’ Christians for the most part would be among the ‘ humiliores.’ Cf. also Ulpian Dig. xlviii 13, 7 (similar penalty for sacrilege), and soe infra p. 219 n., for the beheading of honestiores ; e.g. Apollonius.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
65
formality or delay. But because of that very fact the Anarchist is only arrested when popular feeling or his own doings demand. If he keep quiet the police do not trouble him. So with the Christian. “The current conceptions,” writes Mommsen, “of the so-called persecutions of the Christians labour under a defective apprehension of the rule of law and the practice of law subsisting in the Roman Empire. In reality the persecution of the Christians was a standing matter, as was that of robbers; only such regulations were put into practice at times more gently or even negligently, at other times more strictly, and were doubtless on occasion specially enforced from high quarters.” 1 These times of “ enforcement from high quarters ” formed the seasons of special stress and strain known to the historians of the Church as the “ General Persecutions.” To these likewise in due course we shall return. They have received an attention which by its very exaggeration has spread confusion. Of more importance is it that the student should realize that these “ general persecutions ” are but, as it were, the coming to a head of a virulence against the Christians always more or less at work in the imperial system.
Another consequence of this main argument should be noted. Christianity, as we have seen, was put down as a police measure, by “ administrative order” rather than by formal laws,2 or stately trials. From the outlook of the later historian the result was
1 Mommsen PliE ii 199, n.
2 For further on this question see App. E.
F
66 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
disastrous. Police-court cases are not enrolled among the archives of the nation. A great trial, a Verres or Warren Hastings, brings forth the orations, immortal not merely in themselves, but because of the light they throw upon current law or history. But no orator defended St. Paul or St. Perpetua ; few records are preserved of the trials of insignificant Anarchists. The very laws under which they were prosecuted do not demean themselves to illustrations of their bearing and application at the hands of great jurists by instances gathered from the scum of society. Ulpian, Paulus, Modestinus — the Cokes and Lyttletons of the third century—leave the crime of Christianity as such alone;1 they saw no reason for singling it out from other moral enormities with which the police had ample powers of dealing. If only St. Paul or St. Ignatius had been a Verres or Clodius—gigantic peculators, administrators whose tyranny set a province on fire, daring revolutionaries—all would have been clear, set forth with precision in the text-books of the schools. As it is, the historian is reduced to the scanty flotsam and jetsam thrown up from the sea of oblivion; a detail here, a fragment there from which we must reconstruct as best we may the great conflict between the Church and the Empire. *
III
There was a second way in which the State might have tried to suppress the Christians other than by
1 For Ulpian’e exceptiou see infra p. 240 n.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
67
the method of treating them as outlaws and anarchists. The Empire, as distinct from the later Republic,1 was always jealous of all unregistered clubs and societies. We must own that the dread was not unwarranted, when we remember 011 the one hand the constant disaffection of the displaced oligarchy, and on the other the vast slave populations, the complex racial elements, and the smallness of the standing army by means of which peace was preserved; In the days of the Republic the only societies under the ban were those which met secretly or by night. But Julius Caesar, on political grounds, suppressed all sodalities except those of ancient origin, while Augustus placed all religious societies under the strictest control.2 Henceforth all new societies had to obtain permission either from the emperor or senate, according to whether they belonged to imperial or senatorial provinces.3 Unregistered clubs could be suppressed by the police at any time; though here again the power of suppression must not be confused with the deed itself. Probably clubs of all sorts would be allowed to meet, more or less openly recognized though without formal licence, theimore so because the police knew that they could at any time put an end to their existence. By the Lex Julia (b.c. 48) members of unregistered clubs could be summarily punished by
1 We seo tho dread of clubs in the early days of tho Republic in the decree of tho Senate (b.o. 181), that those who wished to cclcbrato Bacchic rites could do so on obtaining a licence, provided that not raoro than two men and three women met together (Ilardy o.c. 11).
2 Suet. Cues. 42, Oct. 82, Dio. Cass, lii 3G.
3 Marcian in Dig. xlvii 22, 3. Sec also Hardy o.c. 170.
68 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the police, if necessary with the extreme penalties of treason.1 But at the same time care was taken that such prohibition should not be a pecuniary benefit to the State. The common funds of a dissolved sodality were to be divided, not confiscated,2 a restriction which would not apply in the case of treason.
Of the jealousy of the Empire of the power of clubs and guilds we have several illustrations. In Nicomedeia, the future residence of Diocletian, one of the greatest cities of Asia Minor, a disastrous fire destroyed many dwellings, a club for old men,3 and a temple of Isis. The authorities applied for permission to form a fire brigade of 150 men. Pliny, the then governor of Bithynia-Pontus, who forwarded their request, promised that he would take care ‘that no workman should be received into the brigade, and that it would not be used for other purposes.’ But Trajan dreaded clubs more than fires, and so refused. Nor would he allow the citizens of Amisus to continue their subscription suppers.4 Trades unions too
1 The penalty for belonging to a collegium illicitum was the same as that of an armed riot (Ulpian Dig. xlvii 22, 2), and armed riot was a form of majestatia laesae (Ulpian Dig. xlviii 4, 1; Neumann JISK 124, n.), the punishment of which was death (Paulus Sent, v 29. See supra p. 64).
2 Dig. xlvii 22, 3. The student will compare with interest the struggles of trade unions in England in the nineteenth century. According to Hardy o.c. 178, the chief necessary disadvantage of an illicit sodality was its non-recognition by law as a juristic person.
3 See infra p. 70 n. 1.
4 Pliny Eps. 33, 34,92,93. For the bearing of this on the Christians of Bithynia, see infra p. 211. Bithynia was in a disturbed condition, and Trajan probably more strict than some emperors.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
69
were considered illegal;1 not until the time of Alexander Severus did they obtain any legal status,2 though here again the student should beware of confusing legal recognition with absence of existence. Their recognition was the result of accomplished facts which it were idle for wise statesmen any longer to deny.
For these rigid restrictions overshot themselves and proved impossible. Laws and ordinances were paralysed by greater though impalpable forces; the universal craving for mutual sympathy and succour ; the immense development of a free proletariat with collective interests of its own; above all the intense desire of the people to obtain relief from the deadly dullness of their lives. For “the Empire which had striven to prevent combination, really furnished the greatest incentive to combine. In the face of that world-wide and all-powerful system, the individual subject felt, ever more and more, his loneliness and helplessness.” 3 So, slowly but surely, the people asserted for themselves the right to organize
1 Ramsay ChE 200 (strike of bakers at Magnesia). Cf. Tac. Ann. xiv 17. Nevertheless, such trades unions wero winked at, so long as they did not become political (Hardy o.c. 181).
* Lamprid. Alex. Sev. 33; Dig. xlvii 22, 1. But there tiro grounds for believing that in senatorial provinces legal sanction was given before 133. See Hardy o.c. 182.
* Dill BSNA 25G. For a good account of these clubs sec bk. ii c. 3 of this able work. The studeut should consult Boissier Ilel. Horn, ii 292 IT.; Renan Lcs Ap6tres c. 18. Hardy o.c. c. 9 is rather too legal for the general reader. The fullest work is Liebenam’s Geschichte des rGm. Vereinswcsens (Leipzig, 1890). There is a vast literature on their relation to the Church. See infra p. 2G1 n.
70 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
societies, though under restrictions jealously guarded, in theory at least, down to the time of Justinian.
Thus the age of the infant Church became an age of clubs and guilds, of efforts in various ways to attain the new ideas of unity and brotherhood. There were clubs and sodalities of all sorts—colleges of old men1 and of young men, of wandering traders and military veterans, and of artisans in almost every conceivable branch of industry or specialized skill, from the mule-drivers of the Alps to the men whose business it was to strew the fine sand in the arena. The Great Mother, Isis, Serapis, and other gods, all alike had their colleges; religion, in fact, played no small partin this vast club life.2 We have also one sodality at least that was virtually a White Cross Guild, though this must be balanced by the sodalities of the ‘late sleepers ’ and ‘late drinkers’at Pompeji.3 As Mommsen showed in one of his earliest works, it was not difficult for any society desirous of making contributions for any purpose, to enroll itself under forms allowed by law, though freedom was somewhat narrowed by the fact that meetings were only allowed once a month, and that no permanent head, or ‘ master of sacred rites,’ could be appointed. Owing to these last restrictions, perhaps, or from unwillingness to lower their religion to the level of a sodality or mutual benefit club, or because they were aware that
1 On the gerusia see Mommsen PBE i 351, n., and for a very-different interpretation Ramsay CBP i 110-4, 438-9.
2 See illustrations in Hardy o.c. 170. Compare the guild life of the days of Wyclif. (See my Age of Wychf, pp. 269-70.)
3 Dill 'llSNA 2G5. '
CAESAR OR CHRIST
71
there were many religious clubs which had received no licence and yet existed,1 the early Christians either refused or neglected the opportunity and freedom of such registration, while their ayaircu, or love-feasts— which would appear to have existed longer than is sometimes supposed2—would make them an illegal sodality the crushing of which would need no further formalities.3 As a matter of fact, the State preferred, as a rule, to proceed against the Christians, not as members of an illegal guild, but as political agitators or anarchists of the most dangerous form. We have proof of this in the fact that at the commencement of the third century, when the Christians here and there took steps, apparently, to enroll themselves as burial clubs,4 the persecutions did not thereby cease. The Christians were punished, not as members of an illicit sodality, but ‘ for the Name.’5
The student should beware, however, lest he overlook the momentous issues involved in the refusal of the State to allow any society or club to exist which had not first obtained official recognition, and the equally momentous refusal of the Church to obtain
1 Hardy o.c. 177. See also Dig. xlii 22, 1 ‘ sed religionis causa coiro non prohibentur, dum tamen per hoc non fiat eontra senatus consultum quo illicita collegia arcontur.’
2 See Harnack EG i 199.
* In Bithynia they gave up the agnpo in eonsequenco. See Ep. Pliny, infra p. 211. 4 Seo infra p. 2G1 n.
4 The chief proof of this lies in tho fact that when TertuIlian wrote his Apology a general liberty had been given for clubs by Severns (see supra p. G9 n. 2). But possibly tho difference between tho two procedures was not so great, for illicitum at this time had come to be identical with “ political ” (Hardy o.c. 179), the very ground on which Christians were persecuted.
72 PERSECUTION IX THE EARLY CHURCH
such recognition. The question is not one of legal technicalities or procedure, or the ‘ sheer obstinacy,’ as Marcus Aurelius would have phrased it, of Christian fanatics, but points rather to one of those root antagonisms of principle the influence of -which, in different forms, may be felt in the twentieth as much as in the second century. By Roman theory the State was the one society which must engross every interest of its subjects, religious, social, political, humanitarian, with the one possible exception of the family. There was no room in Roman law for the existence, much less the development on its own lines of organic growth, of any corporation or society which did not recognize itself from the first as a mere department or auxiliary of the State. The State was all and in all, the one organism with a life of its own. Such a theory the Church, as the living kingdom of Jesus, could not possibly accept either in the first century or the twentieth.1 Here, in fact, we strike a root antagonism of political ideals between the Church and the Empire, the details and consequences of which will need further examination. Suffice to say that this was not the least of the factors which led from the first to an outbreak of persecution.
1 Thus the famous United Free Church decision was a reversion to a theory as a protest against which the martyrs died. That it was an unhistorical reversion (i.e. not true to the line of development) is 6hown by Gierke’s Pol. Theories of Med. Age ed. Maitland (1900).
CAESAR OR CHRIST
73
To the modern reader the crime of anarchism thus alleged against Christianity seems so preposterous, that he finds it hard to believe that such a charge could ever have been seriously entertained. Nothing, in fact, is more difficult in the study of history than to put oneself back into the thoughts and feelings of past centuries, and to view events from a standpoint the very foundations of which have utterly perished. The student who succeeds in doing this in his investigation of the relations in early days of the Church and the Empire will discover that the notion was not so utterly absurd after all as at first sight it appears. To both people and bureaucrat the Christians would seem, if not exactly Anarchists, yet something scarce distinguishable. History, the judge from whose verdicts there is no appeal, has shown that the statesmen and magistrates of the Empire were wrong, as history has exposed similar follies in every century. Nevertheless, the astute rulers of the Empire did not adopt their views without reasons which on the surface appeared sufficient. What these were we shall explain in a later chapter.
The difficulty of the reader in understanding this charge is increased when he remembers the known tolerance of the Roman Empire for all sorts of religions.1 For the city had slowly adopted as her own, by senatorial decree or popular verdict, a vast
1 On this and other matters eonnected with Roman religion Boissier Religion Bomaine (Paris 1874) is of great value.
74
PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
pantheon of other gods; not merely Italian deities, Juno and Diana, or the gods of Greece, Apollo, Athene, but Oriental deities, such as the Great Mother, and the worship of Mithra. The belief in the old Roman deities that had contented the rude farmers of Latium had slowly melted away under the solvent of Greek philosophy and world-wide conquest ; their places had been taken by alien mythologies of larger human interest and more alluring legend. Not only had strangers introduced into the great city the various superstitions of their native countries, but Rome herself had bestowed “ the freedom of the city on all the gods of mankind.”1 Orontes had flowed into the Tiber; but the Tiber had seemed no less anxious to receive her. In the case of some of these adopted or imported gods the rites were not always remarkable for their moral power. And yet the worship of Isis, though never formally adopted by the State, was allowed, in spite of attendant orgies; that of Jesus was forbidden. -The licentious rites of Adonis were the glory and disgrace of Antioch; the brotherhood in Christ Jesus was under the ban of the Empire. The cult of Aesculapius (a foreign deity introduced from Epidaurus, on the advice of the Sibylline books, as far back as b.c. 290) —‘ God the Saviour,' ‘ the friend of man ’ (<j)i\avdpu>~ voTaTog)—was especially popular, as his numerous inscriptions and statues testify. The worship of ‘ the
1 See Gibbon i 28-32, to -whose “philosophy” this especially appealed. Cf. Arnobius Adv. Gent, xi 7, ‘ Civitas omnium miminum oultrix.’
CAESAR OR CHRIST
75
great Physician ’ * who went about doing good ’ was suppressed.1 How came these things to be, the reader asks? By what perversion of logic or fact did it come to pass that an Empire so tolerant in its general practice could be so hostile to the Church? Is it that the toleration of the Empire was less complete than is supposed, or has the measure of the persecutions of the Christians been exaggerated by ecclesiastical zealots ?
The answer to these questions cannot be given in a simple yes or no. We must distinguish between things that differ ; for instance, the liberty of thought and the liberty of worship. Liberty of thought, so far as the Government was concerned, was complete, far more so than in the later days of Giordano Bruno, Servetus, or Galileo. The thcologicum odium did not exist, at any rate in Rome, if only because men were not sufficiently interested in their gods to make them a battle-ground. But liberty of worship was a different matter, depending chiefly on political and local considerations. The rites allowed, or even favoured, in Phrygia or Gaul could not be equally tolerated elsewhere. In this matter the Romans, like most great imperial administrators, were opportunists. In Jerusalem they protected the worship of Jehovah ; the Roman who passed within the portals of the temple was put to death. In Ephesus they were equally ready in the interests of Artemis to crucify the Jew. Political expediency rather than abstract theory lay at the root of their system of toleration,
1 See infra p. 80, n.
76 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
or rather protection, of local deities. For the same administrative reasons Eome, the centre of the world, the great meeting-place of all nations and ages, the fountain of honour, welcomed within her borders, under certain restrictions, the deities of all her subject nations. Whatever he might think in his heart, in his public utterance the Eoman was not guilty of the scornful folly of a Sennacherib. The wrath of a Cambyses pouring itself out in the destruction of the embalmed bulls and shrines of Egypt did not seem to him the best model for attaching Egypt to the imperial city;1 nor would the nations love Eome the more if the stranger visiting the capital should find himself cut off from the rites with which he was familiar. But it was all a matter of political expediency and administrative fitness; toleration as a philosophical theory never entered Eoman thoughts.
For this very reason we must not forget that the toleration of Eome was always less complete than is sometimes claimed. Especially was this the case in the early Eepublic. From Livy’s account of the Bacchanalian scandal in b.c. 188, we see the sternness with which the executive put down all religious associations that tended to become a danger to the State or to morals,2 while even in later and looser days no new worship was allowed to be introduced * except by decree of the Emperor ratified by the Senate.’3 But this last was the very thing that for
1 Assuming, for the argument, the truth of the tales of Herodotus.
2 Livy xxxix 8 ff. On Roman toleration the reader should consult Hardy o.c. c. 1.
3 Tert. Apol. 5, 13. Cf. also the “ Law of the XII. Tables” in Cic.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
77
Christianity, as for Judaism before it, was an impossibility. Christ could not be one among many; His claims rested upon higher grounds than senatorial allowance. Furthermore, even when a religion was tolerated, Roman citizens, in theory at any rate, might not participate in it, whatever was allowed to the alien. For the Roman citizen whatever went beyond the prescription of ancestral worship fell under the definition of ‘ superstition.’1 We have an illustration of this in the case of the worship of the Great Mother. Though formally adopted by the Senate in b.c. 204, not for a century were Roman citizens permitted to join its priesthood.2 In Egypt Augustus revered the majesty of Isis ; but prohibited the worship within a mile of the pomermm, the sacred centre of Rome.3
Thus when political considerations demanded the Romans crushed out remorselessly religion or rites which seemed to them to stand in their way. We have an illustration of this in the case of Druidism. The political power of this religion, the resistance to Roman rule that found a head in the priests, was felt to be too great. Hence, though Augustus had tolerated the faith, steps were taken by Tiberius
de Leg. ii 9. ‘ Separatim nemo habeBsit deos neve novos neve ndvenns nisi publice adseitos; privatim colunto, quos rite a patribus (cultos acceperint).’ See Huschke Jurisprudentiae Antejustinianae for a convenient text of these XII Tables.
1 See Cic. de Nat. Deorum i 42, §,117; ii 28, § 70; and cf. Tac. Ann. ii 85, 5; xv 44, 4.
2 Dill ItSNA 548 ; Hardy o.c. 9-10.
3 Gibbon i 32, n. See infra p. 81.
78
PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
and Claudius for suppressing the great annual meeting of the Druids at the centre of their cult, the hill of Chartres. As part of the same plan, it was determined to occupy the Druid strongholds in Britain. An excuse was found, if any were needed, in the traffic in charms carried on by the priests, the annual human sacrifices in great wickerwork pens, and the healing of the sick by the flesh of the slain. The result was seen in the rapid Eomanization of Celtic Gaul.1
Nor must we forget that the toleration of Rome, such as it was, was nearer akin to contempt and indifference. Now, the toleration which springs from contempt is often intensely intolerant of one thing, namely, of enthusiasm, using the word in a sense better understood and disliked in the eighteenth century than to-day. ‘What a fool you are,’ said Maximus the judge to the veteran Julius, ‘ to make more of a crucified man than of living emperors ’; nor would his contempt be lessened by the answer of Julius: ‘He died for our sins that He might give us eternal life.’2 ‘ Sacrifice and live, then,’ retorted Maximus. ‘ If I choose life,’ replied the veteran,
1 Mommsen PRE i 104-6, 173; Suet. Claud. 25.
2 Ruinart AM 550. A better text of this interesting trial ■will be found in Anal. Boll, x (1891) 50 If., orHarnack MG 119-21. The date ia unknown, probably the persecution of Diocletian; but the document is certainly pre-Constantine. Possibly this is the Julius who suffered at Dorostorum in Moesia on May 27th, year unknown, whose record is in the old martyrologies of Ado and Notker. But see Harnack GAL ii 477 n. The date in DCB iii 533 (14) aa under Alex. Severus seems to me moat improbable. (Cf. opening words ‘ tempore persecutionis ’ with infra pp. 238-9.)
CAESAR OR CHRIST
79
‘ I choose death; if I die, I live for ever.’ At this Maximus, who hitherto had been most anxious to save so old a soldier, lost his temper. He would feel that in sentencing the man to death he was ridding the earth of a madman. We see this contempt of enthusiasm breaking out time after time; in the sneers of Pilate and Agrippa,1 in the satires of Lucian, and in the acts and sayings of magistrates and governors for nearly three centuries.
The idea of toleration may therefore be dismissed. The whole conception was yet unborn; many centuries would elapse before it should arise. Nor was toleration, when it came, due to the influence or example of the Church. The so-called toleration of Rome was founded in reality upon political expediency. But a toleration founded on political expediency must always at some point or other, if only it is logical, become intolerant. From the utilitarian standpoint the policy of a Pobiedonostseff has much to plead on its own behalf. Expediency demands, for the sake of unity, that the Stundists or Old Believers be crushed out, though at the same time the heathenism of the tribes that dwell on the barren tundras of Siberia may receive recognition, at any rate for the nonce. So in Rome. A wise recognition of local usages was one thing, provided always that the interests of the State were duly conserved ; a toleration founded upon the claims of conscience and the rights of the individual soul was a matter too absurd even for philosophers to discuss.
1 John xviii 08; Acts xxvi 28.
80 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
The reader will not fail to notice one result. Toleration was a local matter, if only for the simple reason that polytheism was essentially a local matter. Each god had his rights, within certain areas; but each god must be careful to respect the rights of his neighbour. To ignore this rule would lead to chaos, or rather the end of the whole system. A universal faith, provided it makes any real demands on its devotees, must come into conflict with polytheism. The claims of the local and of the universal cannot be conciliated. We see this in later days in the case of Muhammad. The same thing was illustrated even more abundantly in the rise of the Church. The Christians were not persecuted because of their creed, but because of their universal claims. For monotheism, viewed merely as a philosophy, the Romans had some sympathy. But a monotheism which refused to allow place for others must be brushed aside as a political nuisance or ‘ atheistic ’ monster.1 This universality of claim, this aggressiveness of temper, this consciousness from the
1 A good illustration of this is the rivalry between the worship of Aesculapius and Jesus. Both had the title (‘ Saviour,’ or
‘Healer’), both proclaimed a “gospel of the Saviour,” i.e. healer. Hence the special hatred of Christian writers for Aesculapius. See Harnack EG i c. 2, espec. i 146, n. See also the story of the five sculptors, infra p. 13G; and add, possibly, Apoc. ii 13 (on which see infra p. 97). A statue of ‘Aesculapius the Saviour ’ at Paneas (Caesarea Philippi), with the usual curative plant upon it as a symbol, was mistaken by Eusebius (HE\ii 18) for a statue of Jesus erected by the woman with the issue of blood. For Aesculapius see also Pater Marius the Epicurean c. 3, Dill BSNA 459-GO. See also Ramsay CBP i 52, 104, 138, 2G2-4, 348 for his influence in Phrygia. Students will remember the last words of Socrates.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
81
first of world-wide dominion—in a word, all that in later days was summed up in the title of Catholic— was the inevitable cause of Eoman persecution. Neither the Church nor the Empire could act otherwise save by running contrary to their true genius. The failure to understand this essential opposition lies at the root of the constant complaints of Christian apologists as to the different treatment measured out to them and ‘ to the men who worship trees and rivers and mice and cats and crocodiles.’1
V
We have referred already to the toleration by the State of the worship of Isis and Mithra.2 On deeper examination the contradiction between this toleration and the persecution of Christianity disappears; their history, in fact, is seen to run on somewhat parallel lines, and to afford illustration rather than contradiction. The worship of Isis3 won its way to recognition in the face of fierce opposition; its story is
1 Justin I Apol. i ‘24; Atkenag. Suppl. 1,14.
* For Mithraiam the standard work is Cumont, Texles et lMonuments figures relatifs aux mysteres de Mithra (Brussels, 1899). Tho reader may content himself with The Mysteries of Mithra (Chicago, 1903, a translation by T. J. McCormack of Cumont’s Introduction). For a summary of Cumont sco also Dill RSNA 58G-G2G, or my article in the London Quarterly Review, Oct. 1905.
3 See Gibbon i 32, n., correctcdby Bury; Hardy o.c. 14-15; West-cott ChlV 2i5-0, who all give the loci classici. On Isis tho student may read with advantage Dill RSNA 5G0-85 ; or the exhaustive work of Lafaye Ilist. du Culte des Divinity's d'Alcxandrie hors de VEjyytei Paris 1884.
G
82 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the story of a popular religious movement of Eastern origin in perpetual conflict with Roman conservatism. Time after time the temples of Isis were destroyed, only to be re-erected on a larger scale by popular enthusiasm and the growing cosmopolitanism. Slaves and freedmen, especially those from Egypt, were the apostles of the new faith long before it became fashionable in higher circles. Not until the latter years of the first century of our era did Isis succeed in obtaining the sanction and worship of the bureaucracy itself.
Even more valuable as an illustration both in its arguments and differences is the case of Mithraism, the greatest rival which Christianity ever had to face.1 In some respects Christianity and Mithraism were curiously alike. Both religions were of Eastern origin. Both religions had entered Europe much about the same time, with the advantage of a few years in favour of Mithraism. Both religions possessed a strongly developed ecclesiastical organization, and emphasized the value of mysteries or sacraments, these last in some of their details strangely similar. Both religions were treated with scorn and indifference by the historians, poets, and philosophers of the Empire.
The worship of Mithra was one of the oldest cults of the Aryan race, in its origin identical with the worship of the sun. Adopted by the Persians, Mithra
1 It is of interest to note that Christianity owes to Mithraism the names of the days, Sunday included, and also probably the date of Christmas Day, originally the ‘ Natalis Invicti ’ i.e. of Mithra (Cumont
i 299, 342, with which cf. Dio. Cass, xxxvii 18). ‘ Sunday ’ is first used by Justin I Apol. 67. For its Mithraic origin see Orig. Cels, yi 22.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
83
found a place in the Zoroastrian system, occupying a middle place between Ormuzd, who dwelt in eternal light, and Ahriman, whose sphere was darkness. In time Mithra became regarded as the viceroy on earth of the supreme deity, whose serene bliss no mortal cares could disturb. As his viceroy, Mithra was ‘ the Saviour/ the head of the celestial armies in their ceaseless combat with the Spirit of Darkness. His ‘invincible’ might—the adjective is almost an inseparable—causes Ahriman himself in the depth of hell to tremble with fear. It is as the ‘ Saviour,’ the conqueror of Ahriman, that we see Mithra represented in a thousand inscriptions from Scotland to Egypt, with his sword buried in the neck of a bull.
In Europe the growth of Mithraism, almost contemporary with that of Christianity, seems to have run pretty much the same course, reaching its climax in the third century. We find its first home in the seaports ; its earliest devotees were aliens and Syrian slaves. Thus in Ostia, the port of Eome, there were at least four shrines of Mithra. In Eome, the caravansary of the Empire, Mithraism reared a temple in the sacred Capitol itself. But a more interesting evidence of its strength lies in the fact revealed by de Eossi, that the oldest Church of St. Clement, the crypt of the present building (originally in all probability an early Christian chapel of the aristocratic family which in the year 95 gave Domitilla and her husband, the consul, to the Church1), seems at a later date to have lapsed into a Mithraic shrine. The well-known
1 See infra pp. 204-G.
84 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
bas-reliefs of Mithra in bis birth from the rock may still be seen cut in its walls.1
Mithra possessed one potent missionary agency which Christianity lacked. The stronghold of the former creed lay in the army. Not without good reason was the name of milites given to a certain grade of its initiates. In the second and third centuries the rank and file of the regular legions of the Roman army were for the most part stationary (stationarii). They were not liable for service, save in their own native province. But the centurions were always on the move, as were also the foreign auxiliaries of Eastern origin, with whom the cult of Mithraism originated. As they were quartered here and there throughout the world, centurions and auxiliaries erected their temples and devotional tablets, and spread abroad the gospel of their ‘ invincible Saviour.’ From the army the worship was carried to the Court and the educated classes. Throughout the third century Mithra had his chaplains in the palace of Caesar. Commodus was enrolled among his adepts; Diocletian and Galerius, the great enemies of Christianity, dedicated to Mithra many temples ; while Aurelian and Julian the Apostate sought to make Mithraism, or a variation thereof, the official cult. The Court, in fact, found in its doctrines that support for the autocracy which Christianity, as we shall see, refused to give. But the worship was by no means confined to the army and Court. Mithra possessed a second line of missionaries in the slaves of Eastern
1 Cumont TMii 203-4.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
85
origin, the commonest article on the slave markets of Europe, who carried its cult to the obscurest corners of the Empire. An inscription at Nersae, in the heart of the Apennines, recounts how a slave, who had worked his way up into the position of treasurer of the town, in the year 172 restored the temple of Mithra, one only of many evidences of the activity of these servile missionaries.
With this introduction we may now face the question: How was it that of the two religions the one was persecuted, the other tolerated ? The answer is most pertinent to our theme. Mithraism escaped persecution by taking refuge from its earliest days under the shelter of a religio Ucita,the worship of the Great Mother, with which it had many points of contact.1 Christianity, on the other hand, was not only driven out from the shelter of Judaism, but the Jews became its deadliest foes. Mithraism, moreover, early took advantage of the privileges afforded by enrolling its congregations as members of funerary societies. But the third reason is the most important. The worships of Isis and Mithra were by no means local cults ; they too aspired to world-wide homage. But their strength lay in their power of absorbing and assimilating the best elements in surrounding paganism, They were willing not only to live and let live, but to take up and make part of themselves whatever feature of local religion, Christianity included,2
1 This legalized association is an inference from the adoption by Mithraism of the taurobolium. See infra p. 1G0.
2 It is difficult to say to what extent Mithraism borrowed its
86 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
seemed especially popular or serviceable. ‘Et ipse pileatus, Christianus est ’—‘ That man with the Mithraic cap is a Christian,’ said a priest of Mithra to St. Augustine,1 who shrank back in horror from this attempt to identify his faith with this ‘ devil’s imitation.’ The Mithraic priest knew what he was about. The strength of Mithra and Isis lay in the current syncretism, that tendency to find unity and identity amid the multitudinous details of polytheism, the most familiar example of which is the identification of the gods of Greece and Eome. But for Christianity this compromise with other faiths, this syncretism, practical or philosophic, was an impossibility, at any rate in its earlier and purer days.2 With sublime audacity the followers of Jesus proclaimed that Christ must be all and in all. Once more we come back by a different route to the same cause of persecution, the essential absoluteness of the Christian faith. Christianity emblazoned on its banners its loathing and disdain for the cults around: * We know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no God but one.’ And the Christians demonstrated their convictions by the logic of the rack and the stake. We to-day, who suffer from the curse of a compromise with the world which gnaws at the heart of the Church, could not wish it otherwise. An accommodated Christianity would never have conquered the world.
similarities (sacraments, &c.) from Christianity. The question is fully discussed in Cumont TM i 33S ff.
1 In Job. evang. tract.; Migne PL xxxv p. 1440.
2 Many practices in the Roman Catholic Church are due to syncretism.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
87
Nor must we overlook in this connexion a factor of great importance. The advent of Christianity coincided with a great spiritual movement in the heathen world,1 which showed itself, not merely in the rapid spread of the newer cults, the worship of Isis, Mithra, and the like, but in the revival of belief in the older faiths and forms ; above all in the growth throughout Europe of a social conscience. We see this awakened spiritual life in the guilds and charities, the constant efforts to extend and endow education, to found orphanages and hospitals, to emancipate women, and to rescue the slave from the unlimited power of his lord, which form the nobler features of the legislation of the Antonines, sad persecutors though they were of the Church of Jesus. That this upward movement of thought and creed, of which Mithraism was the best expression, undoubtedly helped the ultimate triumph of Christianity seems to us a certainty ; nay, who shall say that this upward movement was not the work of the Spirit fulfilling Himself in diverse ways ? But its first effects were far otherwise. During the later years of the Republic the old religion had almost fallen into decay; scores of temples were abandoned, priesthoods unfilled, the very names of the gods, as Varro tells us, recalled with difficulty.2 For political reasons the Empire set itself, as we have already seen,3 to the revival of the neglected religion, the rehabilitation of the ancient sacred colleges of Rome. The antique ritual of the
1 On tliis see Dill RSNA iii c. 3 and iv.
2 Dio. Cass. liv. 3G; Suet. Odav. 30. 5 Cf. infra p. 203.
88 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Arval brotherhood was made a potent support of the imperial power; the worship of Jupiter received at the hands of philosophers a new meaning and strength; while the secular games in honour of Dis and Proserpine were revived and celebrated with a wealth and magnificence which baffles description, Horace himself writing a notable hymn for the occasion. With all this revival of old religions and belief Christianity, in the nature of things, was bound to come into conflict. By a correct instinct paganisms of all sorts discerned in the infant Church their only rival. So, while the new Hercules was yet in the cradle, they sent their snakes to kill him. But Hercules lived to cleanse out the Augean stalls.
VI
We may approach this argument, with the same result, from another direction. Religion to the Roman was chiefly a matter of patriotism. The ecstatic emotions that we are accustomed to associate with the idea, the spiritual elevation, the recognition in divers forms of the unseen world and its claims, for him had little, if any, existence. But of one thing he was certain: no one could be a patriot who did not show due honour to the national gods. To refuse to do this was to bring upon oneself the charge of ‘ atheism5 or ‘ sacrilege.’ Belief or unbelief, correspondence between act and conviction, was beside the mark; as regards this the gods could defend themselves. As the schoolman would have phrased it, the
CAESAR OR CHRIST
89
sole concern of the State was with the opus operatum, the adequate discharge of the formal duty. The rest scarcely counted: “ the various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true ; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrates as equally useful.” 1
Whatever the other truth that may underlie this sneer of Gibbon, the last clause is correct. To the Roman magistrate religious recusancy was practically tantamount to political disaffection. ‘ The introduction of strange divinities,’ said Maecenas to Augustus, ‘ visit at once with hatred and chastisement . . . for from this cause conspiracies and combinations and secret conspiracies are formed which are by no means expedient for a monarchy.’2 The whole speech is probably imaginary; none the less, Augustus acted in the spirit of the advice, while his successors, with few exceptions, identified themselves with his policy. They recognized that a wise conservatism in matters religious tended to the stability of the body political. One great exception they made. They left the local gods their rights, but established alongside of their worship a new imperial religion to serve, in the words of Mommsen, as “ the spiritual symbol of the political union.” The claims of this new religion, the nature of which we shall later explain, they insisted should be acknowledged universally. The only exception they made was the Jews.3
1 Gibbon i 28. * Dio. Cass. Iii 3G. Seo infra p. 239.
3 Dig. 1 1, 3, 3. See also Infra p. 109 n. 4.
90
PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Now it was precisely this religious recusancy, between which and rebellion the Roman judge could see but little difference, that Christianity demanded from all. The Church spurned the claims3oth of the local gods and of the new religion, the foundation and symbol of the Empire. “ The foundation was sapped, the symbol rejected by the Christians, and by the Christians first and alone.” 1 To the Roman governor it was the Christian, not himself, that was intolerant. Whether or not Christians worshipped a crucified ass, as popular rumour had it, was a matter of profound indifference to the governor, provided only the Christian would take his part as a citizen in discharging the dues of the national gods, or at least allow others to do so without his interference. Said the Prefect of Alexandria to Dionysius, its bishop, whom he was anxious to save from the lions, ‘ What prevents you from worshipping this one god of yours, together with those that are the natural (sic) gods?’ ‘We worship,’ was the reply, ‘no other.’2 It was this absoluteness of the Christian faith, this intolerance of others, as the Romans considered it, that led to its being charged with anarchism because of its necessarily dissolvent effects on both the current religions and the political unity. For this anarchism on its religious side the Romans had a special name. They called it sacrilege, or atheism.3
1 Mommsen Expos. 1893, viii 3. Harnaek EC ii 117|exaggerates this into the sole ground of persecution. On this see supra p. 54.
- Euseb. HE yii 11.
3 It was the ‘ crimen laesae Romanae religionis? (Tert. Apol. 24),
CAESAR OR CHRIST
91
From his own standpoint the Eoman was right. The Christians were ‘ atheists ’ (ciOiot, “ men without gods ”), who proclaimed loudly that the gods—radiant Apollo, ‘ the Saviour ’ Aesculapius, even Jupiter Capitolinus himself—were but malignant ‘ demons ’ ensconced behind wood and stone; the imps of Satan, who had thus introduced the worship of themselves in order, to quote Tertullian, ‘ that they might obtain their favourite food of flesh fumes and blood.’1
from whieh, unlike tho Jews, tho Christians were not absolved (Modes-tinus ap. Dig. xlviii 13, 4). For the eharge of ‘atheism’ against the Christians, see Justin I Apol. 5; 6; 13; Mart. Polyc. 3 ; 9; Athenag. Suppl. 3; 4; 30; Clem. Alex. Strom, vii 1.
ade&TT)s, ‘ atheism,’ would seem to be a translation of sacrilegium (Tert. Apol. 2, ‘ nomen sacrilegium ’; 10; Neumann BSK16 n. 4), the more natural a<rej3eia being preoeeupied by majestas (Ramsay ChE 260 n.). When Thekla was exhibited in the arena a tablet was plaeed on her with the inscription tV UpiavXov, i.e. sacrilega (Gebhardt AMS 225). Teehnieally, as Mommsen has pointed out, sacrilegium in law was defined as stealing from a temple {Dig. xlviii 13, 11, 1, whieh explains Acts xix 37). But the mob were not lawyers, though Tertullian (ail Scap. 2) as a lawyer defends the Christians from the eharge by poiuting to the legal definition.
Since the above was printed a complete study of ‘ Atheism ’ has appeared by Harnack TU (xiv) 4. I have not had the opportunity of studying it.
1 The following are the chief references to this idea that I have met with:—
St. Paul I Cor. x 20, the fons et origo of the whole, on which, however, see the valuable note in T. C. Edwards Ep. Cor. (1885); St. Paul must not be held responsible for tho later developments. Tertullian Apol. 22 If., a most important passage, de Spectac. 13. Justin M. I. Apol. 5; 14; 25; 54. Origen Cels, iii 35, vii 69, et passim. (On the whole, Origen’s statement, as we might expect, is freo from exaggerations.) Athenagoras Suppl. 25-6. Lactantius Instit. Div. ii. 14-19. Minue. Felix Oct. 27. Tatian ad Graecos 7-18. Augustiue de Civ. Dei viii 28. These demons were tho offspring of the angels in Gen. vi
2. See Justin II Apol. 5; Laetant. I.e. The student will notice the
92 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Other Christian writers and preachers were not quite so ‘ atheistic.’ The gods, they said, were ancient kings who in times prehistoric obtained Apotheosis.1 But this more charitable view was held by few. The science of comparative religion was yet unborn. The majority held that it was a devil-ridden world, whose temples and shrines, however majestic, were among the works of darkness which Christ came to destroy, and which His followers also must seek to overturn, if necessary, by physical force and outrage.2 With these hordes of hell there could be no compromise : ‘ though there be that are called gods, yet to us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through Him.’3 This was the foundation of the faith, the first article of their creed. We can scarcely wonder that the Bomans called such uncompromising monotheists by the hard name of ‘ atheists.’ The Christians, they said, reduce our deities to devils. ‘ They despise the temples as dead houses, they scorn the gods, they
absence from this list of Clement of Alexandria. This is only what we might expect from that wise mediator of the old and new, whose great idea was the preparation of the world for the coming of Christ. Clement could not approve of the twist given by Christian theologians to the elaborate theory of ‘ daemons ’ of Plutarch and Maximus of Tyre.
1 Athenag. Suppl. 28 ff., who gives the example of Antinous (infra p. 9S). So also Pseudo-Cyprian Quod idola dii non sint 1 ff., who, in ce. 6, 7. falls back on the first theory. So by exception Tert. ad Nat.
ii 12 ff. Minuc. Felix Oct. 20-1. Aristides Apol. 13 holds for the most part the myth theory, ‘ some are hymns and songs.’ See also Augustine Civ. Dei. vii 18.
2 For the outrages of Christians on heathen temples see infra p. 1C2.
3 I Cor. viii 5.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
93
mock sacred things.’1 To this charge there was no possible answer, inasmuch as it was true ; the glory and danger of the Christian faith.
There was another way, of lesser importance, in which the Christians seemed to be ‘ atheists.’ Strange as it seems to us to-day, Christian monotheism did not altogether appeal to some thinkers. The pagan Caecilius complains that the Christians made the heavens a wilderness and solitude with their ‘ one god, lonely and forsaken ’—‘ deus unicus, solitarius, destitutus ’—the unutterable isolation and aloofness of whose position in heaven was fitly represented by his service on earth, ‘ who has neither temples, altars, victims, nor ceremonies.’2 To the Greek mind this ‘ lonely heaven ’ seemed an ‘ atheistic ’ impossibility.3 Polytheism, it is true, in the sense of a number of gods of equal power, was a discarded theory. As Plutarch and Maximus of Tyre are ever insisting, there must be one god supreme above all others. But this did not prevent belief in the existence of lesser deities, “ mediatised gods,” as Dr. Bigg calls them, borrowing a figure from the relation in the German Empire of the lesser kings to the Emperor. All this hierarchy, with the underlying conception of the ‘ monarchy ’ of one god, Christianity swept away.
1 Sco tho pagan Caccilius in Minuc. Felix Oct. 8.
- Minuc. Felix Oct. cc. 8, 10.
3 So, for that matter, ia it to tho Christian, as we see from the rapid acceptance of the doctrine of tho Trinity, and tho wide belief in innumerable angels, &c. This last let in polytheism into the Church by a back door. Cf. Harnack EC i 2‘Jl n.,and tho daugcrous tendency in Justin I Apol. G.
94 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
‘ The heathen/ "writes Tertullian, ‘ hurl in our teeth that we preach two gods or three gods . . . We, say they, maintain the monarchy.’1 Some maintained the * monarchy ’ by means of a theory of * daemons,’ partly human and part divine, which degenerated with the vulgar into the wildest pantheism.2 Others, for instance Porphyry, reasoned more boldly still against the Christian conception :
‘ Let us proceed to enquire explicitly about the monarchy of the one God, and the joint-rule of those deities who are worshipped. . . . A monarch is not one who is alone, but one who rules alone over subjects of kindred nature with himself; as the Emperor Hadrian for instance, who was a monarch, not because he stood alone, or because he ruled cattle or sheep, but because he was king over human beings of like nature with his own.’3
To men of this way of thinking Christianity was bound to seem a choice between tritheism and ‘ atheism.’ For the most part they chose the latter.
VII
The religious system of the Empire was thus built upon a foundation of liberty for local cults, a very different thing from toleration of a Catholic Church. Within certain limits the stranger might carry his worship and ritual with him when he moved to another portion of the Eoman world. But to
1 Tert. ad Prax. 3.
2 For Plutarch’s ‘daemons’ see Dill BSNA 425-40; and cf. Bigg CTRE 72-6. ‘
3 Porphyry in Macarius Magnes Apocritica iv 20. Quoted at length in Harnack EC i 37 n.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
95
obtain this freedom he must be willing to live and let live, and to abstain, if needful, from proselytizing zeal. All was local, and yet at the same time all was universal. For Augustus, the better to work out those ideas of univeral citizenship, equality, and government for which the Empire stood, had found it necessary to institute, or rather develop,1 throughout the Empire, a common religion to give a unity to provinces otherwise diverse in creed, language, and custom. This was the beginning of a universal church with a priesthood,2 sacrificcs, and temples of its own, in conception and aim very similar and yet very different from the Catholic Church with which it was destined to come into conflict. But, such as it was, the worship of Rome and Augustus undoubtedly supplied something, which the local polytheisms had failed to give, a common religious link holding together the innumerable races and creeds of a dominion that stretched from the Irish Sea to the Euphrates. In connexion with this new worship there grew up a system of festivals and games, the conduct and cost of which fell to the lot of the president of the provincial diet3 (in Asia called Asiarch, in Galatia the Galatarch, and so on),4
1 The tendency was in existence in the Republic. See tho able paper of Professor FiddeB, The Beginnings of Caesar Worship, in tho Owens College Historical Essays (1902), pp. 1-1G.
2 Sodales Augustules (Marquardt Horn. Staatsverwalt. iii 4.63).
3 Commune, or To Koivbv.
* Ramsay GBP i 76 differs from Mommsen in holding that the high priests of tho municipal cults of tho emperors held these shows as well as the Asiarchs. If bo, the more opportunities of persecution would arise (see infra p. 102, n.).
96 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
though in many places endowments for the purpose were soon provided by the zeal of individual citizens or towns.1
The worship of Eome and Augustus speedily became a fixed part of the imperial economy in the development of which the servile cities of Asia vied with each other.2 Domitian took the matter so seriously,
1 In Asia the chief priest of the new religion was generally, in later times invariably, the Asiarch, who appears to have been elected for a period of five years, and to have retained the title after laying down the office, thus forming a Council (Acts six 31; see also Ramsay GBP i 465). The games were named after him. The Asiarch had not merely the oversight of the worship of Caesar and its annual festival, but a superintendence over religious matters in general, with full military forces at his disposal (Euseb. HE via 14, 9.) This will explain the constant references to him and hia brethren (Galatarch, &c.) in the various Acts of martys. The famous letter of Julian to the Galatarch (Ep. 49) gives a clear view of hia obligations at a time when heathenism waa collapsing. See on his position Mommsen PEE i 345-9; Lightf. Ign. iii 407-11; and for a slightly different view, Ramsay DB a.v. Hardy (o.c. infra) considers the appointment was but for one year.
In Gaul the annual festival first instituted by Drusus in b.c. 12 was held at Lyons on the 1st of August, under the lead of ‘ the priest of the three Gauls,’ who does not seem ever to have borne the title of Galatarch. The festival was held at the same time as the Diet of the 64 cantons of the three Gauls, whose powers of local government extended even to the appointment of taxes. In Britain the seat of the diet, such as it was, and the chief altar of Caesar, was probably at Colchester. For Germany, the cantons of which were never unified, as those of Gaul, under one diet, the chief altar of Caesar was at Cologne. The Diet of Achaia met at Argos, and on one oceasion dedicated statues of Trajan and Hadrian at Olympia. The church of Ainay at Lyons is founded on thcsite of the old altar of Augustus. (See Hardy, “ Provincial Concilia from Augustus to Dioeletian,” in Eng. Hist Rev. April, 1S90, for a good summary of what is known on the matter; see also Momm. PRE i 92-8, 117-8, 191 n., 264 n.)
2 See a good note by Westcott CliW 261-2. Better still, Ramsay GBP passim.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
97
that he ordered all official proclamations to begin with formulae recognizing his deity.1 In Asia the temple of Rome and Augustus was first erected in b.c. 29 at Pergamum,2 the official capital of the province, ‘ where the throne of Satan is.’3 The writer of the Apocalypse has handed down to us the name of one brave Christian, Antipas,4 who suffered death there rather than join in the worship of ‘ the Beast.’ With the decay of Pergamum the great city of Smyrna, the home of Polycarp, became the head centre of the new cult.5 Within a few years all the chief places of judicial circuit in Asia had their temples to Caesar, and their festivals in his honour.6 Their proudest boast was the confirmation upon them by the diet of the province of the title of ‘ Keeper of the Imperial Temple.’7 On the death of Tiberius
1 ‘Dominuset deus noster hoc fieri jubet.’ Suet. Dom. 13. Cf. Westeott ChW 255, n. 2 ; Conybeare MEG 105 ; and for similar coins of Aurelian, ‘ domino et deo’ Le Blant SAM 12G. With Aurelian this was a step in the transformation of the Principate into absolutism (Bury’s Gibbon i 382 n.)
2 Tac. Ann. iv 37; and Fnrneaux’s note, ib. i 197.
3 But Pergamum was also the chief seat of the worship of Aesculapius (Momm. FRE i 350 ; Ramsay SG125), and it is possible, though less likely, that the reference is to this.
* Apoc. ii 13, cf. xiii 8, 15; Ramsay SC 294.
s According to Tac. Ann. iv cc. 5G, 15, Smyrna was the first to erect a temple to Rome (b.c. 195). But not until B.C. 23 did it erect a temple to Tiberius. For the ‘theologians,’ ‘choristers’ (hymnodoi), and special privileges of Smyrna as the head centre of Caesar worship, see Lightf. Ign. i 451. Ramsay CBP i G30-1, 61G, points out their existence elsewhere.
6 In view of Apoc. i-iii the list is of interest: Smyrna, Ephesus Pergamum, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and Cyzicus. (Ramsay CBP i 55 ; and on Cyzicus. Mommsen PRE i 348.)
7 veuKupos: see Mommsen PRE i 346 n.; Lightf. Ign. iii 405-6
II
98 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
eleven cities of Asia struggled for the honour of erecting a temple to his memory. From Asia the worship spread to every province of the Empire. There was a temple to Claudius erected at Colchester during his lifetime, the costly ritual of which was one of the causes of Boudicca’s revolt.1 In the West the new religion was little more than a matter of magnificent patriotic ceremonial. But in the East there existed “ a tendency to give reality to this imperial cult by identifying the divine Emperor with the local god, whatever form the latter had.”2
This apotheosis was not limited to the reigning Caesar, but was extended to his family and favourites. Coins still exist testifying to the deification of no less than forty-eight members of the imperial families, including the shameless Faustina.3 The worst case of all was the consecration by Hadrian of his vicious favourite — the word is a euphemism — Antinoiis, after his mysterious death in the Nile. ‘All men,’ says Justin, ‘ were eager through fear to reverence him as a god, though they knew who he was and whence he had sprang.’4 “ His statues rose in
Ramsay SC 232, 259 ; and for the meaning of the Neoeorate, Ramaay CBP i 58-9.
1 Tac. Ann. xiv 31; Moram. FBE\ 192-2.
2 Ramsay SC 123, 231; CBP i 51.
3 Westcott ChW 2G3, 2G6. Poppaea, tho wife of Nero, was worshipped at Akmonia as ‘ Imperial Fertility ’(Ramsay CBP i 637-40, who points out the part in this cult played by the Jews). For the apotheosis of the elder Faustina see plate in Dnrny HR v 168, and of the younger ib. v 208.
4 Justin I Apol. 29. Cf. Athenag. Suppl. 30 ; ‘ Antinoiis, through the benevolencc of your ancestors, came to be regarded as a god.’
CAESAR OR CHRIST
99
every market-place; his soul was supposed to have found a home in a new star in the region of the Milky Way; temples were built in his honour, and the strange cult was maintained for at least one hundred years after any motive could be found for adulation.” The obelisk now on Monte Pincio at Eome was dedicated to his memory; in Egypt a town called Besantinopolis made him their special deity, while at Lanuvium, the burial-club of tho place—whose rules by rare fortune we still possess — combined their other functions with the worship of Antinoiis and Diana.1
The Christians alone 2 stood out against this mark of a theocratic despotism. Whatever the political value of the new cult in the consolidation of the Empire, they would never bow the knee to the emperors, around whose heads, from the days of Nero onwards, were gilded darting rays in token of their divine solar ancestry. No patriotic words as to the
Orig. Cel*. iii 36-8, viii 9; Hegesippus in Euseb. HE iv 8; Orac. Sibyll. viii 57-8 (undoubtedly a Christian Sibyl), Tat ion adv Graec 10, Theopli. ad Autolyc. iii 8, Tert. adv. Marc i 18, all testify to the impression this produced on tho Christians.
1 Dill RSNA 478, 2G0-3, 277. According to Ramsay CBP i 309, the town of Olbasa, in Phrygia, set up a statue to Vergil (dei Maronis). I prefer with Mommsen to take it as the Thracian god Maron; though after Antinoiis all things are possible. Any dead person, even a slave, might, however, have a cult as a Vpas (Ramsay, CBP i 381). This fact taken over into the Christian Church accounts largely for saint-worship. The modern name of Lanuvium is Civitli Lavinia.
2 For the action of the Jews, see infra p. 109, n. According to Suet. Calig. 27, Caius put Romans to death for not swearing by his genius. .
100 PERSECUTION IN TH^ EARLY CHURCH
Genius of the Empire, no sophisms of the elder Pliny that ‘ for a mortal to help mortals is the essence of deity,’ no philosophic subtleties about the divine life of the State and its connexion with an unseen order, could deceive the Christian into forgetting the degradation for God and man alike of this system of apotheosis. He saw clearly the insult to God ; the putting the Genius of the Empire in the place of Divine Providence, the attributing to man prerogatives which belong solely to the Almighty. He realized the inevitable degradation of man from thus fixing the worship of men upon one of themselves, however exalted. He knew that in all ages a mans views of his god are the measures of his ideals for himself and his neighbour. He was aware of all that could be said in its favour; that it was a symbol of unity, the “ keystone of the imperial policy,” 1 an incarnation of the race’s solidarity, the recognition of a divine foundation for order and empire, and the like. Such specious arguments did not move him. For the Christian there was but one Lord and Master, to whom he owned supreme allegiance; this he was prepared to prove by the renunciation of all things, even life itself. For the Christian the unity of the race was symbolized not by a Tiberius or a Marcus Aurelius, but by the incarnation of Jesus Christ; in the Man Christ Jesus alone was the hope of humanity. This apotheosis of Jesus, to look at the matter for the moment from the standpoint of the heathen philosopher, he claimed to be on a different footing to the
1 Ramsay CfiE 324, Mommsen Expos. 1893, viii 2.
CAESAR OR CHRIST
101
apotheosis of Claudius or Vespasian. Putting on one side all question of character, the one was the apotheosis of a supreme renunciation, the other the idolatry of success. And there is nothing so fatal in the long run to all higher instincts and aspirations as the idolatry of success, whether in the form of a second-century emperor or a twentieth-century millionaire.
This imperial cult, because of its universal character and obligations, thus furnished an easy touchstone whereby the Christians could be distinguished ; a matter beyond the power of merely local polytheisms. Moreover, it proved a useful means of summary conviction. The alternative, “ Caesar is Lord” and “ Christ is Lord,” was in itself a judicial process, only needing an altar and its usual emblems to be complete. The Christian who refused this sacrifice1 fell automatically under the charge of majestas, i.e. of mortal insult or treason to the Emperor,2 who represented in his own person the majesty, wisdom, and beneficent power of Rome. Nor was the peril slight. The Asiarcli, Galatarch, and other presidents of the diets, were armed with ample powers for calling in the aid of the secular arm against all who refused to take part in this popular cult.
1 The rule that every Christian should sacrifice was allowed by Trajan (infra p. 210), insisted upon by Marcus Aurelius, and made a formal edict by Decius. Sco Harnack’s note in Conybcarc MEG 30, and cf. infra p. 241.
* Cf. Ulpian in Dig. xlviii 4, 1. But majestas, as Mommson has shown (see infra Appendix E), included dishonour to the national gods. See also supra p. 14 n. 1.
102 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
We can thus see how it came to pass that the annual festivals instituted in every province of the Empire on the Emperor’s name-day were generally the occasions for the breaking out against the Christians of the smouldering fires of hatred and persecution. On these days the magistrates, even if otherwise averse to cruelty, were not anxious, for political reasons, to restrain the people ‘jrom their exhibitions of loyalty. The festival of Caesar supplied all that was needed; vast crowds gathered together from every city of the province ; the presence of the official diets and of judges with power of summary conviction, spurred on too by the sense of personal affront to themselves as the high-priests of the new ritual; beasts of prey already procured for the games —a most important point this, lions and tigers were not always in stock—a frenzied jingoism on the part of the mob, and an endeavour on the part of the Jews to divert attention from themselves and their prejudices to the hated Christian. Of this connexion we have an illustration in the martyrdom of Polycarp, who was burned at Smyrna on Caesar’s festival, February 23, 155, ‘in the consulship of Statius Quadratus, but in the reign of the Eternal King.’1
1 See infra p. 305 n., and Lightf. Jgn. i 714. The great outbreak at Lyons (infra p. 295) furnishes another illustratiou (supra p. 96 n.). So also the case of Thekla at Antioch (see infra p. 140 n.; Gebhardt 224; Conybearo MEC 76, with Conybeare’s note on p. 88). Thekla the Phrygian was especially reserved for the approaching games at Caesarea (Euseb. MP 3). Perpetua and her companions were sacrificed on ‘Geta’s birthday’ (infra p. 314 n. 1). Compare also tho explanation given by Lightf. Jgn. i 514 of the etory of Felicitas, Januarius, &c. (infra p. 320 n. 3).
CAESAR OR CHRIST
103
cIn the reign of the Eternal King’—the phrase occurs again and again in the records of the martyrs. The instinct which led one Christian Church when writing to another to describe itself as * The Church which has its transitory home ’1 at Lyons or elsewhere, reveals itself again in this scorn of the temporal sub specie aeternitatis. Martyrdom might be the inevitable outcome, but after all it was a struggle between the Emperor of a moment and the King of endless ages, who had chosen for Himself the Crown of Thorns and deigned to allow the meanest of His subjects to don the royal insignia.
We must bring this chapter to a conclusion. But the student should realize all that our argument involves. For two hundred years the leaders among the Christians were branded as ‘ anarchists ’ and ‘ atheists,’ and hated accordingly. For two hundred years—we take a broad survey, qualifications and details have been pointed out, or will be dealt with later—to become a Christian meant the great renunciation, the joining a despised and persecuted sect, the swimming against the tide of popular prejudice, the coming under tlio ban of the Empire, tho possibility at any moment of imprisonment and death
1 IlapoiicovvTfs (irapouda, hence ‘pariali’) and not KaTOtKovvTes, Eueeb. EE v (1) 3. Until the discovery of better MSS. of tho Martyrium Polycarpi (Geb. AMS 10), tho phrase fioaitevovros eis robs al&vas, ’irioov Xpiarov was supposed by gome to be a mark of lato date in any Acta.
104 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
under its most fearful forms.1 For two hundred years he that would follow Christ must count the cost, and be prepared to pay the same with his liberty and life. For two hundred years the mere profession of Christianity was itself a crime. Christianus sum was almost the one plea for which there was no forgiveness, in itself all that was necessary as a ‘ title ’ on the back of the condemned.2 He who made it was allowed neither to present apology nor call in the aid of a pleader. ‘ Public hatred,’ writes Tertullian, ‘ asks but one thing, and that not investigation into the crimes charged, but simply the confession of the Christian Name.’
‘ In the case of any other criminal,’ he continues, ‘ it is not enough that he declare himself to be a homicide, sacrilegious, incestuous, an enemy to the State. Before yon give sentence, judges, you enquire vigorously into the circumstances, the nature of the deed, the time, place, and manner of its commission, the witnesses and accomplices. But in the trial of the Christians all this is dispensed with.’3
For the Name itself in periods of stress not a few meant the rack, the blazing shirt of pitch, the lion, the panther, or in the case of maidens an infamy worse than death.
1 Cf. Renan EC 316.
• Case of Attalus at Lyons, Euseb. HE v (1) 44; Gebhardt AMS p. 37: irlvaKOs avrov •npoi.yovras iv § iyeypawTO ‘Pu/j.o.i<tt{ : ovris iirriv ’'ArraXos 6 XpicTiavis. See infra p. 295 n. 3 ; and supra p. 20.
3 Tert. Apol. 2; ad Nat. 2,3 ; Justin II. Apol. 2; I. Apol. 4; Trypho 96; and for the first century I Pet. iv 15, 16. Illustrations abound in the Acts of Martyrs. A famous case is that of Vettius Epagatlius at Lyons. See infra p. 296.
CHAPTER III
If ye were of the world, the world (o kop/aos) would love its own but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world therefore the world hateth you.—John xv 19.
So to the wild wolf Hate were sacrificed
The panting, huddled flock, whose crime was Christ.
William Watson.
Ah, for their faith !
And I would splash the flames about my head Gladly as in a bath for splendid death,
Stephen Phillips.
I bid them look on you,
And see there what was the highest throne on earth—
The throne of sufferiug, where the Son of God Endured and triumphed.
C. Kingsley.
CONTENTS
§ I, p. 107. Judaism and Christianity—Its strength—Effect of the destruction of the Temple—Popular hatred of the Jews—Their numbers and influence — Hatred of Christians — ‘ Fontes perse-cutionum’—Conon—Jewish Christians—Pella—‘The relatives of our Lord ’—Symcon.
§ II, p. 125. Popular superstition and Christianity—Belief in magic —Demons—The Christian attitude—St. Augustine and St. Martin —The Christian exorcists—Christians and magic— Christians and the disasters of nature—Alexander of Abonutichos—The five sculptors of Sirmium.
§ III, p. 138. Christianity and the familia—Anti-social views—Paul and Thekla—Pollio— “Call no raan father” — Dativus and Victoria — Mixed marriages — Patria potestas — Callistus and the marriage with freedmen of noble-born girls.
§ IV, p. 148. Christians and property—Slavery—Slaves as priests— Ebionite conceptions—Maran Atha—Sibylline Oracles—Effect of the preaching of retribution—‘The Crucified repels all gladness.’
§ V, p. 157. Christian sacraments—“ Kiss of peace ”—Charge of cannibalism—The tauroboHum—Apuleius—Christian aggression —Leo of Patara—Bomanus—Theodore the recruit.
§ VI, p. 165. A peculiar people—A peculiar dialect—Early Puritans —The via media — Ep. Diognetus — Christian names — The Christian and business—The Christian and the schools—Cassian— Converted actors—Providing work—The Christian and social life —The Christian and offices in the State—The Christian and the army—Marcellus—Dasius—Mithraism and the army—Militia Chruli—Maximilian of Thcveste—“The Thundering Legion”—
‘ The third race.’
§ VII, p. 191. Dangerous politicians—Alarm of the State—Prayers for Caesar — The great rivals — A summary—The Christian doctrine of renunciation—‘ The slaves of Christ.’
Pp. 105-196.
I
Hitherto in our study of Persecution we have dealt with the relations of the Church and the Empire in their broadest outlines. We have seen that persecution was no accident, but the necessary resultant of certain main principles in Christianity itself, which brought the new faith into conflict with the outer world. We have also noted that the state of conflict was continuous, though persecution itself was intermittent. The fires of popular hatred were ever smouldering, liable at any moment to break out into sudden flame. A modern illustration will make our meaning clearer. The Jews in Russia are not always the victims of persecution, whether by the mob or tho police. Periods, long or short, may elapse of comparative security, in which they suffer little save the curses and scowls of their neighbours. But ever and anon the fires blaze. So with tho early Christians. They lived under the shadow of a great hate. We purpose in the present chapter to examine the reasons for this hate. We shall first point out two permanent causes of persecution apart from all political or social questions. The one was the ill-will of the Jews, the other the superstition of the heathen. We shall then inquire into the factors in the life or thought of the
108 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Church itself which brought upon it the suspicion and hatred of the world.
One caution at the outset may not be needless. For the economy of space, and that we may better grasp the broad outlines of our subject, we are driven to neglect, to some extent, the notes of time. But the student should not forget that persecution stretched over a period of two hundred and fifty years, and that during this period there were many changes not only in the Empire and other outer factors, but in the life of the Church. Nevertheless from the standpoint of the twentieth century the period forms a unity in itself, in which for our immediate purpose we may neglect without great loss the details of internal change and development.
Judaism,1 in spite of its aggressive monotheism, had been recognized as a religio licita by the astute founder of the Empire, Julius Caesar, and endowed by himself and his successors with many privileges.2 Tiberius3 and Claudius, it is true, made efforts to check the growth of the Jews in Rome itself. But the attempt came too late,4 and ended in renewed
1 For the Roman treatment of Judaism the student should consult Mommsen PRE ii 160-231; Schurer JPC ii (2) ; or (concise) Hardy o.c. c. 2. Gill Notice of the Jews by Classic Writers (2nd ed., 1872) will be found of service. The chief sources are indicated in the notes.
2 See the lists in Joseph. Ant. xiv 10, xvi 6.
3 Tac. Ann. ii So ; Suet. Tib. 36; Joseph. Ant. xviii 3, 5.
4 Whether the expulsion of the Jews from Rome (Acts xviii 2) was ever carried out is uncertain. According to Dio. Cass, lx 6, only their assemblies were prohibited, the expulsion proving impossible. The date is uucertain, about 50. See Schurer JPC ii (2) 236-7; DB s.v. Claudius; DB v 98; Haruack EC i 6, n.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
109
and enlarged liberties. Not tlie least were the rights of civil jurisdiction over their own, especially in the East, constituting the Jews, as in the Middle Ages, a state within the State.1 With some reason the Jews claimed to be ‘the second race’ in the Empire.2 They alone, in spite of the outcries of literary swashbucklers and more sober historians,3 were exempt from offering sacrifices to the fortunes of Caesar and Rome,4 nor were they, as the conquered tribes, under the obligation of military service.5 To these franchises the destruction of Jerusalem made no difference; if anything, the loss of a local centre of intense nationalism and possible danger made concession the more easy.
The reader should beware lest he allow the fall of Jerusalem (Sept., 70) to lead him astray. Long before the Christian era the great centres of the Jewish race lay outside Palestine ; Alexandria was of more importance than Jerusalem. Judaism in
1 Cf. their constitution at Alexandria described from Strabo in Joseph. Ant. xiv (7) 2. See also Schiirer DB v 10*3 b. Origen ad Afric. 14 (for the power of the patriarch in third century).
2 See infra p. 190.
3 Tac. Hist. v 5,1 non regibus liaec adulatio, non Caesaribus honor.’
4 Schiirer JPC ii (2) 265-G; Joseph. Ant. xix (5) 2-3. The attempt of Caius (a.d. 39) to enforce it was never repeated (Joseph. Ant. xviii 8; BJ ii 10; Mommsen PEE ii 191-5). Relations were often amicable between the two faiths. At Akmonia the high priestess of Augustus built the Jews a synagogue, perhaps was a Jewess herself (Ramsay GBP i G37-40, G49-50, sco supra p. 98 n.). At Alexandria they put ‘inscriptions in honour of the emperors’in their synagogues (Philo in Flaccum 7, ad Gaium 20).
5 Schiirer JPC ii (2) 2G4. See Joseph. Ant. xiv (10) 11-13,1G, 19, 25, for examples.
110 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
fact, under pressure from without, had slowly moulded itself into a non-sacrificial, non-sacerdotal religion, the bonds of which with the centre of the faith were rather sentimental than real. The synagogue and its ministry had become of more importance than the priest. The destruction of Jerusalem was the overthrow of a local sacrificial system, not the impairing of the real influence or spiritual vitality of Judaism.1 The power of the Dispersion, great before, was even increased by the abandonment of a centre whose intense and scornful conservatism had grown out of touch with the more progressive emigrant communities. We might even claim, without exaggeration, that the chief effect of the destruction of the Temple was the destruction not of Judaism, but of Jewish Christianity, the faith, that is, of St. James and the Church at Pella. Its influence on Judaism at large was not great: the substitution of a patriarch at Tiberias for the high-priest, of the schools of the rabbis for the struggling cliques at Jerusalem. Politically its effects were still less. In spite of growing hatred on the one side, and growing exclusiveness 2 on the other, the Jewish religion continued to be privileged by the State, the Jews paying to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus the two drachmae a head which they had hitherto paid to Jerusalem.3
1 Mommsen FEE ii 216-20, followed by Hardy ox. 31, considers that the Jews now ceased to be a privileged nation, and became only a ‘religio licita.’ Against this see Schiirer DB v 102 (6), n.; and especially Harnack EC i 346-9.
2 On this see Momm. PRE ii 207, 230-1.
3 Joseph. BJ vii (G) 6; Suet. Dom. 12; Orig. ad Afric. 14; Dio.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
111
The Jews were too invaluable for the finances of an Empire, impoverished by the excesses of Nero, to allow the Flavians and Antonines to yield to the outcries of the mob, or the scorn of their Juvenals.
The hatred felt for the Jews by the people at large, and the protection afforded them by the rulers for reasons of self-interest, form two of the most permanent features of history, as true in the first century as in the England of Henry II. Tales innumerable were told against thom, full of poison and malice, but eagerly believed by all classes of society. They had been expelled from Egypt because of their leprosy. In their Holy of Holies was found an ass’s head, a memorial, says Tacitus, of the salvation wrought for them, when dying of thirst in the wilderness, by a herd of wild asses who led them to the springs. Plutarch, however, rejects this idea; he is convinced that the Jews abstained from swine’s flesh, because the pig was their god. After this we need not wonder that Juvenal sneers at the land where hogs never die except as the result of ripe old age; for swine’s flesh is more precious there than human beings.1 But what can you expect, men argued, from
Cass, lxvi 7. Tho more offensive features of the tax were relaxed by Nervft (Sehuror JPG ii (2) 2G7, n. Seo also Moiniuson PllE ii 217 ; Liglitf. Tgn. i 11, n.; Henderson Nero 348 ff.). Tho heathen Caeeilius (Minuc. Felix Oct. 8) speaks of tho Jews as ‘ in bondage to the deities of Rome.’ Tho drawing away of money to Jerusalem to pay the old Templo tax had always been a grievance with tho Gentiles (Schiirer JPG ii (2) 2G1). Cf. Cicero Pro Flacco 28; Joseph. Antiq. xvi (G) 4-7.
1 See Tae. Hist, v 2-5 ; Joseph. Ap. ii 7 ; Plutarch Symp. iv 5 ; Juvenal Sat. vi 160, xiv. 96-106 (with the parallel passages in tho
112 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
a people wlio spend every seventh day in idleness, who despise Eoman law and customs, who teach that they are never to point out the way except to those of their own faith, nor show the thirsty where to find a well, unless he is circumcised. At Alexandria, two of whose five districts were in the possession of the Jews, it was believed that they annually offered a Greek in sacrifice.1 Had it not been for the protection of the Eoman officials, the Jews would have fared badly at the hands of the people. The police, it is true, generally came to their rescue, from motives of policy. But the real feeling of the Eomans was one of utter contempt. ‘ 0 Marcomanni, 0 Quadi, 0 Sarmatians,’ cried Marcus Aurelius, on the completion of his journey through Palestine, ' at last I have found a race more lazy than you.’2 Every now and then, in spite of the police, the mob got the upper hand, slaughtered the Jews and burnt their houses.3 Of this hatred, at any rate in the earliest days, the Christians were the lineal heirs. But in their case the Eoman protection was withdrawn.
edition of Pearson and Strong); Schiirer JPC ii (2) 293-7. Tert. Apol. 16, ad Nut. i 11, points out that the tale of Tacitus was the origin of the similar idea of the Christian’s worship of a crucified ass. For a copy of the well-known graffito of ‘ Alexamenos worships his god ’ (a crucified ass) see Duruy HR vi 211 and cf. Orig. Cels. vi. 30.
1 Joseph. Ap. ii 8.
2 Amm. Marcell, xxii 5. For Roman contempt of the Jews, see Harnack EC i 337, n.
3 Cf. the massacre at Caesarea (Aug. 6, 66), Jos. BJ ii 18; the slaughter of ten to eighteen thousand Jews at Damascus, ib. BJ ii (20) 2; vii (8) 7. A case like that of Sardis guaranteeing the privilege of the Jews by popular resolution, is rare; Joseph. Ant. xiv (10) 24.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
113
Even more important was the hatred of the Jews for the Christians. As the synagogues, in the phrase of Tertullian,1 were ‘ the sources of persecution,’ it is important that wo should realize the extent of the Jewish Dispersion.2 There were Jews in nearly every province of the Empire; but their numbers were greatest in Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor. In Egypt, according to Philo, they totalled a million, or about one-seventh of the whole, figures presumably taken from the registers of taxation kept in that country.3 In Alexandria, where they governed themselves by means of a council (gerusia) and archons,4 they occupied at one time two out of the five quarters of a city of half a million inhabitants. In Syria, especially Antioch and Asia Minor, their numbers, though not the percentage, were even greater. ‘ The Jews,’ said Philo, ‘ abound in every city of Asia and Syria.’ Such was their influence at Apamea that at the beginning of the third century coins were struck by the city authorities with a figure and legend of Noah and his wife descending from the ark.5 In Rome, whence Tiberius6 transported four thousand able-bodied males
1 Infra p. 119, n.
2 For tho Disporsion (Diaspora) and its extent see Schurer JPC ii (2) 220-42, or his article in DB v 91 ff. Ilamsay Expos. Jan. 1902, CBP e. 15; Ilaruaek EC i c. 1; Mommsen PRE ii 1G2 ff. Tho sourccs, chiefly Philo (Lcgatioad Gaium and in Flaccum, cd. Mangey), Josephus, and inscriptions, are given in Schurer DB.
3 Mommsen PRE ii 258 ; Ilurnaclc EC i 8, n.
4 Schiiror in DB v 99, 100&. (Cf. Tert. de Cor. 9.) They lost ono of their wards in tho time of Claudius (Momm. PRE ii 200, n.).
4 Ramsay CBP i 670.
B Harnack EO i 5, n., for a discussion of this matter.
I
114 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
to Sardinia (a.d. 19), they would number in tlie days of Claudius between ten and fifteen thousand in a city of a million. Here they were not organized into one great corporation as at Alexandria, but into a number of small private societies.1 Altogether the Jews formed seven per cent, of the total population of the Empire, or at the least computation between four and five millions in all. Not without justice could Seneca complain:
‘ The customs of this notorious people have already come into such vogue that they have been introduced into every land; the conquered have given laws to the conquerors.’2
Mere numbers formed the least part of their influence. In some respects, though without a country, capital, or centre of worship,3 the Jews were the most homogeneous race in the Empire; if the most scattered, yet the most united; in the real elements of culture, second only to the Greeks; in wealth, then as now, the bankers of the world; strongest of all because of the rigid exclusiveness of their religion,4 a weapon more potent to guard their race than fortified frontiers. Nor must we underrate their social influence. In spite of the popular hatred, Judaism, owing to the decay of the old heathen faiths and the fascination of the Eastern cults, had attracted to itself proselytes and semi-proselytes in
1 Schiirer DB v 100.
2 Seneca de Superslit, in Augustine Civ. Dei. vi 11. For the population of the Empire see infra Appendix F (I).
3 Tert. Apol. 21 exaggerates this and its importance.
* See the passages from the Mishna in Milman HJ ii 460-1.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
115
every land. These were not the less influential because both in motives and character they were curiously mixed, the eunuch of the Candace dynasty of Ethiopia side by side with the Empress Poppaea.1 In Rome Judaism became at one time a fashionable form of dilettanteism,2 circumcision included, until this last was stopped by the edicts of Hadrian and Septimius Severus.3 Nor was their power the less because it was massed in crowded ghettoes. Then, as now, the Jews refused to settle in the country. But Christianity also, whether because it originally grew up under the shadow of the synagogue, from its Hellenic affinities, its lack of native missionaries, or other causes, was also at this period a town religion, which as yet had made little impression on the rural districts. Jews and Christians faced each other in the same cities, severed by a hatred that daily grew more intense. Not the least element in the persecution of the Christians would be the serious economic consequences which the Jews were able to inflict, especially upon those of their number who joined the Church.
The hatred, in the second century and afterwards, was not on the side of the Jew only. An intense hostility to everything Jewish is one of the marks of
1 Supra p. 57 n. 3. For tho influence of Jews at the Roman court, see Schurer JPG ii (2) 239, n.
2 Cf. Horace Sat. ix; Schurer JPG ii (2) 301-11. The fashion ceased after Hadrian’s cdicts.
3 Spartian Ilad. 14; Sept. Sev. 17; Taulus Sent, v 22, 3, 4. The penalty for circumcising a non-Jew was death (Orig. Cels, ii 13, ambiguous), or castration (Modcstinus in Dig. xlviii 8, 11).
116 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
early Christian literature, most strongly emphasized perhaps in orthodox writings, in the Epistle of Barnabas.1 In this work, possibly a picture of the intense antagonisms at Alexandria, the writer claims that all Jewish ceremonies are of the devil. Confronted with the difficulty in this case what to make of the Old Testament, he and his school boldly twisted it into a merely allegorical or spiritual narrative, which the Jews had misunderstood from
1 The date of the Ep. Barnabas is very doubtful. The question turns on the reckoning of the two emperors, &c., in ib. iv 4. Lightfoot dates under the Flavians (Clem. i 5); probably Vespasian (ib. ii 509). So also with certain modifications, Ramsay ChE 308-9; Milligan in DCB; Bartlet Apostolic Age 521, &c. But if so, it is difficult to harmonize its tendency with the tendency in the Ep. Eebreics (also Alexandrian), unless indeed they were expressions of two schools in Christianity already contradictory, and existing iu the same town. Bartlet o.c. 378, gets over this by taking Barnabas to be “Syrian Christianity.” Harnack CAL i 411 dates as just before Bar-kokheba (c. 130).
The student of the mutual hatred of Jew and Christian in the second century, a subject of great importance in our theme, will find material in the following references:—Ep. Barn, ix 4,iv 6 f.,xiv 1 f.: Ep. Diognetus 1, 3, 4 (‘ the common silliness and error of the Jews, and their excessive fussiness and pride’); Justin Martyr Dial. c. Trypho 16, 17, 25, 30, 46; I. Apol. 47; Kerugma Petri (in Clem. Strom, vi 5); Pseudo-Clement Romanus Ancient Eomily 2, ‘ those who seemed to have God ’; St. John Gospel; use of ’lovBaioi, ‘ the Jews,’ passim (end of first century). See also the note on “ Pilate,” supra, p. 20, and other references in the notes of this chapter, espec. p. 119, n. For a second-century Western orthodox document, Aristides Apol. 14 (ed. Harris TS (i) 13. For date see Appendix G), in its friendliness to Jews is an exception. The first century (possibly Syrian) “ Two Ways” (the older part of the Didache), shows many affinities with Ep. James; so also Hermas Shepherd in a still more exaggerated fashion (Lightf. Clem, i 9; Gal. 339-10). From these two writings we may expect sympathy with the Jews. So also from the Test. xii. Patriarchs iii/ra p. 122 n. 3).
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
117
the first. Others went further and maintained that the Old Testament from cover to cover had nothing to do with the Jews, who were but a synagogue of Satan. The heresy of Marcion, with its repudiation of the Old Testament along with Judaism, was but the logical expression of a widespread belief, of a hatred almost without parallel in history. From this heresy the Church was saved, not so much by the logic of its leaders—for the theology into which they were driven, to the twentieth century must seem more than questionable—as by its sense of historic spiritual continuity, that * rock ’ upon which so much that is more valuable than logic is founded.1 Men realized that it was better to attempt, with St. Paul, to throw a bridge between the two, than, with Marcion of Pontus, to leave Christianity without historic (i.e. Jewish) foundations and supports. Even Tertullian, much as he detested Judaism, dreaded even more * the Pontic mouse who nibbled away the Gospels.’2 The hatred of Jew and Christian was the more bitter inasmuch as it thus partook of the nature of a
1 ‘ The gates of death (Hades) shall not prevail against it ’ (Matt, xvi 18).
2 In Marcion i 1. Marcion was not alone. What, for instance, could more strike at much of St. Paul’s theology of the Atonement than the following extract from the Ep. Diognetus (on which see infra p. 168 n.)?—‘The Jews ... so far as they offer God this worship in methods similar to those already mentioned, are altogether at fault. . . . Those who think to perform sacrifices to God with blood and fat and whole burnt-offerings, and to honour Him with such honours, seem to me in nowise different from those who show the same respect towards deaf images; for the one class think fit to make offerings to things unable to participate in the honour, the other class to One who is in need of nothing’ (Ep. Diog. e. 3).
118 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
family quarrel. As such it seems at first to have been regarded by the Romans, with a consequent indifference on their part to the real meaning of Christianity. This official indifference, of which we have many illustrations in the Acts,x only stirred up the Jews the more vehemently to make the distinction between themselves and the Christians clear to their rulers. We have seen how the great fire of 64 gave them their opportunity.They succeeded once for all in convincing the police, who, according to a possible interpretation of a passage in Suetonius,2 had hitherto been in doubt on the subject, that the Christians were not members of the synagogues, and therefore not entitled to the political and religious franchises which enrolled members of the synagogues received. This distinction secured, the Jews lost no occasion of arousing against the Christians the political dread of the bureaucracy. The fall of Jerusalem and the later troubles of Judaism only added fresh fuel to the Jewish hatred. Said Justin Martyr, ‘ The Jews treat us as open enemies, putting us to death and torturing us, just as you heathens do, whenever they can.’3 Justin was speaking of the cruelty of the Jews to the Christians during ‘ their late war under Barcocliba.’ As a rule they were driven to more secret methods, the stirring up of the heathen mob, the scattering broadcast of horrible charges as to the Christians
1 xxi 31, xviii 14-15, xxv 19.
1 Suet. Claud. 25. But see infra Appendix D (a).
3 I Apol. 31. Cf. Ep. Diognetus 5, ‘ war is waged against them as aliens by the Jews.’ Cf. Graetz Hist. Jews ii 415.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
119
and their Saviour. In all persecutions, at any rate in Asia, we may detect the Jew in the background. We have illustrations of this in the cases of Polycarp and Pionius.1 To the Jew also the Roman governor was generally indobted for the distorted impression he formed of the religion of the prisoner before him. Said the prefect Epolius to Conon, an old gardener upon an imperial estate in Pamphylia, of whom we shall hear again :
‘ Why are you such a fool as to call a man God, and that, too, one •who died a violent death ? For so have I learnt accurately from the Jews, both as to his race and his manifestations to their nation, and Iris death by crucifixion. They brought his memoirs, and read them out to me. Leave off this folly, and enjoy life along with us.’2
1 Infra pp. 297,309. Cf. Acts xvii 7, xviii. Tert. Scorp. 10, ‘ Syna-gogas Judaeorum fontes persecutionum.’ According to Christian writers, the Jews were the authors of the tales that the Christians sacrificed children, &c. (infra p. 159). So Justin Dial. c. Tryph. 10, 16, 17,108, 117. Cf. Tert. ad. Nat. i 14, ad. Marc, iii 23, adv. Jud. 13. This is even more emphatically asserted in Orig. Cels, vi 27. The Jews, as we know from the Mishna, originated the scaudals concerning the birth of Jesus (Renan; Evang. 189-90, EG 263-4). See also case of Leo of Patara infra p. 162 n.
Of the connexion of Jews and persecution we have a curious story in Hippolytus (Philos. ix 12). He states that Callistus, before he was Popo (218-22), in order to secure martyrdom (or, as Hippolytus puts it, to avoid his creditors), took up his station one Sabbath before a synagogue in Rome and derided the Jews. For this he was banished to Sardinia. Wo may hope that in this, as in other things, Callistus was an exception, if not misrepresented.
2 Mart. Cononis in Gebhardt AMS 130; time of Decius. A most interesting and genuine narrative, not in Ruinart AM. The genuine Acts were “improved” by a later age to suit their taste. Conon shuts up devils in casks, &c. Harnack CAL ii 4G9, while recognizing a genuine kernel, is inclined to attribute dependence on the Acts of Pionius (see infru p. 297 n.). He detects falsity in the reference to
120 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
As Eusebius informs us :
‘ Their apostles, conveying formal letters . . . (for the Jews give the name of “ apostle ” to those who convey encyclical epistles from their rulers) swarmed everywhere on earth, calumniating the gospel of our Saviour ’1—
spreading abroad also infamous tales about the Christians, destined in later ages to return in awful retribution on their own head.2
The hatred of the Jews was especially felt by the Jewish Christians. This Church, the original Church of Christendom, to which at one time all the apostles belonged with the exception of St. Paul, split up even during the lifetime of St. James into two sections. The one section, led by St. Peter and St. John, recognized the logic of accomplished facts, and remembered the words of Jesus concerning the guidance of the Spirit. After a period of hesitation, which filled St. Paul with indignation, St. Peter, as we see from his Ejristle, and as his death at Pome conclusively proves, ceased to be a “ Jewish Christian,” and became one with the Gentile Church. But the party, known later as Nazarenes, survived his defection. The other section, at a later date called the Ebionites, refused to own the Gentile Church as the true Church, and after doing all they could in his lifetime to thwart
the ‘ memoirs,’ i.e. as he interprets it the Acta Pilati, which were not brought out until later (supra p. 21 n.). But the reference is not necessarily so definite.
1 Euseb. on Isaiah xviii 1, quoted in Schiirer JPC ii (2) 269, n.; or Harnack EC ii 67, n. St. Paul was thus an “apostle” of the Sanhedrim before he became an ‘ apostle of Jesus Christ.’ See supra p. 33 n.
2 See Jewish Encyc.Jii s.v. “ Blood Accusation.”
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
121
St. Paul, tried to discredit his memory after death.1 With a fidelity worthy of a better cause, both sections clung to their Judaism, even after the destruction of the Temple had destroyed their basis of existence. So they fell between two fires. On the one hand they were despised by the Church. Jerome, who knew them well, contemptuously but accurately describes them as * semi-Jews ’ and * semi-Christians.’ As such the Church in time put them on her roll of heretics; an astonishing but deserved result for a Church, undoubtedly primitive and apostolic, but which refused to recognize the laws of growth and development; in other words, could not discern the mission of the Holy Ghost. On the other hand they were pursued with especial hatred;
‘ not merely at the hands of Jewish children, but, rising at dawn, at noon, at eventide, when they perform their orisons in the synagogues, the Jews cnrse them and anathematize them, sayiDg, “ God, curse the Nazarenes.” . . . They are Jews more than anything else, and yet they are detested by the Jews.’2
So this band of irreconcileables lingered on, first at Pella, then afterwards amid the ruins of Jerusalem,3 until driven away from the new city of Aelia Capitolina, founded by Hadrian on the site of the Holy City. It would not tend to peace between the two branches of Christendom that while no Jew
1 See on this Hort. Clement hie Recognitions (1901), pp. 114-132; Lightf. Gal. 327-30.
2 Epiphanius Haer. xxix 9.
3 Ibid. xxix 7; Euseb. UE iii 32, 35, iv 5 (this last, 13 bishops in about as many years, contains some error). Very few returned from Pella.
122 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
was allowed to approach the city under pain of death,1 a prohibition which Jewish Christians, we imagine, would apply to themselves,2 other Christians, Gentiles in origin, made the new Jerusalem the seat of a bishopric under the Gentile Marcus. As with other similar movements that mark arrested development, these Jewish Christians but slowly decayed.3 They still survive, it would seem, in Mesopotamia, in a hopelessly corrupt condition.4 Their history, for the most part a blank, is that of a rudimentary organ in the Church, a perpetual warning of the atrophy which attends unreasoning observience to the dead hand. Their record—throughout their early existence under the control of ‘the relatives of our Lord’5 —shows the value of the decision of St. Paul, that henceforth he would not know Christ after the flesh (II Cor. v 16).
1 Justin I Apol. 47 ; Tert. in Jud. 13 ; Aristionof Pella in Euseb. HE iv G. The image of a pig was placed over the Bethlehem gate.
2 Milinan HJ ii 438 is ambiguous. If the Jewish Christians had entered Aelia they woidd have ceased to be Jews. The list of bishops (Euseb. HE iv G, v 12) shows henceforth nothing but Graeco-Roman names. On this list see Harnaek GAL i 220 ff. Zahn FGK vi 282.
3 According to Epiphanius, I.e., their strongholds were Pella in Terea, Ivochaba in Basanitis, and iu Beroea. On these places see Harnaek EC ii 253, n. But the Ebionites were more widely scattered. The Church of Pella produced one author, Aristion (Euseb. HE iv G, Harnaek CAL i 208, Drummond FG198 ff). Another Jewish Christian was Hegesippus, on whom see Lightf. Gal. 332-4, or better, Hort.Jud. Christianity 164-74. Their most characteristic document (second century) is the Ted. of xii. Patriarchs (ed. Sinker, Camb. 1869), on which see Renan EC 2G8-70; Lightf. Gal. 319-21.
4 Encijc. Brit. s.v. Mandaeans.
5 Sea"ir6(rvvoi; a curious title.
THE CAUSES OP HATRED
123
But whatever their record theologically, the ‘ relatives ’ of Jesus did not shrink from suffering for their faith. The death of St. James, their leader, was for them the beginning of persecution. Eusebius tells us that ‘after the martyrdom of St. James ’ the disciples at Jerusalem, led by ‘ those related to our Lord,’ elected ‘ His paternal uncle’s son, Symeon the son of Clopas,1 the cousin-german of Jesus,’ to be the second bishop. A few years later Vespasian ‘ commanded all of the family of David to be sought after, that no one might be left among the Jews of the royal stock.’2 Symeon and his brethren survived this persecution, evidently political rather than religious in character. We may find the reason in a story, told at a later date, of two grandsons of St. Jude, the brother of Jesus. Domitian, for reasons similar to those of his father Vespasian, had renewed the persecution of * the descendants of David.’ Whereupon * some of the heretics accused the grandsons of Jude.’ When brought before the emperor,
‘ Domitian demanded whether they were of the stock of David ? Tliis being confessed, lie asked again: What possession and what aubstaneo they had. They answered that they had no more between them but nine and thirty acres of land, and that they sustained their families by their own labour; showing forth their hands to the emperor, being hard and rough, and worn with labours, to witness that the words they had spoken were true. . . . So Domitian, despising them as vile persons, let them go.’3
1 On the identification of Clopas and Alphaeus and the relation to
Jesus, see Lightf. Oal. 260-7.
3 Euseb. HE iii 11, 12. Euseb. is probably quoting from Julius Afrieanns, who was a native of Ernmaus. See De Boor in TU iv (’2) 169 and Harnack CAL ii 89 flf.
3 Euseb. HE iii 20, from Ilegesippus. I see no reason to suppose
124 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
After this release * they ruled the Church as witnesses (fiaprvpsg) and as relatives of the Lord.’ But at a later date Symeon, if we may trust Hegesippus,1 was crucified as a Christian ‘ after he had been tortured for several days.’
The last relative of Jesus of whom we have knowledge died as a martyr, probably under Decius, on the accusation, as it would appear, of the Jews. Conon, the gardener of Magydus, on being asked by the governor Epolius the usual preliminary questions, declared:
“ I came from the town of Nazareth in Galilee, and am a kinsman of Christ.” “ If you know Christ,” replied the tyrant,“know our gods also. Be persuaded by me and, by all the gods, you shall gain great honours. I don’t say ‘ Sacrifice,’ or anything of that sort. It will be enough to take a pinch of incense, a drop of wine and an olive branch, and say : ‘ Most sovereign Zeus, save this multitude! ’ ”2
But Conon was true to his royal lineage, one only of many hundreds of Christians throughout the Empire who suffered death by reason of the hatred of the Jews.
with Allard I HP 129 that in consequence of this incident Domitian ceased his persecution of the Church. Considering its source, the story itself is not above suspicion.
1 Euseb. HE iii 32. The statement of Hegesippus ‘ that he suffered as a martyr when he was an hundred and twenty years old, in the reign of Trajan,’ is absurd. (N.B. ‘ torture for several days.’) But I should not doubt his martyrdom under Trajan, probably a.d. 104, as Hegesippus (who states that his death took place in the Syrian proconsulship of Atticus, ?.e. Sextiu3 Attius; see Harnack CAL i 129) would on this be correct.
2 Gebhardt AMS 130-1. See supra p. 119 n.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
125
II
Not less universal as a factor in the persecution of the Christians was the superstition of the heathen. This affected the Church in two ways; the one familiar to us from frequent references in the apologists ; the other closely connected with the first, the widespread belief in the practice by the Christians of the magic arts. But upon this second the Christian apologists do not dwell.
For their old religion, in the higher sense of the word, the Romans in the second century had little concern. They sought the satisfaction of their spiritual longings in devotion to some exotic cult, or in the pursuit of the Stoic and Platonic philosophies. But the governing classes still attached importance to religion as a branch of the civil service primarily concerned with the safety of the State. “Its observance was the duty of every citizen, and was even a more necessary part of patriotism than service in the army, because the sin of a single recusant might call down the anger of the neglected gods on the whole state.”1 This last in fact was the very thing that in the judgement of popular superstition occurred. Flood, earthquake, and pestilence were all of them traced to the offended gods, who had thus visited upon the people the neglect and sacrilege of the Christians. ‘ If,’ writes Tertullian,
‘the Tiber floods tho City, or tho Nile refuses to rise, or tho sky
1 Hardy o.c. 4.
126 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
withholds its rain, if there is an earthquake, famine, or pestilence, at once the cry is raised : Christians to the lions.’1
In North Africa the practice passed into a proverb :
‘ If there is no rain, lay the blame on the Christians.’2
The superstition of the heathen further charged the Christians with the practice of magic arts. In this matter it is important that we should be fair. The blame must not be thrown altogether upon the heathen. Throughout the Empire the Jews were known as exorcists.3 The belief in the magic of Solomon is no invention of the Arabian Nights; we find it well established in the days of Josephus.4 The Christians probably believed in magic every whit as heartily as the heathen ; nor would they have been backward in claiming for their leaders the possession of supernatural powers. The diffidence in this matter of a Church familiarized with the arguments of Hume or Huxley never dawned upon them. In the study of history we must beware above
1 Tert. Apol. 40, ad Nat. 9. See also Arnob. ad Gent, i 1, 2,13-16, vii 38; Cyprian ad Demetr. 2 and passim (Benson Cyprian 249 ff.); Euseb. EE iv 13; Clementine Horn, vii 9. (That these last two are not historical does not lessen their evidence in this connexion.) The persecutor Maximin enlarges on this (Euseb. EE ix 7). Apologists tried to meet the argument by pointing to the prosperity of the Empire since the rise of Christianity, and that it was the bad emperors, Nero, &c., who persecuted Christianity (Melito in Euseb. EE iv 26. See also infra p. 20S). Also a greater than Melito, Augustine, whose City of God is designed to show that the sack of Rome (410) was not due to the anger of the abandoned gods.
2 Augustine Civ. Dei ii 3. See also infra pp. 134, 136, 268 u.
3 Acts xix 13.
4 Ant. viii 2, 5, where Eleazer draws a devil through a demoniac’s nose, in the presence of Vespasian, by meaus of Solomon’s ling.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
127
all of mental anachronism. To approach the subject of the charge of magic with modern prepossessions is fatal.1 In fact, the charge against the Christians of using the black arts was to some extent the result of their own claims. These claims we may explain as we will. For the historian explanation or lack of explanation is immaterial. For him a belief, however erroneous, if widely held, is a factor in human life and progress which he dare not ignore.
In the second and third centuries superstition was, if anything, a growing force. The old Latin farmer was superstitious enough, but his superstitions were rather nature-dreads, fears, such as ever haunt the illiterate, of the vast forces of the world around him. These he tried to propitiate in diverse ways. But the later Roman, for whom an age of conquest and travel had robbed the solitude of forest and sea of much of their awe, had fled to religions, whose mysticism, such as it was, was largely founded upon spiritual horror. From the Emperor on the throne to the meanest slave, men trembled at the awful powers of the unknown, and trembled the more because of their loss of religious faith.2 They peopled the heaven
1 The student should read Harnack EC i 152-80, Dill IlSNA iv c. 1, article “ Dcmonology ” in DCB. To obtain an idea of what was held even by cultivated pagans he should read, not a clear-licaded sccptic like Luciau, or the credulous Apuleius, but, say, Maerobius Saturnaliorum bk. vii (cd. Janus, 1818; No English translation, but one iu French, ed. Nisard, 1850), whieli gives us what passed for science, e.g. c 14, why objccts are bigger under water. Other important references are given in the notes. 1 should add that the explanation of miracles, real or imaginary, forms no part of my plan.
2 See s.v. ‘ magi’ in the index to Apuleius, cd. Hildebrand (1812)^ for examples ; Plutarch de De/ectu Oracular um 14.
128 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
and earth with a host of demons—daemons the philosophers vainly called them—and believed with all their hearts in the alliance of magicians and sorcerers with the hordes of the black one. Dreams and omens haunted high and low alike. We see this in the popular treatise on their interpretation published at the close of the second century by Artemidorus, a work full of the wildest and most superstitious hallucinations. The curious student who turns over its pages will find “besotted credulity disguising itself under the forms of scientific inquiry.”1 Spiritualism, with all its paraphernalia of table-rapping, writing by invisible hands, clairvoyance, and the like, became the fashion, and succeeded in seducing Julian the Apostate from Christianity.2 Sludge the Medium has his prototj^pe in Alexander of Abonutichos, or the earlier Simon Magus.3 For the more devout there were the mysteries of Isis and Mithra, with their beliefs in the tyranny of the stars over human lives. From his youth Tiberius was the slave of astrologists. Domitian lived in perpetual fear of the fulfilment of Chaldean prophecies, while
1 For the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus (f 160) a sufficient account will be found in Dill RSNA 467-71. The only English translation in the British Museum is by R. Wood (abbreviated). In 1740 it reachcd a 24th edition, a fact which is in itself a light-giving comment on the England of the early Wesleys.
2 Allard Julien L’Apostat (1903) ii 217-9, i 310-11.
3 For the historical character of Simon Magus, see Hort. JO 120-7, DB, or Salmon in DGB. The Clementine literature that centres round him witnesses, to the belief of the (heretical) Early Church in tho reality of magic. For Alexander see infra p. 135.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
129
Marcus Aurelius surrounded himself with Egyptian magicians.
In their belief in demons and other supernatural agencies the Christians were not before their age, save in their grasp of the supremacy of one benign Father of good. Behind every idol statue, however beautiful, they discerned the grinning face of a fiend. The devil and his angels were terrible realities, whose evil machinations were only thwarted by the ceaseless vigilance of the attendant spirits of good. As in the romance of Enoch, archangels and demons struggled for the soul and body, nor was the struggle one-sided. For the demons * fill the atmosphere which extends between earth and heaven.’1 Owing to their speed they are almost omniscient, and thus * attain credit for causing that which they announce.’ For the Christian the miraculous was so common that it ceased to be miraculous. For him, as for the pagan, it formed part of the ordinary machinery of the universe. Illustrations of this belief are almost co-extensive with the literature of the early and mediaeval Church. Two examples must suffice, by no means either extraordinary or peculiar. St. Augustine, whom no one can accuse of either insincerity or stupidity,
1 Cassian Conf. viii 12 (ed. Petsehenig. CSEL). Cf. Tert. Apol. 22, ‘ Every spirit is winged . . . they are everywhere in a moment.’ For the ideas of devils current in Christian circles in the fourth century tho student should see Cassian Conf. vii 9-25, 27, viii 8 ; Augustine Civ. Dei viii 14, 23 IF.; Ame'lineau De Wstoria Launhca pp. 111-21. For the third century see Laetantius Instit. Div. ii 15, 17; Tatian Oral, ad Graecos viii-xviii. Origen (references in DCB iv 135). The ideas current among heretics were more extravagant still, ef. Iren, llaer. i 25 (3).
K
130 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
solemnly asserts that in his own diocese of Hippo, in the space of two years there had occurred no less than seventy-two miracles, among them five cases of restoration to life.1
The works of Sulpicius Severus hear the marks of a cultured mind of singular sincerity. His Life of St. Martin of Tours, one of the gems of Christian biography, is the record of an eye-witness, yet marred with the grossest tales of the miraculous. He begins by imploring his readers
‘ to give full faith to my statements, and not to believe that I have written anything of which I have not certain knowledge and proof, for I should have preferred to have kept silence rather than relate the false.’
‘ Martin,’ he claims elsewhere, * does not need to be defended by untruths.’ Yet in one place he tells us how St. Martin restored three dead men to life, and twits Egyptian monks, for whom otherwise he has a profound reverence, with their inability to perform this feat.2
With this brief statement of the Christian position, a matter which might well claim a volume for its adequate exposition, the reader will the better understand how the heathen came to associate their name with the black arts. So far as demons were concerned, the Church professed that it was part of its mission to fight them, as, in fact, it had been part of the work of Jesus on earth. For the Christian,
1 Civ. Dei xxii8. Cf. Confess, ix 16; Irenaeus Haer. ii 31, 2.
2 Sulpic. Severus Vit. Martin (ed. Halm CSEL) cc. 1 § 9; 7, 8, 16 ; Dial, i 24 § 25, ii 4, iii 5 § 5.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
131
“ The ancient Prince of ill,
Look grim as e’er he will,”
is absolutely the most futile of beings. ‘ Thou art utterly despicable,’ said St. Anthony, one of the great, if shadowy types of the early Church, to the demon that cowered at his feet; ‘ thou art black of soul, yet weak as a child. Henceforth I will not cast one thought on thee.’1 In this consciousness of victory over the powers of evil lay one secret of tho success of the Church. Devils existed—that was undeniable, accepted by heathen and Christian alike. But the Christians claimed that they possessed the means of subduing them.
‘I will not argue the matter any further,’ writes Tertullian. ‘ There is a quieker way of demonstrating the truth. Let a demoniac, acknowledged as sueh, be brought before your tribunal Then let that spirit be commanded to speak by any Christian, and he will profess himself a devil as sincerely as elsewhere he falsely asserts that he is a god.’2
And the conquered devils, adds Minucius Felix, because of their fears, stir up against the Christians persecution and hatred.3 One early order in the Church, the exorcists, was specially dedicated to the task. They cast out devils, so the Church
1 See the Vita Antonii ce. 5, 16, 43 ete. in Migne FG xxvi 835 ff. Whether this work is a romanee (Weingarten) or historical in tho main, as Dom Butler has, I think, succecdod in showing (Eist. Lausiaca, Camb. 1905), is immaterial. The success of the romance, if romance it be, lay partly in its insistence upon the power of tho monk over devils. See Glover: Life and Letters in Fourth Cent.(ld01) p. 385. Cf. Vila Pacliomii 49 (Migne PL lxxiii 267).
* Tert. Apol. 23. Cf. Minuc. Felix Oct. 27.
3 Tho Christians at Lyons aseribe their persecution (infra p. 295) to demons under the lead of ‘ the adversary ’ (6 avTiKutxevos) Euseb. 1IE v 1,5; Gobhardt AMS 28.
132 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
believed, by the use of the name of Jesus,1 and by the sign or mention of the Cross.2 Their superior powers in this matter—for the Christians acknowledged some reality in heathen enchantments—were acknowledged by the heathen, and were twisted against them, for instance, by Celsus, as they had been twisted by the scribes against our Lord, into a proof of alliance with the demons themselves. Undoubtedly they were sorcerers, their successes showed that, of whom Jesus with His “miracles” had been the master and leader.3
Of the widespread belief in the second and third centuries in the magic arts of the Christians the proofs are overwhelming. ‘ Where are the magicians, your teachers in this jugglery?’ said Marcian to the martyr Achatius.4 Some have found
1 Justin Dial. S5 (an important chapter); Orig. Cels, i 6, ‘ by the name of Jesus together with the reading of the narratives which relate to Him.’ This is effectual ‘ even when pronounced by bad men ’ (cf. Acts xix 13; Pseudo-Cyprian Rebaptism 7) ib. i 67. Elsewhere Origen sinks even lower, ib. i 24, ‘names spoken in Coptic arc efficacious against certain demons.’
2 Justin Dial. 30, 49 (last clause) 76, 85, Apol. 55 (Cross dominates all, as is shown by human body being in its form)
II Apol. 6 (contrast heathen exorcists with their incantations); Irenaeus Haer. ii 32, 4; Lactantius Instit. Div. iv 27. For the widespread use of the sign of the cross from a.d. 150 onwards see Tert. de Cor. Mil. 3, ‘ when we put on our elothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we light tho lamps, &c. &c.’ Cf. Minuc. Felix. Oct. 29 fin. For cxorcism as a regular part of Church work sec Theophilus Ad. Autolyc. ii 8 fin.; Orig. Cels, i 46; Cyprian ad Demetr. 15; Vanity of Idols 7 ; Pseudo-Clement I. De Virginitate 10; Augustine Civ. Dei x 22. Origen Cels, vii 4 admits that exorcists as a rule were uneducated men.
3 For the views of Celsus see Orig. Cels, i 6, 68.
4 Gebhardt AMS 119. See what follows, ‘ magi cstis quia novum
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
133
evidence of this suspicion in the earliest times in the punishment devised for the Christians by Nero. By Roman law, those condemned for abetting magical practices were condemned to be thrown to the beasts, 01* to be crucified, while actual sorcerers were to be burnt alive.1 Nero confused these punishments together, by condemning the Christians to be wrapped in the skins of beasts and thus exposed to savage dogs, or to be smeared with pitch, then fastened to crosses, and set on fire.2 Probably, in our judgement, the punishment was rather the coincidence of cruelty than a judicial sentence. But if Nero had lived in a later age we should have decided otherwise, not merely because of heathen opinion, but also by reason of the magical or semi-magical beliefs which had invaded the Church itself, and which still, alas! in some quarters retain their ancient power. Cyprian tells us stories of the supernatural powers of the consecrated elements worthy of that great master of mediaeval superstition, Caesar of Heisterbach ;3 while Gregory the Wonderworker (Thaumaturgus), deliberately adopted credulity as one of the auxiliaries of the Church in the
neseio quod genus religionis iuducitis; ’ ‘ You must be sorcerers, for you are bringing in some new kind of religion.’ See also Perpetna infra p. 31G; Taraclius and others (Ruinart AM 43G, infra pp. 28;), 330). For Aeliatius see infra p. 330.
1 Paulus Sent, v 23, 17. ‘ Magieae artis conscioa . . . bestiis obiei aut crueibus suffigi; ipsi autem magi vivi exuruntnr.’
2 Tac. Ann. xv 41; see infra pp. 285-G.
3 Cyprian dr. LapHs 25, 2G (two astonishing chapters). Caesar Ileisterbach’s Dinlogus Miraculorum (Ed. Strango 1S51), is tho best storehouse of mediaeval marvels that I know of.
134 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
conversion of the heathen.1 The Christians of the third century had largely themselves to thank if they were looked upon as too familiar with the black art.
The effect of all this on the persecution of the Christians needs but little explanation. To the dire magic of the Christians were attributed not only the disasters of nature, but the failure of the current religion. The heathen believed that by their superior exorcisms the Christians could reduce to silence oracles which hitherto had proved the fortune of a whole country; that in many ways their black arts caused the customary manifestations of the supernatural to miscarry. According to Dionysius of Alexandria, it was this that led to the outbreak of the Valerian persecution :
‘Never was there any of the emperors before him so favourably and benevolently disposed towards the Christians. . . . His palace was indeed an ecclesia of the Lord. But the chief of the Egyptian magi persuaded him to abandon this course, exhorting him to slay these holy men as enemies and obstacles to their detestable incantations. For there were and still are among the Christians many whose mere presence and look, though they merely breathed and spoke, are able to put to nought the artifices of wicked demons.’2
We have an interesting illustration, both of the current superstition and its relation to the persecution of the Christians, in the career of the impostor Alexander of Abonutichos, as described for us by the master-hand of Lucian.3 Acting on the credulity
1 See infra p. 345. Gregory (t 270) is credited with a fine collection of miracles. He was evidently a man of magnetic personality as well as a great missionary. See DCB s.v.
2 Euseb. EE vii 10, 4. See also case of Diocletian, infra p. 267.
3 Lucian Alexander the Oracle-Monger, Ed. Dindorff, ii 205 ff.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
135
of the ‘ fat-head ’ Paphlagonians, Alexander, ‘ a fine, handsome man with a real touch of divinity about him,’ set up in his native town of Abonutichos an oracle of Aesculapius. Lucian describes minutely how the trick was done. Brazen tablets were buried in the temple of Apollo at Chalcedon, announcing that Aesculapius would shortly pay a visit to Pontus. The ‘ chewing of soap-wort,’ a ‘ serpent’s head of linen,’ and the ‘ burying of a goose-egg in which he had inserted a new-born reptile,’ did the rest. The clever rascal—* who never made a small plan, his ideas were always large ’—after proper formalities, dug up the buried egg, ‘ and announced that here he held Aesculapius.’1 When the crowd saw the reptile, ‘ they raised a shout, hailed the God, blessed the city, and every mouth was full of prayers.’ Bithynia and Galatia flocked to see the new-born deity.
‘ Alexander proclaimed that on a stated day the god would givo answers to all comers. Each person was to write down his wish and the object of his euriosity, fasten the packet with thread, seal it wilh wax. Alexander would receive these . . . and return the packets wilh the seals intaet and the answers attached.’
Lucian adds, for the information of the unskilled in these matters, three methods by which the seals could be opened and refastened. As for his oracles, ‘some were crabbed and ambiguous, others unintelligible.’ Of the latter, the following may serve: ‘ Morphi ebargulis for night Chnenchiorante shall
Well translated in Fowler’s Lucian (1905) ii 212 ff. This brochure is dedicated to Celsus.
1 The serpent in Anatolia was the symbol of Aesculapius. Seo e.g. Ramsay SC 285 plate.
136 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
leave the light.’ But unintelligible or ambiguous, the trick succeeded. At a fixed charge of a shilling per oracle, Alexander made something like £3,000 a year. His agents were everywhere, spreading abroad, on commission, the fame of the new god. ‘ At Bome the only question was who should be the first to fly to Abonutichos.’ We must not prolong the astonishing story. But it is of importance to note that when Alexander was
‘ instituting his mysteries with hierophants and torehbearers complete ... on the first day proclamation was made to this effcct: If there be any atheist or Christian or Epicurean1 here spying upon our rites, let him depart in haste. . . . Alexander himself led the litany with the cry, “ Christians, begone.” ’
The crowd responded; for the evil eye of the Christians, to say nothing of their sorceries, could ruin even an oracle of Aesculapius.
Another interesting illustration is the story of the five sculptors of Sirmium. At one of Diocletian’s quarries in Pannonia there was an encampment of 622 masons and carvers, under a number of ‘ philosophers,’ or foremen. Among them there were four Christians of special ability who won the praise of
1 Cf. the enthusiasm with which the Christians acclaimed Oenomaus of Gadara’s Cynic attack on a false oracle, by which at one time he had been deceived (Euseb. Prep. Evang. v (18-36, vi 6-7; Chron. yr. 3 of Hadrian, ed. Sehoene ii 164). For Christianity in Pontus see infra p. 210.
The Christians were often classed in popular hatred with both Cynics and Epicureans. According to Lucian, Peregrinus from a Christian became a Cynie, and died as such. Lucian PP. 36. To the casual observer there were certain points of similarity in their creeds; Lightf. Ign. i 344, n.; Renan EC 309, 312-3.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
137
Diocletian by quarrying a single block of stone, out of which they carved a group twenty-five feet in length. One of the gang, Simplicius, found that his tools broke more frequently than those of his comrades. He asked the reason, and was told by his companions that it was because they were Christians. He thereupon requested his friends to bless his tools also, and was so impressed by the good results that he too became a disciple, and was baptized by Bishop Cyril of Antioch, who for three years had been a slave in the quarries.1 The little band soon fell into trouble, through the jealousy of their pagan comrades. One of the * philosophers ’ observed them making the sign of the cross upon all their works. A few months later Diocletian ordered the four to carve an image of Aesculapius. The Christians, who had carved without demur an image of the sun, refused to touch that of the hated rival saviour.2 The ‘ philosophers 5 saw their opportunity, and accused the stonemasons of Christianity and magic. Diocletian was vexed. ‘ I will not have my skilled workmen reviled,’ lie said. But after some delay his hatred of Christianity prevailed over his love of good artists. He ordered them to be beaten with scorpions, then enclosed in lead and thrown into the river Save.3
1 This fixes tlio date as 30G, after Diocletian’s retirement (infra
p. 277). See Harnack CAL i 217. 2 See supra p. 80, n.
3 For the Passio quatuor Coronatorum Petschenig’s text in Wien
alaid. xcvii 761, or the translation in Mason DP 259 ft'. Tho ‘ Four Crowned,’ tho name by ■which the narrativo is known in church liturgies and dedications (DCA i 461), is an unhistorical addition to
this story of tho stonemasons.
138 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
III
Hitherto we have considered the causes of hatred that in some degree might be considered as external to Christianity, discordant or antagonistic factors in its environment. We now turn to the elements in the life and faith of the Early Church which brought against it the charge of anarchism, and the wrath of both mob and empire. The study of these will throw light, not only upon the origin of persecution, but also upon the thought and character of the Church of the early Fathers. One caution must be given at the outset. Persecution as a rule did not affect the average member of the Church; it fell hardly upon the extremists, the out-and-outs, call them what we will. The elements in Christian life upon which we shall dwell in the sections of this chapter must not, therefore, be taken to be of necessity the characteristics of the ordinary member. But earthly institutions should not be judged by their averages, but by the ideals of their leaders.
There were in the main five internal causes of the hatred felt for the Church by government and people. First, though not foremost in importance, was the effect of Christianity as a disintegrating factor upon the familia—a word not adequately represented by the modern “ family ”—including the tendency among many of the early Christians to discourage marriage. In the eyes of St. Paul, this last was part of the renunciation laid upon him by the Lord Jesus, and though he is careful not to elevate this individual
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
139
rule into a law for all, nevertheless there can he little doubt of the general impression that his defence of celibacy produced. Even in the cases where marriages were allowed, intermarriage with heathen was forbidden ;1 a command necessary indeed if the purity of the Christian faith should be maintained. The effect, however, must have been constant friction with heathen families, who would bitterly resent what they would regard as the Christian pride and aloofness. They would feel, not without justice, that the Christians despised the world in which they lived, and were somewhat contemptuous of its race interests2 and family bonds. ‘ Tampering with domestic relations’3 was one of the earliest charges brought against the followers of Jesus. This belief in Christian misanthropy would be strengthened by the incautious quotation before the heathen of the many hard sayings of the Saviour, especially those dealing with the family. For Jesus had owned that He
‘ came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am oome to sot a man at variance against bis father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.’ Matt, s 34-5.
All this was inevitable, and needs neither explanation nor illustration. Variance in the home is the
1 So St. Paul, 1 Cor. vii 37. Tho Church, though at first siding with St. Paul, never seems to have been strong enough to enforce this rule. Ilarnack EC ii 235-8.
2 See the remark of Arrius Antoninus infra p. 332.
3 ’AWoTpioewta-Kowoi 1 Pet. iv 15. So Ramsay CUE 293, n., but see Bigg St. Peter 17S. Tho word, according to Grimm, only occurs elsewhere in Dionysius Areop. Ep. 8.
140 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
first effect of missionary effort, whether in the second or the twentieth century. One example must suffice for many, the case of Alee of Smyrna, whom Ignatius calls ‘that name beloved by me.’ Her brother Herod, the eirenarch or chief of the police, and her father Nicetas were foremost in securing the condemnation of Polycarp.1
The student, moreover, should remember that the pagan world would not distinguish, with the care of his text-books, between the heretical and Catholic views. Heretical anti-social views abounded, and would add to the uneasiness of the governing classes. For the Pioman, in spite of growing luxury and licence, still looked upon the family as the unit-cell of the State and the foundation of morality. If the Acts of St. Paul and Thekla2 had fallen into the hands of an
1 Ignatius Ep. Smyrn. 3 Polye. 8; Mart. Poly. ce. 8,17.
5 For the Acta Pauli et Theclae see the text in Gebhardt AMS 21G-9, or his critical ed. in TU, 1902, or Lipsius and Bonnet AAA i 235 ff.,or Tischendorf AAA 40 ff. There is an Eng. trans. in Clark’s Ante-Nic. Library vol. xvi. The early origin, as well as its popularity, is proved by references in Tertullian de Bapt. 17, and other early writers (see list in Lipsius AAA i proleg. xcv ff., or DOB iv 887, 888, n.). It would appear to be the oldest of our extant N.T. Apocrypha (DCB iv S86, for a later date Lipsius Apok. Apostel. ii 424 ff.). The whole story turns on the exaltation of virginity over marriage, and shows Encratie influences, though Tert. gives no hint that he considered it heretical. Though the writer utterly fails to grasp the character of St. Paul (DCB iv 890), it is probable that the work has some historical basis underlying it (see Ramsay CUE 375-428; Cony-beare MEG 22-6, 57-8, G5 ff.; Gebhardt TU (1902). Gutschmidt has shown that Castelius the governor and Queen Tryphaena are real persons (DCB iv 893, n.). For the purposes of this lecture, I only refer to such incidents, &c., as are of historical value becaus e of the early date of the work, whatever its basis of truth.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
141
intelligent Roman official, could we have blamed him if he had detected its dangerous tendencies ? Here is a document, he would have argued, dealing with one of the leaders of this sect, in which we see that the first effect of the preaching of St. Paul is for Thekla to refuse as sinful the marriage arranged for her by her parents :
Whereupon her betrothed went out into the street and kept a watch upon those who went in and out to Paul. And he aaw two men bitterly contending with each other. “ Men,” he said, “ who are you ? and who is that fellow with you in the house who leads astray the souls of young men and deceives virgins so that they refuse to marry, but remain as they are ? ” And Demas answered him: “ Who this is we do not know, but he deprives young men of wives and maidens of husbands by saying that in no other way shall there be a resurrection for you save by remaining chaste and keeping the flesh chaste.” 1
Nor would our Eoman official have been favourably impressed by the rest of the story, how Thekla bribed the gaoler with her bracelets that she might gain access by night to the Apostle, how on escape from prison Thekla ran after St. Paul and said, * I will cut off my hair and follow thee whithersoever thou goest,’ and much else to the same effect.
The Acts of Paul and Thekla is a second-century romance written by a Syrian presbyter,2 the historical basis of which it is difficult to dissever from its later accretions. But the romance for our present purpose
1 o.c. c. 11. Inscriptions recording virginity or chastity on tho part of married folk are common, and show the drift of the Chureh. In the case of mixed marriages we can understand friction. See Allard Les Catacombs (Paris, 189G) p. 207. But Le Biant ICG i 400, ii 240, understands virginius to equal monogamus, however.
2 Tcrt de bnpt. 17. For the date see Harnack GAL i 496-505.
142 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
is a real document, for the tale was accepted by the Church with enthusiastic belief. We may instance, moreover, as confirmation of the same tendency in certain sections of the Church, the examination in the time of Diocletian of Pollio, a “ reader ” of Cibalae (Vinkovce), a town of Hungary.
“ What is your name ? ” asked the judge. “ Pollio.” “ Are you a Christian?” “Yes.” “What office do you hold?” “I am the chief of the readers.” “ What do you mean by a reader ? ” “ Ono whose duty it is to read God’s word to the congregation.” “ You mean those people who impose upon silly women ([mulierculas) and tell them that they must not marry, and persuade them to adopt a fanciful chastity.” 1
Le Blant has pointed out another way in which, in certain extreme sections, Christianity would run counter to the Roman ideas of the family. In Gaul, it seems, Christian inscriptions rarely mention parentage. Acting on a mistaken interpretation of the words of Jesus, the Christians of Gaul refused to call any man father.2 We have illustrations of this of an earlier date. “Of what parents are you born ? ” said the judge to Lucian of Antioch. “ I am a Christian,” he answered, “ and a Christian’s only relatives are the saints.”3
1 Ruinart AM 404, April 27th, 304. This document was transcribed from the original by order of Valentinian I (f 375), a native of Cibalae. The only churchcs which possess an order of bishops which have not retained the order of “ readers ” seem to be those of England and Abyssinia. See DCA ii 1472 ; also ib. 1509.
a Matt, xxiii 9; Le Blant ICG i 126.
* Ruinart AM 507, ‘ Cognatos habet sanctos omnes.’ Cf. Irenaeus of Sirmium, infra p. 320. For Lucian t Jan. 7, 312 and his supposed Arianism, see DCB s.v. (12); Harnack CAL ii 138 ff.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
143
Moreover, with the best intentions in the world, and under the most judicious missionaries, the proselytizing efforts of the Christians, by thrusting a wedge into the life of the home, could not fail at times to give rise to scandals. We see this in the case of Dativus, a decurion or senator of Carthage, who, on the defection of its bishop, had shepherded the Church of Abitini. Forty-nine of the little flock were brought to Carthage and tried. When Dativus was stretched on the hobby horse, a charge was laid against him by a certain Fortunatianus, a noble barrister of Carthage,
“ that in the absence of our father, and while I was at my studies, he sedueed our sister Victoria and led her and two other girls away from this great city to Abitini. In fact, he never entered our house without beguiling the girls’ minds with his soft soap.” Victoria interrupted with a Christian’s freedom of speech: “ I set out and journeyed to Abitini of my own fiee will, and not at the persuasion or in the company of Dativns. I can call citizens to prove this.” 1
Dativus would not be alone in such charges. We may be sure that the heathen interpreted the most innocent acts into occasions of scandal. Thus we read, during the persecution of Diocletian, of several Christian girls from Thessalonica, who ran off to the mountains without their father’s knowledge. By the sentence he passed upon Irene, their leader, the judge Dulcetius evidently considered that they were women of frail reputation.2
1 Ruinart AM 385. Feb. 12, 304. Fortunatianus afterwards beeame a Christian. The site of Abitiui is unknown (Tissot PliA ii 771).
2 lb. 395, and for sentence see infra App. II. Date April 1, 304.
144 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Or turn to the misunderstandings and persecutions to which Christians were exposed in the home itself. The Eoman familia was scarcely the modern English family; it was a little world of its own, the head of which had autocratic powers jealously guarded by the law from autocratic interference. The result, as in modern India, was inevitable. Unfortunately, we possess no records giving us an account in any detail of the experiences of a convert in a heathen home of the old world. Lanciani has published an inscription of the second century written on the tomb of a daughter, of whom the father says: * She was a pagan among pagans, a believer among believers.’1 Between the lines we can read much; the child of a mixed marriage doing her best to live in peace in a home where the father was a heathen, the mother a Christian. Justin Martyr also tells a tale, in many of its details, probably, characteristic of the times.2 A woman after her conversion sought to purify her own life and that of her licentious husband. Finding this last to be impossible, she determined to separate from him, and sought a divorce. In revenge the husband denounced his wife and her ‘teacher,’3 Ptolemy, as Christians.4 Ptolemy
1 Lanciani PCR 15-G.
2 Justin M. II Apol. 2; also in Ruinart AM 53, and Euseb. EE iv 17. Date between 155-160 (see Aube, St. Justin 68 ff.). On the legal question involved in this dowry, see Roby Roman Private Law (1902)i 142-5. '
3 Sidd(TKa\os, i.e. one of the order of “teachers,” on whom see Lindsay Ch. and Ministry 103 ff., or Allen Christian In*tits. 55, 57.
4 Cf. the case of Claudius Herminianus in Cappadocia, who, on
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
145
was ‘questioned on this sole point/ and on his confession was led away to death. The wife, however, escaped, by the subtlety of her lawyers. They persuaded her to appeal to the emperor for time ‘ to settle her affairs/ before making answer on this capital charge. This was granted. But such a settlement involved the restoration by the spendthrift husband of the dowry of his wife. As the husband could not find the money, he took care not to present himself in court. In the absence of accuser the charge fell to the ground, in accordance with the decision of Hadrian. {Infra p. 218.)
For the Christian wife, conflict with her heathen husband1 would be accentuated by the arrival of the first baby. No woman who had worshipped the Child of Bethlehem could ever allow to go unchallenged the patria potestas, the right of the father to decide which of his children should be permitted to live, and which should be cast into the street, or exposed on the Island in the Tiber. ‘If it proves a girl/ writes a father in Alexandria to his expectant wife, ‘ throw it out.’2 As to this and other evil practices sanctioned by a home-life in many respects elevated and pure the issue was clear. But our sympathies
his wife becoming a Christian, cruelly persecuted tho Christians in his province. Tert. ad Scap. 3.
1 In the caso of a Christian marrying a heathen a difficulty would ariso over tho marriago itself. It would liavo to be by coemptio. On this legal question, soe Roby o.c. i G9-71.
2 Gronfoll and Hunt Oxyr. Vapyri iv 744. With this contrast Lactautius Instit. vi 20, Justin I Apol. 27. For tho Church and the caro of foundlings, see Allard Les Enclaves Chretiens iii c. 2.
L
146 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
are less assured in other matters, for instance, Tertullian’s portrait of a Christian wife who has at her side a servant of the devil—this is his pleasant name for her husband. The man, he says, is sure to be such a brute that if it is a fast day he will ‘ arrange to hold a feast the same day.’ He will further prove his allegiance to Satan by taking it ill that his wife
‘ for the sake of visiting the brethren goes round from street to street to other men’a cottages, especially those of the poor. . . . He will not allow her to be absent all night long at nocturnal convocations and paschal solemnities ... or suffer her to creep into prison to kiss a martyr’s bonds, or even to exchange a kiss with one of the brethren.’
After this it is a little matter that her signing ‘her bed and her body with the Cross ’ will arouse his suspicions. If the fellow endures his wife and her ways at all it will simply be because of her dowry, or that he may make her his slave by his threats of dragging her before the executioner.1 We can hardly believe that all pagan husbands were brutes, or all Christian wives so lacking at times in discretion. But, at the best, the situation in a mixed marriage was difficult, almost impossible, as Tertul-lian, in spite of his extravagance, rightly saw.
The difficulties of the Christian in a pagan home did not cease with his death. Should he be buried with pagan rites and inscriptions, amid his pagan relatives, or should he lie apart ? The matter of the
1 Tert. ad Uxor, ii 4, 5. The whole book deals with the matter of mixed marriages. Cf. also ib. Apol. 3 and Arnobius adv. Gent.
ii 5 (divorce of Christian wives).
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
147
inscription was not of much importance; it was not well for the Christian to advertise his religion too prominently on his tomb. Many, in fact, inserted the customary pagan formula D.M. (Dis Manibus), probably without clear idea of its meaning.1 In many cases the epitaphs and signs are ambiguous.2 But the question of the separate tomb is of more moment. The early Christians rightly laid stress on burial among the brethren. This, however, involved the exclusion of pagans. Hence husbands lie apart from their wives, children from their parents. In one case permission is actually given in an epitaph for two husbands to be buried with their wives, provided they become converts.3
As regards one cause of offence the heathen certainly had justice on their side. In 220 Callistus, who had risen from a slave to be the pope, unfortunately declared that henceforth the Church would sanction that a girl of high position should give her hand to a freedman, careless of the fact that such a union could not possibly be a legal marriage. The plea of Callistus, that Christian girls of noble rank far outnumbered young men in the Church of the same position—‘ a rich unmarried man in the house of God it is difficult to find,’ owns Tertullian—can
1 Ramsay CBP i. 523; Le Blant ICG i 400. Tho original idea of the Di Manes was the deification or apotheosis of tho dead, i.e. ancestor worship; Ramsay CBP i 100. Hence the sanctity of tho graves; on which see infra p. 258.
2 Ramsay CBP i 502.
3 Ramsay CBP i. 531. For instances of this family separation, see ib. i 536.
148 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
hardly justify this daring defiance of public opinion.1 Its effect, all questions of morality apart, was to open the door to the many abuses of an ecclesiastical as distinct from a civil law of marriage. In matters like these we see some of the reasons for the dislike and persecution of the Church.
IV
We pass on to the consideration of two minor causes of heathen hatred. As regards both the student should beware of exaggeration. But in some quarters they would have importance.
The first of these was the Christian conception of property. We do not allude to the communism which at first prevailed at Jerusalem. Too much importance has been attached to an experiment, soon abandoned, at no time so completely developed as among the Jewish sects of Essenes and Therapeutae. Communism in the Church, under the guise of
1 Public opinion, contrary to tho case of a deceased wife’s sister to-day, was undoubtedly hostile, as we may see from the Constantine legislation (infra). For this deoree of Callistus see Hippolytua Philos, ix 12. The highly coloured additions may be discounted as due to H.’s hatred of C. or a transference of what Tertullian says about the Gentiles. The idea that Callistus sanctioned marriage with slaves (Hippolytus, it is true, speaks of it in less honourable terms) is preposterous. By the decree of Claudius a woman doing this became a slave. Constantine changed this into the death penalty, and the slave to the fire (Codex Justinianus ix 11, Ed. Krueger, p. 377). Tertullian ad Uxor, ii 8 shows that Callistus only sanctioned a practice already prevalent, of which Tertullian approves. The LP (Duchesne) does not mention the matter. The Apostolic Constitutions viii 82 are clearly opposed to the idea, but the date (espec. of bk. viii) is too uncertain.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
149
Monasticism, did not become a power until the age of persecution was past. Nor do we refer to the hostility of vested interests, though undoubtedly at all times this would be a serious factor.1 We allude rather to the completely altered conception that Christianity must have effected in its disciples aa regards property in slaves. No doubt Harnack is right when he claims that no “ slave question ” in the modern sense of the word occupied the early Church.2 In the Kingdom of God, as in the realm of nature, slow development is the law of life. In the case of an institution so interwoven with the whole social fabric as was slavery this was inevitable. Though in his Epistle to Philemon the word emancipation is always trembling on the lips of St. Paul, he never quite utters it, while it took the Church centuries to rise to the noble ideal of the great apostle.3 Christians throughout the era of persecution held slaves, as other men, and as the Jews had done before them, and were troubled by no stings
1 Acts xvi, six; Pliny’s letter infra p. 209, re market for fodder.
2 Harnack EG i 207, who, however, does not do St. Paul justice. Still it is truo that in his earlier days St. Paul’s attitude towards slavery was less pronounced (I Gor. vii 21, on which difficult passage sec Lightf. Phil. 324, n., or Edwards in loc.), perhaps because of his early parousian ideas, than in his Ep. Philemon. St. Peter also in his epistle (I Peter ii 18, which is far stronger than Eph. vi 5-9, Gol.
iii 22) shows no consciousness of a slave question even iu the caso of bad masters. The matter of slavery only indirectly touches my theme. The student will find the best guido to the subjoct in Wallon Ilistoire d'Esclavage dam V Antiquity (Paris, 2nd ed. 1879,3 vols.), or Allard Lcs Esclaves Chr€tiem (Paris, 1876) (this last not always critical).
3 Lightf. Phil. 323. Tho Church of tho fourth ccntury had a strong bias against St. Paul’s Philemon (Lightf. o.c. 316).
150 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
of conscience.1 But every Christian who knew anything of the religion he professed must have recognized that with Jesus legal rights 2 are strictly limited by the higher law of love. The code, for instance, refused to recognize the marriage of slaves; the Christian master could not content himself with mere cohabitation (contubernium), unblessed by the Church, dissoluble at will.3 Slavery might be necessary; nevertheless, pleads Clement of Alexandria, ‘ slaves are men like ourselves,’ to whom the Golden Eule applies.4 To the same effect was the
1 Atlienagoras Plea 35, ‘ And yet we have slaves, some more and some fewer.’ Tatian adv. Graec. 4 looks on slavery as a species of tribute. Ign. Polyc. 4 urges slaves ‘not to desire to be set free at the public cost.’ That this, however, was frequent among the Christians, see Apostol. Constit. iv 9. But ib. iv 12 shows that slavery was not considered unnatural. See also Tert. de Cor. 13, who seems to consider the question as academic; Lactantius Instit. v 16; Tatian o.c. 11. For the Fathers and slavery, see Wallon o.c. iii c. 8, and for the Church and enfranchisement ib. iii c. 9, or Allard o.c. Bk ii cc. 1 and 2. The talcs of wholesale liberation of slaves at baptisms (e.g. ^.S/SMay i 371; Jan. ii 275) are either myths or belong to a later date. See list in Allard o.c. 336, who accepts them. There was, in fact, much to be said against wholesale liberation. What was the freed slave to do in a country where free labour scarcely existed ? Especially would it have been cruel in the case of women slaves. “ A freed woman-slave and a courtesan are synonyms in Latin. The same word, libertina, serves for both” (Allard o.c. 179).
2 By Roman law the slave had no rights. Dig.iv 5, 3, ‘servile caput nullum jus liabet,’ and fully, Wallon o.c. ii c 5.
3 For the marriage of slaves in Roman law, see a brutal illustration iu Marcian Dig. xxx 121, dealing with a sale (‘ ventrem cum liberis ’). See also Gaius ib. xx 1, 15, and Wallon o.c. ii 200-7; and for Christianity and the marriage of slaves, Allard o.c. Iii c 4 ; Wallon
o.c. iii 531.
4 Clem. Paed. iii 12, with which compare Juvenal Sat. vi 219-23. ‘ Pone crucem servo. . . . O demons, ita servus homo est! nil fecerit,
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
151
reply of Lactantius 1 to those who pointed out that the Christians possessed slaves: ‘ Slaves are not slaves to us. We deem them brothers after the spirit, in religion fellow-servants.’ A confirmation of this may be found in the fact pointed out by de Rossi that the inscription e slave ’ is never met with in the catacombs, though nothing is more common on the tombs of heathen.2
Moreover, from the first the Church claimed to ordain slaves as deacons, priests, and bishops, a revolution, silent, unheralded, the full effect of which it is difficult to exaggerate.3 Hitherto a slave had been a thing, scarcely human. ‘ Implements,’ writes Yarro, * are of three kinds; vocal, including slaves, semi-vocal, e.g. oxen, and dumb,for instance ploughs.’4
csto; Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas.’ Clement of Alexandria, in his humane views, represents not only the effect of Christianity, but of philosophy. The more humane treatment of slaves was largely due to Stoic teaching. See Wallon o.c. iii cc. 1 aud 2, for the influence of philosophy upon Roman legislation.
1 Imtit. v 10.
2 Allard o.c. 23G-7. See Le Blant ICG i 119-20 for tho rare exceptions in Gaul. The matter canuot be as accidental as Harnack EC i 20S, n., hints.
3 In addition to Callistus, we have the case of Pius, Bishop of Rome, MO-155 (Duchesne LP i 132 n. 4), who appears to have been a slave,
i.e. if he was the brother of Ilcrmas, the author of the Shepherd (see Muratorian fragment in Wcstcott Canon N.T. 537 and infra p. 220). Pliny’s deaconesses were also slaves (infra p. 211 n.). Before ordination to the priesthood slaves had to be freed. See Apod. Constit. viii 82, and the SOtli canon of the Synod of Elvira (c. 300) ‘ ut liberti, quorum patroni in scculo fuerint’ (“frecdmen whose owners are still alive,” Dale SE 80, 339). For the history of slaves and the priesthood, see Allard o.c. 225-35.
1 Yarro de He rust, i 17, 1.
152 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Now, in the language of a growing sacerdotalism, this ‘ implement,’ that could be bought on the market for less than £20/ could become the successor of the Apostles, or, in the words of Ignatius, the representative of the Lord Himself. That Callistus, Bishop of Rome, had been a slave, whatever be the truth, or otherwise, as to his faults, marks a new era in the history of humanity not without its parallel in the case of Epictetus, the slave-apostle of Stoicism. But this higher law of love, this conception of the slave not only as a brother in Christ Jesus, who sat side by side at the same agap6, or partook of the same loaf and cup at the Lord’s Supper, but as a leader in the Church, responsible to God for the souls of his flock, could hardly fail to arouse suspicion and misunderstanding. Roman governors, conscious of the vast slave populations, were ever anxious lest there should be a servile outbreak. Heathen legatees would scarcely view with approval a familia which they found leavened through and through with the freedom of Christ. In a few instances also the new doctrines might lead to the alterations of wills, and the bequeathing of slaves out of the family to members of the same Church. In any case the master, of whom Tertullian tells us, who, directly that he heard that his slave had become a Christian, sent him to the dreaded ergastulum, or slaves’ work-prison, would not be alone in his fear or cruelty.2
1 For the prices of slaves, see two chapters in Wallon, or, briefly, Allard o.c. 16. An ordinary female slave, e.g. Blandina, was worth £8.
2 Tert. ad Nat. 4; cf. Arnobius ii 5. As an illustration of how
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
153
Nor can there be reasonable donbt that the early Church, apart altogether from questions of slavery, was saturated through and through with Ebionite conceptions. In some writers poverty was as much the essential mark of the Christian as it afterwards became of the spiritual Franciscans.1 Wealth was one of the things of the world which it was the Christian’s business to renounce, though, alas, complete renunciation could only be achieved by the few. For the higher orders of the ministry, however, poverty was considered absolutely essential.2 All this would lend colour to the charge of anarchism under which, as we have seen, the Christians were condemned.
A further cause of suspicion, not, it is true, of much importance, would be found in the views of many Christians as to the fate of the world, including their neighbours.8 The Church in the second century
Christianity would work in this matter, take the case of Sabina, who fled from her miatress to the deacon Pionius of Smyrna, and to avoid detection changed her name, on Pionius’ advice, to Theodote (Gobhardt AMS 103).
1 E.g. Hcrmas Shep. S. i; ix 20. (The plea that this was the work of a Christian slave of Gnostie tendencies is counterbalanced by its wide acceptance by all ranks in the Church. See infra pp. 220 and 154 n. 3.) See also Lucian PF 13.
1 Didache xi 4-6 (cf. Matt, x) ; Euseb. TIE iii 37.
3 Illustrations are too numerous to quote. The following arc amongst the most striking: Justin M. II Apol. cc. 7, 9; Sibylline Oracles viii 55 ff. (most important); Cyprian ad Demet. 22 ; Tertullian passim, e.g. de Spectac. 30; Apol. 42; de Idol. 13; Lactantius Imiit. Div. vii 15 ff.; Minuc. Felix Oct. 35. Our Lord’s warning as to tho tower of Siloam was often forgotten. Cf. Tert. ad Scap. 3, and especially Lactantius De mort. Penecutorum passim; and see Renan EG 298, n.
Tho existing parousian literature in my judgement is but a
154 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
believed that the world lay in the grip of the Evil One, and that it was fast hastening to its doom of * blood and fire.’1 The Christian watchword was still, as in the first century, Maran Atha, “ the Lord is at hand.”2 Their wandering * prophets ’3—an order in the Church which died out after the second century, to reappear in sundry forms in modern Nonconformity —made this theme, in especial, the basis of their sermons. Many seem to have gloried (at least that was the impression produced upon the heathen) in the retribution so speedily to come upon the world. No doubt some of their utterances—illustrations may be found in the Christian Sibylline Oracles—were as indiscreet as have been the utterances on this matter
fraction of that which existed in the second century, before the discredit of the order of *’ prophets.” This the Church gladly allowed to become lost when it made the discovery that the early Millenarian theology was not correct in fact. Of such literature, perhaps the most striking is the “ chaotic wilderness ” of the Jewish-Christian Sibylline Oracles, which Celsus (Orig. Cels, vii 53, 56) charged the Christians with forging or interpolating. In part, these are undoubtedly Christian, e.g. books vi, vii, viii (in viii 217 ff. there is the acrostic ixOvs), and possibly i, ii, xi-xiv. Others are Jewish. Best eds. Alexandre (Paris, 1S41-56, or 2nd ed. 1869, with excursuses omitted, or Friedlieb, 1S52). Best of all is the new edition by Geffcken, Leipzig, 1902. See also Schiirer JPG iii (2) 271-292. The Christian Sibyl still lives in Thomas of Celano’s famous line, ‘ Teste David cum Sibylla,’ “See fulfilled the prophet’s warning.” Read also August. Civ. Dei xviii 23.
1 Herm. Shep. Y. iv. 3 (the whole of this Vision should be read).
2 Didacfa x 6. Cf. infra pp. 232-3.
3 For “prophets” the student should consult Lindsay Ch. and Ministry 90 ff.; Harnack Ency. Brit, xix 822; Allen Christian Instits. 54 ff. DB i 434 ff., EB 3883 ff., or Selwyn Christian Prophets, 1900. Montanism was really the protest against their suppression.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
155
of fanatics in later ages.1 Celsus, for instance, naturally complains of the—
‘many who roam like tramps through cities and camps . . . and commit to everlasting fire cities and lands and their inhabitants . . . mixing up their mighty threats with half-crazy and perfectly senseless words, which every fool applies to suit his own purpose.’ -
Impostors, from whom the Church in every century has suffered many things, were foremost, as was natural, in these exaggerations and half truths. We see this in the case of Proteus Peregrinus, who seems to have passed as a ‘prophet.’3 By these impostors, too often beggars in disguise, would the Church be judged by outsiders, as it was by Lucian and Celsus.
The effect of this preaching of retribution by means of terrific images regarded as actual realities would vary with different classes. The cultured, whose ideal was that of Vergil: ‘ Happy the man who has placed beneath his feet fears and inexorable fate and the roar of greedy Hell,’4 would look on it with loathing as a return to those horrors of superstition from which Lucretius had sought to deliver mankind by means of his great sceptical poem. ‘The Crucified,’
1 Cf. Milman Xty. ii 125, “these dangerous and iujudioious effusions of zeal,” &c.
2 Orig. Gels, vii 9, 11; a very important passage. In ib. iii 1G Celsus charges the Christians with ‘inventing terrors.’
3 Tho Didach€ c xi (cf. I John iv 1-3) supplies tests for impostor prophets, which shows how common they woro in tho early second century. ‘No prophet when he ordereth a meal (rpd-rreCav) in the spirit shall eat of it; otherwise he is a false prophet,’ &o. Prophets who settled down in a place wero to be supported with the first of a baking of bread, of a jar of oil or wine, &c. (ib. c. xiii).
4 Georg, ii 490-2.
156 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
they said, ‘repels all gladness’1—‘Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.’ The followers of Epicurus, with their profound belief in a morningless and unawakening sleep, would disdain teacher and teaching alike. Said Tertullian:
‘ "We get ourselvea laughed at for proclaiming that God •will one day judge the world, though, like us, poets and philosophers set up a judgement-seat in the world below. And if we threaten Gehenna, a reservoir of secret fire under the earth for purposes of punishment, we have derision heaped upon us ’ (Apol. 47).
To the vulgar the dread of Tartarus, ‘ with its vistas of rivers of fire and stygian cliffs ... of spectres moving at us with terrible faces/ was still a living reality; and the preaching of the Christians was not without its results. But, broadly speaking, the gloomy Millenarianism of much second-century Christianity could not fail to arouse hatred and suspicion. Nor would it lessen the offence that the doom of the heathen would usher in the reign of the saints, ‘the coming age in which the elect of God shall dwell.’2
1 Ruinart AM 75, ease of Epipodius and Alexander at Lyons in 178. Framework genuine. Cf. Plutarch Moralia § 16G. In a Phrygian inscription an Epicurean calls the Christian views ‘death in life’ (Ramsay CBP i 477). Cf. Irenaeus’ fragment quoted by John of Damascus Parallela, ‘The business of the Christian is to be ever preparing to die ’ (Migne PG vii 1234).
* Hermas Sliep. V iv 3. The Shepherd is one of the great books of the ‘ prophets.’ Possibly also the Apocalypse.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
157
A more important cause of popular hatred lay in the misunderstanding of the nature of certain Christian rites and ceremonies. “ The conviction,” writes Mommsen,
“ that the Christian conventicles were orgies of lewdness, and recep -tacles of every crime, got hold on tho popular mind with all the terrible vehemence of an aversion that resists all arguments and heeds not refutation.”
In part these charges were due to Christian secrecy, a necessary result of the aloofness or renunciation which underlay their faith. Of this secrecy or aloofness, and the jealousy with which it was guarded, we have an extreme instance, if Chrysostom is to be trusted, in the case of Babylas of Antioch, who endured- martyrdom rather than allow the Emperor Decius to intrude upon the privacy of his congregation.1 We need not be surprised at the result. That which is secret, as Caecilius pointed out to Minucius Felix, always lies under the suspicion of being the abominable.2 In part, also, the charges were due to the
1 This story (A.SS Sept. iv 439), though very doubtful (see Lightf. Ign. i 40, n., and Euseb. HE vi 34, who refers it to his compelling tho Emperor Philip to penitence, sco infra p. 242) is at least a proof of “ tendoney ” in tho Church. For his dato see infra p. 329. The case of Tarsicius (temp. Valerian), a young acolyto who was carrying the Sacrament to somo confessors, and who was slain by the soldiers because he would not reveal his burden, is moro historical (Damasua in Migne PL siii 392, Northcote ES i 153).
2 These talcs wcro largely due to the Jews (supra, p. 119, n.). But they were widely held, e.g. by Fronto of Cirta, tho tutor of Marcus
158 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
misunderstanding or distortion of Christian phrases. The “ kiss of peace ” which St. Paul had instituted, and which long continued a factor in the life of the Western Church, both lent itself to licentious interpretations, and, as Clement of Alexandria owns, was put to wrong uses by some who ‘ do nothing but make the Church resound with their kisses.’ ‘ See how these Christians love one another’ may have been originally the sarcasm of impure minds upon these ‘ unholy kisses, full of poison, counterfeiting sanctity,’ wrested by Tertullian to a nobler use.1 The evening agapes—the title itself was suspicious—were twisted
Aurelius. See Minuc. Felix Oct. 9, 31, and cf. 10 (‘why do they conceal whatever they worship ’)> 28, 30.
For the charges against Christians of impurity, cannibalism, &c., in addition to the above, see Justin M. Dial c. Tryph. 10, 17, 108; I Apol. 26; II Apol. 12, 13; Tert. Apol. 2, 4, 7, 8, 39; Athenagoras Plea 3, with which compare the identical charges brought against the Christians at Lyons (Euseb. EE v i); Basilides in Clem. Alex. Strom, iv 12. Possibly also Apuleius Metam. ix. 14 hints at the same thing.
Some have considered the title of genus tertium applied to the Christians (infra, p. 190, n.) to refer to their supposed unnatural lusts. But on this see Harnack EC i 347, n., who rightly rejects the idea. I incline to regard all these stories as originating in primitive cults and folk-lore. The triumph of Christianity merely transferred them to other objects. See e.g. Inquisition in M.A. iii c. 7 on “ The Sabbat ” for reproduction in mediaeval times. From Apuleius Metam. viii cc. 27,28 we see that the heathen merely shouldered upon the Christians some of the moral horrors of the day that lingered on in ruder districts.
1 Tert. Apol. 39. For the “kiss” and its dangers see Justin I Apol. 65 (precedes the Eucharist); Clem. Alex. Paed. iii 11 end; Athenag. Plea 32 (source of his quotation unknown); Orig. in Bom. x 33. According to Tert. de Orat. 18 it was a part of all common prayer. It is still in use in the Greek Church. There is, as it were, the rudimentary organ in the Anglican Liturgy in the words “ Peace be with you,” whieh immediately preeeded the kiss (see Apost. Constit.
viii 11). See also Duchesne Christian Worship (E.T.) 211 ff.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
159
into scenes of unbridled lust, at which ‘ the dogs, our friends forsooth ! overturn the lamps, and obtain for us the shamelessness of darkness.’ ‘ Three things/ writes Athenagoras, ‘ are alleged against us : Atheism, Thyestean feasts, Oedipodean intercourse/—in other words, cannibalism and incest—‘ If these things are true, spare none of us.’ And because the people thought they were true they spared but few when the fury seized them.
The charge of cannibalism was the result of a misunderstanding of the Christian Sacraments. The carrying of infants to the house of prayer to obtain Baptism was twisted, as in the case of the Jews in the Middle Ages, into a horrible design, mixed up in popular imagination with the Eucharist, the bread of which was supposed to be used ‘ to collect the gushing blood’ of the babes. For us the language of the Lord’s Supper, hallowed by nineteen hundred years of association, has lost its original and startling daring. ‘Except ye eat My flesh and drink My blood, ye have no life in yourselves ’ would sound more than strange to heathen ears. To Porphyry, by no means an unfair critic, it seemed
4 trivial and absurd, surpassing all absurdity and trivial coarseness, for a man to cat human flesh and drink the blood of his fellow-tribesman or relative, and thereby win eternal life. Tell me what greater coarseness could you introduce into life, if you practise that habit ? What crime will you start more accursed than this loathsome profligaev ? [Then follows Thyestes and his meals, &c., the Scythians, who eat lice, but aro not cannibals, &o. Porphyry continues] What, then, does this saying mean ? For even though it were meant to be taken in a mystical or allegorical seuse, still the mere sound of tho words grates inevitably
160 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
on the soul and makes it rebel against a loathsome saying . . . unsuitable and alien to the habits of a noble life.’1
The Christian apologist might have pleaded that other religions had their mysteries and yet escaped persecution. Suspicion in the case of all mysteries was inevitable, in fact, one of the charms which made initiation so sought after by a blase society. The worship of Cybele and Mithra, for instance, had its taurobolium. To the Fathers of the Church this seemed a travesty of the Cross;2 but in its origin it goes back to times before Calvary. The rite took place, as a rule, in early spring, and was often prolonged for two or three days. Only seventeen years before the massacre of the Christians at Lyons (177) there had been a great taurobolium at this capital of Gaul, the record of which is still preserved for us.3 The ceremony was superintended by the magistrates, and attended by a vast crowd of people. With many solemn forms the consecrated bull was lifted on to a platform and slaughtered. Meanwhile the devotees were placed in a trench beneath, that they might bathe in the streams of blood and thus obtain strength and purification. The effect of this sacrament was supposed to last for twenty years
1 Porphyry, Hierooles (infra p. 268), or whoever is the sceptic, in Macarius Magnes Apocritica iii 15. (See DCB iii 767.) Celsus, who attacked Christianity more from the outside, does not seem to have dwelt on this.
2 Tert. de Praescript 40.
* Discovered at Fourvifcre (Lyons) in 1704. See plates in Duruy IIR v 1G6, 704. Note how the first line shows the taurobolium legalized by association with the Great Mother.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
161
without the need of renewal. The devotee who died in the interval could engrave on his tomb the record of his cleansing in the phrase, whose claims so stirred the wrath of the Christians, renatusin ceternum, ‘born again to eternal life.’1
The taurobolium was a costly public function available only for the few. But there were other mysteries secret in their nature,2 attempts to lift the veil of Isis, to penetrate by strange symbols and rites into the inner secret of Pantheism. ‘ What I saw there,’ writes one of these initiates, Apuleius, who for once ceases to be a mere sensualist—
11 would tell if it were lawful ... I trode tlie confines of death and the threshold of Proserpine. I was swept round all the elements and returned. I beheld the sun at midnight shining with purest radiance. Gods of heaven and gods of hell I I saw you face to face and adored in presence.’3
But Mithraism, the worship of Isis, and other religions had all taken steps, as we have seen, to avoid persecution. The mysteries of the Christians, on the other hand, were the secrets of men who would not stoop to secure either official sanction or popular support, but who yet, by the very necessities of their religion and its mission, were aggressive, perhaps at times imprudent, enthusiasts.
This imprudent aggression especially manifested itself in frequent ‘ atheistic ’ attacks upon heathen
1 See instances of this phrase in Le Blant ICG ii 71-2.
2 Cf. Tert. de Cor. 15; Justin Dial. Try ph. 70; I Apol. CO. There is a curious account of one in Orig. Cels, vi 22. For the mysteries themselves, see Cumont TM i 320 ff., 334-5.
3 See Apuleius Metavi. xi cc. 11, 24.
M
162 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
temples and ritual, in themselves sufficient explanation of the persecuting fury of the mob. ‘ If you will give me leave,’ said Symphorian of Autun to the judge, ‘ I should like to smash this image of a devil with a mallet.’1 In spite of the official discouragement of the Church,2 the spirit of Symphorian animated the more stalwart of its adherents. A few illustrations will show how this issued in martyrdom. We may take the caso of Leo of Patara, an aged ascetic of Asia Minor, whose friend Paregorius had suffered death in the persecution of Decius.
‘ Now it happened in those days that the proconsul Lollianus came to Patara and celebrated the feast of Scrapis, taking occasion against the Christians and compelling all to sacrifice to idols. And when many were hastening to the temple Leo withdrew in indignation to the place where rested the bones of the blessed martyr Paregorius. There he poured out his wonted supplications and returned home, wrapped in the thought of the glorious deeds of his friend. After a while he fell asleep and dreamed a dream. He thought that he saw a mighty storm, and a raging torrent, with Paregorius and himBelf in the midst of the floods, for he found it not difficult to rcacli Paregorius. When he awoke he set out at once for the burial-place of his friend, nor would lie choose a quiet road, but the one which lay through the midst of the market. And when he came to the temple (of Fortune) and saw tho lanterns and tapers burning before the shrine, he tore down the lanterns with his hands, and trampled the tapers beneath his feet, crying out the while : “ If you think tho gods have any power let them defend themselves.’”
1 AM 79 ff.; about a.d. 179, probably on Aug. 22. The framework seems genuine (Conybeare MEC 12-13, Duchesne FEG ii 153, as against Aube PE 387). The persecution was a backwash of that at LyonB in 177.
2 Synod of Elvira canon CO (see infra p. 180 n.). For the effect of these mockeries on heathen, see Orig. Cels, vii 62, viii 3S, 41 ; Minuc. Felix Oct. S. For illustrations cf. Prndentius Peristcph. iii 126 f.; Conybearo MEC 197,
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
163
The inevitable result followed. On his return to the city—for the outrage would seem to have taken place very early in the morning—Leo was arrested. To the charges brought against him Leo’s only answer was a somewhat irrelevant lecture to the judge on the doctrines of Christianity. Taking pity on his white hairs, Lollianus offered to forgo the act of sacrifice if only Leo would repeat after him the words, “Great are the gods.” * Yes,’ replied the old man, ‘ great in destroying the souls of those who believe in them.’ At length the patience of Lollianus gave way. He sentenced Leo to be dragged to the top of a high rock and pitched into the torrent which flowed through the town. ‘ But that brave athlete of Christ,’ worn out with the lashings, died on the way.1
Even when innocent of actual outrage on the temples or rites the Christians at times acted almost as indiscreetly. We may instance Romanus, a deacon and exorcist of Antioch, who tried to stop a heathen procession. For this he was condemned by Galerius to lose his tongue (Nov. 17, 303).2
The case of Theodore the Tiro or recruit, sympathetically related for us by Gregory of Nyssa,3 was of
1 Ruinart AM 545-8. Date unknown, probably persecution of Valerian (see Healy VP 248 n.). His day (Feb. 18) is a mere confusion with that of Pope Leo the Great. From AM 547 we see the Jews were to the front in securing his condemnation.
2 Euseb. MP 2 ; Mason DP 188.
3 Gregory Nyssa Oratio de TheoHoro Martyre Opera in Migne PG iii 735-48, delivered at the opening of his magnificent memorial at Euchaites. I do not believe Gregory’s statement about tho bribes offered the incendiary by the judges, ‘ nobility, priesthood,’ &e. Roman governors were not made of this stuff. The statement is on a
164 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
a more daring order. Arrested for liis Christianity, he was brought before the authorities of Amasea, the capital of Pontus. When asked why he would not sacrifice, the rough enthusiast replied—
‘ I know nothing of your gods. They don’t exist. You are wrong in calling seducing impostors of devils by the name of gods. My God is Christ, the only begotten Son of God.’
An officer with a reputation for wit mockingly asked him : ‘ How is it, Theodore, your God has a Son ? ’ Theodore replied by a quotation from his Catechism, that would be perfectly unintelligible to the bystanders, then happily retorted upon his questioner by asking him about the favourite cult of Amasea, the worship of the Great Mother. The authorities, pleased with his readiness, gave him a little time for ‘reconsidering his insanity.’ Theodore used his reprieve for a different purpose. That night he set on fire the temple of the Great Mother. Building and statue were alike reduced to ashes. Theodore made no attempt to escape, but boldly proclaimed the deed. His defence before the magistrates was an impossible assertion of the individualistic standpoint. He was condemned to be burnt, and ‘ so passed to God by a
par with Gregory’s description of the angels that visited his cell during the night. His great popularity (see Moschus Praturn Spirituale 180 in Migne PL lxxiv 211) was due to the fact that hi3 memorial at Euchaites was opened just after a threatened invasion of Scythians into Pontus had. been averted, as it was thought, by his prayers. In 125G the Venetians brought his body to Venice. This record will serve as a fair specimen of liagiology (cf. Conybeare MEC 220, DCB iv 956, and Ruinart AM 480 ff., who, however, gives not the Greek but only a Latin translation of Gregory). Date 308 : see Masou PD 284 n.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
165
splendid road,’ singing as he went: “ I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.”
VI
The governing classes persecuted Christianity because they saw clearly its political danger; the lower classes had an intense hatred for the new religion, because it was a thing apart. The two causes were in reality one; ignorance and imperialism were united in their hatred of the individualistic spirit. ‘The language of sedition,’ said Celsus, ‘is only used by those who separate and stand aloof from the society of their fellows.’1 The Christians were a peculiar people, with peculiar views of their own. Though, unlike the philosophers, they wore no distinctive garb—unless, indeed, absence of ostentation be counted a garb 3—in this world, they were yet not of the world. ‘We are supposed,’ writes Ter-tullian, ‘ to live aloof from crowds.’3 Their opponents, it is true, phrased the matter differently: ‘ a people who skulk and shun the light of day, silent in public, but garrulous in tlieir holes and corners; ’
‘ people who separate themselves and break away from
1 Orig. Ceh. viii 2.
2 Clem. Alex. Paed. ii 10—iii 3; iii 11. Tert. On the Dress of Women passim. Justin, after his conversion, continued to wear tho philosopher’s napless cloak. So also Aristides (infra p. 21G and App. G).
3 Tert. Apol. 31, ‘ licct oxtranei a turbis aestimemur ’ mistranslated in Clark’s ANL as “ we are not thought to be given to disorder.” For the charge of aloofness see also Tert. Apol. -12 and infra p. 1(JS.
166 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the rest of mankind.’1 Their very titles among themselves were peculiar, a sign of this ‘ breaking away/ a barbarous jargon of their own—‘ little fish/ ‘ the new-born/ ‘ the newly caught/ and the like.2 Nor could the conscientious Christian save himself from thrusting forward his peculiarities before a society which had surrounded every act of life with pagan ritual. For, as Milman has well put it:
“ Paganism met him in' every form, in every quarter, in every act and function of every day’s business ; not merely in the graver offices of the State, but in the civil and military acts of public men ; in the 6enate which commenccd its deliberations with sacrifice; in the camp, the centre of which was a consecrated temple. The Pagan’s domestic hearth was guarded by the Penates, or by the ancestral gods of his family or tribe; by land he travelled under the protection of one tutelar divinity, by sea of ^another; the birth, the bridal, the funeral had each its presiding deity ; the very commonest household utensils were cast in mythological forms; he could scarccly drink without being reminded of libations to the gods; and the language itself was impregnated with constant allusions to the popular religion.” 3
That the “peculiarity” of Christianity exposed its disciples to various persecutions needs no evidence. The same has happened in every age and clime, is happening to-day on every mission-field. But when we pass from this general statement to particulars, when we try to estimate the precise measure
1 The heathen Caceilius in Minucius Felix Oct. 8.
2 ‘Pisciculi’ (Tert. Bapt. 1,‘wc little fish are born in water’). vtS<pvroi, passim; see also DCA ii 1385-6. veodypoi (Ramsay BCP i 535). (j>i\odfoi (ib. i 554 n.). The love of religious enthusiasms for new names that really form a sort of slang has always been remarkable. The little dictionary that Methodism has formed for itself is no new thing.
3 Milman i 427 and cf. Tert, de Spectac. c. 8 fin, Gibbon ii 16-18.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
167
of “peculiarity,” and the precise effect of the spirit of aloofness upon the daily life of the Church, we are met with difficulties. Writers of diverse schools have too often idealized the early Church, in forgetfulness of the exact parallel furnished by modern work among the heathen. Then, as now, many Christians brought with them into their new religion the habits and faults of their old life. Only the more stalwart succeeded in disengaging themselves completely from their pagan environment. The ordinary converts did not, as a rule, alter the outward appearance of their lives; nor did they, for that matter, supply the martyrs with whose records we are dealing. But when we leave the unknown multitude of average and probably somewhat commonplace converts,1 and turn to the leaders and teachers of the Church, our perplexities are by no means at an end. Even stalwarts must live, and to some extent conform to the usages of society. Where to draw the line was a matter of debate, upon which the Church was hopelessly divided. Then, as now, there were two parties ; the one, which for lack of a better term we may call the Puritan, making up for the fewness of its numbers by dogmatism and devotion ; the other, probably tho more cultured, ccrtainly the more influential, but hampered by the lack of logic and utterance so generally characteristic of tho via media. A few, if wo may judge from their writings, tried to belong to both
1 For these average converts “ who arc not represented to us in Christian literature, except when their errors have to bo eastigatcd,” the best guide are sepulchral inscriptions, o.g. Ramsay CDT c. 12; Le Blant ICG passim ; de Rossi JCUIl pae6im.
168 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
parties, and to prove that there was really no difference between the two views. Of these last the most eloquent and persuasive is the anonymous author of the well-known Epistle to Diognetus.1 The writer, in an oft-quoted passage, pleads that
‘ Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind either in locality or in speech or in customs. For they dwell not somewhere in cities of their own, neither do they use some different language, nor practise an extraordinary ('irapacrtinov) manner of life. But while they dwell in cities of Greeks and barbarians, as the lot of each is east, and follow the native customs in dress, food, and the other arrangements of life, yet the constitution of their own citizenship which they set forth is marvellous, and confessedly contradicts expectation. They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners. They bear their share in all things as citizens, and they endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign.’
1 Ep. Diognetus c. 5. We owe the incomplete text of this Epistle to a single 14th century MS. which perished in the burning of the Strassburg library during the Franco-German war of 1870. This letter was formerly ascribed to Justin Martyr, with whose works (e.g. in the great edition of Otto 1876-80) it is usually bound up. In DCB ii 163 the author is identified with a certain ‘Ambrosius, a chief man of Greece who became a Christian, and all his fellow-councillors raised a clamour against him.’ To this Ambrose ia attributed the oration ad Greecos formerly assigned to Justin, and which also was only preserved in tho same MS. as the Diognetus. Others have conjectured that its author was the Alexandrian Pantaenus, the master of Clement (180-210), and in some respects its tone is not unlike Clement’s.
The date is uncertain. The only Diognetua of fame was the painting master who in 133 so influenced the lad afterwards the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. This apology, for such it virtually is, might well be dedicated to him. In favour of this is the reference to the emperor commissioning his son (e. 7), which may allude to either the adoption of M. Aurolius by Antoninus Pius (147), or the association of L. Aelius (161) or Commodus (176) in the empire by M. Aurelius. But Harnack CAL i 516 inclines to date not earlier than 240 and
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
169
This matter of the relation of the Christian to the current life of his age is of such importance, not merely for the study of martyrdom and renunciation in general, but for the gaining a correct insight into the inner life of the Church of the martyrs, that we propose to examine it more fully. For in it lay not the least of the causes of hatred and persecution.
We may dismiss at once the extremists of both types; those on the one hand whose laxity of conviction or conduct defended even attendance at the degrading public spectacles, quoting scripture to their purpose,1 and those who from extreme parousian standpoints made life of any sort practically impossible. The sincere Christian who tried to follow the light, and yet act out his part as citizen and
to look with favour on the identification of its author with Ambrosius, the friend of Origen (infra p. 241 n. 2).
I cannot concur in the praise which has been so abundantly lavished on this Epistle (see especially Ep. Diognetus in DCB ii). It seems to me too rhetorical to give us real information, while it suffers from a tendency to combine contradictions and to speak of them as one. The eloquent passage quoted is an illustration. Read from tho standpoint of to-day,it is splendid; from the standpoint of the age when it was written, it seems to me the use of language to conceal difficulties. Another illustration will |be found in its doctrine of tho Atonement (see supra p. 117 n.). In his Fernley lecture on the Spiritual Principle of the Atonement, p. 424, Mr. Scott Lidgett rightly points out “that this epistle might stand with equal propriety at the head of the so-called moral doctrines of the Atonement, and of those who look upon it as a satisfaction for sin.” But apologies rarely reveal tho real man. The writer is always thinking of his opponent.
1 Pseudo-Cyprian (possibly Novatian) de Spectac. 1-2. They pleaded David’s dancing, &c.; or (Tert. de Idol. 14) St. Paul’s ‘ oven as I also please all men in all things ’ (I Cor. x 32-3).
170 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
neighbour found difficulties enough confront him, without inventing the impasses of a rigid logic.
Logic in fact, then as now, rarely formed the final arbiter by whose decision the affairs of life were settled. We have an interesting illustration of this in the names of the Christian. The martyrs perished because they declined to sacrifice to gods whose very names they bore—Apollos, Apollonius, Dionysius, Hennas, Saturninus, Phoebe, and the like.1 Not until the age of persecution had ceased do Christian names, i.e. names from the Old or New Testament, for instance Mary, begin to displace the old heathen names. Even then Christians were more frequently called by the name of some distinguished martyr, whose blood had washed it from its original heathen stain. In this matter “the general custom of the world in which people were living proved stronger than any reflections of their own.”2 The early
1 See complete list in DC A ii 1369. Even the name of Venus (Yenerius) seems to occur (Le Blant ICG ii 117, 467).
2 On this question of names seo Harnack EC ii 35-45; DCA ii 1367-74; Ramsay CBP i 491-4, 533, 565; Le Blant ICG ii 66, 263. The first step seems to have been to add a Christian title to the heathen name, e.g. ‘ Ignatius Theophorus,’ ‘ Caedualla qui et Petrus ’ (Bede ME v 7), ‘ Valentina quae et Stephana,’ Narf5«pos <5 teal 'AireWrjs. Cyprian added the name Caeeilius from the priest who converted him (Jerome de Vir. lllud. 67). But these Christian eke-names were not always engraved on the tombs. In many eases they would be assumed at baptism (supra p. 61 n.). How early this became the custom is shown by the name of Cletus, the 2nd pope. O.T. names, except Susanna, were always rare in the West (Le Blant ICG
i 145). Le Blant (ib. i. 147 n.) also points out that names eonneete with the sea, Marina, Thalasia, Pelagia, Navicius, &e., became especial favourites with Christians because of their symbolism. We may note also names of joy, Gaudentiua, Hilaris, &c. (Le Blant ib. i
THE CAUSES OP HATRED
171
Christians, with rare common sense, declined to strain out the gnats while the real problems and difficulties still awaited solution.1 A public change of name would have been a dangerous advertisement of their new faith. But when prudence was no longer of any avail, the Christians in the fourth century often changed their pagan names for others more hallowed by association, before they met their death. ‘ One martyr,’ writes Procopius of Gaza, ‘called himself Jacob, another Israel, another Jeremiah, another Daniel, and having taken these names they readily went forth to martyrdom.’/2
The question of names was not of much importance. But the relation of the Christian to the business life of the world was no small difficulty. In an age when manual work was considered as suitable only for slaves, the Church insisted thereon as a duty;3 but some, for instance Tertullian,
155), as well as the names that have reference to the new spiritual life, Renatus, Vitalis, Sozomcn (see list in DCA ii 1372 b). On the ether hand, a common baptismal name was Stercorius! (Le Blant ICG ii 69 n.) Mary is a very rare name until the close of the 4th century.
1 It is more surprising that tho victorious Christians did not change the Mithraistic names of the days of the week, especially Sunday. Sco supra p. 82 n.
2 Procopius of Gaza (early 6th cent.) Comment in Isaiah c. 44; Migne PG lxxxvii 2401, based ou Euseb. MP 11.
3 I Thess. iii 10; Pseudo-Justin ad Zenam 17 (PG vi 1202); Ep. Barnahas 17. ‘ Thou shalt work with thy hands as a ransom for thy sins.’ See especially Apost. Condit. ii 63; and for a list of trades pursued by Christians as evidenced by inscriptions DCA ii 1993. Among them is a manufacturer of dicc. At first the clergy also were expected to practise some handicraft (Ajwst. Conslit. ii 63 ; Epiphauius
172 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
whose fervid nature admits nothing short of the ideal, can scarcely find an occupation in which the Christian could engage without compromise with idolatry.1 To those who pleaded that if they followed his advice they would be cut off from every means of livelihood, Tertullian answers that ‘faith must despise starvation as much as it despises death.’ His indignation with the Christian manufacturer of idols we can understand—‘how can a man raise in the worship of God hands that have made idols ? ’ but he carries his logic to the prohibition of all trades engaged however indirectly in supplying the needs of idol-makers, e.g. goldbeaters and engravers.2
‘ With -what face,’ he asks, ‘ can a Christian dealer in incense, who happens to pass a temple, spit on the smoking altars; and puff aside their fumes when he himself has sold the very material for the altar ? ’ lb. de Idol. 2.
That no Christian could be an actor or gladiator, or
teach acting, is intelligible,3 but Tertullian would bar
the Christian from becoming a schoolmaster, since
it involved the teaching the names and myths of the
gods. For ‘ that idolatry which is midwife to us all ’4
still ruled the schools in the shape of Greek and
Latin literature, and, in spite of the protests of
Baer. 80 n. 5, 6 ; 70 n. 2; Ramsay CBP ii 521, ease of Fronto). The effect of all this in ennobling work needs no illustration.
1 Tert. de Idol. 5, 12 cc. 10, 11, 17. In the de Idol, we get Tertul-lian’s real views on the matter more than in his oft-quoted Apol. 42. See infra 189. For a full study of Tertullian’s views see Neumann BSK i 119-39; Boisaier FP iii c 1.
2 lb. 4, 7, 8, 11. For ‘idols’ substitute “the drink-trade,” and Tertullian’s arguments are repeated in many quarters to-day.
3 Cyprian to Euchratius Ep. ii.
4 Tert. de Anima 39, de Idol. 10.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
173
Tertullian and Jerome and Gregory the Great, was destined still to rule them.
The question whether a Christian could become a teacher is so characteristic of the general difficulty that it deserves fuller examination. The emphatic negative of Tertullian and his school did not, we imagine, commend itself to many, though inscriptions, it is true, give us the names of but few Christian schoolmasters.1 Inasmuch as Tertullian did not counsel the withdrawal of Christian children from the schools—‘ studying literature is allowable, but not teaching’—his advice would simply have led to the depriving the little ones of all teachers whose example and silent influence might have done something to counteract the secular and pagan education. The Canons of Hippolytns, of the same age probably as Tertullian, are more practical in allowing the convert to continue to act as schoolmaster, on condition of reciting a sentence of his creed before the lessons, ‘ Non est deus nisi Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctns.’ They urge, also, that the Christian teacher should use his influence, if possible, to win over some of his heathen pupils to the faith in Christ.2 No doubt the difficulties confronting a Christian grammarian were considerable. In a chapter of his Confessions Augustine declaims against
1 I believe but one lias been found, an elementary tcacher called Gorgonus ; de Rossi RS ii 310.
2 Canones Ilippohjti ed. Aelielis p. 81 in TV vi (4) 1801. A translation of this very important work will be found in Duchesne Christian Worship (E.T. 2nd ed. London, 1904) pp. 521-42. There is a vast literature on the Canons; see Harnack CAL ii 501 ff.
174 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
‘ the hellish torrent of use and cuatom which sweeps away the song of Eve into that vast and stormy sea which scarcely they who have embarked upon tho tree can cross in safety.’
He is speakiug of tlie school lessons, the shower of gold in the lap of Danae, and the like, ‘ the wine of error held to our lips by drunken teachers ! ’1 Nor were the heathen text-books and the constant declamations on mythological topics the sole trouble. Holidays and payment were alike associated with heathen rites and deities. The first fee was the due of Minerva; at the feast of Flora the schoolroom must be adorned with garlands. The necessary aloofness of the Christian teacher from most of his boys both in the social and religious life would not make matters easier. Of all this we have an illustration, extreme, perhaps, and yet to some extent characteristic, in the case of the martyred schoolmaster Cassian of Imola (Forum Cornelii). This man, who was, it must be confessed, somewhat of a martinet, as in fact were most schoolmasters in those days, was arrested in the midst of his work. On refusing to sacrifice, he was handed over to his lads. They bound his hands and stabbed him to death with their sharp pens (acutis stylis).2
1 Confess, cc. 16-18.
2 Prudentius Peristeplu ix, a poem interesting for its glimpse into school life. According to William of Malmesbury, the same fate befell the famous John Scot Erigena from the boys of Malmesbury. See Poole Hist. Med. Thought 316-29. For the birchinga, <£c., of the day, see a charming letter of Ausonius to hia grandson, translated in Glover Life and Letters Fourth Cent. 107.
The school difficulty may perhaps account for the fact that “ the Greek of the Christian inscriptions is undoubtedly worse than that
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
175
That the Church made 110 attempt to provide schools of its own for children will not excite surprise. This would have led to the very identification which the more part were anxious to avoid. The school system of the Empire was too well established and endowed for the attempt to succeed, unless supported by larger resources than the Church could command. But in the case of Christians thrown out of a situation by their conversion, especially actors and others similarly engaged,1 the Church sought to ease the strain by itself providing work for its members. We see this clearly brought out in a passage of the Didache, where it forms part of a section on the duties of the Church to the brethren on their journeys:
‘ But let every one that cometh in the name of the Lord be received.
of ordinary pagan epitaphs” (Ramsay CBP i 517). Aristides complained of the shocking Christian Greek (Arist. Orat. 46 cd. Dindorf ii 394; Neumann BSK i 35 if.). At a very early date, as we see from Celsus (Orig. Cels, vi 14), many Christians began to doubt the wisdom of studying pagan literature. We soe this also in Tertullian’s famous saying: ‘ Haereticorum patriarchae Philosophi ’ (,4d. Ilermog. 18). Clemeut Alex. (Strom, i 9) and the school of Alexandria were almost alono in their plea for Greek culture. From the 5th century onwards tho hostility of the Church towards pagan literature became fixed, and reached its triumph in Gregory Gt. (Ep.
ix 54 to bp. Desiderius of Vienne); ‘ A report has reached us which we cannot mention without a blush, that thou expoundest grammar to certain friends,’ &c. On Christianity aud education see Boiesier FP.ii cc. 1 and 2.
' Cyprian to Eucliratius Ep. ii 2. Cyprian adds that the actor so supported is not to think that ‘ he is redeemed by an allowance in order to ceasc from sinning.’
The Synod of Elvira (c. G2) required a pantomime to renounce his craft before baptism (Dale SE 334, 175). For a full collection of passages bearing on tho Church’s treatment of actors, &c., see the historic Prynne’s Ilistriomastix (1G33) p. 545 ff.
176 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
If the comer is a traveller, assist him, so far as ye are able, but he shall not stay wifh you more than two or three days, if it be necessary. But if he wishes to settle with you, being a craftsman, let him work for and eat his bread. But if he has no craft, according to your wisdom provide how he shall live as a Christian among you, but not in idleness. If he will not do this, he is trafficking upon Christ.’1
In the Apostolic Constitutions this becomes one of the manifold charitable duties so characteristic of the early Church, the discharge of which fell upon the bishop:
‘ Exhibit to the orphan the care of parents ; to the widows the care of husband; to those of suitable age marriage; for the artificer obtain work; to the incapable give alms; for strangers provide an home; for the sick visitation; for prisoners assistance; ... for the young orphan help that he may learn a trade.’2
Naturally, with the growth of the Church such methods became unworkable, in part because of the ‘ trafficking upon Christ ’ of rogues, of whom Pere-grinus may be taken as a sample, who found that to pass as a Christian by means of the secret signs, the fish and the like, enabled them to live in luxury at the expense of the brethren.3 The existence of such a system of support proves the presence in the Church from its earliest days of a fair proportion of wealthy men, without whose generous gifts such a scheme could not have been attempted.
The effect of all this on the aloofness of the Christian, and the consequent gulf between himself and other classes, will not need illustration. The system
1 xPl<TT^tiV0P0i- Didache xii, cf. Ill John 5-8.
2 Apod. Constxt. iv 2 ; a passage throwing a fine sidelight on the Church of that day.
3 Lucian PP 16. Cf. II John 7, 8-11.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
177
worked in two ways. Early Christianity was essentially a brotherhood founded upon a gospel of love and charity. As such it stood apart from its surroundings.1 At the same time, by its exaltation of the value and need of work, there can be little doubt, though the matter is not capable, perhaps, of formal proof, that this brotherhood, in spite of the fact that they were necessarily shut out from certain trades, won for itself no small wealth. In a population bent on ‘bread and the games/ which had long handed over to slaves the pursuits of industry, where a middle class scarcely existed, an earnest, industrious brotherhood, which shunned as “works of the devil” the amusements and idleness which sapped the life of the Roman world, could not fail to prosper. But the more they prospered, the more they would draw down upon themselves the hatred of their neighbours, who, from causes into which we cannot now enter, but which finally dragged down in financial ruin the Roman Empire itself, were daily growing poorer.2
From the difficulties of business we pass to the questions of social intercourse and daily life. The
1 On this matter sec Harnaek EC i bk 2 c. 3. Such works as Uhlhorn Christian Charity in the Ancient Church (Eng. Trans. Taylor 1883) or Brace Gesta Christi (1882) must be read with caution. They do not do justice to the social legislation of Trajan and the Antonines, or to the philanthropies of tho collegia.
2 Historians are now fairly agreed that tho Western Empire fell chiefly through growing financial rottenness, e.g. Dill RS WE iii c 2, Do tho materials exist to cnablo us to reconstruct the commcrcial and financial position of Christianity in this baukrupt world? I am persuaded myself that in tho 2nd century Christianity waB largely a middle-class movement. Sec infra Appendix F.
N
178 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
consistent Christian—inconsistent Christians, alas ! abounded—was never seen at theatre, circus, or Coliseum. ‘Where more,’ said Tertullian, bluntly, ‘ will you find the devil with his angels ? ’1 But outside these acknowledged restrictions there was then as now, a large and often doubtful borderland of duty. On Caesar’s birthday should the Christian illuminate his house, and festoon his gates with wreaths ?2 Could the Christian attend the weddings, funerals, birthday rejoicings, and other festivities in the homes of heathen friends ? Could matters be conveniently arranged by leaving out on the invitation card the words ‘ to assist at a sacrifice ’ ?3 If the Christian was sick, should he seek shelter in the hospitals attached to the temples of Aesculapius, in whose long dormitories, when the lamps were lighted, the priests of the god of healing recited the vesper prayers?4 If he were wronged, must he refuse to appear in the law-courts, the business and forms of which were mixed up with heathen rites ? 5
From many offices in the State, the duties of which involved the performance of heathen rites, the conscientious Christian, in the opinion of many, was necessarily excluded. For office involved not only
1 Tert. de Speclactilis 4, 10, 17; iu c. 27 Tert. rules out even plays that tcach moral lessons. Minuc. Felix Oct. 12; Tatian ad Graecos 22, Clement Alex. Paed iii 11. Pseudo-Cyprian de Spectac 4 lays down the good rule that it is ‘unlawful to witness what it is unlawful to do.’
2 Tert. de Idol 15; Apol. 35.
3 So Tert. de Idol 16, a subtle distinction!
4 Dill RSNA 460-2.
• I Cor. vi. 1-11; Lact. IIP 15.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
179
pagan sacrifice, but ‘ the holding spectacles either at his own or the State’s expense,’ ‘ the presiding at the same,’ to say nothing of judicial duties which could not be carried out ‘ without chaining and torturing.’1 ‘ The Christian,’ said Tertullian, * has no desire to be aedile ’;2 he classes ‘ politics ’ (res publicae) among the things that are ‘ alien,’ for ‘ the Christian has but one commonwealth—the world,’3 a doctrine which drew forth the taunt of Celsus: ‘ Were all to behave as you do, the affairs of this world would fall into the hands of wild and lawless barbarians.’4 Tertullian does not mention that the expenses of office in the second century (much more so in tho third) had become so great as to involve financial ruin for all but the wealthiest. Others besides Christians caught at every means of escape from the intolerable burden.5 Some went so far as to unfit themselves by marriage with a slave; others bought themselves out at a price. The Christian’s excuse of religion would seem to his neighbour either cant or selfishness, if not the cloak of a heavy bribe, unless accompanied, as in the case of Cyprian and Basil, by such a surrender of their property as would put them outside the list of those
1 Tert, de Idol. 17,18.
2 ib. Apol. 46. Caeeilius in Minuc. Felix Oct. S, ‘ honores et purpuras dcsjiiciunt.’ Tatian ad Graecos 11, ‘ I do not wish to be a king,’ &c.
3 Tert. Apol. 38 f. Cf. Ep. Diog. v5 (quoted snjtra p. 168). Clem. Alex. Paed. iii 8. iraTpiSa cnl yqu ovk exoficv, with which cf. Wesley’s Hymns (Old Collection) No. 68.
4 Orig. Cels, viii 6S; cf. Aristides Omt. 46 (Ed. Dindorf ii 402).
5 On this see Dill JISNA 245-7, also RSWE 250-1, 253-4. Bigg Church's Task 11‘J n. Boissier FP ii 409-16.
180 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
eligible for office.1 There are grounds also for believing that Christians, for whom escape from office proved impossible, tried to shelter themselves by a policy which outsiders rightly or wrongly dubbed as ‘ laziness.’2 We can well imagine that they would do no more in the matter of spectacles than they were obliged. Some, it is true, tried to perform to the full all their municipal functions, including the bowing in the house of Rimmon, and excused themselves by the examples of Joseph and Daniel, who, ‘clean from idolatry,’ wore ‘the livery and purple of the prefecture.’3 That there was no direct command of the Church in the age of Tertullian against taking office is shown by the Canons of Hippolytus/ as well as by the later decision of the Council of Elvira,5 and the number of Christians who actually took office.6
1 Bigg o.c. 102-4.
2 E.g. Flavius Clemens (infra p. 204) whom Suetonius Dom. 10 accuses of ‘ contemptissimae inertiae.’
3 Tert. de Idol. 17.
4 C. 13, 73. Ed. Achelis p. 82 in TU (vi) 4.
5 Canon 56. This important Synod was held at Illiberis, near Granada, on May 15 of some year between 295-302 (Harnack CAL ii 450-2). It shows that there were many Christians who were yet flamens or priests, and throws anything but a good light on the purity of the Spanish Church as the result of the long peace (infra p. 267). See Dale Synod of Elvira (1882) for a full account.
6 For Christian magistrates at Alexandria see Euseb. EE vi 41,11, Yiii. Dativus (supra p. 143) was a senator of Carthage. The martyr Papylus of Thyatira was a senator (Haruack TU iii (3) 4 or Gebhardt JJLS 15). For Apollonius, a senator of Rome, see infra p. 219 n. For three Christian senators of Eumeneia see Ramsay CBP i 520, 522, 525. According to Euscb. HE viii 1 at the commencement of the reign of Diocletian some of the Christians were actually governors of provinces. Fee also Hermes of Heraclea infra p. 275.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
181
But it was acknowledged that office should only be undertaken as the last resort, while escape from it can scarcely be classed as renunciation.
Finally there was the question of the army, the symbol of patriotism, the refuge of a trembling world against the barbarians. Should the Christian serve at all, or, if unable to escape this obligation, what was his duty ? Opinion on the army varied considerably. Tertullian held that ‘there could be no agreement between the human and divine sacramentum, the standard of Christ and the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness,’ and went so far as to urge desertion. He was followed by Lactantius and Origen. When Celsus pointed out the consequences, Origen fell back at first on Providence—in reality he becomes a fatalist—and then ended the argument by stating that all Christians are priests, and as priests are exempt from military service, but will ‘ form an army of piety, and fight by offering prayers.’ He definitely states that ‘ Christians will not fight, even if the king (emperor) requires us to do.’ Similar decisions might be quoted from others of the Fathers.1
The difficulty of a Christian becoming or continuing as a soldier was not merely theological, but
1 Tert. de Idol. 19; de Cor. 11; de Pallio 5, ‘non milito;’ de Ttemrrect. 1G. Orig. Cels, viii G9-75 (sections well worth reading). Tatian ad Graecos 11, ‘I decline military command’; Lactantius Instit. vi. (20) 10. Tertullian’s de Corona was undoubtedly written (211) after he had become a Montanist (207). See Bury’s Gibbon ii 19; Harnack CAL ii 280. According to Tertullian, desertion was frequent, ‘ ut a multis actum.’ On the other side note Cl cm. Alex Protreph (i.e. adv. Gentes)c. x (Migue PG viii 215), ‘ When knowledge has eome to you in military service.’
182 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
practical. A Christian in the army, if appointed a non-commissioned officer, for instance a centurion, was hound to perform, or at least to witness in silence, certain sacrifices or else resign at once office and life. This happened in many cases, of some of which we still possess the records. We may take as an example the story of Marcellus, ‘ a centurion of the Trajan legion ’ stationed at Tangiers. The birthday of Maximian1 was being celebrated with the usual sacrifices (July 21), when Marcellus, horrified with all that he saw around him, suddenly flung away his military belt and his centurion’s vine-stick and cried,
‘ I am a soldier of Jesus Christ, the eternal King. I have done with fighting for your emperors. I despise the worship of deaf and dumb gods of wood and stone. If the terms of service are such that one is bound to offer sacrifices to gods and emperors, then I refuse to be a soldier.’
He was, of course, arrested and tried (Oct. 30).
“How came yon to be so mad as to renounce your oath and speak like that ?” asked the deputy prefect. “ There is no madness in those who serve the Lord,” was the reply. “ Did you say the very words given here in the commandant’s report?” “I did.” “ Did you throw away your vine-stick?” “I did.”
As he was led away to be beheaded, Marcellus turned
1 There are one or two difficulties in this undoubtedly genuine Acts. The usual quarters of the ‘legio II Trajana’ were Alexandria, the only troops at Tangiers being auxiliaries, perhaps of that legion (Harnaek MC 85). The‘feast of the emperor’ (festum imperatoris) must be Maximian’s, not Constantius Chlorus (Harnaek CAL ii 473 n,, who relies on e. 3 ‘in Caesarem’), for the district of Mauritania Tingitana went with the diocese of Spain, which at this time was assigned to Maximian (Bury’s Gibbon App. ii 555, 560). The year is uncertain (? 295 or 303).
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
183
to the prefect; ‘ God bless 3’ou,’ he said. ‘ That/ adds the writer of this old record, * was the proper way in which a martyr should take leave of the world.’1 The difficulty of sacrifices scarcely applied to the rank and file.2 But there were other dangers that the Christian soldier ran, an illustration of which will be found in the recently published story of Dasius, of the army of Moesia. The troops there were accustomed to elect one of their number to act as “king” during the Saturnalia, the annual heathen feast of slaves, now supplanted by Christmas. After thirty days of rule this “king” was expected to offer himself as a sacrifice to Saturn. When the lot fell upon Dasius he refused to act, pleading that he was a Christian. Needless to sa}T, he suffered the consequences.3 -
Moreover, the army, at the time when Tertullian and Origen wrote, was carried away by the cult of Mithraism. Throughout Europe, as Cumont has shown, the ‘Invincible Saviour’ Mithra was at this time the special deity of soldiers. Dacia and
1 Ruinart AM 303 or Harnack MC 117. For other eases, see that of Marinus (Euseb. HE vii 15); Callistratus (Conybearo, MEC 289 ff.); and cf. Tert. de Corona, 1. But the fact that Tertullian devotes a treatise to this last ease shows how rare it was.
2 So Tert. de Idol. 19 expressly. Tertullian objeets almost as much to the eapital punishment which a Christian officer might have to inflict.
3 A Greek version was first published by Cumont (Anal. Boll, xvi (1897) 5 ff). The Latin original is lost. The clay is Nov. 20. Harnack CAL ii 47G dates in 303, but tho words 1 when Maximian and Diocletian were emperors ’ seem to mo to point to a date after Dioclctian’s failure of health, i.e. Nov. 304 (see infra p. 27G).
184 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Pannonia, for instance, the great military outposts of the Empire, are full of his shrines; the spread of Mithraism in Pannonia, especially in the chain of Roman defences along the Danube, being the work of the auxiliaries of two legions, the second and fifteenth, whose recruiting ground was Cappadocia. In one camp no less than three Mithraeums have been discovered. From the Danube the religion was carried to the two Germanies, probably by the eighth legion, in or about the year 20 a.d. Along the Rhine from Basel to Cologne, and especially in the military district between the Main and the Neckar, the temples and inscriptions of Mithra are to be seen everywhere. From this stronghold of the faith the triumphant march of Mithra may be traced by Cologne, Treves, and Boulogne, the station of the British fleet, to the great port of London and the camps of Caerleon, Chester, and York; while five guard-houses in the wall of Hadrian, as well as an outpost among the Cheviots, still show the shrines of the god. All this added complication to a situation difficult enough already. To enter the army, or to remain in it after conversion, involved a Christian profession in the midst of a specially organized and aggressive heathenism.
There was also a theological or theoretical difficulty of some importance.1 The Christians, in-
1 For this section see Harnack’s little monograph, Militia Ckristi (1905), the Appendix of -which contains a full citation of all authorities. The idea is especially developed by Origen, but is found not only in St. Paul, but in I Clem. Cor. 37 ; Hennas Shep. S. v. 1; Justin I Apol. 39; Clem. Alex, passim, and Tertullian ad mart. 3; Apol. 37, 39, 50;
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
185
fluenced by the words of Jesus and of St. Paul, had from the first adopted the conception of the Church as the Militia Christi, the army of Christ. They were ‘ soldiers ’ in a ‘ holy war ’ which should bring in ‘with violence’ the kingdom of heaven. Jesus was their Imperator, that great Captain, to whom they were bound in allegiance by no common sacramentum, or oath; under whose standard, the Cross—the lexillum Christi—they were enrolled, and whose last words had been an earnest of victory: ‘ Be of good cheer: I have conquered the world.’ But how can a man serve two Emperors, be enrolled under two flags, live in two camps, or go on two different campaigns at the same time? Does not the one exclude the other ? So powerful indeed in the Early Church was this military metaphor, that many acted or rather reasoned as if it were a reality. They were ‘ the army of the living God,’1 prepared, if need be, to become ‘ the army of martyrs ’ rather than deny their Captain. One of these stalwarts, a youth called Maximilian of Theveste,2 was pressed as a recruit, and on his refusal to serve was brought before the proconsul Dion. The magistrate ordered the attendants
de Corona, 1, 11, 15; de Idol. 19, and elsewhere. Of later writers, much stress is laid on it by Cyprian.
1 Sec note on “ pagan,” infra p. 234 n. 3.
2 For Maximilian of Theveste, see hia Ada in Ruinart AM 300 ft', or Harnack MC 114-7. Ilia father Fabius Victor was temonurius,i.e. his business was to collect the money of conscripts who wished to commute service for a fine. Victor was a Christian, but naturally had no sympathy with the views of his son on this matter. See also infra p. 335. The date was March 12, 295. On Theveste (Tabessa) and its importance see Tissot PEA passim.
186 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
to measure him. ‘He is five foot ten,’ was the answer. ‘Enroll him then at once,’ said Dion. * Cut off my head if you like,’ cried the youth, * but
I cannot be a soldier of the world, I am a soldier of my God.’ They hung the leaden badge of service round his neck. * I don’t accept it,’ he said ; * I have already the badge of service under Christ.’ So he persisted to the end, and with ‘a bright smile’ obtained his ‘crown.’ ‘Give to the executioner,’ he said, turning to his father, * the soldier’s dress you made ready for me.’
Such cases as that of Maximilian were rare; not many soldiers were impressed against their will.1 In spite of all difficulties, theological or practical, the Christians in the army were fairly numerous.2 The story of the “ Thundering Legion,”3 whatever be its
1 See Neumann BSK i 12S, who quotes Mommsen Bom. Stctats-recJd. ii (2) 849 f. and his paper on Conscription in Hermes xix (1884).
2 This is expressly stated by the proconsul Dion (295). See Ruinart AM 300 or Harnack MC 116. Christian soldiers were especially common in Africa (Harnack EC i 461). According to Le Blant ICO i 85, out of every hundred epitaphs in Gaul pagan soldiers aro mentioned in 5 42, Christians in 0 57 per cent. When pleading before civil governors, Tertullian is shrewd enough to lay stress on the number of Christians ‘ implevimus castra ipsa ’ (Apol. 37); ‘militamus vobiscum ’ (ib. 47).
It is interesting to uote the continuity of Christians in the same legion. Take the ‘ Legio XII Fulminata.’ We have the Christians of the famous story (a.d. 174). To the same regiment belong the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (see infra), Polyeuctes (temp. Dccius. On the historical basis of this famous story see Allard II HP App. D. Conybeare MEC 123 f).
3 The title fnhninatrix, or “Thundering,” is a mistake. It was really the ‘ legio XII fulminata Melitensis ’ (cf. Dio. Cass, lv 23), i.e. the shields of the ‘legion of Melitene’ bore the device of Jupiter
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
187
value otherwise, proves conclusively that the views of Origen and Tertullian were not accepted by the early Church, which preferred to point to the many Christian soldiers in the pages of the New Testament, above all to the story of the believing centurion at the foot of the cross.1
Then, as now, there were soldiers not a few who could be as patriotic as Celsus himself, and as firm for their faith, when occasion called, as Tertullian. The army never lacked Christians, true heroes of God, who were prepared, if need be, to lay down their lives rather than deny their Christ. The proportion of martyr-soldiers is uncommonly large, and is, no doubt, to be explained by the fact that in times of stress and persecution the detection of Christians who were soldiers was easy, escape, in other words desertion, impossible; while the first effort of the Government when persecution broke out would be directed to the purging tho army of the accursed taint.2 The number of Christians who refused to
brandishing the thunderbolt, a title of the 12th legion long "before the war with the Qnadi and the date of this story (174 a.d.). That the story (see Euseb. HE v 5, Tert. ad Scap. 4) has a basis of fact is shown by its being depicted on the column of Mareus Aurelius. See Lightf. Ign. i 485-92; Renan MA 273 ff. for full investigation. Harnaek points out (MC 57 ; EC ii 206-7, 342) that this ‘ Legion of Melitene’ in South Armenia was largely recruited from Edessa, an early Christian stronghold whose royal house by the year 200 was Christian (ib. EC ii 293) as well as from Armenia, where Christianity was also strong soon afterwards (Euseb. I1E viii 6, 8, infra p. 270 n.).
1 Tert. de Idol. 19 retorted that Jesus ‘in disarming Peter unbelted every soldier ’ (John xviii 10, 11 ; Lnlce xxii "8).
2 So Euseb. BE viii 1,7; Laet. M.P. 10; Harnaek MC SO. The first move of Licinian in his final struggle with Constantine Wiis to purge
188 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
serve and suffered in consequence would appear to have been but few; the Christians in the army who laid down their lives for their Lord and Master form a goodly company.1 These were they of whom the seer had his vision, * the armies in heaven which follow the Word upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.’ (Apoc. xix 14.)
Such were some of the difficulties with which the Christian was daily faced. The answer he gave varied. Some, as we have seen, led on by Tertullian, took up a position of irreconcilable aloofness from life, which led Celsus and others to urge that Christianity constituted a danger to the social fabric itself. Others found that in practice, provided only that they maintained a certain reserve, difficulties were less real than they appeared. For them solvitur ambalanclo proved a better guide than logic. They did their best in that state of life in which God had placed them, to keep themselves unspotted from the world. These, as Tertullian owns in an oft-quoted passage wrung from him by the needs of his Apology, formed the vast majority of the Church. Christians, he claims, are not infructuosi hi negotiis, ‘ of no use in the affairs of life.’
‘ How can that be when we dwell beside you, sharing your mode
his army (Easeb. EE x 8). To this must be assigned the martyrdom of the Forty Soldiers of Sebaste. Part of their torture was to stand all night, almost naked, near a frozen pond. They wrote a last Testament, the original Greek of which has been recently published by Bonwetsch. See Geb. AMS 166-70. Their Acts (Geb. 171-81) require some care, as they are much later.
1 See a list in Hamack EC ii 213-6.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
189
of life, dress, habits ? We are not Brahmins or Indian gymnosophists dwelling in woods and exiled from life. We live beside you in the world, making use of the same forum, market, bath, shop, inn, and all other places of trade. We sail with you, fight shoulder to shoulder, till the soil, and traffic with you.’1
Christians, in fact, in the third century were to be met with everywhere, in business, in all positions of the State, in the army, and even in the Senate. But their presence in these positions was surrounded with many difficulties; they could scarcely avoid arousing popular suspicion both by what they did and by what they left undone. With the best will in the world, they remained a peculiar people, who must be prepared at any moment to meet the storm of hatred.
The hatred was the more acute because the Christians were not only peculiar, but proud of their peculiarities, by which, as they claimed, they rose superior to the world. To Celsus they seemed, in their admixture of humility and pride,
‘ frogs in council on a marah, worms in synod on a dunghill, quarrelling as to which is the greatest sinner, and yet declaring tbat God announces all things to us beforehand. . . . Land and water, air and stars, all things are for our sake and are appointed to servo us.’2
1 Tert. Apol. 42. To write such a passage must have been gall to Tertullian.
2 Orig. Cels, iv 23 (read the whole chapter); cf. iv 28. The student may be interested in the following collection of adjectives applied to Christianity: Acts xvii G. ol r)jy olKoufifvrivdvaaraTuaai/Tes (“ These that have turned the world upside down ”). Tac. Ann. xv 44, ‘cxitiabilis supcrstitio’ (“a deadly superstition”); Suetonius Nero 10, supcrstitio nova et malefica (“now and pernicious”); Pliny Ep. x 9G, supcrstitio prava ct immodica (“depraved and extravagant”); so also Minuc. Felix Oct. 10. Marcus Aurelius Medit. xi 3. Kara ^apdra^tv, iis ol xp^rriai/ol (“ sheer obstinacy ”).
190 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
The Christians, in their own proud phrase, were ‘ the new people,’1 * the third race ’2—this last, possibly, of Gentile rather than Christian origin, though adopted by them without demur. Such titles were not merely the signs of separation and aloofness; they were the assertions of a purpose. The Christians claimed that they would accomplish a task which in the end baffled the Empire;—build into a new unity the diverse nations of earth.3
Tert. Apol. 35, ‘ publici hostes.’ Caecilius in Minuc. Felix Oct. supplies a choice supply ; e.g. ib. 9, ‘ vana et demena superstitio ’; ib. 8, ‘inlicitae ac desperatae factionis’ (“au unlawful and desperate faction ”); ib. ix, ‘ sacraria taeterrima impiae citionis ’ (“ abominable shrines of an impious assembly ”); ‘ cruenda et execranda consensio ’ (“ a confederacy to be rooted out and detested ”); ib. viii, ‘ latebrosa et lucifuga natio’ (“lurking in dene and darkness ”).
1 On this see Harnack’s elaborate note EC i 306-7, and add to the authorities there cited, Euseb. HE i 4, ‘ And, indeed, though we are evidently a new people.’
2 For this title see Harnack EC i 313, 336-52, especially the quotations 343-8. Cf. Neumann RSK i 138. The first nation was indifferently called RomaD, Greek, or Gentile, the second the Jews. The heathen adopted the title before the close of the second century; then the cry in the circus of Carthage was : ‘ Usque quo genus tertium ? ’ (“How long must we endure this third race?” Tert. Scorp. 10). Tert. ad Nat. i 8 and i 20 is emphatic that the ground of classification was religion, not race. Harnack o.c. i 349 suggests that the title was “due to the influence of the writings of Varro, who had a genius for classification.” It 6eems to have been current only in the West. The scorn of Tertullian for the title (see especially ad Nat. i 8) seems to me to be fatal to Harnack’a idea that it was of Christian origin, though undoubtedly accepted by them.
3 See Hermas Shep. S ix 7 for an allegorical setting forth of this idea.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
191
The most powerful cause of hatred yet remains. The Christians professed that ‘nothing was more alien to them than politics ’;1 in reality, from the standpoint of the Roman governor, they were intense politicians of a most dangerous type. The Christians were condemned, not because of their theological views, but because of their supreme loyalty to a law and throne outside the Roman law and throne. They were not anxious to run counter to the law and customs of the Empire ; they were, in fact, unanimous in upholding them.2 But if at any time such law and customs came into conflict with the will of God, as interpreted by themselves and their standards, they must obey God rather than man. To the Roman executive, which demanded absolute submission of will and life from all its subjects, such a doctrine could not be other than a danger to the State, once its purport was clear. They could not overlook the existence in their midst of ‘ a new people,’ ‘ a third race,’ of cosmopolitan character, who proclaimed openly that ‘ they looked for a kingdom ’;3 who went so far as to ‘ frame laws for themselves according to their own purposes, and observed these laws,’4 and
1 Tert. Apol. 38, ‘ nec ulla magis res alieua quam publiea.’
2 Cf. Justin I Apol. 17; Talian adv. Graecos 4; Apost. Conctit. iv. 13.
3 Justin M. I Apol. 11 and cf. Euseb. MP 1, 5 Zaecbaeus and AlpliaeuB, who wero put to death for sayiug ‘Jesua Christ is emperor.’
* See tho complaint of Galerius, Euseb. 11E viii 17.
192 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
refused to obey any laws which ran contrary thereto, and who daily grew in numbers, influence, and wealth.
Nothing is more natural than the political disgust and hatred which the Christians in consequence aroused. If to-day powerful governments take alarm lest the fealty of Eoman Catholics to the Pope should prove stronger under certain circumstances than their allegiance to the state, if the doctrine of Passive Eesistance excites suspicion among many who claim that a man cannot be a loyal citizen who accepts its basis, we can well imagine the hatred that would well out against the Christians when first they asserted these startling doctrines in a world whose fabric, civil and religious, was built upon the absolutism of Caesar. Even the great political maxim of Jesus, ‘Bender unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,’ becomes meaningless, if not treasonable, in a state that made little difference between Caesar and God.1
The refusal, moreover, of the Christians to worship Caesar was naturally interpreted by judge and mob as a confession of disloyalty to the Empire and its head. In not a few of their trials, which for the most part resolve themselves into cases of high treason, we find the Christians protesting their loyalty and devotion to Caesar, but at the same time laying emphasis upon its limits. Said one of the Scillitan martyrs, ‘ We give honour to Cfesar as
1 Tert. de Idol. 15, ‘ If all is Caesar’s, what will remain for God?
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
193
Caesar; we offer worship (timorem) to God alone.’1 This was, in fact, in their case, as in that of the majority of Christians, the cause of their condemnation. We see this clearly brought out in their formal sentence:
‘ Speratus and the rest having confessed that they are Christians, and having refused to render -worship to Caesar, I pronounce that they be punished with the sword.’
Tertullian is equally explicit:
Therefore as to what relates to the honour due to kings or emperors, we have sufficiently laid it down that it behoves us to render all obedience, according to the apostle’s precept, but within the limits of our discipline and provided that we keep ourselves free from idolatry. De Idol. 15.
The popular feeling in this matter was correct. Many passages no doubt can be adduced expressive of the utmost loyalty. A beautiful Litany for those
‘ to whom Thou hast given the power of sovereignty, through Thine excellent and unspeakable might, that we, knowing the glory and honour which Thou hast given them, may submit ourselves unto them; . . . Grant unto them, therefore, O Lord, that they may administer the government which Thou hast given them without failure ’
forms the conclusion of the letter of the first Apostolic Father, who in this was but following the example of
1 Gebhardt AMS 24. As we shall make several references to the Scillitan martyrs (i.e. from Scili, less probably Scillium or Scillita, in Numidia, see Neumann RSK i 71 n.), wo may refer here to Dean Robinson’s study and text (in TS 1891 (I), 106 ff.) of this most interesting trial. Tho text only will bo found in Gebhardt AMS 22-7, or Anal. Holland viii (1) 5-8. For tho true date of their martyrdom—July 17, 180, and not 202 as formerly accepted (before Usener’s publication in 1881 of a new MS.)—seo Robinson o.c. or Lightf. Ign. i 524-7. See infra p. 227 n. 1 (II). According to Tert. ad Scap. 3, their persecutor Yigellius Saturninus lost his sight.
O
194 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
St. Paul.1 Prayers for the emperors, in fact, constituted a fixed part of the organization of Christian worship from the first. Tertullian gives us a moving picture of the Church on its knees for Caesar, ‘with hands outspread, with head uncovered, without a prompter,’ and with bitter irony exhorts the magistrates ‘to draw forth with tortures the souls that are thus loyally pleading with God ’ for one whom the Christians hold to be ‘ second to God alone.’2 ‘ The Christian,’ he argues,
‘ is the enemy of no man, assuredly not of the Emperor, whom he knows to be ordained of God. Of necessity therefore he loves, reveres, and honours him, and prays for his safety, with that of the whole Roman Empire, that it may endure—as endure it will—as long as the world itself ’ (ad Scap. 2).
But Tertullian was writing an apology. In our judgement the Apocalypse, or the Christian interpellations in the Sibylline Oracles, represent much more accurately the real views of the early Church upon the Empire. The noble conception which St. Paul had formed of using the Empire and its institutions as a means for the spread of Christianity was one natural to a Roman citizen; in practice Christianity and the Empire proved fundamentally antagonistic, if only because they were rivals in conception and method. Each claimed to be a kingdom of universal sway; each created a Church of universal obligation, each demanded absolute fealty to its supreme Lord.
1 Clem. Rom. Ep. Cor. cc. 60-1. This Litany is not found in the earlier MSS. of Clement (so in consequence not in Lightf. Clem. 1st ed.); cf. I Tim. ii 1, 2; Justin I Apol. 17; Athenag. Plea 37.
2 Tert. Apol. 30, 39.
THE CAUSES OF HATRED
195
Between Caesar and Christ there could be no compromise, at any rate on the existing footing of Caesar.1 When Celsus pleaded that the ideas of Christians, if carried out, meant the destruction of existing society, he was but urging a truth hidden from Origen and other apologists.2
Such were, in the main, the causes of the charge against Christianity of ‘ hostility to the race or state.’ From the standpoint of our present purpose the reader should note that persecution was the direct outcome of the Christian doctrine of renunciation. For the causes which led to popular and official hatred were not theological, or the outcome of esoteric doctrines of worship, or the result of certain ethical postulates. Nor were they the result of religious animosity. Polytheism as such is indifferent whether a man worship one God or twenty. They were rather the outcome of the fundamental tenet of primitive Christianity, that the Christian ceased to be his own master, ceased to have his old environment, ceased to hold his old connexions with the state; in everything he became the bondservant of Jesus Christ, in everything owing supreme allegiance and fealty to the new Empire and the Crucified Head. ‘We engage in these conflicts,’ said Tertullian, * as men whose very lives are not our own ... We have no master but God.’3 ‘ What is thy condition ? ’ said the
1 This waa written before the publication in the Hilbert Journal (January, 190G) of an article Caesar or Christ, by Professor Iverach, expressing the samo conclusions in almost identical words.
2 See Appendix J. 3 Ad Scup. 1, 5.
196 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
judge to the martyr Maximus. ‘I am a free man,’ was the reply, * hut the slave of Christ.’ Similar was the answer of Febronia, a wealthy and beautiful virgin. ‘ A slave! ’ asked the judge Selenus, in surprise ; ‘ whose slave ? ’ ‘ The slave of Christ.’1 But the rise of the ‘slaves of Christ’ meant the fall of the rule of the Caesars. As St. John saw clearly, the Empire (Koa/xoe) was bound to hate the Church. Nor was the hatred the less because the Empire knew that it was in the pangs of dissolution—‘the world,’ said the seer, ‘ is passing away.’2
1 Geb. 121 or AM 157. Maximus was martyred at Ephesus a few months after Pionius, cf. infra p. 330. For Febronia, see A. SS June vii. 12-27. Her Acts, originally in Greek or Syriac, though touched up in the interests of monasticism, possibly contain a genuine kernel. (The version in Dunbar’s Saintly Women (1904) i 309 is wholly for edification.) In tho Roman legal interrogations of Christians the order is almost invariably, as in the examination of Maximus, (1) name, (2) condition, (3) family, (4) country, (5) profession, (6) rank. The student will learn much by taking a few Acta and noting this. See Le Blant SAM 211-7.
2 I John iii 13 with Westcott’s note on K6fffios) I Ep. John 255.
CHAPTER IV
‘ Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecnted they the prophets which were before you.’—Matt, v 10-12.
‘ And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Aud when I saw her I wondered with a great wonder.’—Apoc. xvii 6.
‘ For martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst miracles; because they seem to exceed the strength of human nature.’
Bacon.
‘ For all tho saints who from their labours rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy name, 0 Jesu, be for ever blessed.
Alleluia.’
CONTENTS
§ I, p. 199. The number of the martyrs—Misconceptions—The great persecutions—Two periods.
§ II, p. 202. The persecution of Nero—Of Domitian.
§ III, p. 208. Trajan — His correspondence with Pliny — Martyrs under Trajan — Hadrian — His Character — ‘ Delation ’ — His Rescript to Minicius Fundanus—Hernias’ Shepherd.
§ IY, p. 220. Antoninus Pius—Marcus Aurelius—His character— His views on Renuuciation—Antipathy to Christianity—Persecution under—Commodus and Marcia,
§ V, p. 229. A new era—Growth of the Church—The great struggle —Exaggerations—The unequal contest—Septimus Severus— Elagabulus—Alexander Severus—Maximin—Philip the Arab —Decius—His edicts—Great persecution—Fabian, Cyprian, Dionysius, and Origen—End of the persecution.
§ VI, p. 251. Valerian—His character—Macrianns—The great persecution—Xystus—Fall of Valerian—Peace of Gallienus—Origin of the Catacombs—Burial clubs—The sanctity of graves.
§ VII, p. 265. Diocletian—Outbreak of persecution—Galerius Maxi-mian—Passion let loose—Alban—Searching for Bibles—Felix of Aptungi—Felix of Tibjuca—Euplius—Retirement of Diocletian —Maximin Daza—A reign of Terror—Interposition of Constantine —Edict of Milan.
Pp. 199-282.
I
The reader who has followed our investigation will be in a position to answer the further question: Were the martyrs of the Early Church many or few ?1 The question is not one of mere statistics or curiosity. Especially is the answer of importance for our present purpose. Was this supreme renunciation a rare or common event, a factor so infrequent that so far as the general run of Christians is considered it might be neglected ; or was persecution, or at any rate the fear of it, part of the price that each Christian was called upon to pay ? Unfortunately, the question, at the best not easy to answer, has become mixed up with theological polemics. Some have represented the Eoman magistrates as men of singular humanity and moderation, whose “ philosophy” led them, as a rule, to decline the task of persecution, or who, at most, singled out here and there some Christian distinguished in rank or influence by whose death they might strike terror into the whole sect. Others, on the other hand, have reckoned the battalions of the “noble army of martyrs” as almost inexhaustible. ‘ There is no day in the whole year,’ wrote Jerome,
1 On p. Gi this question was briefly considered in a different connexion. See further the discussion in Appendix F.
200 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
in his epistle to Heliodorus, ‘ unto which the number of five thousand martyrs cannot be ascribed, except only the first day of January.’ But compared with later stories the computation of Jerome was moderate. It is, at any rate, somewhat borne out by the statement of Eusebius, that in the persecution in the Thebais as many as one hundred martyrs a day were often sacrificed, ‘ so that the weapons of the murderers were completely blunted.’1
The truth, as is generally the case, lies between the two extremes. We may dismiss at once the incredible legends, in which the mediaeval Church delighted, of the thousands of virgins or soldiers slain at Cologne,2 on Mount Ararat,8 and the like. Accuracy in figures is but a modern foible. But with equal justice may we claim as an exaggeration the idea that the penal laws against the Christians were not put into force, save at certain rare and infrequent intervals. The Christians, like the anarchists of Russia, were always liable to persecution and death; the smouldering fires of popular hatred or official
1 Euseb. EE viii 9. But Gibbon (ii 137 n.) rightly points out that Euseb. knew only the Thebais by hearsay. In Palestine, where he had been an eye-witness, he mentions only ninety-two cases in all.
2 Cf. Acts of Phocas, infra p. 212 n. Nevertheless even in the case of St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand there seems some groundwork of fact, either a misreading of XI M.V., i.e. martyres virgines into millia virgines, or more probably, as De Buck contends, a great massacre of Christians at Cologne by the Huns after their return from defeat at Chalons in 451. For the whole subject see Owens College Eist. Essays 17-56 and the learned treatise of Do Buck in A.SS Oct. is 73-303.
3 For this story see an investigation in my Letters of Eus, 249 n.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
201
zeal might break out against them at any moment. They lived from day to day conscious of a danger to which they were exposed, and which some act of indiscretion on their part might bring to a head. We may grant that the outbreak of persecution in systematic form was an infrequent occurrence; depending chiefly on local circumstances of popular feeling, on the zeal, superstition, or humanity of the district magistrates. There were, however, seasons of special activity in persecution—enumerated by the early Church as ten in all—when the hatred against the Christians burst forth, not locally, but over wide areas. The history of these great persecutions, their causes, special features, and results, claims our notice.
Hitherto in our treatment, in order that we might the better grasp the broad outlines, we have neglected to some extent the notes of time. We have treated the age of persecution as if it were a unity in itself. Such a broad generalization of a movement stretching over a period of two hundred and fifty years, though advantageous for the simplification of our argument, needs of course considerable revision. There are, in fact, two main periods into which the history of persecution in the early Church may be divided. The one period, marked by outbreaks neither systematic nor severe, closes with the early years of the third century. The other period is characterized by a desperate struggle, or rather series of struggles, between the Empire and the Church, and closes with the triumph of the Church under Constantine. These two periods
202 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
are not mere artificial marks of time. They correspond to a real distinction upon which too much stress cannot be laid. In the first period the Church was comparatively small and weak, and by no means widely represented; in the second period the Empire woke up to discover a vast hostile organization created in its midst, whose rapid growth in every land was sweeping all before it. Thus in the first period persecution was fitful and local, the result rather of passing hates than clear statesmanship; in the second period the State bent all its energies to the task, deliberately undertaken, of crushing out the Church before it was too late. In the first period the number of martyrs was but few, for the Christians themselves were not numerous; in the second period there were times of wholesale massacre, though usually, as in other similar cases, the persecution was intensive rather than extensive.
II
The first of the ten persecutions, to follow for the time the traditional reckoning, was that of Nero.1 This, though certainly local rather than universal, stamped itself for ever upon the memory of the Church by reason of its fiendish cruelties as well as
1 In reading this chapter the student should refresh his memory of the details of Roman history and its emperors from Tiberius to Constantine. He cannot do better than keep Bury’s Gibbon by his side. Duruy EB is well illustrated. For all sources of secular affairs the student must look to one of these. The Chronological Table that I have supplied will be found of use.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
203
its distinguished victims. The number who suffered is unknown. Tacitus, it is true, speaks of a ‘ vast multitude ’ in Rome alone ; but we have no means of checking his rhetoric.1 The total loss of the early written records of the Roman Church has robbed us of all names. Only with difficulty can we recover the story of St. Peter and St. Paul. The rest is a blank.
Under the Flavians there was a respite, so far, at any rate, as an organized persecution was concerned,2 until the second great outbreak under Domitian.3 The Christians were not alone in suffering from the cruel and suspicious nature of this tyrant. The inner secret of that sombre reign is still a mystery, but of the agony of the Roman world under his rule there can be no doubt. Domitian united ability and astuteness with timidity and cruelty. He seems to have been anxious, also, to conceal his vices, perhaps from himself, certainly from others, by a scrupulous devotion to the old forms of religion.4 So he flung his whole strength into a moral and religious reaction, and, in accordance with this design, sought to crush out the Christians. Domitian struck at the highest,
1 Ann. XV 44. Gibbon aptly quotes Livy xxxix 13, 14. On the other hand, Apoc. xvii 6 points to a large number (i.e. assuming its Noronian date), and cf. Clem. Cor. G iro\v ir\rjdos.
s See supra p. 55 u. for qualifications. Isolated persecutions possibly went on.
3 For persecution under Domitian our authorities arc Clem. Rom. Ep. 5-7. (Note ‘We are in tho eamo lists, and tho eamo contests await us,’ and for dato cf. infra p. 20G n.) Melito in Euseb. 1IE iv 2G ; also HE iii 17-20 (c. 17 is ambiguous), and Chron. ii 160 (cd. Schoone) Tert. Apol. 5 Lactant. de mort. Persec. 3.
4 See the references in Kenan Les Ecang. 291.
204 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
putting to death ‘ as an innovator * (‘ quasi molitores rerum novarum’) the ex-consul Acilius Glabrio,1 whom he had compelled (a.d. 91) to fight against a lion and two bears; also ‘for atheism,’ Flavius Clemens, his cousin, who was either consul at that time or had but recently resigned the office, and whose two sons were Domitian’s destined heirs in
1 The main sources, apart from the archaeological, for our knowledge of Glabrio, Flavius, Clemens, &c., will be fonnd in Dio. Cass, lxvii 14; Suet. Bom. 10,15,17; Euseb. HE iii 18; Chron. ed Sclioene
ii 160; CIL vi 948. (All the above are given in full in Lightf. Clem. i 104 ff.; or briefly in ib. Phil. 22 n.) Renan Les Evang. 228 ff. inclined to believe that Clement became a Jew, though his wife may have been a Christian. But Judaism surely would not be called ‘ atheism.’ De Rossi has shown how closely Domitilla was associated with the Christians. The Catacomb of Tor Marancia on the Ardea-tine Way seems to have been given by her to her fellow Christians, and many Christian Flavii of the second century are buried therein. See de Rossi RS i 131 ff. or Lanciaui PCR 335-45, Lightf. Clem, i 35-9, Renan Evang. 342 n. Allard I HP 96-115.
It is of interest to note that Flavius Clemens the consul was the son of the Flavius Sabiuus who, as city prefect, must have been the chief executor of Nero’s hatred against the Christians (Lightfoot Clem, i 75-6). The persecution, or rather the heroism of the martyrs, may have been the beginning of the son’s conversion. Another relative of Flavius Clemens and of Domitian was certainly a Christian martyr. This was Aurelia Petronilla, the daughter of Titus Flavius Petron, an uncle of Vespasian. Later ages by mistaken etymology made her the daughter of St. Peter, and preserved in a distorted form the memory of a martyr otherwise unknown. The discovery of her tomb in 1875 has shown the real truth which underlay the tradition (DCB iv 327 or Lanciani I.e., Northcote and Brownlow RS i 176-86).
The Christianity of Manius Acilius Glabrio is not certain, but seems probable. See on the one side Lanciani PCR 4-9, who gives an accouut of de Rossi’s discovery in 1888 of the crypt of the family in the Catacomb of Priscilla, conclusively proving the Christianity, at any rate, of his near relatives and freedmen, or Allard o.c. 113-5; and on the other Lightf. Clem, i 81 n., Aube PE 164-8. On the whole,
I incline to the affirmative.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
205
the Empire. On the same charge of ‘ atheism ’ he banished Clemens’ wife Domitilla, his own niece, to Pontia,1 a little island in the Tyrrhense sea (a.d. 95). There in a narrow cell, in later years (385) visited by the lady Paula when on her travels, f Domitilla drew out a long martyrdom for the confession of the Christian name.’ Not long afterwards Domitian was slain by Stephen, the steward of Domitilla.2
According to tradition, the wrath of Domitian fell on others in the Church even more illustrious than his cousins. He is said to have put to death Clement the Christian doctor, the third or fourth bishop of Piome.3 Tradition affirms that he struck at the aged
1 See Lightf. Clem, i 49-50, but Renan Les Evang. 296 inclines to Pandateria with Dio. Cass. But many writers (especially R.C.) make two Flavia Domitillas, one the wife of the consul, and the other her niece. The aunt was banished to Pandataria, the other to Pontia. The matter has been holly disputed since Sealiger’s day; see Allard I EP 109 n., or DCB i 875.
2 Jerome Ep. 108 § 7; Suet. Dom. 17. Whether Stephen was a Christian we do not know. The language put into hi3 mouth at the murder (Philostratus Vit. Apollon, viii 25) has a Christian ring: ‘ Clement, your enemy is not dead as you think ’ (Lightf. Clem, i 41). But according to Suet. Dom. 17, Stephen’s motive was to cover up a charge of peculation (Allard I EP 132-3).
3 Attempts have been made in Germany to identify Clement the bishop and Clement the consul. See Lightf. Clem, i 52 n. The solo authority in favour of it would seem to bo tho worthless fourth-century Clementine romance in tho Eomilies and Recognitions, and this only indirectly (Lightf. I.e. i 55, 23 n). Clement the bishop was much more likely a freedman in tho honse of the consul (ib. 61), though even in that ease, as Renan points out (Evang. 311 n.), ho would have been called Flavius, and not Clement. Moreover, thero are some indications (ib. 313) that Clement the bishop was a Jew by birth. The statement that ho was a Roman ‘do regiono eeliomonte ’ in LP i 123 is taken from Recog. Clem, i 1, vii 8, and from
206 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
apostle John. The apostle of love escaped,1 but how great was the danger of the Christians under this tyrant may be seen in the well-known tale, recorded by Dion, of Domitian’s funeral banquet to a select number of nobles :
the situation of the church of that name. For the martyrdom of Clement the bishop, his exile to Cherson, &c., the earliest authority is the fictitious Acts of Clement, a romance of the second half of the fourth century. They may be read in Migne PG ii 617 ff., or Funk PP. A post, i 808 ff. See also Lightf. Clem, i 85-90. De Rossi considers that the -whole story rests upon his confusion with a later Crimean martyr of the same name. According to Euseb. HE iii 34, Jerome de Vir. 111. 15, Clement the bishop died ‘ in the third year of Trajan,’ i.e. a.d. 100. So LP i 123, with the addition of the word ‘ as a martyr ’; but Irenaeus Eaer. iii 3 knows nothing of his martyrdom.
The confusion of the two Clements may be found also in the question as to the ownership of the famous third or lowest of the churches in the basilica of St. Clement at Rome. Lightf. (Clem, i 94-5) believed that this was part of the house of the consul; de Rossi of the bishop. At one lime it became perverted to the rites of Mithra (see supra p. 83).
As I incline to a later date for the Epistle of St. Clement, I see no reason to reject the succession of bishops of Rome as Linus, Cletus, Clement. See Duchesne LP i Introd. lxix-lxxii; Irenaeus Eaer. iii 3; Harnack CAL i 144 ff. The question of succession is bound up with the date of the Epistle. This has been assigned as late as Hadrian, and as early as Nero. If we date with Lightf. (Clem, i 346-58) as the last year of Domitian, or the first of Nerva (95 or 96), we must face the difficulty stated in App. A as to St. John. The Ancient Homily (often cited as 2nd Ep. Cor.) bound up with Ep. Clem, ad Cor. is anonymous. Its genuineness was doubted by Euseb. HE iii 37 and rejected by Jerome (Vir. HI. 15). As it has no bearing on our subject, its date need not detain us.
1 See App. infra. According to Dio. Cass, lxviii 1, Nerva recalled Domitian’s exiles. Among them, according to Clem. Alex, (quoted supra p. 47 n.) and Jerome Vir. 111. 9, was St. John. How was it, then, he did not recall Domitilla? (‘longum martyrium duxerat,’ Jerome Ep. 108 § 7).
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
207
‘ So he fitted up an apartment all in black. The ceiling was black, the walls were black, the pavement wa&J)lack, and upon it were ranged rows of bare stone seats, black also. The guests were introduced at night without their attendants, and each might see at the head of his couch a column placed, like a tombstone, on which his own name was engraved, with a cresset lamp above it, such as is suspended in the tombs. Presently there entered a troop of naked boys, black also, who danced a horrid dance, and then stood still, offering the guests the morsels of food which are commonly presented to the dead. The guests were paralysed with terror, expecting death at every moment—the more so as, amid the deep silence of the company, Domitian spake of the things that appertain to the state of the dead’ (Dio. Cass, lxvii 4).
In this case Domitian’s delight in exquisite torture did not end tragically; but the result was generally otherwise. If Juvenal’s satire is true, that even to talk with Domitian about the weather was to cast hazards for your life, how real was the peril of those who through allegiance to Christ disdained to ascribe to a suspicious madman the divinity on which he laid such stress !1 This tale points, moreover, to one characteristic of Domitian’s persecution, as distinct from that of Nero. The Neronian persecution had proved “ a wholesale onslaught of reckless fury,” somewhat restricted, it is true, in its area; that of Domitian was “ a succession of sharp, sudden, partial assaults, striking down one here and one there from malice or jealousy or caprice, and harassing the Church with an agony of suspense.”2
1 Juven. Sat. iv 87. See also supra p. 97 n. 1.
2 Lightfoot Clem, i 81.
208 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
The murder of Domitian ushered in the golden age of the Empire. Erom Nerva to Marcus Aurelius a succession of rulers of rare gifts and insight preserved the peace and prosperity of the world, in spite of the signs of growing bankruptcy and dissolution. But for the Church their rule was by no means a golden age of toleration. The depravity of a Nero or Domitian has too often led apologists and historians astray. As a matter of fact, it was not the worst emperors—a favourite fiction of the apologists in their appeal to the outside public1—but the best who were the persecutors of the Church. The greater the vigilance of the emperor, the more determined he was to crush out sedition and disorder, the deeper his sense of responsibility for the preservation of the unity of his vast dominions, the more was he likely to come into conflict with so divisive a factor as the religion of Jesus. A great administrator, Trajan for instance, just because he was firm and vigilant, “ would send a Christian to punishment with no more hesitation and remorse than if it had been a question of a refractory soldier or a fugitive slave.”2
1 See Liglitf. Ign. i 2-4 n., who aptly cites Lactant de Mort. Persec. 3, 4, who in his list of persecutors skips from Domitian to Decius. Cf. Melito of Sardis Apology in Euseb. HE iv 26, with its stress on ‘Nero and Domitian alone’ as persecutors. Hence forged letters favourable to Christianity are always attributed to “good” emperors. See infra p. 220 n. 1, and add as a further illustration the story of the Thundering Legion, supra p. 186 n. 3.
* Duruy HE iv 819. But iv S19 n. seems to me wrong.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 209
The two great provincial emperors, Trajan and Hadrian, made no change of moment in the policy of their predecessors. The Eoman view of Christianity is nowhere better illustrated than in the correspondence of Pliny and Trajan.1 In September, 111, Pliny the younger, a cultivated Eoman lawyer, was sent out to restore order in the disorganized province of Bithynia-Pontus. About a year after his arrival, when sojourning, probably, at Amisus, in the eastern districts of his rule, he received anonymous accusations charging ‘ many persons ’ with Christianity. The new religion, it seems, had taken considerable hold of the whole district, both in town and country. According to Pliny, who possibly exaggerated matters in order to magnify his vigilance, the temples were abandoned, the trade in sacrificial animals and in the fodder needful for their keep in a parlous state.
1 The Letters of Pliny and Trajan (Pliny Eps. 96, 97) will be found in Lightf. Ign. i 50-6 or Iveil’s Pliny, Leipzig, 1870. A useful edition with English notes is Merrill’s Selected Letters of Pliny or Hardy Plinii Epistulae (many of the views since retracted in his Christianity and Homan Government, 1894). Merrill’s notes aro, however, very biassed.
This valuable correspondence depends on a single MS. found in Paris about 1500, used by several scholars about 1508, and never since seen. But its genuineness is beyond question (cf. Renan Les Ecang. 476 n.). The lettres re Christians were possibly known to Melito of Sardis (Euseb. HE iv 26, bo Renan I.e. 480; contra Lightf. Ign. i 2), and aro mentioned in Tert. Apol. 2, from whom Euseb. HE iii 33 is derived through a faulty Greek translation.
For their dato (Sept. Ill-early 113, probably winter 112) seo Harnack CAL i 256, Lightf. Ign. ii 536, Renan o.c. 475. The real inwardness of the correspondence was first brought out by Neumann HSK i 19-26. See also Ramsay ChE c. 10, Hardy CHO c. 6, for slight variations.
P
210 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Acting on information volunteered, probably, by the aggrieved tradesmen, the police arrested the Christians, and Pliny examined them. The upshot was various. Some acknowledged the charge, and on the third time of asking were at once ordered off to execution as if they were assassins or coiners, while the Roman citizens among them were despatched to Rome to await Trajan’s pleasure.1 There was no delay, no searching for precedents, no uncertain legal points on which advice might be necessary. The mere profession of Christianity was evidently a capital offence in itself, without the test of refusal to worship the emperor. Some, however, denied, and substantiated their denial by offering wine and incense to Trajan as the fortune or guardian spirit of the Empire.2 Others claimed they had ceased to be Christians, in some cases, as far back as twenty-five years previous to the trial.3 Such were now willing to worship the emperor and curse Christ; to this last, owns Pliny,
‘ real Christians could never be forced.’ Nevertheless
1 On the importance of thia in the case of Ignatius, see infra p. 335.
2 Bithynia was the earliest province of Asia to build a temple to Rome and Augustus (Dio. Cass. Ii 20). For the extent of Bithynia-Pontus, see Ramsay ChE 224-5.
3 Thia is important as a proof that twenty-five years before 112 (i.e. 87) there had been a persecution in Bithynia, which led to many recanting. Of this former persecution we have no other record, unless, indeed, Ramsay’s date for I Peter be correct (infra, App. A). But I Pet. i 1 proves, at any rate, the existence of Christiana at an early date in Bithynia. By whom the Gospel was introduced is not knowD. St. Paul had passed it by (Acts xvi 7), ‘prevented by the Spirit,’ possibly because St. Peter was already at work there. It is important to note the considerable Greek population in Bithynia, especially on the coast: Mommsen PEE i 330.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
211
they maintained that when they were Christians they had done nothing wrong:
‘ they had been aeeustomed to meet before daybreak on a fixed day that they might sing a hymn to Christ as God, to bind themselves by a mystic ordinance1 to commit no crime, neither be guilty of theft, robbery, adultery,2 the breaking of a promise, or the keeping back of a pledge.’
Later in the day they assembled, they said, for a common meal, probably the agape, an action, they owned, contrary to the imperial edict against social clubs3 which Pliny had published immediately on his arrival.4
To test this report Pliny examined by torture two slave women (ancillae), who were called deaconesses,5 but could discover nothing * save a degrading and irrational superstition.’ Pliny professed to feel in a dilemma. He apologizes that he had been without
1 Sacrcimentum. See Lightf. Ign. i 51 n. Hardy and others translate ‘ by an oath.’ Tho word, it is true, meaus especially the soldier’s oath of allegiancc, but in view of Matt, v 37 and the known reluetance of early Christians for oaths, I prefer the other rendering.
2 Is not this a seeond-hand quotation of I Vet. iv. 15, an epistle to those very people ?
3 Hetaeria8. For 1 rajan’s action in this matter, see supra, p. 68, and Ep. Plin. 102, 103.
4 For Pliny’s account of early worship, cf. Justin I Apol. 55-7. Whether the sacramentum and agap& were so markedly dissevered in the time of Pliny is a matter of controversy. By the time of Justin, o.c. 65, 67, they wero separate.
5 Ministrae. The first mention of this order, who wero often widows (cf. I Tim. v 9). Deacons form no inconsiderablo proportion of the martyrs. To this peril their offieo of looking after the sick especially exposed them. For the female diaconate, which seems to have been limited to tho East, ef. Uhlhorn Christian Charity 165 ff.
212 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
any previous experience of these investigations1 into the ease of Christians, though the whole tone of his letter and his earlier persecution at Amisus show plainly that he is aware of a recognized method of law for dealing with crimes of this order. But his kindly nature prompts him to point out to Trajan certain difficulties, possibly in the hope of obtaining some mitigation of current procedure. Is he, he asks, to take into account extenuating circumstances such as youth ? Is he to punish Christians simply because of their religion—for the Name, nomen ipsum—and therefore criminals ipso facto, or is he to decide by proved misdeeds ? Further, should the accused recant is that sufficient, without punishment for holding such baleful errors in the past ?2
Trajan answered that ‘there can be no hard and fast rule.’ Christians openly accused and convicted must be punished; that they purge themselves by performing heathen rites will suffice. Moreover, a magistrate may make this distinction between a thief
1 Cognitiones, i.e. executive investigations conducted in private by tbe Emperor or bis delegates (the prefect, procurators, &c.). For the meaning of this word, see Ramsay ChE 215-7; Lewis and Short Lai. Diet. s.v. Pliny’s experience as a lawyer had lain in civil cases (judicia) before the centumviral courts, not in administration or police work. See also Lightf. Ign. i 50.
* Of this persecution under Pliny, Conybeare has pointed out the confirmation given by the possibly genuine Armenian Acts of Phocas, probably written at the close of second century. Phocas seems to have been martyred under Pliny’s successor, Africanus (MEC 89, 102). According to this document, about 500 suffered under Pliny (MEC 92, 111). A later Greek copyist, after his kind, tnmed this figure into 50,000. All that Pliny states is * nomina multorum,’ say fifty. Cf. supra p. 203. Against Conybeare see Harnack CAL i 317 n.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 213
or murderer and a Christian ; he need not spend his time in hunting down the Christians until they were formally accused. Anonymous accusations, whether of Christianity or other crime, must be thrown into the paper basket; * they form a bad precedent contrary to the real spirit of the age.’1
Trajan’s reply puts the matter into a nutshell. Tertullian, it is true, calls it a self-contradiction, and points out its mixture of Jedburgh justice and official laxity.2 But Tertullian was one of the hunted, and the logic of the persecuted and the persecutor are never in agreement. To us the decision seems clear. To be a Christian is to be an outlaw, as in fact Pliny had owned by his action at Amisus. But zeal should be tempered with discretion. So long as the Christians are kept in check, the magistrate need not hunt them down until he is obliged. The last is a detail of administration the wisdom or occasion of which each governor must decide for himself, for Trajan expressly refuses ‘to lay down a general principle which may serve as a fixed rule of procedure.’ The correspondence gives no indication that Trajan was inaugurating a new policy, commencing, as some have claimed, the systematic persecution of the Christians.3 Its whole drift, in fact, is rather the opposite—a desire
1 Trajan bated (lelatores; eeo Tliny Paneg. 34, 35 for hie vengeanco on them.
2 Apoi. 2.
3 On this seo Lightf. Ign. i 13; Henderson Nero 447. All that Trajan did was to point out that the previous method of magisterial cognitio bad better give place to a regular judicium with set trial and formal accusation.
214 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
on the part of Pliny to change a policy which he had discovered led to much suffering inflicted on harmless if deluded fanatics. Trajan’s concessions also, such as they were, were changes in procedure rather than in the law. No clearer commentary upon the renunciation involved a century later in becoming a Christian can be found than the fact that the Christian apologists looked back to the days of Trajan as times of exceptional liberty.1 Two points in Trajan’s letter told in their favour. The emperor plainly intimates that the magistrates must lead, not be led by popular hatred or private spleen. The necessity, again, of the presence of a formal accuser gave the Christians a general protection which, under various pleas, enabled merciful judges to dismiss a case when brought into court. Thus Tertullian tells us of a magistrate called Pudens, who, when a Christian was brought before him * without the presence of the informer,’ tore the charge-sheet in pieces ‘ as not being consistent with the imperial edict.’2
1 E.g. Tert. Apol. 5, ‘ quas Trajanua ex parte frustratns estvetando inquiri Christianos ’—a complete mistake on Tertullian’s part. Cf. Sulpic. Sev. Chron. ii 31, and see supra p. 208.
Of martyrdoms under Trajan, in addition to those in Bithynia-Pontus, the following seem to me certain: (a) Ignatius at Rome, infra p. 335 ; (b) Symeon of Jerusalem, supra p. 124 n.; (c) Zosimus and Rufus in Macedonia (Polycarp, ad Phil. 9). On the alleged martyrdom of Clement see supra p. 20G n. The Acts of Sharbil and Barsamya (Cureton Syriac. Docs. 41) are spurious. But how incomplete are our sources of knowledge is indicated by the fact that but for the heathen Pliny we should never have heard of the martyrs of Pontus.
2 Tert. Scap. 4, Neumann I1SK i 33 n. dates this in the pro-cousulship of Pudens in Cyrene and Crete, a few years before ICC.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 215
Trajan’s successor, the Emperor Hadrian, another Spaniard of inferior character though almost equal administrative ability, appears to have made some slight alteration, more favourable to the Christians, in the legal procedure. The circumstances which gave rise to this rescript of Hadrian are, however, involved and difficult, though of the genuineness of the rescript itself there can be no reasonable doubt. The following seem to be the facts. Both in Greece and Asia the protection given to the Christians by Trajan against anonymous accusations had not proved sufficient. Informers and false witnesses abounded, and introduced by their methods a reign of terror.
* Delation ’—the word is difficult to translate into the language of more favoured times, though probably there is a perfect equivalent in the Russian tongue— was one of the curses of the Empire, a recognized system even under the most blameless emperors. To turn informer was to enter a regular and lucrative profession. The legal fee for a successful delation was one-fourth of the estate of the condemned man. “ In no other way could a man so easily make himself a millionaire.”1 The Christians had no friends, and for some time the delatores, or false witnesses, reaped a
But he was also proconsul of Africa between 177-179, and may have been later. The first date fits in better than one under Marcus Aurelius, unless we extend his consulship in Africa until the reign of Commodus, for which thero seems no certain evidence. Other lenient judges of whom Tert. tb. tells us were, however, African, and probably belong to tho time of Commodus—Julius Asper, Cineius Severus of Thrysdus, and Vespronius Candidus. See infra p. 22S.
1 Tac. Ann. iv 20. Dill. 11SNA 35-G, who gives illustrations.
216 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
golden reward. Thus far, as Hadrian’s rescript shows, we are on certain ground. We may surmise that the existence of this reign of terror was brought to the notice of Hadrian by the Christians themselves. On the occasion of the emperor’s second visit to his favourite Athens, in the winter of 128-9, a certain Christian, Quadratus by name—Eusebius has it that he was also assisted by a converted philosopher called Marcianus Aristides1—made some effort to appeal to him, and published the earliest Christian Apology of which we have record. According to a late and more than doubtful story, Hadrian had been willing to welcome Christ among his gods, and had ordered the building of temples that should be free from images, and so adapted for the new religion. We are told that he was only dissuaded by the report
* that all would become Christians if this were done, and the temples would be deserted.’ 2 Hadrian was known to be * an eager explorer into all curiosities,’3 who had sought initiation into the deepest mysteries of the heathen world.4 His insatiable curiosity— ‘garrulouschattering,’ Julian called it—had an endless variety of moods, and at different times came under
1 On this difficult question see Appendix G.
2 See Lampridius Vita Alex. Sev. 43. But Lampridius wrote two centuries later. The temples, as Casaubon suggested, were much more likely empty because intended by Hadrian to be dedicated to himself.
3 Tert. Apol. 5, omnium curiodtatum explorator. Cf. Gibbon i 75; Merivale RE viii 232, 234; Renan EC 2-5, 37. But the severest portrait of Hadrian is that given by the Emperor Julian the Apostate in bis Caesares. But of Hadrian’s practical genius there can be no doubt.
4 See plate in Duruy HR v 101.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 217
the influence of diverse creeds. But in one thing he was changeless—his sarcastic scepticism whether any creed was either genuine or worth belief. * In Egypt,’ he sneered—
‘ the Christians and the worshippers of Serapis are the same; those devoted to Serapis call themselves bishops of Christ. Rulers of synagogues, Samaritans, Christian presbyters are all astrologers, soothsayers, quacks; Christians, Jews, and Gentiles all alike worship money.’1
In approaching such a cynic, Quadratus and his fellow-Christians would not be without hopes of success when they asked that the crime of Christianity should be brought under the regular law.
The efforts of Quadratus were of no avail. A rescript from Hadrian to Minicius (Minucius) Fun-danus, the proconsul of Asia, gives the decision of the emperor. This important document ran as follows :—
* I have received the letter sent me by your distinguished predecessor, Serenus2 Granianus, and am unwilling to pass over his
1 Hadrian’s letter to Servianus, preserved by Yopiseus Vita Saturnini 8. Yopiseus states that he obtained it from Phlegon, a freedman of Antinous. There are, however, grave doubts as to its genuineness. Its classification of Christians as the ‘ third race ’ (supra p. 190) is suspicious, though not conclusive (Harnack EC i 318 n.). Mommsen PHE ii 227 n. condemns it as a forgery. See also Renan EC 1S8 n. We may own that it is quite in harmony with the portrait of Hadrian, and as such is accepted by Duruy ER v 94.
2 A primitive error (perhaps Justin’s) for Silvanus (Lightf. Tgn. i 479), his name being Lieinius Silvanus Granianns (sec Waddington Fustes Asiat. (1872) i 197 ff. who dates 123-4). This rescript must have been origiually written in Latin, in which language it was copied by Justin I Apol. OS (see ed. Otto i 190), though unfortunately iu all existing MSS. of Justin we find substituted the faulty Greek translation of Eusebius EE iv 9. The original Latin possibly exists,
218 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
report without reply, lest innocent persons be subjected to attack, and opportunity given to false accusers to despise them. If, therefore, it is manifest that the people of your province are wishful to Bupport their complaints against the Christians by presenting formal charges against them on some point before your judgement-seat, I do not forbid them this course, though I will not allow them to resort to mere appeals and outcries. The fairer course, if any one wishes to bring an indictment, is, that you give a formal hearing. If, therefore, any one brings an indictment, and proves that the said Christians are committing any violation of the law, you are to punish them in proportion to their offeuces. But you must also take special care, if any one knowingly brings false charges against any man, that he be punished more severely because of this crime.’
The meaning of the rescript is plain. To be a Christian was still in itself a crime, though the question of what constituted a Christian seems to have been left somewhat vague—no longer necessarily the name itself. The magistrate should see to it that he is not governed by the mob. The cry, ‘ Christians to the lions,’ must not take the place of a judicial investigation, and thereby cause the punishment of innocent men. The prosecutor, or delator, who failed to make good his case must be punished for false witness1—a gain this of considerable value. Yet
however, in Rufinus’ translation of Eusebius. See Harnaek CAL i
256 n. The Rescript is undoubtedly genuine (Lightf. Ign. i 477-80; Ramsay CUE 320-1; Renan L'Ant. 32 n.; so Harnaek TV xiii (4). It is mentioned by Melito in his Apology (Enseb. HE iv 26). Possibly the Christians obtained a copy of the rescript by purchase. (See infra p. 285 n. 1). The arguments of Aube' PE 272 against the genuineness are not of much worth.
1 We have an irregular illustration of this in the case of Apollonius, a Christian senator of Rome, beheaded in the reign of Commodus before 185 (when Perennis his judge fell, Harnaek CAL i 317; Gibbon
i 88), probably a few years earlier (infra p. 228 n.). The prefect Perennis ordered the legs of the informer to be broken, though
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
219
Hadrian, in spite of his liberalism, not to say license of thought—“ half sceptic, half devotee, a scoffer and a mystic by turns,”1 whose only settled conviction was probably the conviction that nothing can be settled—was driven into the formal allowance of the existing laws against Christianity. The lot of the Christians was still, as in the past, one of great uncertainty, at the best an unauthorized toleration liable at any moment, under the pressure of popular feeling, to give place to violent persecution. Though the records of but few cases of martyrdom under Hadrian have been preserved,2 nevertheless the Christian writers of that time, as we see from the Shepherd of Hennas, were ever haunted by the dread spectre of persecution.3
afterwards he put Apollouius on his trial before the Senate (Euseb. HE v 21. The Acts of Apollonius, first published from the Armenian by Conybeare MEC 35 ff., are of great importance. They may be read in Gebhardt AMS 44 ff. or Klette TU xv (2) and have received the comments of Hardy CRG 200-8. The Greek recension first published in Anal. Holland xiv 284 ff. is inferior to the Armenian.
1 Lightf. Ign. i 45G with hi3 excellent note.
2 Only one martyrdom is quite certain—that of pope Telesphorus. See Irenaeus Haer. iii 3 (also quoted in Euseb. HE v G), who gives no date. From tho Liberian Catalogue (Duehesne LF i 3) we learn that he died in 137 (LF i 129 is misleading). For a full examination of the reputed martyrs under Hadrian see Lightf. Ign. i 502-G, Renan EC 393 n., and on the other side Allard I HP 210-33. But after all our lists of the Christian martyrs are very incomplete (supra p. 37 n. 3), and Conybeare (MEC 239 ff.) has edited from the Armenian another martyrdom, that of Thalelaeus, which probably took place at Aegae near Iskanderun in the reign of Iladriau. For Pope Alexander see infra p. 2G0 n. For Symphorosa (AM 23) see infra p. 320 n., and in defence Allard I HP 270 ff.
3 The evidence of this book must not be lightly dismissed. Renan
220 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
The two great emperors, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Antoninus (Aurelius), must also be numbered among the persecutors of the Church, the former, probably, in spite of his inclinations.1 Certainly
EC 303 describes it in somewhat exaggerated language as “ issuing from a bath of blood.” The following passages may be quoted as containing indications of the persecution of the times, though some may be interpreted allegorically or of spiritual struggle: Vis. i 4, ii 2, 3, iii 1, 2 (quoted infra p. 344), 5, 6; Hand, viii 10; Sim. viii 3, 6, 8,10; ix 21, 2G, 28. The Shepherd was written during the episcopate at Rome of Pius, his brother (Muratorian fragmeut in Duchesne LP i 132 n. 4 or Westcott Canon (ed. 5) 537). The date is uncertain, owing to uncertainty as to when Pius was pope. The date in the Liberian catalogue from 146-G1 (LP i 4, cf. 132) is too late, owing to a misplacement of pope Anicetus (LP i p. lxxi). The oldest list, that of Julius Africanus, dates from 140-55. (Harnack CAL i 171. See further the discussions in Lightf. Clem, i 264 ff., Harnack GAL i 144 ff.,
257 ff.) The Shepherd’s dread of persecution—for it is impossible to say whether the work is prophecy or history—may thus be due either to the recent martyrdom of Telesphorus or point to persecutions, otherwise unknown, under Antoninus Pius. See infra p. 221 n. 2. Salmon (DCB ii s.v. Hermas Introd. N.T. 570 ff.) dates in the lifetime of Clem. Romanus. Salmon thus refers the persecution to that of Domitian. See also Ramsay ChE 432 n., who dates even earlier. But I cannot see that Salmon has made out his case for discrediting the Muratoriau fragmeut, and incline to date publication as about 140, though the book probably was written, in part at least, some years earlier. A convenient text of the Shepherd with E. T. will be found in Harmor’s Apostolic Fathers, 1S98.
1 The question of the authenticity of the rescript of Antoninus Pius, which practically conferred toleration on the Christians, is somewhat difficult. The rescript itself, an answer to the Diet (rb koiv6v) of Asia, exists in three forms; in Euseb. RE iv 13 (where it is clumsily assigued to Marcus Aurelius), Rufinus EE iv 13 (merely a free rendering of Eusebius), and in a fourteenth-century MS. of Justiu Apol. (see Op. Justin, ed. Otto i 244). Harnack TU xiii
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 221
under Antoninus Pius, who, in his own noble words, chose rather ‘ to save the life of one citizen than to slay a thousand foes,’ persecutions were local outbreaks, the details of which may, possibly, never have come before the emperor until after the issue. But the martyrdoms of Polycarp and his companions in Smyrna,1 the great dread which we see haunting the pages of the Shepherd of Hermas,2 the execution in Rome by the prefect Lollius Urbicus of Ptolemaeus and Lucius,3 show that the peace of the Church was often broken, in spite of the Apologies by which Justin, Quadratus and others sought to procure rest for the persecuted. If the surmise of Harnaek be correct, the rescript of Antoninus Pius to the Diet (Kotvov) of Asia is itself a witness, not so much to toleration—this is a later Christian interpolation—as to the irregular persecutions that ever and anon broke
(4) has examined these, and attempted to restore a Greek original which he regards as original, though, as he owns, full of Christian interpolations. Others, following the lead of Dodwell (infra App. F), reject; see the arguments in Lightf. Ign. i 481-5. But whatever be the original form of this rescript, of actual persecution uuder Pius there can be no doubt, though the personal responsibility of the emperor probably was but slight. Tho (forged) rescript is variously dated by Waddington 152, Mommsen and Lightfoot 158. For the similar forged letter of Marcus to Euxenianus see Lightf. Ign. i 493-501.
1 For date under Pius see infra p. 30G n.
2 In addition to Hermas tliero is the evidence of Minucius Felix, if, as Lightf. and others think, his Octavius, instead of being indebted to Tert. Apol., is antecedent, and written about the year ICO (Lightf. Ign. i 535 If.). But the^later dato (234, Salmon DOB iii 924; between 240-50, Harnaek CAL ii 324-30) is more probable.
3 See supra p. 144; cf. Ilaruaek CAL i 27G. Add Publius, bishop of Athens, Euseb. TIE iv 23.
222 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
out in the cities of the East, as well as in Greece and Thrace. Disorder of this sort Pius was determined to put down, as we see from his letter to ‘ the Larissaeans, Thessalonians, Athenians, and all Greeks.’1
The presence of Marcus Aurelius among the persecutors of the Church must ever prove a matter of astonishment and regret. That the one ruler of men who at first blush realizes to the full Plato’s dream of the philosopher on the throne should be the hard taskmaster of the followers of Jesus is one of the ironies of history. No doubt part of our surprise arises from a false estimate of the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Historians have too often been misled by the panegyrics of the philosophers who crowded his court, and wrote the record of his rule.2 In some respects his reign was successful. His laws on behalf of the slave, the child, and the orphan3 mark the rise in the world of a new moral consciousness, to which, however, Marcus Aurelius was not the first to appeal. Nevertheless, as Schiller4 has shown us, the reign of the great thinker was, on the whole, a dismal failure, marked by incapacity, and dogged by continual
1 fivtev l'cwreplCcii', i.e. no illegal action. The letter is quoted by Melito in Enseb. HE iv (26) 10. Perhaps it was due to the outbreak in Smyrna (Polycarp infra p. 307) in 155, as Smyrna was undoubtedly one of the ‘ Greek ’ cities. If not it witnesses, as also the rescript to the Diet, to outbreaks of which we have now no knowledge. By the rescript of Hadrian such outbreaks were illegal.
2 This applies especially to Gibbon (e.g. i 78) and Renan MA.
3 Renan MA 23-30.
4 See his Gesch. der rdm. Kaiserzeit (1883) i (2) 653 ff., and cf. Mommsen PRE i 532; Duruy HR v 231.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 223
disaster. “ Marcus, partly because he was a good Stoic, was a very bad emperor.”1 The puzzle further vanishes when we cease to look at Marcus Aurelius from a Christian standpoint, which he would have been the last to understand. Nevertheless, the strange vision of one “ the very dust of whose thoughts was gold,” whose soul soared to heights of resignation to the divine will given to few even among the saints of God, as the deliberate persecutor of ‘the bond-servants of Jesus Christ,’ leads us to pause for a moment that we may contrast the doctrine of renunciation as proclaimed by the Christian and the Stoic emperor.
The religion of Marcus Aurelius, which may briefly be described as ethical Calvinism, is undoubtedly founded, as that of Epictetus before him, upon uncomplaining submission to the will of God as the law of the whole universe. For him renunciation must be complete; we must, as Epictetus urged, ‘ desire nothing too much,’ but—and herein lies the difference between Marcus Aurelius and the Christian —this renunciation is without germ of hope either for the individual or society. With Marcus Aurelius renunciation is something essentially Eastern rather than Christian; the sweeping, as by a wintry torrent, of this poor human life into the eternal vortex of the ‘ universal substance ’;2 the passing from a troubled consciousness into the dreamless life of the God, or ‘Logos,’ ‘the governing intelligence/ who governs
1 Bigg, Church's Taslc 70.
2 Med. vi 1, vii 9. The best translation ia still that by G. Long, whose historical notes, however, must be checked occasionally.
224 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
all. For Marcus Aurelius immortality is meaningless ; what is the atom of consciousness amid the endless flux of cyclic change, ‘ that one and all which we name Cosmos,’ but which is all ‘little, changeable, perishable,’1 that man should dream of permanence ? For him nature is absolute, merciless as death, unalterably fixed and ordered.2 Marcus Aurelius, just because he has no belief in the existence of real evil in the best of all predestined worlds, has no yearning for all that to the Christian is contained in the idea of heaven3—that opportunity for completing the incomplete, for making life’s crooked straight. The last word of renunciation is for the Stoic emperor a rayless negation, at the best a great uncertainty; for him life is but a moment of consciousness that comes to the surface of the stream of infinite and endless mutation.4 ‘ After fame is oblivion ’; after death, at best, the soul shall be received back into ‘ the seminal principle of the universe ’5—
TVe are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded by a sleep.
His is the renunciation both of feeling and hope, necessarily passing into despair of the spiritual possibilities of human nature. Thus with Marcus Aurelius renunciation becomes a hopeless concentration upon present duty, for whose sake all else must
1 Med. vi 36.
2 Ib. iv 27, vi 1, is 28, xii 5 et passim,.
a Cf. infra p. 327, the sneer of Junius Rusticus to Justin.
4 See Med. v 23, vi 15, 23, 42, 47, vii 19, ix 29, 32, 36.
5 Ib. ii 17, iv 21.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
225
be put aside.1 It is magnificent—in some respects the most magnificent flight of the unaided human soul. None the less it is not so much renunciation as despair. But for the Christian the basis of renunciation is hope, both for himself and society. He ever objectifies, if we may so put it, the cause of his self-discipline. The likeness to God is the incentive to his purification; 2 the city of God descending from heaven like a bride is the vision that nerves him to every form of self-sacrifice. But this city of God, or realized Kingdom of Heaven, that organized ideal in which lay the strongest appeal of the new religion, by its very nature utterly subversive of the established order as it then existed, had little meaning for the absoluteness of Stoic individualism.
The student who remembers these things will understand the antipathy of Marcus Aurelius to Christianity. The heroism of the Christian martyr, with his delusion of a golden hereafter, seemed to him, as to Epictetus his master, based on folly, and an illustration merely of ‘ Galilean obstinacy.’ 3 He is probably contrasting it with the true courage which men display when, in accordance with c stoic teaching,’ they anticipate Nature and seek death by their own suicide. The dread of another world in all its forms he classed with * superstition.’ For those who yielded to this delusion, whether in its nobler
1 Med vi 2, 22, x 22.
2 I John iii 3, Matt, v 8, 18.
3 Med. xi 3, seo supra p. 180 n. Cf. Epictctus in Arrian, Dissert. iv 7; Aelius Aristides Orat. 4G. (Ed. Dindorf ii 402.)
Q
226 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
or baser forms, he decreed banishment or the axe.1
Moreover, Marcus Aurelius, for whom the Roman tradition had become a dogma,2 saw in the Christians the great obstacle to the revival of the national religion in a Stoic and eclectic form. He saw no difficulty in incorporating in his religion both the popular mythology and rites and the tenets of the philosopher. On the commencement of his war with the Marco-manni, his slaughter of victims was so great that in the popular skits of the day the white cattle lodged a complaint that his final victory would entail their annihilation.3 From the Christians alone did he meet with a resistance as obstinate as, in his opinion, it was senseless, The philosopher, whatever his private opinions, kept his countenance and fell in with the current ritual. Not so with the untutored Galileans.
But whatever the cause, the fact itself cannot be gainsaid that Christian blood flowed more freely under Marcus Aurelius than at any previous date, with the possible exception of Domitian. Wholesale slaughters in the amphitheatre of Lyons, the martyrdom of Justin and his companions at Bome, of the seven men and five women at Scili, of Namphano and Miggin, Suname and Lucitas—harsh Punic names,
1 See his decrees in Modestinua Dig. xlviii 19, 30, ‘si quis aliquid fecerit, quo leves hominum animi superstitione numinis terrentur, in iuaulam relegari rescripsit,’ and Paulus Sent, v 21, 2, ‘ humiliores capite.’ 2 Med. ii 5.
3 Ammian. xxv 4,17 ; Capitolinua Marc. Antoninus 13. Cf. Renan MA 48, aud Lucian Alex. Abon. 31-5, 48.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
227
written, however, in the Lamb’s Book of Life—at Maclaura, near Carthage, are sufficient evidence, though but fragmentary and incomplete, of the widespread persecution of the Christians.1 For the details
1 I do not pretend to give a complete list. Such is impossible; see supra 214 n.
I. The following martyrdoms under Marcus Aurelius are certain :—
(a) Justin Martyr and six others from Asia Minor. (For his Acts see Otto Justin Op. ii 266 ff., or Gebhardt AMS 18-21. Renan’s rejection of the Acts in EC 492 n. is without reason. They are undoubtedly geuuino.) The martyrdom is certain; see Tatian adv. Graecos 19, Iren. Ilaer. i 28, Euseb. HE iv 16, Chron. p. 170-1 ed. Schoene. The date (determined by the prefecture of Rusticus) is between 163-7 (Aube St. Justin 74, DCB iii 564, Ilarnack CAL i 2S2-7). The early date under Pius (placed by Hort as early as 14S), which attributed the death to tho malice of the philosopher Crescens, is an error, due chiefly to Justin’s II Apol. 3 (first sentence).
(b) For the persecution at Lyons in 177-8, see infra p. 295 IT. The persecution at Vienne is more doubtful (Neumann RSK i 29 n. 6: Lyons and Vienne were in different provinces), though Sanctus of Vienne was among the martyrs at Lyons. (Euseb. EE v 1, 17. See also Duchesne FEG i 39.) For other Gallic martyrs see supra p. 162.
(c) The deaths of Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonike at Pergamuin should probably be dated in this reign. See Neumaun RSK i 38 and Ilarnack CAL i 362. So probably the martyrdom of Caecilia at Rome. Her Acts are very corrupt, but seem to contain a kernel of truth. See Allard I HP 428 ff.; N. & B. RS ii 329-3; Lightf. Ign.
i 516 ff.
II. Tho following persecutions, though chronologically uudcr Commodus, really belong to the administration of Marcus Aurelius :—
(i.) The Scillitan martyrs ; see infra pp. 193, 327.
(ii.) The martyrs of Madaura (July-Dee. 180. Seo Neumann RSK i 286). See St. Augustine’s correspondence with the heathen grammarian Maximus of Madaura, who ridiculcd their Punic names (Aug. Epp. 16, 17; Lightf. Ign. i 523).
(iii.) The persecution under Arrius Antoninus in Asia (infra p. 332), dated by Waddington Fastcs Asiat. i 239-41 a3 184-5, but in the judgement of Lightf. (Ign. i 540) probably two or three years earlier.
228 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
of these persecutions, the cruelty with which they were executed, we must not hold Marcus Aurelius responsible. He administered an empire a dozen times as large as France; details were necessarily left to local officers. But the emperor decided the general policy; and in this sense the noblest soul of the ancient world became a strenuous persecutor, who did not, it is true, initiate a new antagonism to Christianity so much as carry out more strictly, and in a different spirit, the existing penal code. If it be said that for an emperor there was no choice, we may add that the evidence indicates that Marcus Aurelius was not so careful as Trajan and Hadrian in insisting that in all persecutions the magistrate and not the mob should lead. Moreover, there are clear indications throughout his reign of an active pursuit of the Christians by the magistrates, a return to the procedure discouraged by Trajan and Hadrian.1
Marcus Aurelius was succeeded by the worthless Commodus. Throughout his reign the Church enjoyed an unaccustomed peace;2 in part because of the influence of his mistress, Marcia, who, if not a
(iv.) The case of Apollonius; see supra p. 219 n.
(v.) Gaius aud Alexander at Eumeneia in Phrygia. Oct. 27th, 179. See Neumann RSK i 283 and Euseb. HE v 16.
III. The persecution in Byzantium under Marcus Aurelius (Tert. Scap. 3) is doubtful; see Lightf. Ign. i 526 n. For Felicitas see infra p. 320 n.
1 See supra p. 213. Neumann TiSK 31-2 dates persecution from what he calls the second rescript of Marcus Aurelius (Modestinus Dig. xlviii 19, 30, supra p. 226 n.), which he dates in 176. But see Ramsay CUE 340, and even more decisively Hardy CRG 152-3.
2 Euseb. HE v 21.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 229
Christian herself, had sympathy with the new religion;1 more perhaps because of an easy-going indifference to causes of disturbance which to more strenuous rulers had seemed of the highest moment. His whole sympathies were with Eastern religions, Mithraism especially, rather than the old national faith. Shortly after his accession the policy of persecution was stopped,2 while many of those condemned by Marcus to the mines of Sardinia were released, including the famous, or infamous, pope Callistus.3 The Church grew mightily, and in Rome many of the upper classes and in the court attached themselves to the new faith with their whole households.4
Y
With the dawn of the third century we enter upon a new era in the history of persecution. Hitherto, as we have shown, the suppression of Christianity, though the rule of the Empire, had been a matter of police regulation, carried out locally in a somewhat
1 Neumann RSK i 83-6 for her attitude, and Hippolyt. Phil, ix 12, Dio. Cass, lxxii 4. Marcia was practically movganatically married (Duruy UR vi 2o n.). Her influence begun in 183 and was at its height in 1S9. See Allard I IIP 454.
2 Supra p. 227 n. 1 (II) ; see the full examination of the martyrdoms in this reign in Neumann RSK i 283-91.
3 Ilippolytus Philos, ix 12. See supra p. 119 u. 1.
4 See Neumann RSK i 8:’> n. 2, 84 n. 2 for illustrations, including the high chamberlain Prosencs, who died in 217. For tho spread of Christianity at court from Nero to Constantine, see Harnack EC
ii 192-204.
230 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
fitful manner, rather than pursued systematically on definite instructions from headquarters. The rescripts of Trajan and Hadrian were not directed against Christianity as an organization, but dealt with certain details of executive administration exactly in the same way as if the question had been one of brigandage, or illegal trades unions. Of any consciousness that Christianity as a Church was in itself a danger to the State, except in the sense that all wrong-doers are dangerous, we see as yet little sign or proof. The existing hatred of the new religion was more a matter of personal feeling than a question of high politics, though the outbreak of local persecutions could not fail to come under the ken of the emperors, and to receive their sanction or regulation.
But all this was now changed. In the early years of the third century we see the emperors realizing, dimly and imperfectly at first, that the Church which their predecessors had persecuted was no mere body of anarchists to be rooted out wherever necessary, but a rival organization of growing strength, whose increase in numbers and unity of administration made its suppression, if possible, or if not its adoption as a ‘tolerated religion,’ a political necessity. By the middle of the century this consciousness of a great struggle and danger had become so clear and definite, that we see organized efforts on the part of the more energetic rulers to crush out the Church by the use of all the resources of the State. The police measures of the Antonines gave place to a civil war without quarter. But, unlike all other civil wars, only
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
231
one side was armed. Strange to say, this was the side that was ultimately defeated. On the one hand were the immense resources of the Empire centralized in one supreme will; on the other the passive resistance of enthusiasts making these resources useless. Nor were the forces of paganism material only. She called to her aid a succession of able philosophers and controversialists, Celsus, Porphyry, Hierocles, Theotecnus,1 and others, who sought in various ways to entrench the established religion, and to destroy with their criticisms the claims of the new faith. Paganism itself became more serious and spiritual as she realized the mortal nature of the struggle.
The student should note the apparent unequalness of the conflict. To some extent he may be misled in this matter by the glowing rhetoric of the apologists. If we were to aecept the statements of Tertullian and other Fathers, the conquest of Christianity would not be so marvellous as it must ever seem to the sober historian; for the Fathers write as if the famous sentence ‘ Veni, vidi, vici ’ could be applied literally to the Church. They leave us with the impression that nothing could withstand the onward sweep of the hosts of God, and yet, somehow or other, Christians were almost powerless against the persecutor; two positions one or other of which must be incorrect. Irenaeus boasts of ‘ many nations among the barbarians who believe, having salvation written on their hearts by the Spirit, without ink or
1 Infra pp. 277, 2S0.
232 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
paper.’1 He is followed by Tertullian. * Places inaccessible to Rome,’ cries the orator, ‘have yielded to Christ ’—he is speaking of the spread of the gospel in Britain2—and dwells on the ‘ remote peoples, provinces, and islands which we know not nor can enumerate,’ which have embraced the faith. In another place he threatens the State with the dangers that arise from the universality of the Christians—
‘ If we wanted to play the part of avowed enemies, should we bo lacking in numbers or resources? Do the Parthians themselves, or auy nation, however great, which is yet rcstrieted to one eouutry and dwells within its own bouudaries, outnumber one that is spread all over the world? Wre are but of yesterday, yet we have filled all the places you frequeut—cities, villages, markets, the eamp itself, town councils, the palace, the senate, the forum. All we have left you is your temples. . . . Nearly all the eitizens of nearly all your cities are Christians.’3
Such passages could be multiplied, without, however, increasing their value as evidence. For all this was little more than rhetoric, the result to some extent of millenarian or parousian conceptions. It was necessary for the Second Advent that the gospel should first have been preached in every land. At the close of the first century we find Clement of Rome maintaining that this condition
1 Iren. Eaer. iii 4, 2. For a collection of passages in early writers giving their estimate of the expansion of the Chureh, see Harnaek EG ii 147-71. As a specimen of their general exaggeration we seleet the following from Euseb. EE i 13, 1: ‘ Christ in His lifetime was visited by myriads from remotest lands, imploring aid.’
2 Adv. Jud. 7. See infra Appendix F.
3 Apol. 37; cf. ib. 2, ad Scap. 2, 5; adv Marc, iii 20.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
233
had been fulfilled by St. Paul so far as the Empire was concerned.1 A few years later Ignatius talks of ‘ bishops settled in the utmost corners of the earth.’ By the middle of the second century, as we have seen, the Church had persuaded herself that her warfare was accomplished. The Shepherd of Hermas speaks ‘ of all the nations under heaven called by the name of the Son of God,’2 while Justin Martyr claimed that ‘there is not a single race of human beings, barbarians, Greeks, or nomads, where prayers in the name of Jesus the crucified are not offered up.’3 Hope was mistaken for accomplished fact. Imagination, untrammelled by statistics, soared above mere details. Such glorious optimism is characteristic of Christianity. To the Church, as to her Master, time is but an accident. She sees already of the travail of her soul, and is satisfied. The ‘ not yet ’ of the cautious critic is more than neutralized by the vision of the triumphant King. (Heb. ii 8, 9.)
As a matter of fact, Christianity in the opening years of the second century was still but a feeble minority when compared with the vast masses and resources of heathenism, of less importance probably than Judaism.4 The statement of Origen is explicit: ‘ Many people, not only barbarians, but even in the
1 Clem. Rom. Ep. 5, ‘having taught righteousness to all tho world,’ Spain included. Cf. supra p. 3G n.
2 Ignatius Eph. iii. Shepherd Sim. ix 17. Sec supra pp. 23,219 n. 3.
3 Dial. c. Tryph. 117. Cf. 52 fin. 53, 91, 121, 131.
* See supra p. 113. Pseudo-Clem, ad Cor. ii claims the opposite. But Justin I Apol. 53 shows that it was long before the Gentile Christians outnumbered the Jewish Christians, let alone tho Jews.
234 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Empire, have not yet beard the word of Christ.’ Elsewhere he speaks of the Christians ‘ as at present a mere handful of people,’ in comparison with the Empire.1 No statistics of Christianity are available; for that matter, we are ignorant of the population of the Empire itself.2 But the lines of proof are sufficient to show that only here and there, in a few great towns such as Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, in still fewer country districts chiefly in Asia Minor, was Christianity at all strong numerically speaking. In most regions of the Empire it was still non-existent; while the country side, even in the neighbourhood of Christian cities, was almost wholly pagan.3 The extension of Christianity in the main coincided with the extension throughout the world of Hellenism; its lines of development for the most part were along the great trade routes. In many places we find that the Christians belong almost wholly to the floating population, commercial or otherwise.
But though a minority, the emperors saw that the Christians were a dangerous minority, daily growing, moreover, in numbers and power. Between the years 200 and 250 Christianity seems to have made rapid advance; while the increasing unity of its organization, under the pressure of Gnostic heresies, made
1 In Matt. Com. 39 (ed. Lommatzsch iv 269 f.) Cels, viii 69.
2 See for this question, and for a further discussion of the number of Christians, Appendix F.
3 But Zahn has shown that the word ‘pagan’ does not mean ‘ villagers,’ but ‘ civilians,’ in opposition to the ‘ milites Christi,’ who have taken the oath of service to Christ (supra p. 185). See Harnack EC ii 22 n. or ib. MC 68 f. The sense of paganus = ‘ civilian ’ is found in Big. xlix 17, 19; Tac. Hist, iii 24; Pliny, Juvenal, «Src.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
235
it the more dangerous. The insight of Decius was correct when he declared that he would rather see a rival emperor in the field than another pope in Rome.1 His outburst was due perhaps to his hearing that Pope Fabian had actually substituted for the fourteen civil districts of Rome a division into seven of his own.2 Moreover, the Christians were exceedingly wealthy; sobriety and character had produced their usual results. The confiscation of their public and private property would provide relief for the impending bankruptcy of the State.3
We do well to note that the conflict of the Church and the Empire synchronized with a new conception on the part of the Empire of its own constitution. Hitherto citizenship had been restricted to a few, chiefly Italians, the inhabitants of certain special colonies, or the successful legions. By an edict of Caracalla the name and privileges of Romans was conceded to all the free inhabitants of the Empire. Thus a Catholic Church faced a world-wide Empire.
The first emperor to realize the new conditions and to attempt the suppression of the Church was the able Septimius Severus. At the outset of his reign Severus had treated the Christians with a certain degree of leniency;4 he had received benefit
1 Cyprian Ep. 55, 9. See infra p. 215 n. 2.
2 LF i 148.
3 Schiller RK i (2) 890. The wealth of many Christians is evident from sueh works as Tertullian’s de cidlu feminarum (cf. ii 13), as well as Clement Alex. Faed, e.g. ii 12.
4 The alleged martyrdom of Pope Vietor (LF i 137) in 197 should be rejected (cf. Ilippolytus Phil, ix 12).
236 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
during a dangerous illness from a Christian slave, who had anointed him with oil. He allowed Christians in his court. The nurse as well as the tutor of his son Caracalla were Christians.1 According to one account, on his entry into Eome after his victory over his rival Albinus, Severus protected certain well-known Christians from the anger of the mob.2 But in the beginning of the year 201, on his journey through Palestine to Egypt, Severus, alarmed by the rapid growth of the new religion, and the increasing menace of its tone, possibly resenting also certain indiscretions in the army,3 found it necessary to take active measures against Christianity. He ordered that no one should be allowed to become a proselyte to Judaism, and applied the same to the Church,4 a needless edict this last—except in so far as it was designed to correct his previous toleration—when we remember that it was still illegal to be a Christian at all.5 This warning given, Severus in the following year passed to the severest measures of repression, though his persecution, which lasted until the second
1 Tert. Scap. 4; Spartiauus Caracall. 1.
2 The Christians seem to have been loyal to Severus in the recent civil struggles. Cf. Tert. Scap. 2, ‘No one ever found a Christian among the followers of Albinus, Niger, or Cassius.’ (On these usurpers see Gibbon, i 115 f.)
3 See supra p. 1S3 n. 1; Tert. de Cor. 1.
4 See the statement of Spartiauus Sept. Severi 17; Paul. Sent, v (22) 3, 4. The matter is critically discussed in Neumann RSK i 157-G2. For the date of the persecution see Neumann RSK i 1G2 n.; Harnack CAL ii 324.
5 Tert. Spec. 2 (a work written before 202; Harnack CAL ii 267) speaks of the ‘ periculum vitae ’ involved in being a Christian.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 237
year of Caracalla, was chiefly confined to the East, and to North Africa. According to Eusebius, the ‘ great theatre of God for these heroic wrestlers was Alexandria,’ where, among others, Leonides, the father of Origen, ‘ obtained the crown.’1 The student of Tertullian, our chief Western authority for the relations of State and Church under Septimius Severus, especially of the address which at this time (211-2) he presented to Scapula, the prefect of Africa, will be
1 Euseb. EE vi 1, 2. According to ib. ‘ many thousands obtained the crown.’ Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom, ii 20 ‘ inexhaustible wells of martyrs, burnt, impaled, beheaded.’ But these are Eastern exaggerations. We know the names of fifteen (Neumann RSK i 291-3), including Totamiaeaa (infra p. 302). Probably in striking at this great catechetical school of the Church Severus had a deliberate purpose foreshadowing the later policy of Valerian (infra p. 254). By driving Clement, the successor of Pantaeuus, into Cappadocia, the school was for the time being broken up.
Other certain martyrs are as follows: (1) Rome; Natalis (Natalis was at one time a bishop in a sect of which Theodotus the banker was leader, and received a salary of ‘150 denarii a month : ’ Euseb. EE v 28),Felicitas,and Januarius (infra p. 320 n.). But the escape of Zephyrinus (198-217, LI’ i 139) shows that in Rome the persecution was slight. (2) In Africa. At Carthage: June 27, 203, Guddene, a Phoenician girl (Neumann RSK i 177 n.). Castus and Acmilius (Cyprian de Lapsis 13; possibly under Docius; they recanted, then repented and were burnt). Jocundus, Saturninus, and two others (infra p. 323). Perpetua and her companions (infra p. 313 11'.). Also Mavilns of Hadrumetum (Tert. Scap. 3. For date May II, 211, Neumann RSK i 184 n.). This last was tho overwash of tho Severian persecution. Also Rutilius (Tert. de Fuga 5, place aud date unknown). (3) In Asia. Asclepiades, bishop of Antioch (? confessor only, about 217. Euseb. EE vi 11).
The martyrdom of Irenaeus at Lyons (202 or 203) is very doubtful (Lipsius in DCB iii 25G. It seems to be an invention of Gregory of Tours, Glor. Mart. 50, Migno PL lxxi 752); that of Elfan and Medwin in Britain is pure legend.
238 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
at no loss to discover the cause of persecution. Every sentence of the Apologist breathes defiance, or heaps contempt upon the customs of heathenism. Nor were the pagans backward in their hatred and slander of the Christians.1
With the death of Septimius Severus at York (Feb. 4, 211) and the succession of his worthless sons, the Church for a time enjoyed comparative rest.2 In part this was due to a succession of foreign emperors with no hereditary attachment to the Roman national religion; half-mad Syrian voluptuaries like Elagabalus, who dreamed of a universal religion to be obtained by the fusion of all other faiths, Christianity included, into one great system in which the sun, under the form of a black conical stone,3 should be the central object of worship.4 In the cousin and successor of Elagabalus, another Syrian of nobler mould, who assumed the title of Alexander Severus, we see the same syncretism in a higher form. In his private oratory ([lararium) he erected, so gossip ran, a statue of Jesus, side by side with those of Abraham, Orpheus, and Apollonius of Tyana.5 Many of high rank in his court were believers.
1 Supra p. 159 and generally c. 3.
2 For an examination of the alleged martyrdoms between Sept. Sev. and Maximin Thrax, see Neumann BSK i 301-18. I have little doubt of some, e.g. Alexander of Baeeanae in Etruria (ib. i 203).
3 This was called Al-gebel, “ the mountain ; ” hence Ela-gabalus. The form Heliogabalus was a mistaken Greek rendering.
4 Lamprid, Vit. Heliogab. ee. 1, 2, 3, 5.
3 Lamprid. Alex. Sev. 29, 2. Apollonius of Tyana was a sort of heathen Christ, whose life (ed. Kayser, 1844) was written by
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
239
He bad ordered, it was said, the Golden Rule to be written up in his palace.1 In a lawsuit between the Christians and a company of victuallers for the possession of a piece of ground in Rome, Alexander awarded the site to the Christians. * Better/ he said,
‘ that the land should be devoted to the worship of God in any form than that it should be handed over for the uses of cookshops.’2 When his mother, the Empress Julia Mamaea, passed through Antioch, she sent for Origen:
‘ With her he staid some time, exhibiting innumerable matters caleulatcd to promote the glory of the Lord, and to evince the excellence of divine iustruetiou. After this he returned to his accustomed duties.’3
But beneath this apparent calm there was the growing dread and hostility of 'paganism. We see this, as Gibbon has suggested, in those counsels of persecution which Dion Cassius, who composed his history during this reign, has put into the mouth of Maecenas, and which were “ most probably intended for the use of his master.” 4 We have a further illustration in
Philostratus as a rival to tho Founder of Christianity. Aurelian erected altars to him (Vopiseus Aurel. 24).
1 Lamprid. Vit Alex. Severus 51, 7, 8.
2 lb. 49, 6. Possibly the site of S. Maria in Trastavere or S. Ceeilia; Neumann IiSK i 209 n.
3 Euseb. HE vi 21. Orosius vii 18 calls her a Christian. But his evidence is of littlo value. Ilippolytus also seems to havo addressed a work to her on the resurrection (e/s 'S.eR-hpfivav is the title on his famous chair), unless iudeed it bo to Julia Severa, tho second wife of Elagabalus. See DCB iii 100; Neumann IISK i 206 n. ; Harnaek CAL ii 216. (Orosius is in Migno PL xxxi.)
* Gibbon, ii 112 n. See supra p. 89 for tho counsols.
240 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the fact that it was at this time that the lawyers codified the existing laws against Christianity.1
With the murder of Alexander Severus and his mother at Mainz persecution once more broke out. The very success of the Christians proved their undoing. Hitherto they had met for worship in private houses, or in the cemeteries of their dead; now they were permitted to purchase sites, to erect churches. Their bishops already possessed an influence by no means limited to their congregations. The upper clergy, therefore, were the first to feel the hatred of Maximin the Thracian, a gigantic barbarian, ignorant of Latin, the first who sat on the throne of the Caesars. Many perished in the massacre of the friends of Alexander with which this tyrant began his short disastrous reign.2 In Rome Pope Pontian and Hippolytus were exiled to Sardinia. There the pope was beaten to death.3 The short papacy of his successor Anteros shows the bitterness of the persecution.4 His execution
1 Lact. Instit. v 11 fin. The lead was taken by Ulpian (between 212-7), but his collection is lost. It should be noticed that this work formed part of his De Officio Procomulis. This is of great importance, as showing that the repression of Christianity was not so much by special law as executive act. See supra p. 65.
■ Euseb. HE vi 28.
3 Sept. 2S, 235. Duchesne LP i 4, and Introd. xciv (LP i 145 is an error). Their bodies were brought back to Rome (see infra p. 258) by Pope Fabian, and buried Aug. 13 (? 236) in the catacombs of Callistus and Hippolytus (LP i 12 ‘ depositio martyrum’). The identity of this Hippolytus is a difficult question. See Neumann BSK i 257-64, 321-3; DCB iii 88 ; Harnack CAL ii 212-3.
4 Nov. 21, 235 to Jan. 3, 236. But the martyrdom of Anteros ia uncertain. In the Liberian Cat. (LP i 4) the opposite (‘ dormit ’) is
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
241
may have been due to the ‘ diligence ’ with which he * collected from the notaries the records of the martyrs.’1 In Cappadocia and Pontus, where an earthquake had irritated the people against the Christians, the persecution was especially severe.2 But Maximin’s oppression of the Church, though widespread, was not so much systematic as a part of the general horror of his rule.3 Public opinion, usually cast against the Christians, in this case refused to side with the tyrant. Maximin’s purging his court of Christians was afterwards copied by Decius and Valerian. There was, in fact, no alternative. The position had become such that an emperor must either drive out the Christians from his palace, or allow himself to be dominated by them.
Under the Emperor Philip the Arabian, the Christians enjoyed for five brief years, not only rest, but a measure of protection and encouragement. The growth of the Church in all ranks and classes was remarkable.4 Everywhere the Christians felt the need of larger buildings to replace the older oratories. How great was the peace of the Church5 we see from
stated. See on the one side Duchesne LP i 145 and xev, and on the other Neumann BSK i 318-9.
1 His collection is lost. Ilis successor Fabian made an attempt to complete his task (LP i 148).
2 a.d. 235 under Serenianus. Cyprian Ep. 75, 10; Origen in Matt, xxiv 9. To the sufferings of Ambrosius and Protoctetus of Caesarea (Cap.), who were carried off ‘ to Germany,’ we owe Origen’s Exhortation to Martyrdom.
3 The names and details of martyrs under Maximin Thrax are very uncertain : sec Neumann BSK i 318-27.
4 Lact. MP 3.
4 But in Alexandria a severe persecution broke out in the last
242 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the prevalence in later days of the idea that the head of the State had become a convert to the new faith.1 Nor was the idea dispelled by the magnificence with which Philip celebrated on the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of Rome the secular games, the great religious rites of Rome (April 21, 248). Perhaps the suspicion was due to the fact that he had not visited with stem punishment the Christians, the more rigid of whom would abstain from this great festival of national pride. But with the fall of Philip the Empire set itself resolutely to the task of crushing out the Christians.
The movement for reform—for such it seemed to the pagan party—had its centre in the army, the one branch of the body politic least influenced by Christianity, where the old manners and discipline still retained to some extent their power. Decius,2 an
months of his reign (Euseb. HE vi 41, 1) due to local hatreds, or possibly to the pestilence (Euseb. HE vii 11, 24). The leader was a local poet.
1 See Euseb. HE vi 34, Chron. ii 180, and the fact that Origen corresponded with Philip and his wife Severa (Euseb. HE vi 3G). Cf. also supra p. 239 n. 3. But no heathen writer mentions it, and the secular games could hardly have been performed by a Christian. Moreover, Philip was deified at his death (Eutrop. ix 3). I reject, therefore, the idea of Allard II HP c. 6, Aube CER 471, Duchesne, and others, and, with Neumaun RSK i 246-50, DCB iv 355, believe Philip was not a Christian.
2 For our knowledge of the Deeian persecution our sources are Cyprian’s Letters (including those of Lucian) and his Be Lapsis; fragments of Dionysius of Alex, in Euseb. HE vi 40-2 (these two lived aud wrote in the persecution); Gregory of Nyssa (f c. 395), Vita Greg. Thaumaturgi (this last somewhat highly coloured : in Migne PG xlvi 893 ff.). Acts abound. The most trustworthy are the Acta
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
243
able Pannonian soldier whose virtues ‘ ranked him with the ancients,’1 conscious of the weakness of the Empire, and its growing inability to bear its burdens, attempted to restore strength by striking at what he considered a prime cause of disunion.2 He determined to enforce universal observance of the national religion. This, with most Eomans, he deemed to be catholic enough for all tastes.3 Thus he would put an end to social and moral confusion. For this purpose he allied himself with the Senate, the home of all heathen and conservative reactions. To strengthen his hand he revived in the person of Valerian the office of censor.4 For outbreaks of local hatred he would substitute a universal and organized scheme. With Goths, Franks, and Persians threatening to inundate the Empire, no more inopportune time could have been chosen for thus estranging an influential and numerous section of his people. But
Pionii (infra p. 297), Acta Carpi et rapyli (infra p. 328), and Acta Maximi (Harnack CAL ii 4G9, supra 19G n.).
Of monographs we may mention Gregg DP; Benson’s Cyprian; Aube EE pp. 1-275; Gorres in Jahrb. Prot. Theol. lxvi 1890, 244 ff.
1 Christian writers naturally are unfair to Decius. Lact. MP 4 calls him ‘ exeerabile animal ’; Lucian in Cyp. Ep. 22 ‘ a great snake, the pioneer (metator) of Antichrist.’ But Vopiscus Aur. 42 ‘ quorum et vita et mors veteribus eomparauda cst ’ is more accurate. Cf. also Gregg DP 21 n.
2 Euseb. HE vi 39 attributes the perseeutiou to Decius’ hatred of Philip. But we must look deeper.
3 See the argument of the heathen Caeeilius, Miuue. Felix Oct. G.
4 Gregg’s idea (DP 82-4) that the edict was issued in the names of Decius and Valerian should be rejected. Tho mistake origiuated with LP i 155. Cf. Aube EE 38. '
244 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Decius was a political idealist rather than a practical statesman.
Early in 250 Decius published his edict against Christianity.1 He commanded provincial governors and magistrates, assisted where necessary by a commission of notable citizens,2 to see to it that all men sacrificed to the gods and to the genius of the emperor on a certain fixed day. Part of the ritual consisted also in tastiug the sacrifices, as we see from the story of the apostate bishop Euctemon.3 Special attention was to be paid to the officers of the Church, under the belief ‘that if he removed all the heads the entire fabric would dissolve.5 4 But Decius did not contemplate extermination. At first capital punishment, except in the case of bishops, does not seem to have been authorized, though banishment and torture might be employed to break the stubborn. The emperor was persuaded that if the magistrates only put sufficient pressure upon the Christians, they would abandon their faith. He had grounds for this belief in the recent addition to the Church of thousands of converts who had rather changed their creeds than their characters, self-indulgent, effeminate men, painted women, and ambitious clergy, upon whose worldly
1 The text of the edict has not been preserved, but its contents can be pieced together. See Gregg DP 6S-86. Its date is fixed as early in January, by the execution of Pope Fabian on Jan. 20 (infra), aud possibly that of Polyeuctes on Jan. 10 (Allard II HP 532 quoting investigations of Duchesne).
2 In Carthage called pusilliores, Cyp. Ep. 22.
3 Infra p. 342. See also p. 341.
* See Acta Parthenii, &c. (infra p. 246 n.), in A.SS iv May 301, and cf. infra p. 270 n. for a ninetecnth-century version of the same idea.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
245
lives the persecution seemed to some to be a fitting judgement.1 Such rushed eagerly to the magistrates to obtain their libelli, or certificates of sacrifice, and when the days of persecution were over were as eager to be readmitted to the Church.
There was hardly a province of the Empire in which the violence of the storm was not felt, and which did not obtain its bede-roll of martyrs. For the faithful who refused to sell their Lord were hunted out, banished, their property confiscated, they them selves exposed to insults, outrage, torture, death. The confessors, it is true, were more numerous than the martyrs, for the object of Decius was by prison and torture to produce recantation. A measure of forbearance also was shown to the humbler Christians, unless indeed it be that no steps were taken by the Church to record their sufferings. In Rome itself the policy of striking down the officials rather than the members was strictly carried out. On January 20, 250, Pope Fabian was executed, and so severe was the persecution that for fourteen months no successor could safely be appointed.2 But ‘the Church held firmly to the faith, though some fell through fear.’
1 Cypriau de Lapm 5. For the laxity of the Church see ib. o.c. G (mixed marriages; bishops); Ep. 4, 1 (curious conduct of virgins). But the chief evidence is the general apostasy (infra p. 24G).
2 LV i 148, Cyp. Ep. 0. For his tomb see X. and B. US i COO, where de Rossi points out that tho title ‘MR’ (martyr) was not added at tho timo of his burial, but later, i.e. wheu his successor, Cornelius, was able to authenticate hia martyrdom. But Cornelius was not appointed until March, 251 (Harnack CAL i 155—G, ii 351 n. 2; Lightf. Clem, i 288; not Juno as DCB i GS9).
246 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
The proportion of brave women among the confessors, of whom, alas! we know nothing but the names,1 is remarkable. Two high-born Persians, Abdon and Sennen,2 as well as two Armenians, Parfchenius and Calocerus, witness by their deaths at Rome to the spread of the gospel.3 They were perhaps fugitives from persecution elsewhere, for, strange to say, Rome, with its large Christian Church, seems to have been almost the safest place in the Empire, at any rate after the departure of Decius.4 We see this in the arrival of no less than sixty-five confessors in one ship, who were met at the harbour by Numeria and Candida, two girls who attempted to atone for their weakness in the day of trial by ministering to the needy.5
But the severity of the persecution was most experienced in Africa. In Carthage the more part of the Church apostatized, * spurring one another on with encouraging words, and in turn pledging each other in the cup of death.’ Among the weaklings were some of the clergy, who probably missed the presence
1 Lucian in Cyp. Ep. 22, 3 for a list.
2 Duchesne LPi 11. Their Acts are worthless. Date July 30,250. For their tombs discovered in 1619 see DCA i 8.
3 The tombs of these two Armenians are in Cat. Callistus (N. and B. RS i 344-5). Date probably May 19, 250. Their Acts (A.SS iv May, 300) are very corrupt, but with historical kernel (Aube EE 52-61).
* March or April, 250. There were troubles in Gaul and with the Goths (Aube' EE 69-70).
5 Cyp. Ep. 21. Numeria’s real name seems to have been Etecusa, and ‘ Numeria ’ merely a scornful title given her by her brother Celeriuus because she had paid (numeravit) for immunity (DCB ii 209). '
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
247
and support of their bishop, Cyprian. Certain bishops also denied the faith. But many, among them women not a few, were faithful unto death. We hear of seventeen, the comrades of a confessor called Lucian, who died together in prison of hunger and thirst.1
In Egypt the persecution in Alexandria, begun under Philip, was renewed. Here also, as at Carthage, there were many backsliders. ‘ Others, however, were firm and blessed pillars of the Lord,’ among them an old man, Julian by name. As his gout would not allow him to walk, he was carried to the stake on a camel, amid the jeers of the mob. We read also of Dioscuros, a boy of fifteen, ‘who was neither persuaded by words nor constrained by tortures.’ Five Christian soldiers, one of them a veteran, were standing on duty by the tribunal. Noticing signs of wavering in a prisoner, they made vigorous signs to him to stand firm. On being observed, ‘ they ran up to the tribunal and declared that they were Christians.’ Dionysius, the great bishop of Alexandria, escaped. For four days he lay hid in his own home while the police searched high and low. He then decided on flight, and was captured by the soldiers. But as one of his friends, a certain Timothy, who happened to have escaped, was flying along in great distress, ‘ he met a peasant, who asked the cause of his haste. On
1 For this paragraph see Cyprian da Lap. 7, 8, 9, 13, 21, 25 ; J-Jpp. G, 10, 11, 14, 22, 21, 38, 40, 5G. (Ed. Hartol.) The chronology and order of theso letters and events is dealt with in Ilaruack CAL
ii 339 ff. For the abscnce of Cyprian sco infra p. 311.
248 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
hearing the same the peasant went his way, for he was going to a marriage feast.’ On his arrival the countryman told the story to the others, some of whom, apparently, were Christians:
‘ These, forthwith, with a single impulse arose and came as quickly as possible with a rush and a shout upon us’—(Dionysius himself tells the story)—‘ The soldiers immediately took to flight, and the peasants came upon us, lying as we were upon the bare bedsteads. I indeed, God knows, thought at first that they were robbers. Lying there on my bed, naked save for a linen cloth, I offered them tho rest of my clothes. But they told me to get up and get away as quickly as possible.’
As Dionysius seemed unwilling to flee, his friends set him on an unsaddled ass and carried him off to the desert.1
In Syria and Asia Minor the persecution raged fitfully. The great theologian Origen,2 who was now in his sixty-eighth }Tear, was racked to the fourth hole. Only by the ingenuity of his judge was he saved from succumbing to his tortures, from the effects of which, however, he died at Tyre in 254. In Pontus, as in Carthage and Alexandria, the laxity of the authorities was such that Gregory the Wonder-worker succeeded
1 For this paragraph see Dionysius in Euseb. HE vi 40-2 ; also ib. Ep. ad Germanum in Euseb. HE vii 11. The flight of Dionysius seems to me to have occurred in 250 (so Westeott DCB i S50), though Harnaek CAL ii 5S follows Euseb. HE vii 11 in dating under Valerian. If so, Euseb. HE vi 40 is out of place.
2 Euseb. HE vi 39 (Origen’s letters describing this, to which Eusebius refers, are unfortunately lost), 46, vii 1; Jerome Ep. 65, and for his tomb at Tyre DCB iv 103. His great work against Celsus, to which we have so often referred, was probably written a few years earlier—between 24G-8 (Neumann RSE i 265 ff., Harnaek CAL ii 35 n.).
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 249
in escaping. Decius was too busy with his campaigns in Gaul and Pannonia to see that the magistrates carried out his instructions. But here and there the prisons were filled, and the torturers busy. In Smyrna ‘ the lusty athlete ’ Pionius and his companions witnessed the good confession, in spite of the apostasy of their bishop, Euctemon. But Babylas of Antioch and Alexander of Jerusalem proved by their deaths that not all the hierarchy were cowards.1
The persecution of Decius, happily, was of but brief duration. The barbarians providentially came to the assistance of the Church, as also in the later crisis under Valerian. Even before the death of Decius at the hands of the Goths in the marshes of the Dobrudsha (August, 251),2 the pressure of his foes had wrung from him a measure of rest for the Christians. We see this in their election in the previous March of Pope Cornelius. In the following year the persecution was renewed by Gallus, through whose treachery Decius had perished. The occasion was found in the terror inspired by a pestilence which swept from end to end of the Boman world.3 Expiatory sacrifices to avert the anger of the gods were ordered to be offered throughout the Empire. ‘ We see/ wrote the African bishops, ‘ that a second season of attack is drawing near.’i But the treacherous
1 Euseb. UE vi 39 ; tupra p. 157 n., and infra p. 329.
! Schiller 11K i S06-7. Not Nov. 251, as Aube' EE 270, Duchesne LP i xcvi n., &c.
3 Dion. Alex, in Euseb. HE vii 21; Pontius Cyp. Vita 8, 9 ; Cyp. ad Demetr 5, 7 ; de Mortalitate 14.
4 Cyp. Epp. 57, 59.
250 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Gallus was a foe far inferior to the virtuous Decius; while the Church, purified by its trials and repentance, was stronger than in the former persecution. The attack failed, though we know that for a time the persecution extended over Italy, Africa, and Egypt. In Carthage the mob clamoured for Cyprian to be thrown to the beasts. In Eome Cornelius was banished to Civita Yecchia, where shortly afterwards he died.1 His successor Lucius was no sooner appointed than he too was banished. But the murder of Gallus by his own troops put an end to the struggle. Lucius was allowed to return to Rome, where shortly afterwards he died in peace.2 The secret of Rome’s success in the past lay in her continuity of policy. Now her growing weakness was shown by the way in which successive emperors cancelled the measures taken against the Christians by their predecessors.
1 The earliest source (LP i G) knows nothing of his martyrdom. Probably the title, like that of Lucius, is due to Cyprian Ep. G8, who, because of their banishment, salutes them as martyrs. Cyprian certainly does not make the distinction between confessor and martyr that is now common (see Gregg DP 2S9-97, and cf. Aube' EE 301 n.), though possibly the title is due to his dying as the result of his bauishment. That the tradition of his martyrdom is earlier than the fourth century is seen from his Acts (on which see Aube EE 2S2 If.) which are used in LP i 150 (see Duchesne’s note ib. i xcvi). For his tomb, among those of the patrician gens Cornelia, and his epitaph > which is in Latin, and not, as that of other popes, in Greek, see N. and B. RS i 272, 352-G3, or Lanciani PCR i 215-9, who, however, wrongly dates under Decius. Cornelius died June, 253 (Harnack CAL i 155), aud was buried Sept. 14, 253 (LP i 151).
2 LP i 6, 153. See also Aube EE 295 ff. Lucius dates from June 25, 253 to March 5, 254.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
251
YI
The accession of the aged censor Valerian1 (Aug. 253), a noble Eoman of rigid life and unswerving fidelity of duty, but of somewhat irresolute character, soon issued in the renewal of the struggle. The reign of Valerian—who at an early date associated with himself his son Gallienus2—in spite of the many virtues of the emperor, was one of the most unfortunate in the annals of Eome. On its frontiers Franks, Alemanni, Marcomanni, and Goths in all directions were pressing in upon the dying Empire. For fifteen years a great plague ravaged its provinces, carrying off in Alexandria and other cities more than half the population. Seasons of scorching drought were followed by terrific tornadoes.3 A debased coinage 4 led to financial disaster. Famine, earthquakes, and huge tidal waves completed the ruin.
In the early months of his reign, though the laws of Decius were still in force,5 the Christians were not molested. Valerian was too busy attempting to
1 For the life of Valerian, see Trebellius ToUio Fragmentum Vitae Valeriani in the Ilistoriae Augmtae, a noble picture, if accurate (Bury G i 44G); Healy, Valerian Persecution (a broad-minded R.C. survey, though accepting much that should in my judgement bo dismissed as fable). Aube EE (the very opposite of Healy) and Benson Cyprian give good accounts of the persecution.
2 Before Oct. 22, 253 (Gibbon i 253 n.\
3 Supra p. 219 n. 3. Cyprian ad Demet. 7.
4 Schiller IiK i (2) p. 813 for details.
5 The martyrdoms of Ilippolytus, Iladrias, &c., accepted as talcing place at this time by Ilcaly (FP 12G-9), seem to me romance. Seo also Aube EE 332.
252 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
reduce the chaos in the State to order, and in providing for the defence of the frontiers, to meddle with the Church. There are grounds for believing that at first he viewed the Christians with some favour. He allowed Pope Lucius to return from his exile. ‘ His house was in truth a congregation (ekkAjjo-ui) of the Lord ’;1 so numerous were the Christians in his palace that the ‘ Caesariani ’ are expressly singled out for punishment in his second edict of persecution.2 But now there came a change; to some extent due to the constant calamities of the Empire and the superstition of the people, more, perhaps, because of the growing influence upon Valerian of Macrianus, one of the chief members of his court, the head of the magi of Egypt.3 Through this man’s machinations Valerian began a terrible persecution of the Church. In the summer of 257 he issued an edict specially directed against the bishops and priests. These the magistrates must seize and compel, under the alternative of banishment, to offer the outer signs of conformity, as in the persecution of Decius. The decree also forbade, under pain of death, the assembling together for worship, or the use by the Christians of their cemeteries,4
1 See supra p. 134.
2 Infra p. 254.
3 Aube EE 337-40 doubts the character of Macrianus given by Dionysius (see supra p. 134). No donbt there is strong bias. But in the main the portrait seems correct, see Healy o.c. 109-21.
4 The edict is lost, but can be reconstructed from the Acta proconsularia of Cyprian (infra p. 313 n.) and the trial of Dionysius of Ales, in Euseb. HE vii 11.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
253
Few details of the effect of this rescript have come down to us. At Rome, for reasons which are now lost, the Christians succeeded to a large extent in evading it.1 In Carthage it led to the banishment of Cyprian to Curubis. In some places where the Christians continued to hold their meetings they were arrested in large numbers, and condemned to death or to the mines. Among these last were nine Numidian bishops, to whom Cyprian wrote a letter of consolation from his place of exile.2 Dionysius of Alexandria was deported to Kephron, a wretched village in the desert, where the pagans attacked the Christian aliens with stones.3 Recantations were few, if any,4 though in some districts the edict was rigidly enforced. The worldling and coward had been driven out of the Church by the fire and sword of Decius.
A year later (Aug. 258) Valerian, conscious of the failure of his first edict, published a second of increased severity. This rescript was possibly the result of the reports he had received from his lieutenants, most of whom had been present at the emperor’s brilliant levee at Byzantium in the summer of 258. Valerian deemed that the time was oppor-
1 Inference from tlio freedom of Popes Stephen (f Aug. 2, 257, shortly after the edict was out. Certainly not a martyr; see Duchesne’s note in LP i 154) and his successor Xystus, who, though elected on Aug. 24, 257 (tho date of Cyprian’s banishment), was not troubled until the next year (Harnaek CAL i 155; Lightf. Clem, i 290).
2 Cyp. Epp. 76-9 deal with this period.
3 Dionysius in Euseb. HE vii 11.
4 Aubd EE 349 finds evidence for a few recantations in Com-modian Car. Apol. 762-3, on which see ib. 517 ft'.
254 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
tune for his reform, inasmuch as he had recently won several successes on the Rhine and Danube. He determined to strike at the clergy. Wherever found, of whatever grade, the penalty for the clergy was death, without the avail of recantation. The leaders among the laity, senators, and knights, were condemned to the same fate, but with the option of backsliding. Noble ladies were sentenced to be banished. Members of the court were to be sent in chains to work as slaves on the imperial estates.1 No mention is made of the treatment of humble Christians. Valerian hoped that the sheep thus left without shepherds would come back to the true fold without being worried.
The first victim of the rescript was Pope Xystus. In spite of the edict, he had assembled the faithful in a little oratory, or schola, in the cemetery of Praetex-tatus—not in the catacomb of Callixtus; that was too well known to the authorities for safety. The soldiers rushed in, the pope was hurried before the judge, and of course condemned. He was brought back to the cemetery and put to death as he sat in his episcopal chair, together with four of his deacons.2
1 No longer extant. Its drift can be gathered from Cyp. Ep. SO.
1 am not sure that the idea of treason among the Christians, regarding the barbarians as allies, etc. (Aube EE 351-2), as a cause of this second edict can be so lightly dismissed as Healy VP 1G5. See supra p. 153 ff., especially 153 n. 3.
2 Sixtus II; Aug. G, 258. See Duchesne LP i G8, 155; Cyprian Ep. 80 ; Prudentius Peristeph ii 21 is untrustworthy. For his tomb, and that of his deacons, see N. and B. PS i 132 ff., 150 ff., and for this schola and its site Lanciani PCB 117-8.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
255
Four days later the same fate overtook other deacons and readers, among them the famous St. Lawrence.1 In the provinces Cyprian at Carthage,2 Agapius and Secundinus at Cirta, Bishop Fructuosus of Tarragona,3 Lucius and Montanus,4 Marianus and James,5 Leo of Patara,6 and many others, suffered torture and death, of a few of whom we know but the names, of most possess no record at all.7
But the fall of Valerian was at hand. The legions, enfeebled by the plague, distracted by civil wars, were powerless to hurl back the seething hordes that pushed over the frontiers. In the West the Alemanni ravaged Italy up to the walls of Bavenna (259), while Dacia was torn from the Empire by the Goths,8 who thence pursued their ravages across the Bosphorus into Asia. In the East Valerian, in attempting, probably, to prevent the junction of Goths and Persians, was defeated by the latter under
1 Aug. 10. Ilis genuine Acts were lost before St. Augustiue’s time (see August. Serm. 302). The church of S. Lorenzo fuori was built over his grave (Lanciani PCR 120-2). Nothing is said in tho earliest sources (LP i G8) as to the manner of his death, slow fire on the gridirou, &e. This legend may have arisen, as Franchi de Cavalieri suggests, by a mistaken reading of assus est for est (LP i 155; Healy VP 184). Tho delay in his execution may bo due to attempts to wring from him as treasurer of the Church (the function of tho deacon) some of its wealth (Healy o.c. 182).
2 Seo infra pp. 310-3. 3 Infra p. 325.
* Infra p. 324 n. 5 Infra p. 322 ff. 6 Supra p. 1G2-3.
7 Tho martyrdom of the boy Cyril at Caesarea (AM 24G), aeeepted by Ilealy (VP 242), Masou (Ilist. Martyrs 19S), seems to mo to bear on its face proofs that it is written for edification. If historical it would surely have been mentioned by Euseb. HE vii 12, which deals with three young men martyred at Caesarea.
8 255-G. See Mommsen PRE i 241.
256 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Shapur (Sapor) and betrayed to the enemy.1 For six years the unfortunate emperor was dragged about at the stirrup of his conqueror, robed in purple but weighed down with chains. When at length death came to his release, his skin was dyed with vermilion, stuffed with straw, and hung up in unavenged derision in a Persian temple.2
Valerian was succeeded by Gallienus, a clever man without character or real patriotism. He took no steps to procure his father’s release; the revolt of provinces was accepted with a smile. Usurpers sprang up everywhere; the Thirty Tyrants3 reduced the Empire to chaos. For all these things Gallienus, cynic and voluptuary, cared nothing. But whether from indifference, rare statesmanship, the influence of his wife Salonina,4 or the philosophical syncretism which attached him to Plotinus and the Neoplatonists, Gallienus determined to put an end to the sanguinary struggle between Christianity and the State. The Empire was bleeding to death; one wound, at any rate, might be staunched. So Gallienus issued an edict of toleration, restoring to the Church their confiscated basilicas, reopening their cemeteries, and guaranteeing freedom of worship.5 In the East the
1 About 2G0. See Bury’s Gibbon i A pp. 17. Mommsen PRE ii 100.
2 Lact. MP 5; Euseb. Vita Constant, i 3, with which cf. Pollio Valer. 4; Trig. Tyr. 12, ‘senex apud Pcrsas consenuit.’
3 Really sixteen in all; see Bury’s Gibbon i App. IS.
* That she was a Christian seems to me very doubtful. See Duruy HP vi 387, Healy VP 271 n., Allard III HP 163 ff.
s Euseb. HE vii 13. Text of cdict lost. Date, autumn, 260.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
257
social disorders led to some delay; but finally, both in East and West, Christianity thus became definitely enrolled as a religio licita, and so continued until the persecution of Diocletian. How strong was now their legal position is shown by the incident of the appeal of the Christians of Antioch against their bishop Paul of Samosata to the Emperor Aurelian, the issue of which was the recognition by Aurelian of the rights of the Eoman section in the Church to the buildings.1 The edict of Milan fifty-three years later did little more than restore the legislation of Gallienus.
The execution of Xystus in the catacombs tempts us to interrupt our story that we may explain more fully a matter intimately bound up with the martyrs from the days of the Apostles onward. We allude to their tombs.2 The reader familiar with the savage fanaticism which tossed the ashes of Hus into the Rhine, tore up Wyclif from his grave at Lutterworth
1 Euseb. HE vii 27-30. I agree with Lindsay Church and Ministry 332 n. that the question was far more one of Paul having sided with Zenobia, who held possession of Antioch, than of heresy. Aurelian intended to rescind the toleration, but was hindered by his death, March, 275 (Euseb. HE vii 30; Lact. MP 6). The hagiologies are full of legends of his martyrs, on which see Aube EE 469-85. Some, however, may have a basis of fact, but be wrongly dated.
2 For the origin and nature of the catacombs, &c., see Lanciani PCR c. 7, Northcote and Brownlow RS i 1-364, Allard Les Catacombs (Paris, 1896), or the brief but good DC A i s.v. Tho source of all these works will be found in the main in the indefatigable researches of de Rossi, whoso superb RS may be consulted with advantage even by thoso ignorant of Italian, for the sake of its plates. But for these the superb edition of Wilpert Le Pitture delle Catcieombe Romane (two vols., Rome, 1903), is even better.
S
258 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
and cast the dust into the Swift1—two only out of many illustrations—may wonder that the Eoman governors allowed the burial of the martyrs at all. But in this matter pagan Eome must not be compared with the horrible vindictiveness of the mediaeval Inquisition. To the heathen judge, unlike the Council of Constance or Bishop Fleming of Lincoln, the dust even of the criminal was sacred, and must be delivered up to the relatives or friends.2 Even a Nero dare not tamper with that right, and there is nothing in itself more probable than that a Eoman matron of wealth should be allowed to claim and bury the bodies of St. Paul and St. Peter in her own freehold. What was more, the place of burial by that very fact became sacred (religiosus) in the eyes of the law,3 a place as inviolable as the holiest temple.
1 See my Dawn of the Reformation i 245, ii 332. Bernard Gui, the inquisitor, between 1308-22 exhumed and burnt 67 bodies of heretics. Lea Hist. Inquis. i 495. The contrast between pagan Rome and papal Rome is in this matter not to the credit of the latter (cf. tho Roman laws in Dig. xi 7).
2 Sec Paulus and Ulpian in Dig. xlviii 24, 1 and 3, ‘Corpora animadversornra (those who are punished) quibuslibet petentibus «d sepulturam danda sunt ’; so also ‘ corpora eorum qui exurcndi.’ Tho exceptions were in cases of majestas (Ulpian in Dig. xlviii 24, 1, where, however, the ‘ nonnunquam non permittitur ’ shows that even this was rare) and banishment (Marcian in Dig. xlviii 24, 2; it must not be done ‘inconsulto principe’). The two exceptions could both hit the Christians hard if the rulers were so inclined (see infra p. 263). But as a rule this last exception was not carried out, as we see from the case of Fabian and Hippolytus (supra p. 240), and as Marcian states (I.c. ‘ multis petentibus hoc ipsum indulserunt ’).
3 Dig. i 8, 6. ‘ Religiosum locum unusquisque sua volnntate facit, dum mortuum infert in locum suum.’ This applied also to
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
259
Thus the tombs of the martyrs, for instance of St. Peter on the Aurelian Way, of St. Paul on the Ostian, whether above ground or below, would be built with as much impunity as the mole of Hadrian or the mausoleum of Augustus, and with rights of access to the tombs fully secured, even in case of the sale of the property.1 Thus the law itself, by the safety it insured for the graves of the martyrs, assisted by tho revorence of the Church and the desire of the faithful to be buried side by [side with the holy dead, was the real force that dug out the catacombs. For the catacombs were not, as was once supposed, disused quarries which trembling Christians secretly adapted for their own purposes. They were galleries deliberately constructed by several generations of Christians at great cost by sextons (fossores) recognized as servants of the Church, and with an evident consciousness of security and right. In this, as in so much else, the Church was but the lineal descendant of Judaism, whose catacombs at Rome, undoubtedly anterior to Christianity, furnished to some extent the model of all later developments. We have an illustration of this in tho fact that of the fifteen bishops of Rome who preceded Zepbyrinus all but Clement and Alexander were buried ‘ hard by the body of St. Peter.’2 We cannot imagine that
slaves, Dig. xi 7, 2. The origin lies in ancestor worship. Cf. XII Tables in Cic. de Leg. ii 9, ‘Deorum Manium jura sancta sunto.’
1 Paul. Sent, i 21, 7; Dig. xlvii 12, 5.
2 See tho lists in Duchesne LV i 118-38, or briefly ib. i clvii. The fact that the burial-place of Clement at a very early date was uu-known (cf. ZP i 123) led to his identification with Clement of
260 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the imperial police were ignorant of this recognized burial-place of the leaders of a sect officially classed with cutthroats and anarchists. Nevertheless, no interference was attempted. In the third century Zephyrinus changed the tomb of the popes to the cemetery which he had provided,1 possibly because the little plot on the Vatican was full. But the thirteen bishops of Borne buried in this new cemetery were perfectly safe, despite the persecutions of Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian, of which, in fact, some had been the victims.
These burial-places were at first known by the names of the owner of the freehold,2 not only for legal reasons, but because the familiar galleries were really developments that radiated out from these private sepulchral areas. Only in later times, and then by no means commonly, were they called from some famous saint whose tomb they contained.3 Furthermore, in every case, by Roman law, they were without the walls. No corpse save that of a vestal virgin was allowed to be buried within the
Cheraon (supra p. 206 n.). Alexander’s was either unknown, or the true site lost through the false identification (as early as the LP, see ib. i 127) of this pope (f 116) with a martyr Alexander, who, with a priest, Eventiua, and a deacon, Theodulus, are buried on the Via Nomentana, about seven miles out from the city, and whose tomb was discovered in 1855. This identification, accepted by N. and B. RS i 506-8, should be rejected; see Duchesne’s note LP i xci.
1 Infra p. 261 n. Called now the catacomb of Callistus.
2 E.g. the cemetery of Praetextatus (supra), a perfectly unknown Christian freeholder.
3 E.g. the catacomb of Domitilla (supra p. 20i n.) becomes that of Nereus and Achilleus. So often. See the list in DCA i 315.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
261
city itself. But this very fact gave them a certain privacy, which, added to their inviolability, enabled the catacombs to become a safe meeting-place for worship in times of persecutions. The provision of these cemeteries was left at first to private generosity. But early in the third century the Church took advantage of the laws relating to burial clubs to purchase cemeteries, the freehold of which was vested in the bishop or other official.1
1 Tert. Apol. 38 pleaded ‘that Christians should have a place among licensed societies,’ and in ib. 39 mentions among the objects of the ‘monthly collection’ the ‘burying poor people.’ With this cf. Aristides Apol. 15; Lactant. Imtit. vi 12. Burial clubs (collegia tenuiorum) abounded in the second century, and one of the objects of all sodalities was to look after burial (Dill o.c. 258-61). For the registration of Christians as burial clubs, the student should cousidt further Le Blant SAM 282, 288; Ramsay CBP i 119, ii 549-50, 563; de Rossi RS i 10 ff., ii 82. The first mention of the Church holding its own cemetery seems to be under Pope Zephyrinus (t 218), who made Callistus overseer of it (Hippolytus Philos, ix 12), and was himself buried in it (Duchesne LP i 139-40).
As a collegium tenuiorum, or burial club, Christians would acquire tho right to hold property, especially cemetcries. This was formally permitted by Gallienus (260) when he restored the cemetcries (Euseb. HE vii 13, 3 ; Hatch Organ. Early Ch. 152, n.; Duchesno i.e.). The question of the relation of burial clubs to the Church seems to mo rather a legal question of property held by a sodality, more or less numerous in its members, than one affecting the status of the Church as a church. That is, I cannot think that the theory of do Rossi, which for some time met with general approval [that the decree of Sept. Severus extending to the provinces the rights of burial thus hitherto restricted to Italy (Dig. xlvii 22, 1) enabled tho Church as such to obtain a legal corporate existence, and was thus first recognizcd by the State as a monster burial club], is correct. Individual Christians might so band themselves, but that tho polico at Rome allowed the 50,000 members (seo infra App. F) to form a club seems ridiculous, as Duchesno and other critics of de Rossi have pointed out.
262 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
In this very development we mark one of the notes of Christianity. Pagan cemeteries were usually restricted to the members of a particular familia, but in the brotherhood of Christ they were open to the community of the faithful.
From the earliest days of the City jurisdiction in all matters of burial, including the responsibility for guarding inviolability, was left to the pontiffs (pontijices). Every transference of a body, even simple repairs of the tomb, had first to obtain their sanction.1 If this was secured (and in such matters the pontiffs were lenient), the transference of a Christian from one tomb to another became a legal act, in spite of the fact that Christianity itself was illegal. This will illustrate a most interesting event which took place towards the close of the first year of persecution under Valerian, and which may well have led to the immediate issue of his second rescript. On June 29, 258, a few weeks before the martyrdom of Xystus, the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul were transferred from the places where hitherto they had rested to another place ‘ in Catacumbas.’2 Whether
1 See a certificate of transfer dated Nov. 3, a.d. 155, quoted in Lanciani o.c. 308.
2 See the record in Duchesne LP ill and cf. infra App. C. The words are ambiguous, but I should reject as most improbable Dr. Northcoto’s idea (RS i 369 from Gregory the Great Ep. iv 30) that they relate to an attempt of the churches in the East to obtain the bodies shortly after their deaths (see Duchesne’s full examination LP i civ-cvii). The Apostles were not returned to their original tombs for some time (‘forty years,’ say the Itineraries; N. and B. RS i 265), probably not until the peace of Constantine (D. LP i c vii), for the record under Pope Cornelius (252), with its 6tory of Luciua (LP i
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
263
this was done for the greater security in time of persecution of the precious remains, in dread lest the heathen should attack their well-known shrines, or from some other cause—for instance, the need of repairing the tombs—we cannot tell. If carried out ostentatiously with the pontiffs’ consent, it was a dangerous step, as it marked out the men who took part in it, Xystus included ; if done secretly at night, it could not fail to be reported by the police, and thus givo Valerian reason for striking harder at such daring law-breakers.
We have said the cemeteries were guarded by custom and legislation. But in times of persecution the mob occasionally defied the law, the more easily as Christians condemned for ‘ majustas ’ were really outside its pale.1 In the great outbreak at Lyons the persecutors cast the ashes of the martyrs into the Rhone—
‘ in order, as they said, that they may not have hope in a resurrection, in the strength of which they despise dangers and go with joy to meet death’ (Euseb. HE v 1).
Outrages upon the tombs of the hated anarchists
150; sco also supra p. 41), is evidently misplaced. Henceforth June 29, tho date of tho ‘deposition,’ was hold as tho Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul {infra App. C).
Tho place of ‘ deposition ’ was in tho cemetery of St. Sebastian (Lanciaui PCR 315 ; N. aud B. RS i 268). This district seems to havo had tho name of “ the Hollows ” (Karck Ki/xfias, a word akin to Welsh cicm, English combe; DCA i 295. Possibly, however, tho word is a hybrid, Karel — cumbo, coemcterium), and so by this pre-ominenco of the ‘deposition’ to havo given the namo of ‘catacomb’ to all tho Roman Christian cemeteries.
1 See supra p. 258 n. 2.
264 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
might also at times be committed with impunity by reason of the sympathetic blindness of the police. This will account for the frequent appeals to the fears of the law-breaker which we find on Christian graves. Thus on a tomb at Milan we read : ‘ May the wrath of God and of His Christ fall on him who dares to disturb the peace of our sleep.’ But the Christian did not as a rule so openly expose his faith. In Phrygia, for instance, he used a phrase that would not jar on pagan susceptibilities : ‘ the violator shall account to the God.’1 Underground vaults were naturally less exposed to such lawless deeds, and, so far as we know, until the persecutions of the third century the sanctity of the catacombs was scrupulously respected by the responsible magistrates.
De Bossi was of opinion that the first attempts to make the Catacombs secret may be dated as due to the persecutions of Septimius Severus. Tertullian speaks of the Christians as being arrested ‘ in their secret gathering-places ’; while in Carthage the cry arose, ‘ No burial-grounds for the Christians.’2 The edict of Valerian and the arrest of Xystus II led to many devices—irregular and circuitous passages, concealed ways of entrance through the sand quarries (iarcnariae) which often lay adjacent, steps destroyed so that without a ladder the intruder was helpless, and the like—for the better guarding of their
1 Lanciani VCR 318, Ramsay CBP ii 497-9, Le Blant CIO i 289-92, give a collection of prayers and mcnaces which are by no means, in Gaul or Phrygia, confiued to Christians.
2 Tert. ad Nat. i 7, Scap. 3 (‘ areae nou sint ’).
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
265
cemeteries.1 But, in spite of all precautions, the catacombs were probably the scene of many surprises and not a few tragedies. On one occasion, if we may quote a doubtful tale of Gregory of Tours, when the Christians were seen to enter, the passage was hastily walled up, so that they were all buried alive.2 Whatever be the truth of Gregory’s tale, such a fate for the Christians was probably not unknown.
With the accession of the great Emperor Diocletian (September 17, 284), we enter upon the final struggle—the tenth wave, as Christians said, of the great storm.3 Diocletian’s parents had been slaves in the household of the Senator Anulinus; their
1 N. and B. US i 154-5.
2 Greg. Tours de Gloria Martyrum i 38. Pope Damasus, we are told, found tlieir living tomb, and put a window into it, so that they might be seen undisturbed. The doubtful element in the story, apart from certain absurd details, absence of date, &e., lies in the fact that it is really a repetition to some extent of the martyrdom of Chysanthus and Daria, whoso tomb they were visiting. These two were buried alive in an arenarium (sand-quarry) on the Via Salaria Nova, probably under Valerian. (See DCB i 514 ; Allard DP 46 n. Aube EE 494 n. rejects as a ‘roman d’edification.’ Their Acts certainly are such, but the two themselves seem historical.)
3 Our chiof authorities are Eusob. HE and Lactantius MP. For the questions connected with Lactantius see infra App. A II. Of modern works Mason PD (1870) is very valuablo, though needing correction here and there in small details. Its lengthy polemics against Hunziker, &e., though perhaps necessary when written, could well be curtailed in a future edition.
266 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
child refounded the Empire on a new basis, transforming the principate of Augustus into an absolute monarchy. Diocletian’s reorganization of the Empire was followed by the concentration of the forces of that Empire against the Church, All was changing ; Eome had become almost a provincial city, forced to pay taxes like the rest of the world, of less importance than Milan or Nicomedeia. The old rule of a solitary imperator gave place to the tetrarchy of two Augusti and two Caesars; the old provinces had been regrouped as dioceses.1 Nothing would have been more natural than that Diocletian should have done what Constantine found it necessary to do later—to consolidate his other changes by a change in the national religion. But the time for that was not yet. In spite of himself, Diocletian was driven into persecution.
The conflict with the Church did not break out immediately. In his early years, Diocletian had somewhat favoured Christianity. His wife Prisca and daughter Valeria were catechumens, though as yet they had mado no open confession of faith. So also were many of his court officials, among them the influential eunuchs Dorotheus and Gorgonius, as also Lucian the chamberlain.2 As his earlier acts show, by temper Diocletian was tolerant, inclined to look on all national religions as worthy of
1 The student who is puzzled as to the different groupings of the Empire by Diocletian under its Augusti and Caesars should study Bury’s Gibbon ii App. 15.
2 Lact. MP 10, 15.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
267
patronage. Nevertheless, by his adoption at his accession of the title of Jovius, Diocletian showed his determination to revive and uphold the religion of the Empire. Isolated persecutions here and there in the army1 show the slumbering forces of hatred; while Eusebius’ description of the ‘vast congregations of men who flocked to the religion of Christ,’ and of the ‘ spacious churches ’ that were daily being erected,2 indicate that the death-grip of the two rivals could not long be averted. In Nicomedeia, the capital of Diocletian, the most conspicuous edifice in the city was the great Christian basilica, which towered up on an eminence in full sight of his palace windows. For the Church in every province the last fifty years had been years of remarkable growth. The Empire must determine whether it should maintain the national religion, or allow it to be displaced by the new faith to which Gallienus had granted toleration.
The heathen priests soon found their opportunity, as in the case of Valerian,3 in the devotion of Diocletian to the rites of divination. The emperor, who was anxiously awaiting at Antioch for news of the succcss of Galerius in his second expedition against the Persians (297), consulted the omens. Victim after victim was sacrificed, but with no result. Then the master of the soothsayers, who had observed some of
1 Maximiliau of Tlievesto (supra p. 185); Marcellus of Tangiers (vupra p. 182). Seo also Euseb. HE viii (4) 2, TaV Kara rh. a-rpaTStrfSa /xivcL'v airoi\tip(i)[j.tvov. The army cases wero perhaps the nccessary outcoiuo of military discipline.
2 Euseb. HE viii i. 5 Supra p. lol.
268 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the court sign themselves with the cross—the familiar remedy of Christian officials for bowing themselves in the house of Rimmon—informed Diocletian: ‘ There are profane persons here who obstruct the rites.’ Diocletian, in a rage, gave orders that all who were present should be made to sacrifice, and sent messages that the same test should be applied to the troops. But his anger passed away, and for a time nothing further was done.1 With the success of Galerius, Diocletian celebrated the last triumph which ever swept along the Sacred Way.2
Galerius Maximian, in his youth a Dacian neatherd, was the evil genius of Diocletian. A brave and able soldier, faithful and obedient, as cruel as he was superstitious, he had grown up imbued with his mother Romula’s hatred of the Christians, who had angered the old lady by fasting and praying when invited to join her entertainments.3 After long but secret conferences, Diocletian was induced by Galerius and Hierocles, the President of Bithynia—this last an able controversialist against the Christians—to issue a decree on the feast of Terminalia (Feb. 23, 303), an appropriate day for the purpose, intended to set a limit or term to the growth of the new society. By this rescript the edict of toleration of Gallienus was repealed; the statutes of Valerian re-enacted. All churches were to be demolished ; all
1 Lact. MP. 10.
2 Date uncertain, probably 302, though possibly at the time of Diocletian’s Vicennalia (i.e. 20th anniversary), Nov. 20, 303.
3 Lact. MP 11. '
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 269
sacred books to be burnt—in this last we may surely trace the counsels of Hierocles, who is said to have known the Scriptures by heart—all Christian officials were to be deprived of their civil rights; Christians I who were not officials to be reduced to the rank of slaves.1 Galerius had wished to condemn to the flames all those who declined to sacrifice. Diocletian refused to allow the shedding of blood: He intended 1 to crush out the Church, not rob his empire of | citizens. He aimed at a Tests Act, not a measure of ‘ extermination. But two fires in the palace within a fortnight—the work of the Christians, said the heathen ; a plot of the heathen, retorted the Christians2— were skilfully used by Galerius to stir up Diocletian to still greater repression. * As Diocletian himself ! used to say, “the best of emperors, no matter how j well intentioned, sometimes errs ! ’” 3 Persecution, i once begun, could not long proceed on methods of rose-water. Prisca and Valeria were compelled to sacrifice ; the trusted officials Dorotheus, Gorgonius, and a page named Peter put to death, the first victims of the accusation of incendiarism. Everywhere persecution raged ; the Christians were seized, thrust into 1 prisons, burnt, or drowned.4
A few months later5 Diocletian issued a second
1 Euseb. HE\iii (2) 4 ; Lact. MP 13. See Mason DP App. I for a f critical examination. The preamble, if it ever existed, is lost. Com; pare the edict of Valerian (supra p. 254), on which to some extent it
is based.
2 Lact. MP 14; Euseb. HE yiu (6) 6; Mason DP 118 n., 121.
3 Vopiscus Aurel. xliii 2. 4 Lact. DIP 15.
5 From the Passio Felicis (see infra p. 275 n.) we learn that the
270 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
edict. The immediate reason is unknown, but Diocletian’s severe treatment of a revolt at Antioch, if a mad escapade of five hundred soldiers engaged in dredging may be so described, shows that he was nervous of disaffection in one of the centres of the new faith. In Melitene, another stronghold of the Church, there seems also to have been some attempt at rebellion.1 In Armenia Tiridates (Trdat) the king was known to be a convert to Christianity.2 So Diocletian deemed it wise to take decided measures. He put into force the chapter in the edict of Valerian hitherto omitted, and ordered the imprisonment of all the clergy.
Throughout the world the passions of the heathen were let loose without restraint. The clergy were seized.3 Especial search also was made for the
edict arrived at Tibjuca, near Carthage, on Juno 5, 303. It arrived at Cirta before May 19 (Geb. AMS 189).
1 Euseb. EE viii 68; Mason PD 124-8, and supra p. 187 n.
2 The conversion of Armenia Major through the labours of Gregory the Illuminator, and the example of Trdat (261-314), began in 280. Before 290 many of the temples, including the national shrine at Astivat, were destroyed, though the peasants, especially the women, clung as usual to the old faith. (The chief authority is Gelzer’s Die Anfange der arm. Kirehe, 1S95. See also Bury’s Gibbon ii. App. 18. Harnack EC ii 344-7.)
3 Canon Mason, PD 137-8, states that if only Diocletian had known it, he could have cut off the life of the Church for ever by seizing all the bishops, “ and the Church would have lain beneath his feet a corpse,” without “the means of propagating the life” (cf. supra p. 244). The conclusion follows that in Scotland, Switzerland, America, N. Germany, WTales, Sweden and Norway, and elsewhere the prevalent Christianity is but “ a corpse.” It is difficult to characterize as it deserves such a narrow conception of the kingdom of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. When will theologians
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
271
Scriptures. Deacons and readers were tortured until they surrendered their copies to the flames. In Asia Minor a town in which the Christians were in a majority was wiped out for ever.1 Only in Britain and Gaul, where Coustantius ruled—Spain was in the government of the cruel Datian, an officer of Maxi-mian—was there any safety for the Christians, though even that tolerant emperor deemed it wiser to conform to the letters he had received from Diocletian so far as to destroy their churches.2 In our own island the Christians, it must be confessed, were but few in numbers, though not without the powerful support of the Empress Helena. To this date we must assign the martyrdom of a young Roman soldier of Yerulam, named Alban, who was executed, according to the doubtful story, for harbouring a priest—a defiance both of the edict and of the discipline of the camp.3
learn that a priori theories which won’t fit in with the facts of experience are scientific absurdities, and degrade theology from being the ‘ queen of the sciences ’ into a laughing-stock ?
1 Euseb. HE viii 11; Lactant. Instit. Dio. v. 11; and cf. Ramsay’s remarks on Eumeneia in Phrygia, CBP ii 505-9.
2 Lact. MP 15 as against Euseb. HE viii (13) 13, MP (13) 10, 11. Even if Eusebius be correct, one or two martyrdoms might occur.
3 It is difficult to know what to decide about St. Alban. That Christianity existed at this date in Britain is certain. See the evidence in Haverfield Eng. Hitt. Rev. xi. 420; and especially note that three bishops (? London, York and ? Lincoln) atteuded the Synod of Arles in 310.
On the other hand, the narrative in Bede HEM is full of impossibilities (see Bede HE ed. Plummer ii. 17-20). Iladdan and Stubbs Councils i 6, following Euseb. HE viii 13 (13), deny that the persecution of Diocletian extended to England. No doubt a country without
272 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
The effort of the persecutors to stamp out the Scriptures led to some interesting incidents. In many churches the precious manuscripts were hurriedly hidden, so that ‘ when the officers reached the library the bookshelves were empty.’ At Cirta,1 in consequence, we see the magistrates with a policeman called Ox (Bos), going round from house to house, guided by the bishop’s traitor secretaries (May 19, 803):—
‘And when they came to the house of Felix the tailor, he brought out five booka, and when they came to the house of Projectus, he brought five big and two little books. Victor the schoolmaster brought out two books, and four books of five volumes each (quiniones quattuor). Felix the perpetual flamen said to him, “Bring your Scriptures out; you have more.” Victor the schoolmaster said, “If I had had more I should have brought them.”2 When they came to the house of Eutychius, who was in the civil service (Caesariensis), the flamen said, “ Bring out your books, that you may obey the order.” “I have none,” he replied. “ Your answer,” said Felix, “is
martyrs felt humiliated and under constraint to invent some. Yet, on the whole, I incline to agree with Harnack EG ii 410 n. 4 (see also BCB i 69) that there is some foundation for the story, though that of Aaron and Julius of Caerleon (Bede I.e.') seems to me more doubtful. The earliest evidence is Constantius’ Life of Germanus (Constant. Vit. Germani i 25 in Snrius Sanctorum Bistoriis iv), in which we are told that Germanus fifty years previously had visited the relics. The date of Alban was June 22. (See also my Letters of Hus 249 u.) That Alban was a soldier is an inference from Bede’s phrase ‘ miles ille,’ which, however, may be merely figurative (see supra p. 185), though scarcely likely of one executed on the day of his conversion.
1 Cirta is the modem Constantine, in Algiers.
• Human nature is much the same always. When asked his occupation, Victor said, ‘lam a professor of Roman literature,’ and ran out a long genealogy. As becomes a grammaiicus, his answer might serve as an example of conditional sentences in a Latin grammar.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
273
taken down.” At the house of Coddeo, Coddeo’s wife brought out six books. Felix said, “Look and see if you have not some more.’' The woman said, “ I have no more.” So Felix said to policeman Ox,
“ Go in and see if she has any more.” Said the policeman, “ I have looked, and found none.” ’1
We hear of one wily bishop, Mensurius of Carthage, who removed all the library of his church, but took care not to leave the shelves bare. He placed thereon a number of heretical works of little value. The pagans fell into the trap, destroyed the poison, and the bishop’s library escaped, in spite of certain busybodies who tried to inform the pro-consul of the mistake his police had made.2
We owe the record of the doings at Cirta to a later inquiry, under Constantine the Great, into the character of certain of the parties concerned. To the same cause we are indebted for another photograph of the times, which deals with the trial, in the year 314, in the vicarial court of Carthage, of Felix, bishop of Aptungi,3 ‘ for giving his consent to the surrender of the Scriptures.’ Caecilian, who had been in office
1 Gesta apud Zenophilum c. 2 in Geb. AMS 187-204, or CSEL xxvi (1893) 185 ff. Written Dec. 320. In place of the books tho officers found at the church, ‘ thirteen pairs of men’s shoos, forty-seven pairs of women’s, sixteen men’s tunics, eighty-two ditto for women, thirty-eight women’s head-dresses,’ &c., evidently a clothing club for the poor. They found also eighteen smocks, for the use, I imagiue, of tho six grave-diggers who are mentioned. At tho moment of writing, the history of church inventories is repeating itself in France.
2 See DGB i 880, iv 903. Mensurius died in 311.
3 The correct namo seems to be Autumni (Geb. AMS 213); unidentified, but probably in Nuinidia. Tissot La Province L’Afrique ii 579 discusses the matter fully.
T
274 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
in Aptungi in 308—the year of the persecution—is put into the witness-box. He deposed as follows:—
‘1 had been with Saturninus to Zama over a question of boundaries.1 When we came back to Aptungi, the Christians sent to me to the court, to ask, “ Has the imperial decree reached you yet?” I said, “No; but I have already seen copies of it, and at Zama and Furni I have seen churches destroyed, and books burned, so you may as well be ready to produce whatever books you have. . . .” Shortly afterwards I sent to the house of the accused Bishop Felix. The police brought back word that he was away. . . . So I wrote a letter to the said Bishop Felix.’
The letter was handed up, hastily recognized by Caecilian, and then read to the court. It was as follows:—
‘ I hope you are very well. I enclose the signet-ring which the Christians, among them the keeper of the courts, sent to me to avert punishment. You remember you said, “ Here is the key. You may take away all the books in my stall, and all the MSS. on the stone slab. But please do not let the police take away my oil and wheat.” And I said to you, “ Do you not know that every house in which Bibles are found must be pulled down?” You said then, “What shall we do ? ” I said, “ Get one of your people to take the Bibles into the yard that you use for your talks, and put them there, and I will come with the police to take them away.” ’2
On further inquiry it turned out that the latter part of this letter was the forgery of a man called Ingentius, one of the secretaries of the court. But the picture it gives of the shifts in which magistrates and Christians too often took refuge is in the main correct.
Some of the Christians were made of sterner stuff.
1 ‘ Propter lineas comparandas.’ Mason DP 160 (whose account of this trial is fairly full) translates, ‘ to get some shirts.’
2 For this remarkable trial see Geb. AMS 205-14 or CSEL xxvi.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 275
Of such was Felix, bishop of Tibjuca, a village near Carthage. The mayor of the town (curator) wrote to him ‘ to surrender his Scriptures, or some parchments of some sort/ for the more merciful judges were often willing to take any ‘ waste scraps.’ Felix refused. ‘ It is better/ he said, ‘ that I should be burnt myself rather than the Scriptures.’ So he was hurried off to Carthage. ‘ Why don’t you surrender some spare or useless books ? ’ asked the proconsul Anulinus. But all subterfuges and hints were in vain. So, after a month of misery, Felix was shipped off to Italy, heavily chained in the hold of a ship carrying horses, and at Venusia, in Apulia, with “pious obstinacy,”1 laid down his life rather than give up his Gospels.2
Hermes, a deacon of Heraclea, in Thrace, who had at one time been its chief magistrate, was even more daring in his confidence :—
‘ If we -were to surrender to you, torturer! all the Scriptures, so that there should be no trace left anywhere of this our true tradition, then our descendants will compose greater Scriptures, and will teach yet more earnestly the fear we have of Christ.’3
‘ Where did these come from ? ’ asked Calvisianus, the governor of Catana, in Sicily, of a Christian deacon called Euplius, who was discovered with a manuscript of the Gospels; ‘ did you bring them from
1 Gibbon ii 126.
2 AM 355, Aug. 30, 303. The form Tibjura in Ruinnrt, Mason, &c., is a mistake for Tibjuca or Tubzuca, tho modern Zouitina, about forty miles from Carthago (Tissot Prov. d’Afrique ii 287-9). The conjecturo Thibaris (DCB ii 497 from Baronins) is needless.
3 Ruinart AM 411; see Harnaek CAL ii 478 for its authenticity.
276 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
your home?’ ‘I have no home, as my Lord Jesus Christ knows,’ replied Euplius. ‘ Read them,’ said the judge. So Euplius opened the books and read:
* Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ He turned over a few pages, and read again: * Whosoever will come after Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me.’ After many tortures Euplius was executed, repeating to the end, ‘ Thanks be to Christ my God.’1
In the autumn of 304 the health of Diocletian failed. For forty years he had borne the burden of erecting a new empire out of chaos; now his mind refused to rise to higher themes than the opening of a new circus at Nicomedeia.2 Galerius and Maximian could thus pursue with less restraint their own designs. * 0 Augustus,’ shouted the mob to Maximian, on the occasion of a rare visit to Eome, ‘no Christianity.’ The cry fell in with Maximian’s wishes. A fourth edict was issued affixing to Christianity the penalty of death, while the magistrates were informed that the entire population must be tested by sacrifices.3 Nobly did the Church respond to the call. The design of the pagans was more than met by the * obstinacy ’ of the Christians. Hell was let loose in its vilest and most cruel forms;4
1 AM 406. Aug. 12, 304. Euplius seems to have sought martyrdom. See infra p. 343 n.
2 Lact. MP 17.
3 See Mason PD 210-7 for the circumstances of this fourth edict. Sec also Euseb. MP 3.
* To this period we must assigu the cases iu infra App. H.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 277
but against the onward march of the hosts of God its gates could not prevail.
The retirement of Diocletian (May 1, 305) removed from the persecutors all restraint. Diodes, for the ex-emperor resumed his original name, settled down to cultivate his cabbages at Salona, in Dalmatia; Galerius and Maximin Daza—this last ‘ a young half savage, more accustomed to herds and woods,’1 a kinsman of Galerius—addressed themselves to their task of crushing out the Church, though distracted for a while by many difficulties with regard to the succession. But the pace was too great to last, and in 308 mutilation was substituted for death as the punishment of the faith. At Caesarea Eusebius saw one day ninety-seven Christians, men, women, and even young children, on their way to the mines at Phaeno, each one minus the right eye, and with the left foot disabled by hot irons.2 For a few months the ‘ flame of persecution relaxed its violence, almost extinguished by the streams of sacred blood.’3 But in the autumn of 308 there began a new reign of terror, in the various acts of which we may trace the diabolical genius of Theotecnus, a Neoplatonist. A fifth edict appeared even more stringent than the previous. The fallen idols were to be re-erected, all households were to sacrifice, and, lest there should be any escape, all
For Daza’s sensuality see Lact MP (38) 4, which Brandt, the critio of Lactantius, however, considers exaggerated.
1 Lact. MP 19. Salona is the modern Spalato.
2 Euseb. MP 8. 3 lb. 9.
278 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
goods for sale in the markets were to be polluted by libations.1 For two years it rained blood. In some towns the streets were strewn with fragments of corpses. But in 311 Galerius relented. He was on his deathbed, tormented with the disease vulgarly known as the being eaten of worms.2 Like all the men of his day, he was the prey of superstition.
The gods whom he had defended had not helped him; perhaps it was not too late to appeal to the new deity. So from his dying bed he issued (April 30, 311) his famous edict of toleration—‘ut denuo sint Christiani,’3 which bore also the signature of Constantine and Licinius, or, as he should rightly be called after his elevation, Licinian, for Maxentius, who ruled in Italy, the son of Diocletian’s colleague Maximian Herculius, was not recognized by the others as a lawful emperor. In this extraordinary document, wrung from a man by the terrors of the unknown, Galerius tried to dupe the Christians and their God into remitting for him the punishment of his cruelties. He had only persecuted, he maintained, to ‘bring back to a good disposition the Christians who had abandoned the persuasion (sectam) of their own fathers ’ and ‘the institutions of the ancients.’4
1 Euseb. MP 9 (2).
2 Fully described (evidently con amore) by Lact. MP 33, and Enseb. EE viii 16.
3 The phraseology is probably legal. The law against Christians in Tertullian’s time was this: ‘ non licet esse vos,’ Tert. Apol. 4.
4 The phrase is crafty. The heathen would take it to mean the national gods; many Christians, especially the zealous Montanists, &c., would hold that it signified primitive Christianity.
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS 279
He confessed that he had failed to induce his victims ‘to display due reverence for the gods, or pay heed to the God of the Christians.’ So the edicts are rescinded; in return the Christians were expected ‘ to pray to their God for our recovery.’ But it was too late. “ The unknown God to whom Galerius had at last betaken himself gave no answer to his insolent and tardy invocation.” 1 Five days or so after the decree was posted at Nicomedeia Galerius died in Sardica. His dominions were shared between Maximin Daza and Licinian.
Maximin Daza had refused to affix his seal to this edict of toleration. He seems, however, to have issued some instructions of his own to the magistrates of the Eastern provinces, informing them that they ‘ need not for the present exert themselves further in the cause.’2 From a thousand prisons and ergastula, from mines and islands, the scarred warriors of Christ streamed home. Everywhere men began to re-erect their ruined churches, or to build new oratories over the graves of the sainted martyrs. But Tlieotecnus and his band did not intend thus tamely to yield. As Maximin toured round the East he was met by deputations from the heathen cities, urging that they might have local option in the matter of persecution. In Nicomedeia, to take one illustration recorded for us by Maximin himself, a huge memorial
1 Broglie L'£!glise et L'Empire i 207, quoted by Mason. For thia edict in Latin see Lact. MP 34, and in Greek Euseb. EE viii 17. Note the imposing array of titles.
2 Euseb. HE ix (1) 4.
280 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
was presented to him, with due procession of gods and the like, asking permission to banish the atheists.1 At Tyre the town council put up a brass tablet forbidding Christianity within the city. On receiving the news, Maximin wrote to them his delight:
‘ At last weakness has become strong. The night of error is scattering. The mist is breaking. . . . Ask what you like; you shall assuredly reccive it.’ 3
At the same time steps were taken for the reformation of paganism. The Christian sacraments and institutions were imitated; heathen hierarchy established of men of high rank.3 For the mob there was a clever winking Jove, for the devout a daily heathen service.4 To the new pontiffs was given the power of ^mulcting^ in noses, eyes, and ears those who absented themselves from the temples. Four prostitutes of Damascus professed that they had once been Christians, and had learned their trade by participating at Christian sacraments. Copies of their statements were circulated broadcast, while Theotecnus ordered that the infamous Acts of Pilate, which bespattered the Saviour with mud and His Cross with contempt, should be taught in all the schools.5
The device of local option in persecution succeeded
1 Euseb. HE ix (9) 17,18,19.
2 Euseb. HE ix 7 gives this extraordinary letter in full. It also was engraved on brass by the town council.
3 Cf. illustrations in Ramsay CBP ii 567.
4 Euseb. HE ix 3, ix 4, viii 14, 9; Lact. HIP 36, 37. Date, end of 312.
6 Supra p. 21 n.; Euseb. HE ix
THE GREAT PERSECUTIONS
281
admirably. Wherever in the East the heathen were in a majority, they tried to cut down the leaders of the Church. Lucian of Antioch, Peter of Alexandria, Anthimus of Nicomedeia, are but three names out of ‘ a perfect choir of martyrs ’ who suffered at this time. Christian Armenia determined to interfere. The war which followed—the first crusade known to history—ended in the defeat of Daza.1
At this stage a greater than Armenia intervened. The fortunes of Constantine, whose grandfather, on his mother Helena’s side, kept a village inn in Dacia, from his birth to his famous ride from Nicomedeia across Europe back to his father Constantius’ court at Boulogne, may be read elsewhere. The death of Constantius at York (July 25, 806) was followed by his own elevation to the purple, with the title of Caesar. His passage of the Alps and subsequent victory over the vicious Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge (October 27, 312) will stand out for ever in the annals of both Empire and Church. Constantine had seen his vision ; henceforth he did homage to the conquering power of the Cross. The God of the Christians was too powerful to be despised. Pagan and Christian alike attributed his success to divine interposition—‘ instinctu divinitatis,’ as the ambiguous inscription on his arch phrases it. With this conviction deeply implanted—we may call it Constantine’s conversion provided we clearly understand our terms 2—the great statesman went down to
1 Euseb. IIE ix 8.
s The various views on the conversion of Constantine are
282 PERSECUTION IN THE EA.RLY CHURCH
Milan to meet his colleague Licinian. Thence he issued (March, 313) the famous document -which marks an era in the history of the world.1
‘ We have long seen,’ ran the edict, ‘ that we have no business to refuse freedom of religion. The power of seeing to matters of belief must be left to the judgement and desire of each individual, according to the man’s own free will.’
The defeat of Daza by Licinian near Adrianople (April 30, 313) turned the edict into accomplished fact in the East as well as the West. On June 13, 313, Lactantius heard the edict read aloud to the remnant of the sorely tried Church at Nicomedeia. A few weeks later Daza, a hunted fugitive, died of delirium tremens in Tarsus. Before the end came he had signified his adhesion to the policy of Constantine. He was the last of the persecutors to die. Diocletian, broken with disappointment and sickness, had already starved himself to death.2 He had seen the Church which he had tried to crush arise from the contest with still greater strength. The Empire was defeated; the Galilean had conquered. A new chapter had begun in the long annals of humanity.
adequately summarized by Bury o.c. ii App. 19. See also Boissier FT i c. 1 and p. 61.
1 The Latin original in Lact. MP 48; Gk. trans. in Euseb. HE s 5. Whether this edict was actually issned is not quite certain. See, however, Bury’s Gibbon ii 567.
2 But this story is very doubtful. See Durny HR ?i 636. Diocletian died in the snmmer of 313.
CHAPTER V
And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said unto me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.—Apoc. vii 13, 14.
Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance ; that they might obtain a better resurrection : And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, wore slain with the sword ... (of whom the world was not worthy:) . . . Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with patience the race that is set before us.—Heb. xi 35^xii ].
Do I feel much pain ?
Not much. Not maddening. None I cannot bear.
It has become like part of my own life,
Or part of God’s life in me—heaven—bliss !
I dreaded madness, and instead comes rest.
Kingsley, St. Maura.
Via crucis, via lucis;
Per angusta, ad augusta.
CONTENTS
§ I, p. 285. The horrors of persecution—The cruelty of Nero—Mob rule—The story of Genesius—The prisons—Good Samaritans and their fate—The mines—The martyrs of Lyons—Pionius of Smyrna—Julitta.
§ IT, p. 298. The punishments of Christians—Life in the mines—The fate of women.
§ III, p. 303. Mr. Fearing — Polycarp — Cyprian — Perpetua and Felicitas.
§ IV, p. 318. The entreaties of loved ones—Perpetua—Phileas of Thmuis—Irenaeus of Sirmium—Afra—Marianus—Quartillosia— Flavian—Fructnosus—The meaning of ‘Birthday’—‘Going to Heaven ’—Dativus—Agathonice—Babylas—Maximus and Tara-chus—The martyrs’ contempt of death—Nestor—The story of Ignatius.
§ V, p. 338. Backsliders — Libelli — Copies recently discovered — —Euctemon.
§ YI, p. 343. Conclusion. The dangers and triumphs of martyrdom — The martyrs as ‘"Witnesses’— Blandina — The Cause of Triumph.
Pp. 283-352.
I
The student should realize all that the profession of the Name involved.1 The persecution of Nero, that baptism of blood of the Roman Church, has been described for us by a master of language, the vividness of whose picture loses nothing from his manifest contempt for the Christians themselves struggling with his horror at the outrage, or his hatred of the tyrant. In a short chapter of Tacitus we have one of the most awful scenes of infamy of all time :
‘ Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt,2 to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired. Noro offered his
1 Throughout this chapter tho abbreviation AM will be used for Ruiuart Acta Martyrum Sincera. The best Acts of martyrs have their origin in tho official reports of their trials (Boissier FP i 419, supra p. 20 n., infra p. 313 n.). The Christians of Cilicia paid 200 denarii for a copy of tho official report of the trial of Tarachus, Probus, and Andronicus in 304. Sco AM 422.
2 ‘Aut crucibus adiixi aut flammaudi, atque,’ &c. I should profer tho reading multi crucibus ujjixi sunt jlammandi, utque, &c. See Furneaux in loc. Juvenal viii 235 calls this the ‘ tunica molesta ’ (it was the punishmont appropriated to incendiaries; cf. supra p. 133) aud cf. ib. i 155-7.
‘ Pono Tigellinum: taeda lueebis in ilia Qua stantes ardent, qui lixo gutture fumaut Et latum modia suleum doducit arena.’
For other references soe Seneca Ep. xiv 5; Martial Epig. x 25, 5.
286 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the oircua, while he mingled with the people in the dresa of a charioteer or stood aloft in a car ’ (Ann. xv 44).
We can see it all after the lapse of centuries, so lurid are the colours : the twofold entertainment, by night in the gardens thronged with Nero’s guests, the victims in their pitchy tunics serving as living torches, while Nero drives round to gloat upon their agony ; by day1 in the great wooden theatre of Caius the new sport, the hunt of men clad in the skins of wild beasts; the insults worse than death inflicted upon women and girls;2 and looking down upon all the selfsame obelisk from Heliopolis which has witnessed alike the oppression and deliverance of Israel in Egypt, the crucifixion of St. Peter, and the building of his famous church, the deaths of the martyrs and
1 The sacrifice of Christiana to the beaats was generally a morning spectacle. See Renan L'Ant. 165 n. Nero’s choice of a circua in his own gardens on the Vatican was perhaps due to the two others, the great circus and the circus of Flaminiua, being burnt (Allard I HP 47).
2 Clem. Rom. Ep. Cor. 6, SiwxOeiffai yvvaTites, AavaiSes teal Alpnat, a paasage which probably has reference to some of Nero’s brutal scenic tortures, criminals being often exhibited as Orpheus, Hercules, &c. (Suet. Nero 11, 12; Martial Spectac. 5 Epig. viii 30, x 25). Dirce was tied by her hair to a bull; but of the reference in the legend of the Danaids we know nothing, though see Renan L'Antech. 169-70 for suggestions, and cf. Suet. Nero 29 for possibilities of infamy. Lightfoot (in loc.) inclines to read veavtSes, irai8i<ri<at, ‘women, tender maidens, and alavc-girls.’ But surely this would have been for the ancients a case of bathos. Moreover, the representation of Dirce was frequent. See Renan ib. 171; Allard I HP 52; Arnold NC 38; Boissier FP i 413. For the terrors of Christian women, see infra Appendix H.
Nero’s punishment of Christians was perfectly legal—thia is often forgotten—though characteristically theatrical. In torchlight executions he had been preceded by Caius (Seneca de Ira iii 18).
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 287
the fall of the Empire. Henceforth the Christians were known in the slang of the clay as the sarmentidi or the semaxii, ‘because bound to a half-axle stake we are burned in a circle of faggots.’1
The Christian was ever exposed to a double danger; on the one hand popular hatred, on the other the wilfulness of the local magistrates, who could twist into an instrument of cruelty the very laws and procedure which had been devised to prevent injustice. For instance, the threefold chance of abjuring their religion before condemnation, which, as we see from Pliny’s letter, was a right of the Christians, soon became a threefold torture to secure denial. For many governors there was no easier way of winning popularity with the mob than the persecution of the Christians.2 Spies abounded, and the delator es, or professional accusers,3 were not slow in attempting to wring money from the Christians by the threat of reporting their crime. Add to this ‘ the threats and extortions of the soldiers and of private enemies.’i In case of refusal, ‘ vile informers ’ entered the houses of the Christians ‘ by day and night and gave them up to pillage.’5 Murder, theft, gross crimes, tampering with family relations, were some of the
1 Tert. Apol. 50 ‘licet nunc sarmentitios et semiaxios appolletis quia ad stipitcm dimidii axis revincti, sarmentorum ambitu uriemur.’
2 Tertul. Apol. 50, ‘boni praesides, meliores multo apud populum si illis Cbristianos immolavoritis.’
3 Supra p. 215.
* Tert. ad Scap. 5. Justin feared death from the enmity of the rival philosopher Croscens. Justin II Apol. 3. Supra p. 227 n. (7a).
* Melito of Sardis in Euseb. HE iv 2G. Cf. Ueb. x 31 and Euseb. HE iii 17, ‘ confiscation ol their property.’
288 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
charges, as we have already seen, that were freely brought against the Christians and accepted as proved by evidence wrung out from their servants by torture.1 Against them, as Seneca said of slaves, everything was lawful. City mobs laughed at the vile placards which caricatured their God, ‘born of an ass, with the ears of an ass, hoofed in one foot, carrying a book and wearing a toga,’ or drew an obscene representation of a cock with the inscription beneath, “ The Saviour of the world.” 2 For the conscientious a new difficulty was added to life by the sprinkling of everything sold in the markets with heathen drink-offerings.3
In the theatres mimes clothed in white garments parodied the Christian’s hopes and sacred rites to the huge amusement of the crowd. But in one case this jest tinned out to the furtherance of the Gospel. To please Diocletian, who happened to be present, the mime Genesius—
‘ made sport of the Christian mysteries. “I feel so heavy,” ho cried, as he lay down on the stage as if he were ill, “ I want to be made
1 Case of Lyons: Euseb. HE v 1. See infra p. 295. Such evidence was not admissible except in trials for majestas (Dig. xlviii 417; 18 ; Paul. Sent, v 16; and for the torture of women, Dig. xlviii 4, 8). In older times such torture was limited to charges of incest (Cic. Pro Milone 22). Christian masters with heathen slaves were in a very awkward position.
2 Tert. ad Nat. i 14. See supra p. Ill n. For obscene representations of Christianity on walls, &c., see Renan UAnt. 40 n. MA 64-5. The well-known graffito discovered in 1856 on the wall of the Palatine of a crucified ass, with a motto “ Alexamenos is worshipping hie god ” underneath, dates probably from the seoond century. See Lanciani Ancient Pome 122 and ib. CPE 12.
3 Euseb. MP 9. Time of Maximin.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 289
light.” “ How are we to do it ? ” his companions cried. “ Are we to plane you as if we were carpenters?” “Idiots,” replied Genesius; “ I want to die a Christian, that on that day I may flie up to God as a refuge.” So they summoned a (sham) presbyter and exorcist. “ Why have you sent for us, my son ? ” they asked.’
Tho rest of the story is one of the miracles of grace. Genesius-would appear to have sprung from a Christian home in Arles; he had picked up his knowledge of religious phrases when a little lad. Of the story of his fall we know nothing, or rather we know all from ten thousand similar experiences. But now ‘ in a moment ’ the work of conviction began, and on the boards of the theatre, with mock priest and exorcist at his side, the laughing crowd all round, Genesius cried out, ‘no longer in acting, but from an unfeigned desire : “I want to receive the grace of Christ, that I may be born again, and be set free from the sins which have been my ruin.’” The pantomime was turned into reality. The mock baptism over—for the crowd still thought he was acting —Genesius boldly proclaimed aloud his faith: ‘ Illustrious emperor, and all you people who have laughed loudly at this parody, believe me: Christ is the true Lord.’ When Diocletian understood how matters lay he ordered Genesius to be stretched on the hobby-horse. His sides were torn with the claws, and burned with torches. But he kept repeating—
‘ There is no king except Christ, whom I have seen and worship. For Him I will die a thousand times. I am sorry for my sin, and for becoming so late a soldier of the true King.’
U
290 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
At length, as all tortures failed, Plautian the prefect ordered him to be beheaded.1
When the storm broke, no retreat however secluded could save the persecuted from the pursuer; no station in life however humble was too lowly 01* insignificant to supply its victims :
Remember what a martyr said On the rude tablet overhead I “ I was born sickly, poor, and mean,
A slave : no misery could screen The holders of the pearl of price From Caesar’s envy : therefore twice I fought with beasts, and three times saw My children suffer by his law.”
For the believer the routine of life itself became a martyrdom. ‘ We are banished,’ wrote the Christians of Lyons, ‘ from the baths and forum; we are forbidden to appear in any public place whatever,’2 a
1 AM 270. Ruinart dates in 286. But if Diocletian was really present, it must have been on the occasion of one of his rare visits to Rome, probably, as Baronius suggests, in 303. In DCB ii 627 there are two martyrs Genesius, both with the same day, August 25, 303. Probably DCB is wrong in thus making them distinct, for the two stories so well fit into each other that (compare Prudent. Peristeph iv, 35-6) we may well assume this Genesius the mime was originally a notary of Arles, who was thus ‘ baptized with his own blood.’ (See also Lightf. Clem, ii 455 n.) Genesius is buried in the cemetery of Hippolytus. (Rossi IIS i 178.) In the Chronicon Paschale s.v. 297 (Migne PG xcii p. 686), he is called Gelasinus, and the scene is changed to ‘ Heliopolis Libaniensis,’ i.e. Baalbek. The story is too widely spread and also too simply told not to have a foundation of truth. It is, however, rejected by V. der Lage Sludien z. Genesius-Legende (Berlin 189S-9).
• Euseb. HE v (1) 5 ; Gebhardt AMS 28. In Caesarea in 310 no one was allowed to use the baths unless he first sacrificed. Euseb. MP 9.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 291
boycott by no means unusual. The Christian lived at the mercy of the mob; who, stirred up by pagan priest or Jewish gold, might burst at any moment into his house and drag him forth to torture and death.
* Every one,’ writes Phileas of Thmuis, * had the liberty t® abuse us as they pleased, with clubs, rods, and scourges.’1 ‘ We saw the mob ’—we quote Dionysius of Alexandria in his description of the persecution of Decius—
‘suddenly burst into our dwellings as if by one commou impulse. Every man entered some bouse known to him and began to spoil and destroy. All valuables were seized; things not worth carrying away, wooden furniture for instance, were burnt in the road. The scene resembled a town taken by storm.’2
When brought before the judge, the mob followed and clamoured for the Christian’s condemnation. At other times, as in the case of Apollonia, in the same persecution at Alexandria, they took the law into their own hands, ‘breaking all her teeth, and kindling a fire in which they threatened to burn her alive.’3 Even after death—though, to the honour of the Romans, this was rare—popular hatred pursued the Christians still, tearing their corpses from the tombs and cutting them in pieces,4 throwing to the dogs those who had died in prison ‘that none should receive burial from us,’ or casting the ashes into the river, lest, as the cruel Maximus sneered, ‘ they should be tended by silly women and anointed with spices.’5
1 Euseb. HE viii. 10. In 305 (Harnack CAL ii 70).
2 Euseb. HE vi 41 or AM 125. Cf. Mart. Fohjo. 13.
3 Euseb. HE vi 41. 4 Tert. Apol. 37, Euseb. MP 9.
5 Lyons; Euseb. nE v (1) 59, 61; Geb. AMS 40, 41. Case of Tarachus AM idG. See supra p. 285 n., infra 330-1.
292 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Happy indeed were those Christians for whom kindly death soon ended all. Others were thrown into horrible prisons into which light and air could scarcely enter. In the persecution of Diocletian, ‘ dungeons destined for murderers and the vilest criminals were filled with bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, exorcists, so that there was no room left for real criminals.’1 ‘We have been cast,’ write the martyrs of Carthage—
‘ into two dungeons. There, doomed to die of hunger and thirst, our life is being consumed away. The stifling heat, eaused by our crowded numbers, is intolerable. Eight days have passed since this letter was begun. During the last five days only bread and water have been doled out to us.’2
‘ You conquer hunger,’ wrote Cyprian, ‘ despise thirst, and tread underfoot the squalor of the dungeon and its horrors by the vigour of your courage.’3 ‘ Prison,’ exclaims Tertullian in his impassioned address To the Martyrs (c. 2)—
1 does the same serviee for the Christian which the desert did for the prophet. . . . Let us therefore drop the name of prison and eall it a place of retirement. Though the body is shut iu, all things are open to the spirit. In spirit, theu, roam abroad, not setting before you shady paths or long colonnades but the way whieh leads to God. . . . The leg does not feel the chain if the mind is in heaven.’
But even the horrors of the prison could not quench their faith and zeal. At Smyrna Pionius and his comrades, when flung into the darkest hole, ‘ sang without ceasing, Glory to Thee, 0 God.’4
1 Euseb. EE viii 6.
2 Lucian in Cyprian Ep. xxii 2, a free rendering. Cf. AM 231 (Montanus, Lucius, &c.).
3 Cyprian Ep. xxxvii 3.
4 AM 145. Gebhardt AMS 105. See infra p. 207.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 293
The one relief of the imprisoned Christians lay in the visits and charity of their brethren. These visits were allowed, possibly as the easiest way whereby the authorities could learn the names of others of the faith still at large, more probably because of the itching palms of the gaolers,1 and the indifference of the governors. So easy in fact was it to obtain admission, that Cyprian found it necessary to urge the Christians of Carthage not to visit the prison in crowds, ‘ lest the means of access be denied.’2 But in the case of distinguished confessors, converse with whom was held to be itself a blessing, it was difficult to keep the Christians away from their cells. ‘ Creeping into gaol to kiss the martyrs’ chains ’ was one of the things which the heathen husband, in the complaint of Tertullian, would not allow his Christian wife to do.3
The prison system, by flinging the burden of support upon the prisoner, as was the case in all countries until recent days, lent itself to these visits. Lucian tells us that when Peregrinus, at that time a professor, was cast into prison, the Christians, especially the widows,4 1 looked after his wants with unremitting care and zeal, waiting about the doors of his gaol,’
1 For entrance by bribery cf. Acta Theclae 18 (in Lips, and Bon. AAA i 247, or Gebhardt /L1TS 220), Lucian PP 12. But in Euseb. EE v (1) Gl, ‘money failed’ in the drastie persecution at Lyons. Sometimes gaolers admitted friends from sympathy or respcet, e.g. Acta Verpet. 0 (ed. Robinson 75 or Geb. 75).
2 Cyprian Ep. v 2.
3 Tert. ad. Uxor, ii 4, 5. See supra p. 14G.
4 I.e. the sub-order of deaconesses. On the “ widows ” sec Uhlhorn CCAC 168 IT. or DGA ii 2034 and supra p. 211 n. The locus classicm is Apost. Constit. iii § 1.
294 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
sending in ‘ costly meals,’ and collecting large sums in Asia for his defence.1 We have a confirmation of this in the Acts of many martyrs, in the positive direction of the Apostolic Constitutions, as well as in the statement of Tertullian, that ‘ the monthly collection ’—the law, as we have seen, would not allow collections more frequently2—was spent, among other objects of charity, on the Christians banished to the islands and mines, ‘so long as their distress is for the sake of God’s fellowship.’3 This last clause was a needful precaution against designing rogues of the Peregrinus order, who tried to make out that their imprisonment for other misdemeanours was really on behalf of the faith, and thus sponged on the unfailing charity of the Church.4 Of the young Origen we are told that ‘not only was he at the side of the holy martyrs in their imprisonment and until their final condemnation; when led out to death he boldly accompanied them.’5 Such ministries of love were not always without danger. In February, 309 or 310, five Egyptian travellers arrived before the gates of Caesarea. They were Christians who had accompanied their brethren to the mines in Cilicia, to act
1 Lucian PP 12, 13, 1G.
2 Supra p. 70.
3 Tert. Apol. 39. Of notices of the Church’s care for confessors in prison (I omit captivity among robbers, &c.) the following will serve: Aristides Apol. 15 (in TS (i) 1); Apost. Constit. v 1 (important), iv 9 ; Tert. ad Mart. 1; Justin M. I Apol. 67; Acta Perpet. iii (7); Acts of Codratius in Conybeare MEC 193; Ign. ad Smyr. G.
4 Cf. Tert. Fasting 12, ‘restaurants for dubious martyrs,’ ‘ all sorts of baths.’ (But this passage is very exaggerated.)
5 Euseb. I1E vi 3, cf. ib. vii (ii) 3 (case of a ‘ brother from Rome ’).
THE EXPERIENCES OP THE PERSECUTED 295
as good samaritans, and who were now returning home. They were seized, and after incredible tortures entered * the mighty portals of eternal life.’1 There were times when to give the kiss of brotherhood to one of the martyrs was itself to court instant death.3
Of mob rule and its dangers to the Church no better illustration can be found than in the famous case of the Christians of Lyons.3 The persecution in
1 Euseb. MP 11, also another case MP 10. The Church of Rome especially looked after the brethren in the mines (Letter of Dionysius to bp. Soter in Euseb. HE iv 23). Bp. Victor kept a list of all sentenced in Sardinia (Hippolytus Philos, ix 12). See supra p. 119 n.
2 Cases of Theodulus and Julian at Caesarea in 310 (Euseb. MP 11). Licinian made it penal to supply Christians ‘starving in prison ’ with food (Euseb. HE x 8).
3 For Blandiua (infra p. 349), Pothinus, and the persecution at Lyons in 177 see Euseb. HE v 1 (Gebhardt AMS 28 ff.), quoting from ‘ a letter to the brethren of Phrygia and Asia.’ Two of the brethren, Attalus of Pergamum and Alexander the physician, hailed from those parts. Renan EC 467 conjectures that the Church of Lyons was founded by a Christian colony from Smyrna, and several of the names given in Gregory of Tours (Glor. Mart, i 49 see infra) are Greek; see also supra 37 n. (also the reading of N in II Tim. iv 10) for possible origin of the churches in the Rhone valley, and Duchesne FEG i 179-80, 246-7.
As Mommsen PEE i 87 f. points out, Lyons, unlike the majority of the cities of S. France, was founded direct from Italy, and was a Roman city in charactcr and origin. Tho Greek or alien nature of its Church is therefore remarkable. The name Blandina may bo Celtic (see infra), but except for this the Church of Lyons seems to have made no impression on the Celtic populations. But under Irenaeus Haer. i (10) 2 Christianity spread to tho Celts of Condate, the village on the tip of land between tho Rhone and Saono.
Pothinus, i.e. <pur(iv6s, the bishop of this Church, is said to have been over ninety years of age. Though there is no evidence for his having migrated from Asia Minor to Lyons (Lightf. Ign. i 446 n.), he yet forms a link with the apostles. He was succeeded at Lyons by Irenaeus, who wag educated in Asia Minor under Polycarp (Euseb.
296 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
that great capital of Gaul had begun in a boycott, rendered the more easy by the foreign origin—in part Greek, to some extent Phrygian—of the little Church. From this it passed to
‘hootings and blows, draggings, plunderings, starvings, and confinements, everything that an infuriated mob is wont to perpetrate against those whom they deem bitter enemies. And at length, being brought to the forum by the tribune of the soldiers, and the magistrates that had charge of the city, they were examined in the presence of the whole multitude; and having confessed they were shut up in prison until the arrival of the governor.’
When the Christians were brought before the judgement seat, Yettius Epagathus, no alien but a young nobleman of Lyons,
‘ asked that he should be heard in defence of his brethren. On this those who were round the judgement-seat so cried out against him that the governor, not for a moment listening to his just request, merely asked if he were a Christian. And on his confessing in the clearest voice that he was, he was immediately taken up into the number of the martyrs.’
When the aged bishop Pothinus was brought to the bar, the mob
‘ maltreated him in every way with their hands and feet, while those at a distance hurled at him whatever came to hand, for so they thought they would avenge their gods.’
Before the persecution ceased forty-eight martyrs had won their discharge.1
HE v 20, Lightfoot Ign. i 448 n. Tourists must look for the scene of this martyrdom in the oldest quarter of Lyons, now called Fourviere, i.e. “Forum Yetus” (Renan MA 306 n.). For all that is known concerning the Church at Lyons see Hirschfeld’s monograph in Prenss. Alcctd. (1895) 3S1 if.; Duchesne FEG ii 160 ff.
1 So Greg. Tours Glor. Mart, i 49 quoting Eusebius and giving the
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 297
Or let the reader study the records of the presbyter Pionius,1 who was arrested with his companions ‘ on the birthday of the blessed martyr Polycarp.’ See the little band on the eastern side of the square of Smyrna, surrounded by a brutal and jeering mob. They are not all ‘of the Catholic Church.’ One of the prisoners, Eutychian by name, is a Montanist ; another, Metrodore, is ‘ a presbyter of the Marcio-nites ’; yet they are one in the courage and loyalty of their faith. A slave girl, Sabina, in her terror at the threats of a punishment worse than death, was clinging to Pionius. ‘ Look,’ cried a wit, ‘ the babe is afraid she is going to be robbed of her mother’s milk.’ Others handled the ropes, and asked ironically : ‘ And what are these for ? ’ Said the contractor for the public games to the martyr Asclepiades, ‘ I am going to ask for you to fight in my son’s exhibition of gladiators ’; while a police officer gave
names. But in the transcription three name3 have dropped out. Possibly, however, as Hirscbfeld suggests (o.c. 385 f.), the number was really less, inasmuch as some of tho names treated as separate individuals probably are the double designation (e.g. Vettius Epaga-thus in Greg. Tours. I.e. Migne PL lxxi 751) of the same.
1 For the Acts of Pionius, “a most veracious narrative” (Lightf. Ign. i G39), in the original Greek see Geb. AMS 96 ff. The early Latin translation in Ruinart AM 140 ff. is abridged and inaccurate. All references to heretics as martyrs, &c., are left out, e.g. infra. A much better Latin translation is that in A.SS Feb. 1. The date is incorrectly given in Euseb. BE iv 15 fin. as a century too early. He mistook the meaning of the btalement that Pionius was ‘ celebrating the birthday of Polycarp.’ It should really be March 12, 250. See Lightf. Ign. i 641, 715 ff.; llarnack CAL ii 467. The Acts are not in Euseb. BE, as he had incorporated them in his lost work on tho Ancient Martyrs.
298 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Pionius a knock on the head so violent that the blood ran. All this was but preliminary to the clawings and burnings with which the festival concluded.
Apart altogether from mob rule, the Christian was at all times exposed to dangers, not the less formidable because legal. We have an illustration of these dangers in the case of Julitta,1 a wealthy widow of Caesarea, in Cappadocia, who brought an action to recover some property of which she had been wrongfully dispossessed. The rogue pleaded that the widow was a Christian, and therefore not entitled to seek legal redress. The case actually ended in the burning of Julitta. Truly might it have been said of the early believers: ‘ In the midst of life we are in death.’
II
What shall we say of the punishments and of the tortures which formed part of the judicial processes by which evidence was sought to be extracted from the Christians?2 Roman citizens as a rule were sent to the capital; for them there was the long
1 Basil Horn. 5 in AM 515. Basil gives no date. Perhaps time of Diocletian. Another similar case is that of Claudius and his mother-in-law (AM 266, where the date 285 should rather be Aug. 23, 304; Harnaek CAL ii 475). The action against Parthenius and Calocerus (supra p. 21G) of wasting the fortune of Anatolia of whom they had been left trustees ended in their being burnt at Rome as Christians (Aubd EE GO-1, Gregg DP 106).
2 That tortures were judicial processes sec Conybeare MEC 280-2, and ef. Pliny’s letter, supra p. 210.
THE EXPERIENCES OP THE PERSECUTED 299
misery of the journey in company with brutal guards.1 Finally, as an act of special ‘ benevolence,’ they were handed over, as St. Paul, to the headsman;2 though the law in this matter was not strictly observed.3 Inasmuch as they were often charged with majestas, their citizenship did not always save them from the tortures, endless in the variety and ingenuity of their cruelty, which for non-citizens were almost inevitable.
In the later martyrologies there is a manifest tendency to pile up the horrors. But if we confine ourselves to strictly historical cases, the savagery, though to a large extent a part of the ordinary judicial processes of the age, is appalling. Some, suffering the punishment of parricides, were shut up in a sack with snakes and thrown into the sea; others were tied to huge stones and cast into a river. For Christians the cross itself was not deemed sufficient agony; hanging on the tree, they were beaten with rods until their bowels gushed out, while vinegar and salt were rubbed into their wounds. In the Thebais, during the persecution of Diocletian, Christians were tied to catapults, and so wrenched limb from limb. Some, like Ignatius, were thrown to the beasts; others tied to their horns. Women were stripped, enclosed in nets, and exposed to the attacks of furious bulls. Many were ‘ made to lie on sharp shells/ and tortured with scrapers, claws, and pincers,
1 Cf. infra p. i>!G.
2 Supra pp. 41, Gi n. In the case of Apollonius the magistrates dwell on the ‘ benevolence,’ MEC 48. See supra p. 218 n.
3 Infra p. olS u. 1 (ease of PiTpotua).
300 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
before being delivered to the mercy of the flames. Not a few were broken on the wheel, or torn in pieces by wild horses. Of some the feet were slowly burned away, cold water being poured over them the while lest the victims should expire too rapidly. Peter, one of the servants of Diocletian, was scourged to the bone, then placed near a gridiron that he might witness the roasting of pieces torn from his own body. At Lyons they tried to overcome the obstinacy of Sanctus of Yienne ‘ by fixing red-hot plates of brass to the most delicate parts of his body.’ After this he was slowly roasted in the iron chair. Down the backs of others ‘ melted lead, hissing and bubbling, was poured ’; while a few, ‘by the clemency of the emperor,’ escaped with the searing out of their eyes, or the tearing off of their legs. These instances1—but a few out of a long catalogue that might be compiled— will show what it cost to witness the good confession; to say nothing of the rack, the hobby-horse, the claws, and other tortures preparatory to the sentence.
Fortunate were those for whom there was the relief of death. Some were banished to the mines of ‘deadly Sardinia,’ and there, with fetters on their limbs, insufficient food, almost naked, beaten with clubs by savage overseers,2 passed a life of ceaseless toil amid surroundings of indescribable filth. Others were denied even the refuge of the mines, and were
1 For these horrors see Euseb. HE iv 15, v 1, viii G, 8, 9, 10, 12 ; MP 5, 6 ; Mart. Polyc. 2 ; Lact. MP 21 ; Conybeare MEG 213, 295, as a few out of many passages that might be quoted.
2 Supra p. 240 (Pontian and Hippolytus). For life in the mines see Cyprian Epp. 77, 78. Neumann ESK 215 n.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 301
dragged about from town to town in the train of the governor, and exhibited for the sport of the people.1
For women there were punishments worse than death, the least of which was their exposure almost naked in the arena. Perpetua was not alone in the horror she felt when she dreamed that ‘ she was stripped, turned into the arena and rubbed down with oil as they do for the games.’2 In the great persecution under Diocletian in the Thebais, if we may trust Eusebius, women were tied to trees by one foot and there left to perish, hanging downwards, stark naked. They were more fortunate than some of their sisters, many of whom were dragged to the brothels to suffer shame before being led to the stake or cast to the lions. ‘ Either sacrifice to the gods or be handed over to infamy ’ was the awful dilemma which confronted more than one Christian maiden. The danger was real, for the Roman mob had twisted a regulation, originally framed in the interests of humanity, into the occasion of bestial cruelty.3 ‘Christians to the
1 Tarachus and liis companions ; AM 434 ff. Cf. AM 162 ff., 542. See infra p. 330-1.
2 Robinson o.c. 76; Geb. AMS 77. By Roman law women were not allowed to be executed absolutely nude. The law in the case of Christians was generally evaded by giving them a mere cincture, in the case of Theonilla of Sebastia a girdle of wild briars Cf. Thekla in Conybearo MEG 81; Acta Thelt. c 38 (Lipsius AAA i 261); AM 269; Euseb. EE viii 9 ; and cf. John xxi 18, ‘ another shall gird thee.’ Le Blant SAM i 248, quotes the caso of au executioner who was burned to death because ho refused this cincture (from Amm. Marcellin, xxviii 1).
3 Tac. Ann. v 5, ‘triumvirali snpplieio adfici virginem inaudituin habebatur a earmfice laqueum juxta compressam,’ narrating the treatment of the daughters of Sejaiius by the mob. Suet. Tib. 61,
302 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
panthers, virgins to the pandars,’ was no mere jest, but part of the cost that must be paid ‘ for Christ’s sake.’ In the romances of the early mediaeval Church the chastity of these maidens is always miraculously preserved amidst the most unholy surroundings; but probably the actual facts were often otherwise. They paid a price dearer than life rather than deny their Lord. Said Theodora of Alexandria when the judge read to her the brutal order: ‘ If you force me to do this, I do not think that God will count it a sin.’1 Some sought escape in the destruction of their beauty, or even in suicide.2 Potamiaena of Alexandria, whose beauty was noted, was told that unless she recanted she should be given over to the lust of gladiators. She escaped by a defiance so daring that the judge in his anger ‘ ordered boiling pitch to be poured over her limbs, gradually working up from the
states that this was the general custom. This seems to me very doubtful, though not without value, when remembering the danger of Christian women.
1 AM 397; and cf. Ambrose de Virg. ii e 4, who relates the same story with differences. The story is in the main a romance, with some kernel of truth. Theodora was delivered by the Christian Didymus, who pushed his way in and insisted on the ‘ dove of God ’ taking his long soldier’s cloak. ‘ Hang your head down,’ he said, ‘ and speak to no one.’ One of the earliest of these romances is that of a maiden of Corinth and a certain ‘ Magisterianus ’ (Palladius, HL 148,149; HP 53 in Migne PL Ixxiii 1213, lxxiv 336), from a lost work of Hippolytus. Here also there is a simple change of clothes. (N.B. ‘Magisterianus’ is not, as is usually taken, a proper name, but the name of an officcr of the court. See Du Cange s.r.) For other similar romances cf. Prudent. Perideph. 14 (Agues; certainly a myth arising from misunderstanding of Ambrose de virg. i 2) ; the incident of Drusiana in the Acts of John e. 63 ff. (Lipsius AAA i (2) 181).
* Ambrose o.c. iii 6; Euseb. HE viii 14.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 303
feet to the crown of the head.’ ‘ For three hours she suffered agonies, until the pitch reached her neck.’1 Such horrors, no doubt, were exceptional, and limited to the frenzied East. But the untold heroism of women, not a few, should not altogether be forgotten in these latter days.2
Ill
The question is sometimes asked, not merely from motives of curiosity : What was the experience of the martyr as he thus passed through his great renunciation? The materials for answering the question are abundant, and the answer has a spiritual value of its own. We believe it can be shown that Christ alone really suffered all the horror of His martyrdom—
‘ Yea, once Immanuel's orphaned cry His universe hath shaken,
It went up single, eeholess, “ My God, I am forsaken.” ’
Thus Christ alone tasted death, drained the cup of its bitters to the dregs. For others there was a grace of God which dulled the pain, turning agony into
1 AM 121; Euseb. HE vi 5, who dates in tho persecution of Severus (supra p. 236); Palladius dates a eentury later. But his account—written thirty years after tho time he says he heard it, on his visit to Alexandria, from Isidore the hospitaller, who had heard it from the famous Anthony—differs considerably from Eusebius, and seems to me less historical (sco Palladius Heraclidis raradisus
1 in Migne PL lxxiv 251, or HL 3 in Migne PL lxxiii 1091). This is a good instance of how tho talcs of the martyrs were handed on and altered in the process.
2 See Appendix H.
304 FERSECUTIOX IX THE EARLY CHURCH
victory. When the great day came, and they passed into the furnace, lo! there was One standing beside them, like unto the Son of Man, and so ‘ they found the fire of their inhuman torturers cold.’1
We believe that Browning is right when in his Epitaph in the Catacombs he lays stress upon the absence of all remembrance of time in the sufferer. But remembrance of time is the measure of the consciousness of pain:
11 -was some time in being burned,
But at the close a Hand came through The fire above my head, and drew My soul to Christ, whom uow I see.
Sergius, a brother, writes for me This testimony on the wall—
For me, I have forgot it all.’
When Mr. Fearing came to the river, Bunyan saw that the waters were so low that he passed over almost dry shod. The early Church was not without its Mr. Fearing, and Mr. Despondency’s daughter Much-Afraid ; timid souls, who dreaded that when the trial came they would be found wanting. But when they passed through the dark valley He was there, and their fear left them. ‘ Sufferings borne for the Name are not torments,’ said the martyr Maximus of Ephesus, as they stretched him on the hobby-horse, ‘ but soothing ointments.’2 * 0 blessed martyrs/ cries Tertullian,
1 Mart. Polycarp 2. Cf. AM 431 for an actual retort by a martyr, Probus, to this effect.
* AM 157 or Geb. AMS 122, May 14, 250. See Harnack CAL ii 469 n., Gregg DP 236.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 305
‘you have gone out of prison, rather than into one. . . . Your (luDgeon is full of darkness, but ye yourselves are light; it has bonds, but God has made you free.’1
The absence of all fear, in fact, is one of the notes of the early Church. Cyprian was right when he speaks of ‘ the white-robed cohort of Christ’s soldiers ’ as ‘ passing through footprints of glory to the embrace and kiss of Christ.’2 Theirs was a triumphal march along a greater Sacred Way than Eoman conquerors ever trod. ‘ These are not chains,’ exclaims Cyprian,
‘ they are ornaments. 0 fettered feet of the blessed ones treading the path to Paradise! You have no bed, no place of rest in tho mines; your wearied limbs are stretched on the cold earth; naked, there arc no clothes to cover you; hungry, no bread to feed you. But what a glory lights up this your shame ! ’3
The cause was not far to seek ; ‘ The Holy Ghost has entered the prison with you,’4 the Lord Jesus was suffering in them and with them; and so a secret spell preserved them in their living death.
No tale of early centuries is more familiar than the story of the passion of Polycarp5—the most
1 Ad Mart, 2. The whole chapter is worth reading. Cf. also in tho same strain Cyprian Epp. xxxvii, lxxx (1).
2 De Lapsis 2 and Ep. xxxvii.
3 Cyprian Ep. lxxvi 2 abbreviated.
4 Tertullian ad Mart. 1, on which Montanist expression sec Sohm Kirchenreclit i 32 n. 9. In later days these spiritual truths become legends of angels filling dungeons with flowers, &c., e.g. Vincent of Saragossa (.Ailf 370; but the main part is historical, see Prudcntius reristeph. v), time of Diocletian, perhaps Jan 22, 304).
5 The narrative of Polycarp’s passion is contained in a letter (Martyrium rolycarpi) written immediately after tho event by tho Church at Smyrna to the Christians at Philomelium. For this letter the student should consult the masterly study in Lightf.
X
306 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
ancient example known of “ Acts of Martyrdom.” On his way to his own passion in Rome Ignatius had exhorted the young bishop, of whose early life we know little save his intimacy with St. John,1 ‘to stand firm as an anvil when it is smitten. A great athlete should receive blows and conquer.’2 Nearly
Ign. i 578-645, Penan EC c. 23. A good text is in Gebhardt AMS 1 ff. or Harmer’s A post. Fathers with translation. The letter was copied by Euseb. HE iv 15, from whom the version in Foxe, &c., was derived. To an incorrect interpretation of Euseb. Chron. we owe tho wrong date of 167 or 160. From the inscriptions of the letter, Waddington (Fastes des Provinces Asiatiques, Paris, 1872—“ a masterly piece of critical work ”), followed by Lightfoot (Ign. i 646-722), Renan EC 452 n.,and C. H. Turner (Studio, Biblica ii 105-155) demoustrated that the correct date is either Feb. 23, 155, or, less likely, Feb. 22, 156 (Lightf. Ign. i 727). Such a date brings Polvcarp much more into touch with St. John than 167, and is a most valuable result of modern criticism. Dr. Salmon (Acad. July 21, 1883; see also DCB iv 430) urged that the day should not be Feb. 23rd, the traditional day among the Greeks, which also corresponds to ‘the sccond of the beginning of the month Xanthicus ’ in the Ephesian calendar (see Mart. Polyc. 21 and Lightfoot Ign. i 678 ff.), but March 23rd. His argument is highly technical, and depends on the date of the substitution at Smyrna of the solar for the lunar calendar. Lightfoot (Ign. i 691-702) treats the argument with great respect, as offering an adequate solution of ‘ the great sabbath ’ (see infra); but points out that the Asiatic calendar was changed in B.C. 8. In the Roman calendar Polycarp’s day is not Feb. 23, but Jan. 26. At the late date when his cult was introduced to the West, Feb. 23 was already occupied by a local Roman Polycarp, a companion of St. Sebastian, martyred at Rome under Diocletian (see AM 50 n.). Jan. 26 or 27 was tho festival of a Polycarp of Nicaea, who was thus displaced to make way for Polycarp of Smyrna. See Lightfoot Ign.
i 709, Harnack CAL i 334 ff.
1 Iren. Haer. iii 3 (quoted also in Euseb. EE iv 14). In 1881 Duchesne first published from a tenth-century MS. a valueless Vita Folycarpi, with full details of his childhood, a slave, &c. It will be found in Lightf. Ign. iii 423 ff.
2 Ign. Polyc. 3.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 307
half a century later the * athlete ’ received his crown, a few months only after his return from a journey which, in the interests of ecclesiastical unity, the old man had found it necessary to make to Rome.1
The annual festival of Caesar was in progress at Smyrna. As was usually the case, the occasion was turned to profit by the enemies of Christ. Eleven martyrs, mostly from Philadelphia, had already fought with beasts. One of them, Germanicus by name, when exhorted by the proconsul ‘ to have pity on his youth,’ dragged the beast to him that he might the quicker perish. The cry arose: ‘Away with the Atheists; let search be made for Polycarp.’ By the torture of a slave the aged bishop’s hiding-place was found. Mounted police were despatched ; late at night they burst into the upper room of a small cottage. ‘ God’s will be done,’ said Polycarp, and requested a short time for prayer. This was granted; the police were busy at the supper which the saint provided for them, and in nowise anxious to journey back in the dark. For two hours he stood in intercession ‘ for the Catholic Church ’; then as morning was breaking set off to the city, riding on an ass.
1 See Iren. Haer. iii 3 (Euseb. HE iv 14). Tho visit was in connexion with tho Quartodeciman controversy, on which see Drummond FG 444 ff. The date is ‘ the episcopate of Anicetus.’ According to Duchesue LP i 134, Anicetus was a ‘ Syrian from Ernesa ’—
1 hence, probably, Polycarp’s belief that he could influence an Eastern —who was bishop of Rome from 150-153. (There is a gap hero in tho j LP, Liberian Cat., which makes tho chronology difficult. See on
I the date Renan L’Ant. 5GG ff., Lightf. Ign. 450.) This journey seems to me to make Zahn’s view of the age of Folycarp (8G + ? 15) impossible (Harnaek CAL i 344 n.).
308 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
The captain of the police, one Herod by name, together with his father Nicetes, met him on the way, and took him into their chariot, endeavouring to persuade him to recant and say: ‘ Caesar is Lord.’ Their interest was not merely that of officials; perhaps Herod was thinking of the peril of his own sister Alee, one of Polycarp’s flock. But all their efforts were vain; so, on Polycarp’s repeated refusal, they thrust him out of the chariot with such violence that ‘ he bruised his shin.’ On his entrance into the arena, ‘ our people who were present heard a voice, though no man saw the speaker : Polycarp, be strong, and play the man.’ * Swear,’ said the proconsul, ‘ by the genius of Caesar; retract and say, Away with the atheists.’ The old man gazed in sorrow at the raging crowd; then with uplifted eyes, waving his hand, he said: ‘Away with the atheists.’ The proconsul, Titus Statius Quadratus, mistaking Polycarp’s meaning, pressed him further: ‘ Swear, and I release thee ; blaspheme Christ.’ ‘ Eighty and six years,’ was the immortal reply, ‘ have I served Christ, and He has never done me wrong. How can I blaspheme my King, who saved me ? ’ After further entreaties, the proconsul threatened to throw him to the beasts or burn him alive. ‘ ’Tis well,’ replied Polycarp; ‘ I fear not the fire that burns for a season and after a while is quenched. Why delayest thou ? Come, do what thou wilt.’ So the herald thrice proclaimed, ‘ Polycarp has confessed himself a Christian.’ A howl of vengeance rose from the heathen, in which the Jews, who were present in large numbers, joined—it was
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 309
‘ a great sabbath/ probably the feast of Purim/ and their fanaticism was specially excited. ‘ This/ they cried, * is the teacher of Asia, the overthrower of our gods, who has perverted so many from sacrifice and adoration/ So they desired the Asiarch, one Gaius Julius Philippus of Trales,2 as inscriptions show, to let loose upon him a lion. The Asiarch excused himself; the games in honour of Caesar were over; he had exhausted his stock of beasts.
1 So the mob with one accord lifted up its voice, clamouring that he should be burnt alive. The execution followed close upon the sentence. The wood for the stake, torn in an instant from shops and baths, was carried to the fatal spot by eager hands, the Jews as usual freely offering their services.’
The old man was stripped. But
‘ As they were going to nail him to the stake: “ Leave me,” he said, “ as I am, for He that hath granted me to endure the fire will grant me also to endure the pile unmoved, even without the security that ye seek from the nails.” So they did not nail him, but tied him.’
Then he offered his last prayer :—
‘ 0 Lord God Almighty, the Father of Thy well-beloved and ever-blessed Son, Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the knowledge of Thee, ... I thank Thee that Thou hast graciously thought me worthy of this day and of this hour, that I may receive a portion among the number of the martyrs, in the cup of Thy Christ.’
No sooner had he uttered his Amen, than the fire was kindled and blazed up. But it arose, curving like an
1 Seo Lightfoot Ign. i 711-7 and 727 (whero he discusses tho objections of Tumor); and for the hatred of tho Jews, supra 119.
2 See an interesting note in Lightfoot Ign. i G28-37 for this Philip in inscriptions. Apart from the monuments and this letter, nothing is known about him. For asiarclis see tupm. p. 9G ».
310 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
arch or the bellying sail of a ship, leaving him in the centre like a treasure of gold or silver, unharmed. The student will remember the similar cases of Savonarola and Hooper of Gloucester.1 An executioner was sent to give the coup de grace. To the amazement of the spectators, blood flowed in streams from the aged body and extinguished the flames.2 In their fear lest the body should fall into the hands of the Christians, the Jews took steps, using Nicetes as their leader, to have it thrust back into the midst of the fire. At the moment of Polycarp’s death, his pupil Irenaeus, then on a visit to Eome, heard a voice as of a trumpet saying, ‘ Polycarp has been martyred.’ 3 By his death ‘ Polycarp stayed the persecution, having, as it were, set his seal upon it.’ The annual festival of Caesar was over, and the excited mob returned to their homes.
“ The martyrdom of Cyprian,” writes Gibbon, “will convey the clearest information of the spirit and of the forms of Roman persecution.” 4 We may
1 Villari Savonarola (ed. 1896) 759; Fose, Ed. Pratt vi 658.
2 Milinan Christianity ii 140 well compares Macbeth v i, “ Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him ? ” The reader may be interested to note the rise of a myth. For irepl arepva, “ round the chest,” or irepl arupaKa, “ about tho sword-haft,” or eV apKTrepei, the MSS. read irepia-repa, “a dove.” Hence tho talc, which figures much in later legends, of tho dove which came out of Polycarp’s dead body. The incident is not in Eusebius. Lightfoot (Ign. iii 390-3, i 644 n.) rejccts these explanations, and considers the myth a deliberate addition.
3 Mart. Pohjc. 22 in the Moscow IMS. See Lightfoot Ign. ii 986. Renan EC 462 n. For similar voices and clairvoyance, Lightfoot refers to the Proceedings Psychical Research Society, April, 18S3.
* Ed. Bury ii 100. For the accurate way in which these Acts of
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 311
add that few of the Acts keep more close to the original official records. During the severe persecution of Decius, Cyprian, at that time undoubtedly the most distinguished prelate of Western Christendom, had yielded to counsels of prudence and withdrawn for a while from Carthage (Jan. 250). In the spring of 251 he had returned, and had distinguished himself by the zeal with which he had flung himself into the work of visiting the plague-stricken city (a.d. 252). Under his lead, Christians “just emerged from the mines or the prison, with the scars or the mutilations of recent tortures upon their bodies, were seen exposing their limbs, if possible, to a more honourable martyrdom.” 1 But such works of charity did not lessen the hostility of the heathen, who looked upon the plague as the chastisement of the gods for their toleration of an unnatural religion.2 On the renewal of the persecution by Valerian (257), Cyprian, who did not this time withdraw from the city, was summoned before the proconsul Paternus, and ordered to return to the practice of the religion of his ancestors (Aug. 30, 257). On his refusal he was banished to Curubis, fifty miles from Carthage, though after a while he was suffered to return to his former country house. Shortly after the accession of a new proconsul, Galerius Maximus, Cyprian was once more apprehended, and brought to Carthage. He was lodged
Cypriau reproduce tho technical proccduro of Roman courts, tho student should read Le Blant SAM (see his Index).
1 Milman Christianity ii 195. Benson I.e. 511 5. Pec Cyprian’s De Opere et Eleemosynis; Pontius Vita Cyp. ix.
8 Supra p. 12G n. Pont. Vita Cyp. 11.
312 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
for the night in the private house of one of his gaolers,1 and treated with respect and consideration. All through the night the streets were filled with a vast hut orderly crowd of enemies and friends. In the morning Cyprian, whose habitual seriousness of countenance was transfigured with joyfulness, was brought before the proconsul. No words were wasted. ‘Art thou,’ said the judge, ‘ Thascius Cyprian, the bishop {papa) of many impious men? The most sacred emperors command thee to sacrifice.’ ‘ I will not,’ replied the bishop. 'Consider well,’ was the answer. ‘ Execute your orders,’ replied Cyprian; ‘the case admits of no consideration.’ With some reluctance the judge, after conferring with his council, read the sentence:
‘ Tliat Thascius Cyprian should be immediately beheaded, as the enemy of the gods of Rome, aud as the standard-bearer and ringleader of a criminal association which he had seduced into an impious resistance against the laws of the most holy emperors, Yalerian and Gallienus ’ (Geb. AMS 127).
‘God be thanked,’ answered the bishop, when the reading of the sentence was finished. ‘ We will die with him,’ shouted the Christians; but Cyprian was led away under an escort of the famous Third Legion to a plain near the city, or rather a natural amphitheatre with steep, high slopes, thick with trees, into which the spectators climbed. There his presbyters and deacons were allowed to assist him in laying aside his garments. With his usual
1 Principes, chief centurions attached to the proconsul. See Benson I.e. 497 n. Ada proconsularia 2 in Geb. 125.
THE EXPERIENCES OP THE PERSECUTED 313
indifference to money, the bishop desired his friends to hand the executioner twenty-five gold pieces, a fee of about £15. Meanwhile his friends strewed the ground with handkerchiefs, with a view to future relics and mementoes. This done, Cyprian covered his face with a cloth; the sword of the executioner flashed, and at one blow the head was severed from the body (Sept. 14, 258) .l
Of all the stories of martyrdom in early times none is more unexaggerated, true to life and human nature, than the story of the two Carthaginian martyrs, Perpetua2 and Felicitas, who appear to
1 For the death of Cyprian see Pontius Vita Cyp. 18. Pontius, who was with him at his death, quotes the official Acta Proconsularia (Hartel Op. Cyp. iii (pt. 3) pp. ex ff., or Geb. AMS 124-8).
For an interesting account of how Cyprian’s day in England came to be changed to Sept. 2Gth, see Benson o.e. App. L. It became displaced by Holy Cross Day (in commemoration of Heraclius’ recovery of the Cross in 62S).
2 For the passion of St. Perpetua the best edition is by Dean Robinson in TS (1891) i. A good edition of the text, both Greek and Latin, is in Geb. AMS 61 ff. The complete Greek text was found by Rendel Harris in a convent at Jerusalem in 1889. The text in Ruinart AM is infelicitous. The work, as Robinson shows, was probably written in Latin, and not in Greek as was the judgement of the older writers (e.g. Milman Christianity ii 165 n.). But the new Latin MS. discovered in 1892 (Anal. Boll., 1892,309 ff.) somewhat weakens the argument.
The visions of Perpetua were widely known in the early Church, e.g. Acts of Pohyeuctes (Conybeare MEC 128). Rcndul Harris TS ii (1) 148-53, gives reasons for belioving that the famous Codex Bezae of tho N.T. was a Montanist document evidently familiar to Perpetua, and of African origin (ib. 259 ff.). Robinson lias shown that the visions were dictated by the martyrs themselves in spite of indebtedness to the Shepherd of Ilermas and the Apocalypse of St. Peter (o.c. 26-46). Milman’s conjecture that they show “suspicious marks of Monta-nism ” in the editing (Christianity ii 165 n.) is, however, correct, and
314 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
have suffered on the birthday of Geta,1 the worthless son of Septimius Severus. Yibia Perpetua—one of the few saints still honoured in the Anglican calendar2—with her ecstatic visions and her unconquerable faith, is indeed truly one of the heroic figures of the early Church. Of good family, liberal education, and honourably married, Perpetua tells her own story, though the introduction and completion are by another hand, possibly Tertullian’s. She was but twenty-two when arrested and cast into prison:
‘ I was terrified; never before had I experienced such awfnl darkness.
O dreadful day! the heat overpowering by reason of the crowd of
strengthens the ease for the editorship of Tertullian (Robinson o.c. 43-58 ; but see Harnack GAL ii 322). For an English translation of the passion see Clark ANCL xiii 276 ff.
1 O.c. c. 7 Geb. AMS 74. Geta was born on May 27, and Perpetua suffered on March 7. Hence the ‘birthday’ must mean the anniversary of Geta’s adoption as Caesar. In the Greek version (c. 1 Geb. AMS 61) the date is wrongly assigned to Valerian and Gallienus. Robinson (o.c. 25 n.) mistaking the meaning of ‘ natale Getae ’ assigned to Geta’s reign (Feb. 4, 211-Feb. 27,212, i.e. March 7, 211). But iu c. 6 (Geb. AMS 71) we see that Hilarian was not yet fully proconsul, but only provisional in place of Minucius Timinianus, who had died in hid year of office (Allard II HP 87 n.). The execution was therefore anterior to Tert. ad Scap. 3, in which Hilarian is proconsul. (See Chronological Table.)
From the Greek version (c. 2 AMS 64) we see that the place was not Carthage, but Thuburbo major or minus. See Neumann BSKi 300.
2 March 7. Curious to say, though thus honoured, there are no churches in England dedicated to her. That she was retained iu the English calendar is the more remarkable inasmuch as no copy of her passion was published before 1663. Hence the story is not in Foxe. I may add that Perpetua is thus a good specimen of the value of tradition. In the Roman breviary Perpetua is displaced by Thomas Aquinas. See Robinson o.c. 15 n.
THE EXPERIENCES OF TIIE PERSECUTED 315
prisoners, the extortions of the guard. Above all, I was toru with anxiety for my babe.’
Two deacons, Tertius and Pomponius, obtained her removal for some hours a day to a better room :
‘There I sat suckling my babe, who was slowly wasting away. Nevertheless the prison was made to me a palace, where I would rather have been than anywhere else.’
In part her joy was due to her visions. In one of these Perpetua saw a ladder of gold, the top of which rested in heaven. Beyond the highest rung, surrounded by a white-robed throng, stood the Good Shepherd in the midst of a wonderful garden like unto Eden. But on either side of the ladder were instruments of torture, while a terrible dragon guarded the approach. Up this ladder of gold, so narrow that only one could climb at a time, the saints passed to God. But they must first crush the dragon’s head ere they could hear the welcome of the Shepherd: “ Thou hast borne thee well, child.” 1 For Perpetua the ‘ crushing ’ was without hesitation. When brought before the judge, she was ordered to sacrifice to the emperor. She refused, and was condemned with her comrades to fight the beasts. ‘ So we went with joy to our prison.’
AVe must not forget Felicitas.2 When arrested with Perpetua, she was in the eighth month of
1 ‘Bene venisti tegnou’—one of Perpetua’s many Greek words which led Milrnan and others to suppose a Greek original; Robinson o.r. G8; Geb. AMS G8. Sec also for this vision Robinson o.c. 19.
* Eelicitas is described (c. 2) as a slave (Geb. AMS G4), as also was Rovoeatus her brother.
316 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
pregnancy. As the day of the games approached she feared above all lest on that account her martyrdom should be postponed.1 So her ‘ brother martyrs prayed with united groaning,’ and her travail began.
As she lay in her agony in the crowded gaol the keeper of the stocks2 said to her, ‘If you cannot endure these pains, what will you do when you are thrown to the beasts?’ ‘I suffer now alone,’ she replied, ‘but then there will be One in me who will suffer for me because I shall suffer for Him.’3
Perpetua maintained her calmness to the end. When a tribune, who had the popular idea that the Christians dealt in the black art,4 and so might escape from prison by their enchantments, dealt harshly with the prisoners, she reminded him that since they were to fight on Caesar’s birthday they ought not to disgrace Caesar by their condition. On their last night they joined together in the agape.5 The lovefeast was interrupted by people whose curiosity had led them to visit the prison, that they might see what sort of victims would be provided on the morrow. ‘Mark well our faces,’ said Saturus, ‘ that you may recognize us again on the day of judgement.’6
1 So the law ordered; Ulpian in Dig. xlviii 19, 3.
* Cataractariorum, that is, either the men who looked after the portcullis (classical) or, more probably, the stocks (see Jer. xx 2, 3 iu LXX for thi8 use).
3 Robinson 81; Geb. AMS 85.
4 Supra p. 132.
s ‘Pridie quoque cum illam cenam ultimam, quam liberam vocant, quantum iu ipsis erat non cenam liberam sed agapen cenarent.’ Robinson 86; Geb. AMS 86. Cf. supra p. 211 n.
0 O.c. c. 17. ‘ In die illo.’ See supra p. 154. How the idea of the
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 317
‘When the day of victory dawned, the Christians marched in procession from the prison to the arena as if they were marching to heaven, with joyous countenances, agitated rather by gladness than fear. Perpetua followed, with radiant step, as became the bride of Christ, the dear one of God.’1
Attempts were made to force them to put on certain dresses, the men the robes of those devoted to Saturn,2 the women of Ceres. They refused, and ‘injustice recognized the justice’ of their refusal. So they marched to death in their own garments,
‘ Perpetua singing Psalms, for she was now treading down the Egyptian’s head.’3 In the arena Saturus was exposed on a slightly raised platform to the attack of a bear. As the beast would not leave its den, he was handed over to a leopard, who with one bite covered him with blood. The mob called out in their glee, in derision of the Christian rite of baptism, ‘That’s the bath that brings salvation.’4 The two women, one of them scarce recovered from childbirth, were hung up in nets, lightly clad, to
‘day of judgement’ dominated the early Church is evidenced by Apoc. i 10, where Kvpiaxri rifiepa is probably not Sunday, but tho prophet’s vision of the last day.
1 ‘ Lucido incessu, ut matrona Christi, ut Dei delicata,’ a bold oratorical flight worthy of Tertullian. See Robinson o.c. p. 87.
2 Tert. Apol. 9 may throw light on this: ‘ Children were openly sacrificed in Africa to Saturn as late as the proconsulship of Tiberius. . . . And even now that sacred crime still continues to bo done in secret.’ Cf. ib. ad Scorp. 7 near end. For Ceres see Tert. ad Uxor. 6. For martyrs thus to be elothed was not so unusual as Milmau (Christianity ii 172) supposes. See Le Blant SAM 212 n.
3 Infra p. 322.
4 ‘ Salvum lotum.’ Cf. Tert. Bapt. c 1G. But on the floor of a room in Brescia it can ODly mean, as perhaps here, ‘ wash well ’ (Allard II IIP 129 n.).
318 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
be gored by a bull.1 When Perpetua was tossed her first thought was of her shame, as she tried to cover herself with her torn tunic. ‘ She then clasped up her hair, for it did not become a martyr to suffer with dishevelled locks, lest she should seem to be mourning in her glory.’ This done she raised up Felicitas, and ‘the cruelty of people being for a while appeased,’ they were permitted to retire.2 Perpetua herself seemed in a trance. ‘ When are we to be tossed ? ’ she asked, and could scarcely be induced to believe that she had suffered, in spite of the marks on her body. Finally the two heroines of God were put to death by gladiators. After exhorting the others ‘ to stand fast in the faith and love one another,’ Perpetua, ‘first stabbed between the bones that she might have the more pain, guided to her own throat the uncertain hand of the young gladiator.’3 So she too passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for her on the other side.
IV
Not the least part of the agony of Perpetua, as well as of other martyrs, lay in the frenzied entreaties of loved ones, oftentimes brought by the
1 As Perpetua was one of the lionestiores, noble, this was illegal; see supra p. 64 n.
2 We are told she retired by the porta Sanavivaria (c. 20 Geb. AMS 91), i.e. the gate by which living, as distinct from dead, gladiators (porta Libitensis) retired from the amphitheatre.
3 Probably a confedor, i.e. one who gave the coup de grace in case the beasts did their work imperfectly.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 319
magistrates into the hall of justice for the very purpose. Origen was right: ‘ It is the love of wife and children that fills up the measure of martyrdom.’ 1 For Perpetua there were the entreaties of her aged heathen father, the wailings of the babe at her breast’:
‘ When I was in the hands of the persecutors, my father in his tender solicitude tried hard to pervert me from the faith. “My father,’' I said, “ you see this pitcher; can we eall it by any other name than what it is?” “No,” he said. “Nor can I call myself by any other name than that of Christian.” So he went away, but, on the rumour that we were to be tried, returned, wasted away with a.nxiety : “ Daughter,” he said, “ have pity on my grey hairs; have compassion on thy father. Do not give me over to disgrace. Behold thy brothers, thy mother, thy aunt; behold thy child who cannot live without thee. Do not destroy us all.” Thus spake my father, kissing my hands, and throwing himself at my feet. And I wept because of my father, for he alone of all my family would not rejoice in my martjTrdom. So I comforted him, saying: “In this trial what God determines will take place. We are not in our own keeping, but in God’s.” So he left me weeping bitterly.’ (Robinson o.c. 62-4; Geb. AMS 64-6.)
But when the day of trial came her father was once more at the bar, calling out to the mother as he held her child in his arms, ‘ Have pity on your babe.’ When Phileas of Thmuis was brought before Culcian, the prefect of Egypt, the trusted friend of Maximin, Culcian tried with many arguments to induce him to sacrifice. * Have you,’ he asked, c a conscientious objection ? ’ On Phileas replying, ‘ Yes ’: ‘ Why does not conscience,’ pursued the prefect,
* tell you to pay regard to the interests of your wife and children ? ’ ‘ Because a conscience Godwards has
1 Origen ad Mart. 11. He knew from experience; see Euseb. UE vi. 2.
320 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
a higher claim,’ was the answer. Upon this the officials of the court, the mayor of Thmuis, together with his family, threw themselves at his feet, beseeching the bishop to have pity on his wife and children. But he stood * like a rock unmoved ’ until ‘ his unquenchable spirit was set free by the sword.’1 Over Irenaeus of Sirmium—a city on the Save near its union with the Danube—his children, wife, and parents lamented with bitter groans : * have pity on yourself and us ’; while his friends implored him to have pity on his tender youth. * My Lord Jesus,’ was the reply, ‘ told us that he that loved father or mother more than Me was not worthy of Me.’2 To Felicitas of Bome: ‘Have pity,’ said the judge, ‘on your sons, young men in the prime of life.’ ‘ Your exhortation,’ replied Felicitas, * is cruel mockery.’ Then turning to her sons : ‘ Lads,’ she said, * look up and behold the heavens where Christ awaits you with His saints. Fight for your souls and show yourselves faithful in the love of Christ.’ 3 * Dionysia of
1 AM 495-6; shortly after a.d. 304. The Acts of PMleas are interesting, and possibly genuine. See Le Blant SAM 112; Mason DP 290, but contra Harnaek CAL ii 70 n. Euseb. EE viii 10 does not mention them, though he gives the Epistle of Phileas. The difficulty is the talk on ‘conscience.’
2 AM 402; Gebhardt AVS 163. Time of Diocletian, April 6, ? 304. See also supra p. 142.
3 AM 26. The story of Felicitas is undoubtedly based upon fact (against Neumann BSK i 295). This is shown by the discovery by de Rossi, in 185S, of the tomb of Januarius, in the story styled the eldest of the seven sons, in the cemetery of Praetextatus (see North-cote and Brownlow BS i 130-44). But in its present form the story, as that of Symphorosa (supra p. 219), is only one of many variations of the popular but late and worthless iv Maccab. viii 1. See Lightf.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 321
Alexandria, the mother of many children,’ we are told, ‘ did not love them more than the Lord,’1 simple words which conceal the depths of anguish through which she passed. In the case of Afra of Augsburg, a converted prostitute, who is reputed to have suffered in the terror of Diocletian, we are introduced to a new form of temptation of even more subtle power :
11 hear you were a prostitute,’ said the judge; ‘ sacrifice, then, for the God of Christians will have nothing to do with yon.’ ‘ My Lord,’ she replied,1 said that He came down from heaven to save sinners such as me.’
In spite of all reproaches and arguments, she persisted in her faith in the power of Christ to save even to the uttermost. So she too was handed over to the flames.2 Thus the harlot gained what Cyprian rightly calls
* the purple robe of the Lamb.’3
For weeks before the fatal issue, we find the martyrs living in a state of ecstasy. They see the heavens open, and the triumphant ones that follow the Lamb riding upon white horses. Three days before his capture, Polycarp dreamed that his pillow was on fire; this he interpreted as signifying by what death he should glorify God.4 In most of tho
Ign. i 502-5, 511-5. The date in DCB ii 478, following AM, &c., is probably wrong. It should not be 150, but 1G2 (i.e. not Antoninus Pius, but Marcus Aurelius, Allard I IIP 34G n. 353). See also Aube PE 439 ff., who dates (ib. 4G1) under Sept. Severus, 202-3.
1 Euseb. HE vi 41. Early in 250.
2 AM 45G. Even if the narrative is not historical (see Hanmck CAL ii 475 n.), the story has its value. According to Ruinart tho date is Aug. 5, 304.
3 Cyprian de Exhort. Mart. Prof. 3. Purple was tho imperial colour.
4 Mart. Pohjc. 5. Cf. Cyprian iu Pont. Yit. 12.
Y
322 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
records we have visions of recent martyrs. On the night before her fight with the beasts Perpetua dreamed that the martyred deacon Pomponius came to her cell. ‘ Come,’ he said, ‘for we are waiting for thee.’
‘ So he held my hand, and we began to climb by rongh and winding ways. At length, gasping for breath, we came to the amphitheatre. There he placed me in the middle of the arena and said, “ Fear not, I am here with thee.” ’
In her dream she fought with a foul Egyptian gladiator, but one stood by * with a green branch in his hand on which were apples of gold. At last Perpetua threw the Egyptian down and received the bough. When she awoke, ‘ I knew,’ she said, ‘ the victory was mine.’ She had seen the f devil rolling in the dust.’1
Marianus, a martyr possibly of Cirta, dreamed that he saw a great scaffold, on which the judge was condemning to the sword bands of Christians. ‘ My turn came. Then I heard a great voice saying, “Fasten Marianus up.”’ So he too mounted the scaffold; but, lo, instead of the judge, he found himself amidst green fields and grass waving with sunlight, holding the hand of the martyr Cyprian, who smiled, as he said, ‘ Come and sit beside me.’ The day before this dream Marianus had been hung up by the thumbs, with unequal weights tied to his feet, while his body had been torn by an iron claw, In the awful thirst which such torture brings, we can understand the further vision ; how he saw
1 Robinson o.c. 78 or Geb. AJIS 78.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 323
‘ a dell in the midst of the woods, with a full clear spring flowing with many waters. Then Cyprian caught up a bowl which lay beside the spring, filled it and drained it, filled it again and reached it out to me, and I drank it, nothing loath. Aa I was saying, Thanks be to God, I woke at the sound of my own voice.’1
Saturus, the companion of Perpetua, had a vision in which he was carried by four angels into the midst of heaven itself, * though their hands touched us not.’ There, in a palace * whose walls were built of light,’ and which stood in the midst of fields covered with violets and flowers, he * heard the voice of those who sing unceasingly, Holy, Holy, Holy,’ and received the kiss of Christ:
* There also we found Jocundusand Saturninua, and Artaxiuswho had been burnt alive in the same proseeution, and Quiutu3 who had died as a martyr in prison’ (Geb. AMS 80).
Quartillosia, who suffered in the same persecution as Marianus, whose husband and son had witnessed the good confession three days before, saw her son enter the prison in which she herself lay, expecting death.
‘ And he sat on the brim of a fountain and said, “ God hath seen your tribulation and labour.” And after him entered a young man, wonderfully tall, carrying two bowls of milk in his hands. And from these bowls he gave us all to drink; and tho bowls failed not. And suddenly the Btono which divided tho window in tho middle was taken away, letting in tho freo face of the sky.’ Geb. AMS 149.
1 For Marianus see Geb. AMS 134 ff. The date is fixed by the reference to Cyprian as May 6, ‘259. Cf. Flavian p. 324 infra. Tho Acta Mariani et Jacobi seems to have been written at the time by a Christian at Cirta, who cut an inscription to his two friends on a rock in his garden (Benson Cyp. 471 n.). The genuineness of tho Passio Mariani has been demonstrated by Franchi de’ Cavalieri (1900). Seo Allard III UP 130 n., Ilurnack CAL ii 470.
324 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
But the images in the martyrs’ dreams are not always those of thirst, of green fields and orchards, or of the free breezes, natural as such dreams are to tortured souls in prison. Benus, another of the same band of African martyrs, had a vision in which he saw his companions brought into court one by one ; ‘ as each one advanced, a lantern was carried before him.’ When he awoke and told his story to his comrade in prison, ‘ then were we glad, having confidence to walk with Christ, who is a lantern to our feet.’1 A martyr named Flavian, one of Cyprian’s flock at Carthage, dreamed that he asked his bishop ‘ whether the death-stroke was painful.’ And Cyprian answered and said, ‘ The body does not feel when the mind is wholly devoted to God.’2 On the night before his martyrdom, another of the same devoted company, James of Cirta, dreamed that he saw the martyred bishop Agapius
‘ surrounded by all the others who were imprisoned with us, holding a joyous feast. Marianus and I were carried away by the spirit of love to join it, as if to one of our love-feasts, when a boy ran to meet us, who turned out to be one of the twins who had suffered three days before in company with their mother. He had a wreath of roses round his neck, and bore a green palm in his right hand. And he said, “ Rejoice and be glad, for to-morrow you shall sup with us.” ’3
In her first vision Perpetua saw the Good Shepherd, who gave her a morsel of cheese, which she ate with
1 AM 231; Geb. AMS 148. From the Acts of Montanus. In spite of the doubts of Rendel Harris I see no reason to deny the genuineness of these Acts. See Allard III HP 116 ; Harnaek CAL
ii 471; Healy VP 207 ff. Date Slay, 259.
2 AM 237; Geb. AMS 153.
3 AM 228; Geb. AMS 143.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 325
folded hands! When she awoke with the sweet taste still in her mouth, ‘ we knew that our passion was at hand.’1
Nor were the ecstasies limited to the martyrs themselves: the Christians who witnessed their sufferings also dreamed their dreams and saw their visions. We have an instance of this in the last chapter of the Antiochene Acts of Martyrdom of St. Ignatius, one of the few fragments true to life in an otherwise worthless romance. There the writer tells how
‘ we weak men, after what had passed, when wo fell asleep for a while, some of us suddenly beheld the blessed Ignatius standing by and embracing us, while by others agaiu he was seen praying over us, and by others dripping with sweat, as if he were come from a hard struggle, and were standing at the Lord’s side, with much boldness and unutterable glory.’ Lightf. Ign. ii 49.
After the burning of Fructuosus, the bishop of Tarragona, and his deacons (January 21, 259), two of the Christian servants of the judge saw the martyrs ascending to heaven, ‘with their chains still upon them, but crowns on their brows,’ and pointed them out to the governor’s daughter. She fetched her father, ‘ who, however, was not worthy to see them.’2 But at Alexandria the vision of the martyr Potamiaena led to the conversion of many heathen who had witnessed her sufferings.3 To the same exalted and nervous condition we may well attribute
1 Robinson ox. 68; Geb. AMS G8. For other visions of martyrs whoso passion was but rccent, see Euseb. 11E vi 5.
2 AM 221. Aube EE 408-12.
3 For Totamiaena, sec supra p. 303 n. 1.
326 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the strange sweet smells, the heavenly voices, and other incidents which the faithful were quick to discern at the passing of their heroes. At Lyons the martyrs, we are told, ‘ were so fragrant with the sweet odour of Christ that some bystanders supposed that they had been anointed with myrrh.’1 At the execution of Polycarp, his friends heard a voice from heaven calling upon him to play the man; after his death there arose from his ashes, as they thought, a fragrant odour ‘ like the fumes of incense, or other fragrant drugs.’2
When the day of their trial came, the confidence of the Christians—Pliny, in his famous letter, had called it their ‘ inflexible obstinacy ’—was in no wise shaken. The Eoman court, with its instruments of torture, set out in grim array—the hobby-horse, the claws, the rack, the heated irons, the boiling oil—the howling mob, the insignia of an imperial power, from which there was no escape, did not overawe the confessors. Theirs was the confidence of the Angel of Eepentance in the Shepherd of Hermas—one of the books that profoundly influenced the early martyrs, as we may learn from the allusions to it in the story of Perpetua—
‘ Fear not the Devil, for there is no power in him against you. The Devil hath fear alone, but his fear hath no force. The Devil can wrestle against you, but wrestle you down he cannot! ’3
1 Euseb. HE\ (1) 35, Geb. AMS 35.
2 Mart. Polyc. 9. Due to the burnt wood. See supra p. 309.
3 See Hermas Shep. Maud, xii 4, 5, and cf. ib. Mand. xii 6, Sim. viii 3 (a passage not in all MSS.).
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 327
In all churches the day of martyrdom became known as the confessor’s ‘birthday/ a joyous term, significant of much. At the martyrdom of Polycarp, eleven heroes from Philadelphia
‘ were so torn with laslies that the inwarcl veins and arteries were visible, so that the very bystanders had pity and wept. But they themselves uttered neither ery nor groan, thus proving to us all that at that hour the martyrs of Christ, though tortured, were absent from the flesh, or rather, that the Lord was standing by and eon-versing with them ’ (Mart. Polyc. 2).
When the Scillitan martyrs, seven men and five women, were condemned by Saturninus at Carthage :
‘ We give God thanks,’ cried one; ‘ To-day we shall be in heaven,’ added a second.1 This talk of heaven sometimes bewildered, sometimes amused the magistrates. ‘ Do you suppose,’ said the prefect Junius Rusticus to Justin and his companions, ‘ that you will ascend up to heaven to receive some recompense there ? ’2 ‘I do not suppose,’ was Justin’s answer, ‘for I know it, and am persuaded of it.’ ‘ Earth,’ cried Cyprian, in the same spirit of assurance,
‘ is shut against us, but heaven is opened; death overtakes us, but immortality follows; the world reeedes, but Paradise reeeives. What honour, what peaee, what joy, to shut our eyes on the world and men, and open them on tho faee of God and His Christ! Oh, short and blessed voyage ! ’ (de Exhort. Mart. 13).
Of Dativus we read that he was ‘ rather a spectator of his own tortures than a sufferer.’3 When Carpus
1 Geb. Jil/S 2G. See supra p. 193 n.
2 Geb. AMS 20-1. This seems to be the first recorded use of the phrase ‘ going to heaven.’
3 Supra p. 143.
328 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
was nailed up to the cross he was observed to smile.
* Whafc made you laugh ? ’ asked his tormentors, in astonishment. ‘ I saw the glory of the Lord, and was glad,’ was the answer. Standing by was a woman named Agathonice. She caught the infection of his enthusiasm. ‘ That dinner,’ she cried, ‘ is prepared for me ’; then tore off her garments and laid herself upon the cross.1 So great was the Christians’ eagerness and confidence, that Saturninus—one of the friends of Perpetua—used to say to his companions in prison, as they talked over their coming fate, ‘ that he wished he could fight all the beasts, that so he might win a more glorious crown.’2 When Phileas of Thmuis was condemned to the sword: ‘ Present my thanks,’ he said, ‘ to the emperors, for they have made me joint heir with Christ.’3 When the cruel Datian ordered his executioners to furrow the sides of the young girl Eulalia of Merida in Spain : ‘Lord,’ she cried, ‘ they are writing that Thou art mine.’4 At the trial of James of Cirta, the attention of the heathen in court was drawn to one of the bystanders. So joyous was
1 For the Acts of Carpus, Papylus and Agathonike in Greek see Harnaek TU (3) 1888, 440 ff. or Geb. AMS 33. Until recently these Acts were only known in the spurious form of Symeon Metaphrast. (PG csv 106 ff.). But in 1881 Aube published a shorter form, without doubt the authentic Acts to which Euseb. EE iv 15 fin. refers. (See Aube EE 499 ff.) For date see supra p. 227 c, and not as Gregg PD 244 under Deeius.
2 Robinson o.c. 88; Geb. AYS 89.
3 AM 496. See supra p. 320 n.
4 Prudentius Peristeph. iii 31 ff. But the Peristephanon is far from a strictly historical work.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 329
liis mien, that the magistrates, in suspicion, asked him if he were not a Christian—for, added the writer, ‘ Christ shone in his face and bearing.’1 Babylas of Antioch saw six of his catechumens perish before his eyes. He then laid his head upon the block, saying,
* Here am I, 0 God, and the children whom Thou hast given me.’ According to Chrysostom, whose evidence in this particular may be trusted, his chains were buried with him, by his own desire, ‘ to show to the world that the things which the world despises are the glory of the Christian.’2
Both Aristides and Celsus find fault with the Christians for their mixture of humility and arrogance.3 At the bar the assurance of the Christians was overwhelming. Oftentimes the confessor lectured his judge, as if they, not he, were pleading for their lives. ‘ You judge us, but God shall judge you,’ said the Carthaginian martyrs—the friends of Perpetua— to the prefect Hilarian; nor were they daunted by the cries of the people, that for this insult they should be scourged.4 For the martyrs believed, in the words of Tertullian, that the day should come when they ‘ would judge their judges.’5 ‘ Sacrifice
1 Geb. AMS 142. See supra p. 323 n.
2 For Babylas see Lightfoot Ljn. i 40-2. According to Eusebius EE vi 39, he suffered in tho reign of Decius; see supra p. 157 ii. His Acts assign it to Numerian (284), tho tendency being to transfer martyrdoms to the persecution last in tho writer’s mind. Numerian’s obscurity invited martyrologibts to assign to him martyrdoms of whoso dates they were ignorant. As a matter of fact, he did not persecute at all (Aube EE 494 n.).
3 Arist. Orat. 46 ; Orig. Cels, iv 23 and 29.
4 Robinson o.c. 8S; Geb. AMS 89. Cf. passim in AM.
5 Tert. ad Mart. 2. Cf. supra p. 155.
330 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
or die/ said the proconsul Marcian to Achatius, who seems to have been a bishop of one of the lesser Antiochs, or of some village near Antioch. ‘ That is what the highwaymen of Dalmatia say/ was the contemptuous reply, ‘ when they meet you in a dark, narrow lane. Your verdicts are of the same order.’1 Claudius, a young Christian of Aegea, in Cilicia, was placed on a hobby-horse and flames applied to his feet, while the claw tore his sides. * Fool and madman/ cried the youth to his judge, ‘ do you not care for what the Lord will make you pay for this ? You are blind, altogether blind ! ’2 Andronicus, another of the many martyrs of Cilicia, was beaten with raw hides until his whole body was one wound. ‘ Eub his back well with salt,’ said the cruel Flavius Numerianus Maximus. ‘ You must rub in more salt than that/ was the joking answer, ‘if I am to keep.’
‘ You cursed fellow/ said Maximus, ‘ you talk to me as if you were my equal.’ ‘I am not your equal/ retorted the Christian, ‘ but I have the right to talk.’
‘ I will cut out your right, you ruffian/ cried the judge. ‘ You will never be able to do that,’ said the prisoner, ‘ neither you, nor your father Satan, nor the devils whom you serve.’ ‘ Take hold of his cheeks and rip them up/ said Maximus, as another of the same band, Tarachus by name, stood before him for
1 AM 154 or Geb. AMS 115. The narrative has been touched up for edification, and the conclusion that Decius, ‘lectis gestis,’ ordered his release is absurd, though, as shortly afterwards Decius terminated the persecution, Achatius may have escaped. Date about 251. See Harnack CAL ii 468, and in defence Allard II HP 436 ff.
2 See supra p. 298. Aug. 23, 304.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 331
the third time of torture, with jaws crushed, ears burnt off, his body one mass of wounds. ‘ Don’t think,’ replied Tarachus, ‘that you can terrify me with your words; I am ready for you at all points, for
I wear the armour of God ! ’ A long dialogue followed, but all the varied tortures of the judge were powerless to break the daring defiance and contempt of the prisoner.1 Against such men the gates of hell could not prevail. ‘ These are they,’ said St. Cyprian, with a glance back at his heathen days—
‘ whom we held sometimes in derision, and as a proverb of reproach. We fools counted their life madness, and their end to be without honour. How are they numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints! ’2
The Christian’s contempt of death was remarkable even in an age in which indifference to death formed one of the pleasures of life. The satirist Lucian tells us, with laughter, of the contempt of death which led the Christians, as well as the Cynics, with whom they were often confounded, to surrender themselves of their own free will to martyrdom, and thus ‘ bring a golden life to a golden close.’3 ‘ These imbeciles,’ he sneered, ‘ are persuaded that they are absolutely immortal, and that they will live for ever.’ ‘ Our
1 AM 422 if. The date is doubtful (Ruinart 421); about 304. For the genuineness of this document, see supra p. 19G n., and Harnaek CAL ii 479 n. Long extracts are given in Mason DP 189 if. Maximus naturally considered that ‘ the armour of God ’ pointed to sorcery; see supra p. 132 n. The case of Tarachus is a genuine case of sedition.
2 De Exhort. Mart. 12. Cyprian is quoting Wisdom v 4, f>.
3 Lucian PP 13, 33. The self-immolation of Peregrinus as a Cynie took place in lGf). (Kuseb. Citron, ii 170, ed. Schoene.)
332 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
young men and maidens/ boasts Minucius Felix, ■writing a few years earlier, ‘ mock your crosses and tortures, your wild beasts and all the terrors of your punishments ! ’1 With this agrees the testimony of Cyprian: * The tortured stood more firm than the torturers; the torn limbs overcame the hooks that tore them.’2 ‘ The Christians,’ writes another, * all disregard the world and despise death.’3 * Christianus sum,’—the fatal confession, to which there was but one issue—was the sole answer to all their questions which the magistrates of Antioch could extort from Lucian.4 ‘ Condemnation,’ said Tertullian, ‘ gives us more pleasure than acquittal ’;5 and we have evidence of this other than that of an enthusiast, in the fact that their contempt of death was actually one of the charges brought against the Christians by the heathen.6
* Unhappy men! ’ exclaimed the proconsul Arrius Antoninus on seeing all the Christians of a certain town in Asia present themselves at his bar, though they knew well the consequences; ‘ if you are weary of your lives, cannot you find halters and precipices ?7 ‘ Go, then, and kill yourselves,’ cried another in derision, ‘ and pass to your God, but do not trouble
1 Octavius 37. Date uncertain, possibly 160. See supra p. 221 n.
2 Cyprian Ep.
3 Ep. Diog. i. Cf. Justin II Apol. 12.
4 AM 506. See supra p. 142 n.
5 Ad Scapulam 1.
G Tert. ad Nationes 19; Apol. 50. Celsus in Orig. ii 38, 45, 73 makes this one of his charges against Jesus. Marcus Aurelius Med. xi 3 attributes it to ‘ obstinacy,’ Epictetus, Arrian Epic. Biss, iv 7, 6 to habit. But Tac. Hist, v 5 has reference to Jews only.
; Tert. ad Scap. 5. For the date, 1S4-5, see supra p. 227.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 333
us.’1 ‘ As a rule,’ said the Emperor Diocletian, ‘ the Christians are only too happy to die ’—and Diocletian certainly was in a position to know. Eusebius, an eye-witness, tells us that the martyrs of the Thebais, in the time of Diocletian, ‘ received the sentence of death with gladness and exultation, so far even as to sing hymns of praise and thanksgiving until they breathed their last.’2 For they believed that after death the—
‘ angels would carry them eastward, past the storehouse of hail and snow, past the fountains of rain, past the spirits of wickedness which are in the air, and carry them to the seventh circle, setting them down full opposite the glory of God.’3
‘Why are you so bent upon death?’ said an official to the martyr Pionius of Smyrna. ‘ You are so bent upon death/ he added, ‘that you make nothing of it.’ ‘ We are bent, not upon death,’ replied Pionius, ‘but upon life.’ When nailed to the cross, the officer made one last effort to induce him to recant. ‘ Carry out the edict,’ he promised, ‘ and the nails shall be withdrawn.’ *1 felt that they were in,’ was the answer, as, turning to the people, he bid them remember that ‘ after death came the resurrection.’ When the fires were lighted, ‘with joyous
1 Justin M. II Apol, 4.
2 EE viii 9.
3 Callistratus in Conybeare MEG 312. For tho belief that tho soul went eastward, cf. an interesting passage in Eusebius MP 11, where a martyr puzzles Firmilianus with this doctrine, ‘ philosophizing on and paying no regard to tho tortures.’ It is interesting to note that Firmilianus evidently did not know tho name Jerusalem at all. In his day Aolia (8(/pra p. 121) had supplanted it.
334 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
countenance, lie cried, Amen.’ f So he too/ adds the chronicler, ‘passed through the narrow gate to the large place and great light.’1 ‘ Will you be with us, or with your Christ?’ asked the governor, as they hung Nestor, bishop of Perga, the chief city of Pamphylia, ‘ well strapped and curry-combed,’ upon the cross. The bishop answered: ‘ With Christ I am, and always was, and always shall be.’2 When Nicander, a soldier quartered in Moesia (Bulgaria), arrived at the place of execution, his wife Daria was brought to his side. ‘ God be with you,’ said the husband. ‘Be of good cheer,’ replied the wife, for whom the years of separation when she was a Christian and he a heathen still were now at an end—
‘ play the hero. Ten years I spent at home without you, and every moment I prayed God that I might see you. Now I have seen you, I rejoice that you are setting out for life. How loud shall I sing, and how proud I am that soon I shall be a martyr’s wife! So be of good cheer, and bear your witness to God.’3
When Irenaeus of Sirmium was condemned to be
1 Geb. AMS 114. See supra p. 297 ff., and infra p. 342.
2 For the Acts of Nestor in Latin, see A.SS Feb. iii 629 ff., undoubtedly worked up in this form into an edifying romance. But the original Greek discovered by Aube, and printed in EE 507 ff., is more historical. See Le Blant SAM passim, who often illustrates his positions from them; see his Index. The date, according to Aube ib. 177 Allard II HP 442 ff., is 250, but, as Harnack observes (CAL ii 470 n.), its Christological formulae (coeternus, &c.) point to a later date.
3 AM 551-4. The date is either June 8 or 17 (AM 551 n.), year unknown, but probably temp. Diocletian. Soldiers were not permitted to live with their wives until Sept. Severus. The husband and wife were buried together at Venafrio, near Capua (AM 554). The touching tale of Timothy and Maura (Kingsley’s Poems') is not historical.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 335
thrown into the Save, his face showed his disappointment—
‘I expected,’ he said, ‘many tortures. Torture me, I beseech you, that you may learn how Christians, because of their faith in God, have schooled themselves to despise death.’1
Of Victor, the father of the martyr Maximilian of Theveste, we read that after the execution—
‘ he returned to the house with great joy, thanking God that he had sent on such a gift before him, and determined to follow after.’2
In no document of the early Church is the ecstasy of the martyrs, and their indifference to—we might almost call it their enthusiasm for—death more clearly brought out than in the Epistles of Ignatius, though no doubt some allowance must be made for the excitable Syrian nature. Of the circumstances which led to the condemnation of Ignatius, the second bishop of Antioch and metropolitan of Syria,3 we know nothing. The persecutions at Antioch, by no means limited to Ignatius,4 has left no other memorials of itself than these Epistles. As a rule Christians, unless Roman citizens, were executed in the place of their crime; but for special reasons, probably connected with the extraordinary spectacles which Trajan had given in the Coliseum, whose magnitude had long since drained Eome of both gladiators and criminals,5 Theophorus Ignatius ‘ entwined with
1 AM 403. See supra p. 320.
2 AM 302. See supra p. 185.
3 Harnaek EG ii 89.
4 Ign. Fhiladelph x 2, ‘ the Church in Antioch hath now peace.’
3 Merivalc Homans under the Empire viii 150 and maDy others have found this journey to Romo to be a fiction moulded on tho
336 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
saintly fetters, the diadem of the truly elect/ 1 was sent from Antioch to Rome, “to make a Roman holiday.” He tells us that he was in the charge of ten soldiers, whom he compares, with a touch of humour, to ‘ ten leopards/2 Every effort on the part of himself and his friends to appease them only led to fresh cruelties, in the hope, probably, of fresh exactions. The details of this journey of Ignatius, the letters which he wrote en route to various churches, with their wealth of intercourse and love, need not concern us. At Smyrna he held delightful fellowship with one destined in later years to tread the narrow way himself, the bishop Polycarp. Landing in Europe in the footsteps of St. Paul, we lose sight of him after Philippi. The rest is only legend.3 But
analogy of St. Paul’s. But criminals and Christians were frequently sent to Rome for use in the games, cf. Pliny’s statement supra p. 210; and the Acts of Phocas (MEG 91) for the case of Phocas. In Polycarp Phil. 9 we have the names of two others thus sent, Zosimus and Rufus, while Ignatius implies that it was a common practice by his phrase ‘ Ye are a highway of them that are on their way to die unto God’ (Eph. 12 with Lightfoot’s notes). For the history of this transport see Lightf. Ign. i 342-3, Ramsay GhE 317-8, Momm. PRE ii 199. By an edict of Severus and Caracalla (198-211) it was made illegal except by the permit of the emperor. See Modestinus in Big. xlviii 19. How drained Rome would be of gladiators and criminals will be clear to those who remember that one of Trajan’s shows lasted 123 days, and that 11,000 beasts and 10,000 gladiators were engaged (Dion. Cass. Ixviii 15).
1 Polyc. Phil. 1. For his name see supra 170 n.
2 Igu. Rom. 5.
3 There are two accounts of the last scenes in the life of Ignatius, the Antiochene and the Roman Acts. The Roman Acts are pure romance, written at the close of the fifth century (Lightfoot Ign. ii 3S2). The Antioelicne (in Ruinart AM from Ussher) may contain
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 337
there is little doubt that, as Origen tells us,1 in a fight with wild beasts, in the Coliseum at Eome, Ignatius, whom Lightfoot well calls “the captain of martyrs,” paid the price of his faith with his own life about the same time as his fellow-Christians in Bithynia suffered under Pliny and Trajan.
In his Epistle to the Romans—“his paean prophetic of the coming victory ”2—Ignatius had already anticipated the final act in his description of himself as ‘ God’s wheat, ground fine by the teeth of wild beasts, that he may be found pure bread, a sacrifice to God.’3 In more than one passage we see Ignatius not so much resigned as eager for the day of martyrdom—4 in the midst of life, yet lusting after death.’ He realizes all the struggle, he is more than assured of the victory:
‘ Come fire, and cross, and grapplings with wild beasts, cuttings and manglings, wrenchings of bones, breaking of limbs, crushing of my whole body, come cruel tortures of the devil to assail me. Only be it mine to attain unto Jesus Christ,’4
In passages such as these we hear the shout of one
a kernel of genuine tradition. See supra p. 325. (They were accepted by Pearson, Ussher, ete., as genuine. But 6ee Lightfoot Ign. ii 383-90.)
1 Orig. Horn, m Luc. i. Tho date is uncertain, probably Oct. 17, but the year is unknown, the limits being between 107 and 118. See Ligbtfoot’s investigation Ign. ii 416-72. Harnaek dates about 115, CAL i 406.
2 Lightf. Ign. i 37, i 38.
3 Ign. Bom. 4 Jerome de Vir. 111. 16 transfers this saying to tho Coliseum, following Euseb. HE iii 36, with, however, a characteristic flourish of his own, cum rugientes audiret leones, ‘when he heard tho roaring of the lions.’
1 Eph. 1; Trail. 12 end; Horn. 5, 6, 7.
z
338 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
triumphant already, who felt * the pangs of the new birth’ upon him. ‘Near the sword/ he cries, ‘the nearer to God; in company with wild beasts, in company with God.’ ‘ Do not hinder me,’ he continues—he refers to some possible appeal by influential parties at Eome to the emperor, which might save him—
‘from living, do not desire my death. . . . Suffer me to receive the pure light. When I am come to the arena, then shall I become a man. Permit me to be an imitator of the passion of my God.’
He bids men ‘ sing a chorus of love to the Father ’ for the grace that is his, * to be poured out as a libation to God.’ For he is assured : ‘ If I shall suffer, then am I a freedman of Jesus Christ, and I shall rise free in Him.’1 So he prays that he
‘may have joy in the beasts, and find them prompt. If not I will entice them that they may devour me promptly, not as they have done to some, refusing to touch them through fear ’ (Rom. 5).
V
Many there were, among them not a few clerics, whom the hour of trial found wanting, who in the expressive phrase of Ignatius ‘hawked about the Name.’2 For there is nothing which so tests the reality of faith as the call to the great renunciation. Nor must we overlook how easy recantation designedly had been made. For, as Tertullian pointed out, there was this curious feature about Christianity,
1 Smyrn. 4. Rom. 2, 4, 6.
2 Eph. 7, Tb ovojxa irepitpepav.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 339
distinguishing it from every other criminal charge, that a mere denial was sufficient to procure acquittal.1 There were degrees and stages of apostasy. Some, who had no deepness of root, ‘ when the sun was risen, withered away.’ As the Christians of Lyons wrote with sadness of ten of their number, ‘ they were unable to bear the tension of a great conflict.’2
* Many of our brethren,’ adds Cyprian—
* vanquished before the fight, did not even make a show of sacrificing under compulsion. They ran of their own account to the Forum, as if they were indulging a long-cherished desire. There you could see them entreating the magistrates to receive their recantations, although it was already night ’ (de Lapsis 8).
Such apostates, when brought before the altar, ‘ stood pale and trembling, as if they were not to sacrifice, but themselves to be the sacrifice.’ 3 A few, not content with denying their Lord, under the terror of pain betrayed their brethren.4 Some there were, of stouter faith, who could endure days of imprisonment, but whom torture or the horrid anticipation thereof overcame.5 Nor were those who had thrust themselves forward for martyrdom always the most courageous. At the supreme moment their enthusiasm failed, and they denied the faith for which
1 Tert. Apol. 2, ad Nat. 2. Tho case at Lyons, where those who recanted were afterwards punished as ‘ murderers and guilty criminals’ (Euseb. v (1) 33; Geb. A3fS 35), is quite exceptional.
2 Euseb. EE v (i) 11 in Geb. AMS 30. Cf. HE vi 41.
3 Dionysius of Alexandria in Euseb. HE vi 41. Persecution of Decius.
* Possibly this happened in tho earliest persecution at Rome. See Tac. Ann. xv 44 quoted on p. 54 with note.
5 Cyprian de Lajpsis 13. Case of Nicomachus AM 250.
340 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
the Much-afraids unhesitatingly laid down their lives. We have an instance of this in the case of Quintus the Phrygian, at the time of the martyrdom of Polycarp. (Mart. Polyc. 4.)
Others again, who did not actually recant, did not scruple to purchase the necessary certificates of sacrifice (libelli) from easy-going magistrates, or to use those procured for them by anxious pagan friends. We hear also of some Christians of the baser sort who sent their Christian slaves to represent them at the sacrifice,1 or who succeeded in bribing the attendants to let them slip past the altar without actual sacrifice or eating of the sacrifices. These certificates, which form such a feature in the persecution of Decius, were probably all of similar form, and ran as follows (we quote from one discovered in the Fayum in 1898, and now at Berlin):—2
1 Cases at Alexandria dealt with by Peter its bishop in 306. Peter carefully distinguished between the purchase of certificates and the paying money under the belief that they were merely purchasing exemption from the obligation to conform. He held that this last had involved a worthy renunciation (of money) (Routh Bel. Sac. iv 21 ff.). But others looked on this matter more sternly (case of Etecusa, supra p. 246 n., Benson Cyprian 71-5). The number of the certificated (lihellatici) at Carthage alone mounted to thousands, and points to wholesale indifference and connivance on the part of the magistrates. The libelli is dealt with fully in Benson’s Cyprian. (His article in DCA ii s.v. is out of date.) The most important references are the following (all quoted from the ed. Hartel in CSEL): Cyprian Eps. 16, 2; 20, 2; 30, 3 ; 31, 7; 55, 3, 13, 14, 17, 26; 59,12; 67, 1, 6; de Lapsis 10, 15, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 35.
2 See Gebhardt AMS 183 or Benson Cyprian App. B. There is a second certificate now at Vienna in which ‘I, Isidore, wrote for them as unlearned,’ to adopt Harnack’s ingenious commendation
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 341
To the Commissioners of sacrifice of the village of Alexander’s Island, from Aurelius Diogenes, the son of Satabus, of
THE VILLAGE OF ALEXANDER’S ISLAND, AGED 72 ; 80AR ON HIS RIGHT EYEBROW.
I have always sacrificed regularly to the gods, arid note, in your presence, in accordance with the edict, I have done sacrifice, and ;poured the drinlc-offering, and tasted of the sacrifices, and I request you to certify the same. Farewell.
Handed in by me, Aurelius Diogenes.1 I CERTIFY THAT I SAW HlM SACRIFICING, . . . nOUUS.
(Magistrate’s signature partly obliterated.)
In the first teak of the Emperor, C-esar Gaius Messius Quintus Trajanus Decius, Pius, Felix, Augustus; the second of the month Epith.2
For others, true saints of God, there were, as for Simon Peter, moments of weakness over which they wept bitter tears. One woman tore with her teeth the tongue which had denied her Lord.3 Some, of whom the Shepherd of Hermas tells us, ‘became cowards, and were lost in uncertainty, and considered in their hearts whether they should deny or confess, and yet finally suffered ’4 for the faith. Of such was a woman at Lyons, Biblias, who at first denied, but when brought out by the authorities to bear witness of atheism against her fellow-Christians, ‘ awoke, as
of the damaged papyrus leaf [’laticopos typ(a>pa) v(irep) avr(£bv) ayp-(afifidrwv); see Geb. A MS 182; and for the general average of illiteracy in Egypt, Bigg Church's Taslc 9 n.]. The technical Latin term for the legal procedure involved in these libelli ia contestatio. See also Gregg DP 153 ff. for this matter.
1 Diogenes need not necessarily be regarded as a recreant Christian ; though, alas! recreant Christians abounded, he may be a mere name in a well-understood game.
2 I.e. June 2G, 250.
3 Cyprian de Laps is 24. Cyprian uncharitably ascribes this to an ‘ unclean spirit.’
4 Herm. Shep. Par. ix 28.
312 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
it were, out of a deep sleep, and was added to the number of the martyrs.’1
Of cases of recantation, one of the most interesting will be found in the records of the martyrdom of Pionius and his comrades. Not the least of the tortures of that brave band of Christians lay in the knowledge that their bishop, Euctemon, had fallen away like Judas. Pionius and others were dragged to the temple at the instigation, it was said, of Euctemon himself, in the hope that the example of their superior might lead to their own fall. On arrival they flung themselves to the ground, but six constables held Pionius fast and brought him to the altar, struggling and shouting, ‘ We are Christians.’ There the apostate bishop, with garland on his forehead, was still standing beside his sacrifice, part of which he had reserved to take home in order that he might hold a feast. But backsliders, so hardened in their crime, were not common.2
1 Euseb. HE v (i), 25, 26 ; Geb. AMS 33. Cf. de Lap. 13 (cases of C’astus and Aemilius supra 237 n.).
2 Geb. AMS 109. For recanting bishops, cf. also the interesting cases of Martial of Merida, and Basilides of Leon in Spain, given by-Cyprian Ep. lxvii. The cases are of some importance in the Roman controversy. See Benson Cyp. 233. Cyprian Ep. 54, 10 tells us of one bishop, Repostus of Tuburnuc near Carthage, who carried back most of his flock to paganism.
Whether Pope Marcellinns (t 304) recanted, but afterwards repented and was beheaded (so LP i 162) is not easy to settle. See on the one side Duchesne LP i lxxiii-iv, and on the other Lightfoot Clem, i 293-5, DCB iii 804. See also Dollinger Papal Fables s.v. Duchesne pleads that the idea has arisen from the fact that the pope who ruled from 296-304 was called confusedly Marcellus or Marcel-linus. In later days this was made into the rule of two different
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 343
VI
We must bring this study of persecution to a close. But there are one or two deductions which may be gathered on which a word is advisable.
In the Church, as in the world, the wheat and the tares grow together; the image of gold is always mixed with clay. So it has proved in the case of the martyrs. The danger of all forms of self-renunciation is the mistaking the means as an end in itself. We see examples of this in Monasticism and Puritanism ; and the same thing happened in the early Church. At times there swept over all sections an extravagant thirst for self-immolation, and Christians, in plain disregard of the teaching of Jesus, courted death with culpable recklessness, and exalted martyrdom into the one royal road to perfection.1
popes, one Marcellinue, the other Marcellus, and his record in the LP is supplied from a lost Acta Marcellini of an undoubted Diocletian martyr, whose tomb, as we know, was much visited. The explanation is iugeuious but scarcely satisfactory, as the two are distinguished as early as the Liberian catalogue (354; Duchesne LP i 6) though undoubtedly often confused. The discovery of the tomb of Marcellinus, whose position, though carefully indicated (LP i 162), is still, I believe, unknown, might clear up this difficult question.
1 The Church denounced the courting of death (Synod Elvira c. 60), but popular feeling approved (case of Romanus Euseb. MP 2, Euplius, supra p. 275 &c.). Tho craving for martyrdom was one of the marks of Montanism, from which Ignatius Pom. 5 is only narrowly separated. The Church alBO allowed flight in persecution, following Matt, x 23; cf. Cyprian supra p. 311, who gives his reasons in Ep. 20. To flight Tertullian as a Montanist was bitterly opposed (cf. his de fuga in persecutione, espec. c. 11). For Augustino’B decision see Ep. 228 (Ed. Maur, ii 830-5). Tho matter was a sore perplexity to Hus (Letters of Ilus pp. 80-2).
344 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
‘ “ What did they suffer ? ” say I. “ Listen,” saith she. “ Stripes, imprisonments, great tribulations, crosses, wild beasts, for the Name’s sake. Therefore to them beloDgs the right side of the holiness of God, to them and to all who shall suffer for the Name. But for the rest is the left side ” ’ (Herm. Shep. Vis. iii 2).
By martyrdom—
the frail becomes the perfect, rapt From glory of pain to glory of joy.1
‘ Let me be given to the wild beasts,’ cries Ignatius, ‘ for through them I can attain unto God.5 2 By martyrdom * all sins were healed.’3 Persecution was the ‘ second baptism in blood which stands in lieu of fontal baptism when that has not been received, and restores it when lost.’4 A certificate from a martyr, transferring, so to speak, his merit to another, not always specifically named, was looked upon by the lapsed as sufficient pardon for their denial of their Lord, a door of repentance, as Cyprian complained, ‘ very wide indeed,’5 a cause of much trouble to the early Church, especially in North Africa, and which led in later times to further erroneous developments of the doctrine of Indulgences.
Materialism, in one or other of its many forms, is ever the great enemy against which the spiritual has to fight; and of all forms of materialism the most dangerous, because the most insidious, is that which
1 Browning, Bing and Book, iv 78.
2 Rom. 4; Polyc. 7. Cf. supra pp. 337-8.
3 The earliest definite statement that I have met with is in Hermas Shep. Par. ix 28. The idea figures largely in the last letters of Hus. See my Letters of Hus, p. 2G8.
4 Tertull. Baptism 16.
5 On these troubles see Benson’s Cyprian 89 ff., 156 ff., 176 ff.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 345
entrenches itself within the Church itself. Unfortunately nothing more assisted the growing materialism in spiritual life in its worst forms than the excessive regard felt by the Church for her martyrs. When Gregory Thaumaturgus began the system of substituting for pagan feasts wakes over the remains of martyrs, he struck a blow, unconscious but profound, as we may see from the later mediaeval corruptions, at spiritual life itself. From this to the vast system of the veneration of relics for their own sakes, and the attributing to them every conceivable form of miraculous power, was but a step, the disasters of which are writ large in the whole history of the Church. The apotheosis against which the martyrs had protested in the case of the emperors, was now introduced into the Church in the guise of semi-divine apostles and saints. Even Lucian had noted the danger, as we see from his sneer that after his death Peregrinus passed as a god among the Christians.1
But to dwell on these things is an ungrateful task. Rather let us turn to the wreath of gold which the martyrs laid at the feet of the crucified Christ. Purposeless renunciation, the renunciation of dervish or fakir, can never appeal to the Western world. But the renunciation of the martyrs was neither purposeless nor self-centred. As their name shows, they were ‘ witnesses ’;2 as the needle turns to the
1 Lucian PP 40 ff. Cf. the fears of the pagans at Smyrna as to the dead Polycarp (Mart. Polyc. 17).
2 It is difficult to say at what date (idprvs. a ‘ witness.’ becomes techuical and must be translated as ‘ martyr.’ Cf. Clem Rom. Cor.
346 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Pole, so they must point, not to themselves, but to another. Every martyr’s death was an emphatic credo, uttered in a language that all could understand.
‘ See Socrates,’ exclaims Justin Martyr, ‘ no one trusted in him so as to die for his doctrine: but in Christ . . . not only philosophers and scholars believed, but also artisans, and people illiterate ’ (II Apol. 10).
They made this manifest by ‘ despising both glory and fear and death.’ We may own with Tertullian 1 that the argument, historically considered, is not perfectly sound. But in reality it fitted in not merely with the experience of Justin Martyr himself, but with that of thousands of others.
‘ For I myself, when I was contented with the doctrines of Plato, and heard the Christians slandered, yet saw them fearless of death and of everything that men count terrible, felt that it was impossible that these men could be living, as was reputed, in wickedness and mere pleasure ’ (II Apol. 12).
We see this power of conviction of which Justin speaks in the records, too numerous to be later inventions, of those who were won to Christ by witnessing the martyr’s death, or by having the custody of the prisoners in their last hours.2 One illustration may suffice—that of a young officer of the
6 (su-pra p. 36); Apoc. ii 13 (R.Y. “ witness ”); and Ep. of Church of Lyons (Euseb. HE v 2 Geb. AMS 42) as loci classici.
1 Tert. Apol. 46. He was thinking perhaps of Peregrinus (supra p. 331 n). Cf. ad Mart. 4 and Tatian adv Graec. 25. But Peregrinus wituesses in a way to the power of martyrdom. He obtained, in consequence, a cult at Parium (Athenag. Plea 26).
2 E.g. Basilides, in the case of Potamiaena (Euseb. HE vi 5) ; Alban of Yerulam (supra p. 271), and the unnamed companion of St. James (supra p. 25).
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 347
court in attendance on Galerius, who was so impressed by the faith of the confessors at Nicomedeia that he asked them the secret of their courage, and, on receiving instruction, when next the Christians were examined, stepped forward and requested Galerius to make a note of his name among theirs. ‘Are you mad ? ’ asked Galerius. ‘ Do you wish to throw away your life ?' ‘ I am not mad,’ was the reply. ‘ I was mad once, but am now in my right mind.’ After many tortures he won his crown. In his case, as in countless conversions in every age, it was not full-orbed knowledge of Christian truth, but one ray of light that wrought the change. The confession ‘ Jesus is Lord ’ was sufficient.
The martyrs also were witnesses to a creed, simple it is true, but none the less definite and real. They did not lay down their lives for vague generalities, wider visions, or larger hopes. They knew not only in whom, but in what they believed, and bore witness before judge and mob, oftentimes with their dying breath, to the vitalizing power of a concrete and definite faith. In the later stories of the martyrs there is a tendency to amplify their creeds, to turn them from their simplicity into argumentative and theological systems.1 In the earlier records, however, faith is not a philosophy, but dwells rather on the central truths2 which to the martyr seemed so all-important that for them he would lay down life itself.
1 Illustrations abound. One of the best will be found in the Acts of Callistratu#, Conybeare MEC 300 ff.
- Conybeare MEC 33, from the silence of Apollonius (supra p. 218 n.)
348 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
Prominent among these was the belief in his own immortality as the result of the resurrection of his Lord.1 But the central ‘ witness ’ of the martyrs was to the living reality of the person of Christ, and to ‘the reign of the Eternal King.’2 In bearing this testimony they shared the power of such beliefs to exalt human nature. By his death the martyr proved that man “was more than a dull jest.” An instance will illustrate our meaning. Let the reader contrast the typical slave as depicted in lihe pages of Plautus or Terence with the slave that we see, not once nor twice, ennobling the annals of the Church. The slave of Terence may be exceptional—in his wit he certainly was—and so also was the slave-martyr. But this does not alter our argument, the contrast of the ideals they represent. In the records of slave-martyrs we have the witness to a social revolution going on in the world, the depth and meaning of which was probably hidden even from the Christians themselves. ‘ And you too, Evelpistus, what are you ? ’ said the judge Rusticus, the friend of Marcus Aurelius, to one
in his simple defence and crecd, infers “ that the martyr had not heard of the legend of the birth of Christ from a virgin.” Arguments from silence are notoriously dangerous; -while the undoubted silence of martyrs on this matter (though see Acta Theclae c. 1; Geb. AMS p. 215) might well be due to a correct unwillingness to degrade their Saviour by arguments or statements which would probably be misunderstood by heathen audiences well versed in the licentious tales of their gods. Moreover, the statement of Conybeare breaks down when tested by wider literature. “ No passage made so deep an impression as the birth-narrativea in Matthew, and especially in Luke” (Harnaek EC i 115 n.).
1 Supra p. 327. 8 See supra p. 103.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 340
of the companions of Justin, a slave in Caesar’s household. ‘ I am a Christian,’ was the reply, ‘ set free by Christ.’1
Nowhere do we see this more beautifully brought out than in the case of Blandina, the slave-girl of Lyons. Even her mistress had feared for her
* that she would not be able to make a bold confession on account of the weakness of her body.’ But after the tormentors had tortured her ‘ from morning until evening, until they were tired and weary, confessing that they were baffled, for they had no other tortures that they could apply to her,’ her fellow-Christians realized that ‘ in Blandina Christ showed that the things which to man appear mean and deformed and contemptible are with God deemed worthy of great honour.’ So when finally she was
‘ hung up, fastened to a stake in the shape of a cross, as food for tho wild beasts that were let loose against her, she inspired the others with great eagerness, for in the combat of their sister they saw Him who was crucified for them. . . . And after she had been scourged, and exposed to the wild beasts, and roasted in the iron chair, she was at last enclosed in a net and cast before a bull.’
So Blandina passed over ‘ as one invited to a marriage supper,’ and sat down with Yettius Epa-gathus, the rich young nobleman, in the King’s presence.2
The consideration of the triumph of Blandina, and of the hundreds of others of whom she is but a representative, leads us to ask a question? We do so in the words of a great master of English:
1 Gebhardt AMS p. 20.
* See supra p. 296.
350 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
“ "Whence came this tremendous spirit, scaring, nay offending, the criticism of our delicate days? Does Gibbon think to sound the depths of eternal ocean with the tape and measuring-rod of merely literary philosophy ? ”1
We would quote in answer the wise summary of a recent secular historian, whose study of the principate of Nero has led him to survey the conflict and its issue:
We may not under-rate the “ secondary causes” of Christianity’s growth. But neither may we neglect the external circumstances which promised only, it might seem, too surely to destroy it altogether. Persecution may be a sign of strength. It is hardly a cause of strength when it is cruel and persistent. . . . Persecution may kill a religion and destroy it utterly, if that religion’s strength lies only in its numbers, by a simple process of [exhaustion. The opinion that no belief, no moral conviction, can be eradicated from a country by persecution is a grave popular fallacy.
Christianity, we conclude, answered man’s needs and his cry for aid, articulate and inarticulate, conscious or unconscious, in the early days of the Roman Empire, as did no other creed or philosophy. When, however, we face soberly the questions whence came such a creed into existence which could satisfy human wants, as none other before or since, and how came the new, despised, and persecuted religion to overcome perils and dangers of a terrible kind, with no external agency in its favour and every external power ranged against it, we do not feel inclined to deduce the rapidity of its growth and its victory over all opponents from a mere balance of its internal advantages over its external disqualifications. We admit the vigorous secondary causes of its growth, but we have left its origin unexplained, and cannot but see as well the vigour and strength of the foes which willed its destruction and powerfully dissuaded from its acceptance. And there exists for us, as historians, no secondary nor human cause or combination of causes sufficient to account for the triumph of Christianity.2
1 Newman Grammar of Assent 4S3. The context is magnificent declamation, though its instances are not always strictly historical. The reference is, of course, to Gibbon’s famous c. 15.
2 Henderson PN 357. The whole of the chapter is well worth reading.
THE EXPERIENCES OF THE PERSECUTED 351
There is but one sufficient explanation: the new religion descended * out of heaven from God.’
We have pointed out already that the martyrs were witnesses to the absoluteness of the Christian faith, that the religion of Jesus would have nothing to do with the current syncretism.1 Time after time we find judges, either actuated by mercy or prompted by their “philosophy,” striving to draw the martyrs into syncretistic admissions which would have given them their liberty. But the martyrs refused to purchase life by any compromise between their faith and ‘the world.’ Well would it be for the Church to-day if she could learn the lesson they taught. The fashionable syncretism of the empire has passed away ; men are no longer intent on the identification of the gods of Greece and Rome. In its place we see a more dangerous fusion, the identification of the world and the Church, the syncretism of material and spiritual things. We need once more to catch the martyr -spirit, a belief in the absoluteness of the Christian faith translated into facts which shall make the Church ‘ a peculiar people,’ whose strength does not lie in any blending of light and darkness, but in her renunciation of and aloofness from ‘ the world.’
The resolute renunciation of the world, of which the martyrs were the crown and symbol, did more than anything else to make the Church strong to conquer the world. The martyrs were witnesses to the truth that only by renouncing the world can we really do anything for it. Critics of different schools
1 Supra pp. 85-6.
352 PERSECUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
have found fault with primitive Christianity for being too unworldly and ascetic, and have pointed to the more excellent mean of modern times. But twentieth-century ideals of renunciation would never have effected the gigantic revolution which sapped and dissolved gigantic polytheisms, and overthrew the Roman Empire itself. Vicisti Galilaee is not merely the self-conscious cry of a dying paganism ; it is the splendid testimony wrung from reluctant lips to the power of the ideals of the Cross.
For the obedience unto death of those who followed the Lamb whithersoever He went, partook also of the persuasiveness of the supreme Sacrifice. In the noble army of martyrs we salute the conquerors of the world. In the fine figure of Justin the Church was a vine which, the more it bled under the pruning-knife, the more fruitful it became. ‘ The more men multiply our sufferings, the more does the number of the faithful grow.’1 For in the words of the dying martyrs men heard the voice of the Holy Spirit, convicting the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgement.2 The proud boast of Tertullian was correct. ‘ The blood of the martyrs is indeed the seed of the Church. Dying we conquer. The moment we are crushed, that moment we go forth victorious.’3
1 Justin Dial. 110. Cf. Tert. Scap. 5.
2 Cf. Cyprian Ep. 8, ‘ Vox plena Spiritus Sancti de martyris ore prorupit.’
3 Tert. Apol. 50.
O God, to whom the faithful dead Still live, united to their Head, Their Lord and ours the same ; For all Thy saints, to memory dear, Departed in Thy faith and fear,
We bles3 Thy holy name.
By the same grace upheld, may we So follow those who followed Thee, As with them to partake The full reward of heavenly bliss. Merciful Father! grant us this,
For our lledeemor’s sake.
APPENDIX A
NOTES ON THE DATES AND AUTHORSHIP OF CERTAIN DISPUTED WORKS
.B.—These notes are not intended as a discussion of the matters concerned, but as a brief indication of the 'position assumed in the Lecture in the use of certain most important documents, and of the reasons.
New Testament.
(а) Philippian s. See supra p. 35 n.
(б) II Timothy. Whatever the date and whoever the author,
I think the genuineness of its traditions re St. Paul’s trial (whether first or second is another matter) must be conceded. See Moffatt ENT 561, and supra p. 38 n. 1.
(c) Ep. Peter. ThiB important Ep. proves a general persecution (i 6, iv 12,16) in Asia Minor north of the Taurus (i 1; note especially Bithynia and cf. supra p. 210 n.), and elsewhere (v 9). Tho Christians suffer ‘ for the Name,’ but not the Name alone (iv 14). They are the objects of vile slanders (ii 12, 15, iii 14-16, iv 4, 15) as well as of considerable zeal on the part of the officials (v 8, iii 15 Gk.). As regards the slanders, the Christians should be circumspect (ii 15-16, iii 16-17, iv 15). The persecution will be short, for tho end of all things is at hand (iv 7, 13, v 4).
The important matter for us is the date. There are three main theories:
(i.) Ramsay ChE 279-95 dates in 75-80. The evidence in favour (‘ the Name ’) seems to me slight. See supra p. 55 n., and cf. Moffatt ENT 245. For Harnack’s view 83-93 (CAL i 457) see Chase’s criticism DB iii 786.
(ii.) As late as Trajan. ThiB rests on a mistaken and
APPENDIX A
355
abandoned hypothesis. See supra 52 n. and cf. Moffatt UNT 246-7.
(iii.) Written by St. Peter in the summer of 64. So Lightf. Clem, ii 498, Hort, JC 154-5, Farrar EDC 81, Sauday and Headlam Romans xxxi n., Henderson PN 439. This view is the one which seems to me best to explain the circumstances. The objection of the silence of II Tim. re ‘the Name’ (though cf. II Tim. ii 8) is overcome by not pressing too much its technical meaning.
Zahn Ein. ii 17-27, Renan, Bartlet AA 306 n., Chase in DB iii 791, Bigg Ep. Peter 87, date before the Great Fire. But if so St. Paul cannot have been acquitted (cf. Ramsay PT 308), and the persecution must have been due to tho Jews alone. I prefer to bring in Tac. xv 44, and to believe in the acquittal of St. Paul.
(f?) II Peteb. The absence of all refereuco to persecution is so remarkable, considering the date of I Ep. Peter, that we are driven to conclude either (i.) That it is really anterior to I Peter. (So apparently Bigg Ep. Peter 215, though cf. 289 on ib. iii 1.)
(ii.) Or if this explanation be rejected, as by most scholars (Moffatt ENT 596), to surrender its Petrine authorship.
(iii.) Or to adopt Ramsay’s view of the date of I Peter ; already rejected.
(e) Ep. Hebrews. Chaps, x-xiii undoubtedly refer to some persecution. Harnaek conjectures that x 32, 33 (dearpi-(6/iei/ot) refers to Nero’s scenic punishments (supra p. 286). So also Renan L’Ant. 163 u., 217 n. But this is rejected by Lightf. Clem. 6, largely, one feels, in tho interest of his proposed new reading. ‘ Those from Italy ’ (xiii 24, cf. Apoe. xviii 4) may refer to fugitives from Nero’s persecution (Renan o.o. 205 n.), and the 5iKaloi TeTe\etw/j.evot (xii 23) to his victims. But tho date, authorship, and persons addressed are so uncertain that I have not built any conclusion upon this Epistle.
(/) Apocalypse. This work is of such importanco for my subject that I give a full notice. It proves severe persecution in Asia (i 9, ii 10, iii 10, vii 14, xii 11-17, xvi 6), and in Rome (xvii 6, xviii 24), the ground of which apparently
2 A 2
356
APPENDIX A
was Caesar-worship (ii 13, xiii 15, 18, xv 2, xvi 5-10, xvii 6, xix 20, xx 4). Some of the victims (? honestiores, supra p. 64 n.) were beheaded (xx 4), but there is no clear mention of burning (? xvi 8, 9). The Christians have suffered for ‘the Name’ (ii 13, cf. I Pet. iv 14 and supra) and will suffer even more in the future (ii 10, iii 10, vi 9-11, xiii 7).
The great question is the date. Two theories :
(i.) Written under the Flavians (Vespasian, Mommsen PRE ii 199 ; a date not far removed from (ii) infra), probably Domitian. So the older commentators and recent critics, e.g. Bury Gibbon ii 25 n., Harnack, Bamsay ChE and SC, Hardy CRG 96, Zahn Ein. ii 582-616, Moffatt HNT 460, Bousset in EB 207, DB iv 259, and Scott Anderson.
The great arguments in favour are: (a) the testimony of Irenaeus Haer. v 30, 3, ‘ almost in our own day, towards the end of Domitian’s reign ’ (cf. Euseb. HE iii IS, v 8). But this may be the date of publication ; see supra p. 46 n. It has also been suggested (Simcox, Selwyn CP 29 ff.) that this refers to, or arose from a confusion of, Domitian’s very arbitrary regency in Rome, Jan. to Oct., 70, while VospaBian was coming from the East (Suet. Dorn. 1, Tac. Hist, iv 2, 11). (0) Stress is laid upon the developed character of Caesar-worship, and the wide extent of the persecution, which demand a late date. But these are the questions in dispute, in the solution of which Apoc. is no small part of the evidence (supra 94 ff).
(ii.) Due to the persecution of Nero, and written shortly after his death. Renan, Farrar EDC 404-36, Selwyn OP 215 ff., HendersonTA7 439 ff., and many others. To this solution I incline as the only alteruative to composite elements and authorship.
The arguments in favour are: (a) Renan’s argument from the list of emperors (xvii 10, 11) impossible for Yespasian unless we omit Galba, Otho, Vitellius, while for Domitian the list must be more straiued. (j8) The number of the Beast. See Renan L’Ant. 415 ff. In spite of Salmon’s fun (aVr 224 ff.), this seems the only solution yet
APPENDIX A
357
proposed of any value, (y) The book, at any rate a portion, is written before the destruction of Jerusalem (xi 1-13). (5) Its intense hatred of the Empire would suit well a date while the great war with the Jews was still in progress, (e) The references to Pseudo-Nero (xiii 3, 12, xviii 8), who first appeared about Jan., 69 (Tac. 1list, i 2, ii 8; Suet. Nero 57, hints at same. See Henderson PN 415-21, Renan L’Ant. 316-20, 352 n., 457). There was a second pretender in the reign of Titus (Momm. PEE ii 62-4), and a third in 88 (Suet. Nero 57. Cf. also on this matter Orac. Sibyl, iv
119 ff., 137 ff.; v 145 ff., 363 ff.; xiii 122). The first Nero redivivuB seems to fit beat. (Q The song of the burning of Rome (xviii) seems a memory, too realistie to be remote, of the fire of 64. But the absence of any reference to the burning of Christians (Tac. Ann. xv 44) would seem to show that the author was not himself in Rome (supra 45 n. 2 fin).
The question of the author of the Apoc. is not of such importance to my subject as its date. But, provided au early date is assigned to the Apoc.,
I do not see that the impossibility of its author being the writer of tho Gospel is established, in spite of the great contrast in grammar and ideas (well set out in Selwyn CP c. 5, 224-5, 258-63). Ramsay’s combination of a late date with the authorship of the Gospel (SC passim) seems to me absolutely impossible (cf. J. H. Moulton Grammar NT (1906) 9 n.). But in any case the difficulties of assigning the same authorship are great.
If the early date for Apoo. be surrendered, I should be inclined to surrender the Jewish authorship of the Apoc. rather than of the Gospel (so Drummond FG 442), and to assign Apoc. to Elder John (as Euseb. EE iii 24, 25, Dionysius of Alexandria in Euseb. HE vii 25). Certainly tho references in tho Apoc. to Apostles (xix 14, xviii 20) are hard to reconcile with the author being one of them. There is much to he said, also, for Vischer’s theory that Apoc. i-iii was published later than iv-xxii,
358
APPENDIX B
and that Apoc. embodies composite sources. Thia would combine the Neronic references and the Domitianic date of recast. (Cf. supra 46 n., Selwyn CP 184-94, Moffatt ENT 461-2.)
II. Other 'Writers.
(«) Ep. Clement. Supra p. 206 n.
(b) Ep. Ignatius. I see no reason to doubt the conclusions of
Lightfoot. For date sec supra p. 337 n. Harnack, who rejects the Ignatian authorship, dates but a few years later.
(c) Ep. Barnabas. Supra p. 116 n.
(rf) Ep. Diognetus. Supra p. 168 n.
(f) Shep. op Hermas. Supra p. 219 n. 3.
(g) Mixuo. Felix. Octavius. Supra p. 221.
(h) Justin I Apol. Since the investigations of Volkmar and
F. G. Kenyon, the older date (138) has been abandoned for shortly after 150 (Harnack CAL i 274 ff.). The ao-called
II Apol. not much later. See also supra 227 n. I (a).
(£•) Lactantius de Mortibus Fersecntorum. That Lactantius was the author of this work was suspected by Gibbon (c xx n. 40), and has been challenged by Brandt. As the work is of great importance for the study of Diocletian’s persecution, the matter is of some moment. The arguments of Brandt are carefully investigated by Bury (Gibbon ii 530-1) who decides in favour of Lactantius; date 314-5.
APPENDIX B
THE ALLEGED MARTYRDOM OF ST. JOHN IN A.D. 44
N.B.—In the following appendix I do not enter, except incidentally, into questions of the authorship of the Gospel, &c. I desire merely to state briefly the facts or data of this very difficult preliminary matter, which strikes at the root of all the traditional views, viz. that St. John, the son of Zebedee, perished in 44 along with his brother. Since the monograph of Schwarz (Ueber den Tod der Siihne Zebedaei; Berlin, 1904), the question cannot be neglected, especially in a work that deals with the martyrdom inter alia of the Apostles. But for a fuller investigation of the problems connected with St. John the
APPENDIX B
359
student must refer to the works of Harnaek, Baron, Sehwarz, Bouaset, EB, on the one side, and Drummond FO, Sanday Criticism of the Fourth Gospel (1905), &c., on the other.
I. The arguments in favour of the alleged martyrdom are the following : (a) A fragment of the laTopia xputticuuk)) of Philip of Side (c. 430), published by De Boor in TU (1888) v (2) 170, claims for it the authority of Papias (na7nas iv StvTepcp \6ycp \4yei otl ’Iwamjy
o 0eo\6yos ical 'ldxw&os 6 ade\(pbs avrov virb ’I ovSaiuv avr)pidi)<rav; “ Papias in his second book states that John the Divine and James his brother were slain by Jews”), (b) This confirms a previously known statement of George the Sinner (“ Hamartolus ”; ninth century), ed. de Boor p. 447 to the same eficct. (c) Some claim au evident allusion in Mark x. 39 to this death a3 already accomplished, at the time when St. Mark’s Gospel was written.
II. On this evidence we may remark (a) Philip of Side’s quotation can scarcely be literal, for 6 6eo\6yos as a title of St. John cannot have been in existence as early as Papias. To maintain the literal accuracy of this sentence leads to the following dilemma : St. John was called ‘the divine’ becauso of his writings, yet was slain in 44 before he had written anything (except possibly a few fragments written in the reign of Caius, afterwards incorporated into an anonymous Apocalypse, to which his name in consequence became attached). (6) But if the statement be not a literal quotation, the confusion may be on the part of Philip of Side, who has identified an otherwise unknown martyr-John with the Apostle, (c) Nor is much support to be gained from George the Sinner. If this last stood alone, be could be explained, as by Lightfoot (Essays Supernat. Relig. 212), by a lacuna, (cl) In any caso, Philip of Side does not state that the two brothers were martyred together, though the order of words lends itself to that interpretation. We may date the death of this John at tho hands ‘ of Jews’ (N.B. not ot ’louSatoi, ‘ the Jews,’ i.e. of Judea ; the vaguer phrase may refer to Jews of Asia) in any year from 41 to 100, and in any place, (e) The whole, in fact, reads like a later inference from Mark x 39, where the two are coupled together in ‘ drinking the cup.’ In the case of a careless writer such as Papias, this is as likely as a hypothesis the difficulties of which are enormous.
III. There are other objections to the early martyrdom of St. John, (a) Gal. ii 9. That St. Paul is here speaking of the Elder John, or of John Mark (I), seems to be incredible. (b) The ailcnce of Acts xii 2 is inexplicable unless we assumo that it is a (purposely) inaccurate account written to bolster up a Inter tradition in the interests of the fourth Gospel, (c) The fact that in this case all the Johannine
360
APPENDIX B
literature is pseudonymous. II and III Ep. John and Apoc. may be written by another, perhaps by ‘ the Elder.’ Bnt I Ep. John and the Gospel seem to me to be written by the Apostle; at any rate, the difficulties in the way of supposing that the early Church mistook so great a writer for one who had perished almost unnoticed half a century before seem to me overwhelming (on this see Drummond FO especially 101-3). (cZ) Iu this connection we may note the evidence of the modern name of Ephesus (Ayasaluk, a corruption of ayios 6eo\Syos). Towns do not receive their names from anonymous writers. On the contrary, to identify this writer with the Elder John leaves more difficulties than it solves, as Drummond FO has shown.
IV. Against this almost solitary statement of Philip of Side with all its difficulties we must place the positive evidence that a John died a natural death at Ephesus in the reign of Trajan, whom Irenaeus and others in a position to know identified with the son of Zebedee. On this matter (excellently discussed in Drummond FO c. 5), the following are the most important loci classici: (a) John xxi 22, 23 ; Irenaeus Haer ii (22) 5 ; iii (1) 1; (3) 4; v (33) 4; especially the letter of Irenaeus to Florinus in Euseb. EE v 20. See also the letter of Irenaeus to Victor bishop of Rome (189-09) in Euseb. HE v 24. Dionysius of Alexandria (c. 170) in Euseb. HE vii 25. (b) The tradition of the Syrian Churches ; Drummond FG 233.
V. The only orthodox writer who states that a John of Ephesus died as ‘a martyr’ (for by 195 the meaning of ndprvs was more than ‘ witness’) is Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus (c. 195), in Euseb. HE iii 31 and v 24. He mentions among the ‘ great luminaries ’ who have fallen asleep in Asia: ‘ John who leaned on the breast of the Lord, who had been (made) a priest (lepevs) wearing the ireraXov, both pdpTus and SiSdfficaAos : he sleeps in Ephesus.’ (On this ireTaXov, or high priest’s golden plate, see Drummond FG 209 n.)
According to Lightf. Gal. 362 n., “the whole passage is a very rude specimen of the florid ‘Asiatic’ style,” and the wearing of the 7reraXov is merely figurative. The statement of an early bishop of Ephesus cannot, I think, be dismissed in so summary a style. But it is evident that the passage cannot refer to St. John the Apostle, for ‘ apostle ’ and ‘teacher ’ (supra 144 n. 3) are distinct orders. On the other hand, this ‘teacher’ John who wore the treraXov may well be the Elder John (Euseb. HE iii 39; the author probably of II and III Ep. John, and possibly of the Apoc.; 8ee supra App. A I / (ii), taking ‘ Elder ’ to refer, not to the order of ‘ presbyters ’ in the Church (an ‘ elder ’ in this sense could not be a ‘ teacher ’), but to the fact that he had borne a Jewish office, probably as a member of the Sanhedrim
APPENDIX B
361
(Selwyn OP 127), and was a connexion of the high priest’B. (That the Apoc. was written by one of the ‘ elders,’ or Sanhedrim, would explain the use of the word in Apoc. iv 4, &e., where it cannot mean ‘ presbyter.’)
VI. The difficulties every way are not slight. As regards the view taken on p. 48, the two chief objections to identifying this St. John with .the Apostle are (a) the silence of Polyearp and of Ignatius, especially that the latter, writing a few years after the death of St. John to the Ephesians, should ignore St. John and mention St. Paul. But the date of Epp. Ignatius is uncertain. (b) So also Clem. Rom. Ep. Cor. 42, 44 seems to hint that the Apostolic age is over. Now, if this epistle was written 95-6 (Lightfoot), or 93-5 (Harnack), this is remarkable, if St. John was still alive at Ephesus. But the language of Ep. Cor. is often loose and rhetorical; ef. supra pp. 36, 37 n. 1.
VII. To sum up. The following seem to me the lines of least resistance and difficulty—it is impossible in so intricate a matter to say more, (a) The Btory of Papias, if not a mere blunder of Philip of Sid6, refers to some otherwise unknown John, whom Philip of Side, acting on a blundering interpretation of Mark x 39, mistook for the Apostle, the tradition of whose death has lingered not only in Papias, but possibly in Clem. Alex, (see supra p. 25). (i>) There was a John the Elder, a member of a Jewish priestly family, who died, possibly, as a ‘ martyr ’ in Ephesus, and who may have been the author of II and III Epp. John and Apoc. In this last case (by no means absolutely proven), it was the Elder John who was tho victim of the persecution of Nero (see supra p. 46 and App. A I / (ii). (c) St. John the Apostle died in extreme old age a natural death at Ephesus in the reign of Trajan, and was tho author in extreme old ago of the Gospel and I Epistle. For the theory recently put forth that the ‘ disciple whom Jesus loved ’ was not St. John (John xxi 2 is unfortunately ambiguous), but John of Ephesus, leads to the hopeless puzzle that at the Last Supper the place of honour next to Jesus was occupied by a young man not an Apostle, whom no Apostle or companion of Apostles ever mention by name, and that such an honoured and presumably, therefore, great man was afterwards mistaken by people who ought to know for the perfectly obscure John-Zebedee. The larger this ‘ beloved disciplo ’ loomed, the more honoured he was by Jesus, the greater his literary works, the more absurd, in my judgement, such a theory becomes.
362
APPENDIX C
APPENDIX C
THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL
I. The crucifixion by Nero of St. Peter at Rome (Babylon I Pet. v 13) seems to mo beyond reasonable doubt. Tho evidence in favour is well set out by Dr. Chase in DCB iii 769-78, while all that can be pleaded against will be found in EB 4591-4027. The main passages in favour are Clem. Rom. Cor. 5, 6 (supra 36), Tert. Adv Marc, iv 5, Praescript 36, Scorp. 15, Dionysius of Corinth (c. 170) in Euseb. EE ii 25, Origen in ib. iii 1, Lactant. MP 2, and the doubtful AAA (see supra 43 n.), whose witness, however, as to the fact of St. Peter’s death in Rome is almost unanimous, and not to be explained on the tendency-principles of EB 4614. Special value should perhaps be assigned to the evidence of the Ascension of Isaiah (Ed. Charles, 1900) iv 3 (‘of tho twelve one will be delivered into his, i.e. Nero’s, hands’), especially if the date assigned by Charles (between 88 and 100) be correct. (See, however, EB 4596.)
II. That St. Peter died within a few months of the fire of July, 64, seems to me a fair inference from the position of his tomb (supra 44 and 286 n. 1) and his presence in Rome. For St. Paul’s death see supra 38 n. The order of names in Clem. Cor. 5 (supra 36) may thus be chronological. The date in the Liberian Catalogue (LP i 3) for St. Peter’s death as 55 is evidently made by adding 25 (supposed length of episcopacy) to 30 (supposed death of Christ). The arguments of Swete Mark (189S) xvii-viii for the death pf St. Paul prior to St. Peter’s seem to me unconvincing. For Ramsay’s date for St. Peter’s death (a.d. 80) see supra App. A I (c) (i). It seems to me to lead to many difficulties.
III. Tho idea that St. Peter and St. Paul suffered together is an iuference from the union of their names in Clem. Cor. 5, Ign. Bom. 4, further developed by Dionysius of Corinth in Euseb. HE ii 25 into the statement that they ‘ suffered martyrdom at the same time ’ (/cara rbv avrbv Katpov, which need not be pressed). Later writers (Tert. Scorp. 15, Praescript. 36) always join together the two, though loosely. Prudentius Peristeph. xii 5 represented them as suffering on the same day one year apart. From tho festival of their temporary depositio (see supra p. 262) we gain the common festival of their deaths on June 29, and the mediaeval idea that they suffered the same day of
APPENDIX 0
363
the same year. This idea is first found in the Liberian Catalogue (c. 354) in LP i 2, cf. ib. i 118; thence adopted by Jerome Vir. III. 5).
IV. For the martyrdom of St. Paul the authorities are practically the same as for St. Peter. See DCB iii 769-78, Lewin’s St. Paul ii 405 (set out in full), Harnaek CALi 210-3. For the date see supra 38. The dato in McGiffert Apostolic Age (1897) p. 419 (a.d. 58) seems to me as much too early as that of Lightfoot (supra 38) is too late. It swings back to that of the Liberian Catalogue (supra II).
V. For the places of burial of St. Peter and St. Paul see the statement of Caius (198-217) quoted in Euseb. HE ii 25, 6 and Jerome de Vir. III. 1. ‘But I am able to show the “trophies” (tcl rpSiraia) of the Apostles. For if you will come to the Vatican or Ostean way,’ &c., where ra rp6iraia may mean ‘ places of burial ’ or ‘ places of death ’ (lit. ‘ signs of victory ’) or ‘ monuments,’ i.e. tombs over the same. But in this case the two meanings are the same, especially if we reject the story of the Tre Fontane (supra 40 n. 3). In the case of St. Peter the traditions are very definite: ‘ Qui eepultus est via Aurelia, iu templum Apollonis, juxta locum ubi crucifixus est, juxta palatium Neronianum, juxta temturium Triumphalem ’; LP i 118 with Duchesne’s notes (i 120) showing that the pal. Neronianum was the circus (supra p. 286) and the templum Apollonis a confusion of a temple of the Great Mother. Cf. also the definite location in Acta Petri et Pauli 84 (Lipsius AAA 216). So also, in spite of its manifest “tendency” against the Eastern Church (supra 262 n. 2), is the definite location in the Passio SS. Petri el Paxdi (Lipsius AAA 177). The depositio in 258 (LP i 11) near St. Sebastian I have explained already (supra p. 262). How well the traditional accounts, in tho case of both St. Peter and St. Paul, fit in with the results of archaeology is set out in Lanciani PCR 126 ff., 150 ff. Nor is there any difficulty in understanding how the bodies would be handed over (supra p. 258).
The Janieulan tradition of tho place of death of St. Peter commemorated by the Church of S. Pietro in Montorio (i.e. Montaurelio) arose from a confusion of the via Aurelia on the Vatican with the older road of the same name on the Janieulan, and from a midtaken interpretation of the ‘ inter duas metas,’ between which tradition held that St. Teter was executed (see Lanciani PCR 128).
VI. As regards the deaths of the Aposlles, the various legends would appear to have had their origin in a work called vepiSSoi nuv airoffriXwv, “The Wanderings of tho Aposlles,” a work of Gnostic origin ascribed to I.eucius (Charimis), and dating between 160 and
364
APPENDIX D
170, possibly (Zahn) as early as 130. They may be studied in Lipsius and Bonnet AAA (text only)—my references are to this—or Hennecke Neutestamentliche Apokryphen Leipzig, 1904, 2 vols., one text and one of “ Handbuch.” These two editions supplant the older Tischendorf, AAA. See also Malan’s Conflicts of the Apostles. To what exteut the legends are early Christian poetry (Boissier FP ii 8) due to parousian and Gnostic tendencies, and to what extent they are founded upon some basis of tradition, it is now impossible to decide. The earlier their date the more likely that they contain some basis of fact.
APPENDIX D
THE PERSECUTION OF NERO
As regards the persecution of Nero there are three theories—
(a) The sufferers were Jews, probably zealots, not Christians at all. So Gibbon ii 88-9, and, in different forms, by many Germans. Bury (ed. Gibbon) dismisses it as not worth discussion. See also Hardy CRO G1 ff.; Lightfoot Phil. 24 ff.; Furneaux Tac. ii 573.
Merivale’s refinement (vi 448-9) that the Jews dragged the Christiana into the same condemnation, is without evidence, except possibly Suetonius Claud. 25, Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit, which seems to me (unless indeed one of many marks of Suetonius’ carelessness) a proof merely that at that date (c. 50) the diatinction between Jew and Christian was not clearly made. So Gibbon ii 82, n. The whole passage, in fact, is very doubtful.
! (fc) The Jews were first accused, but succeeded in shifting the blame on to the Christians. Renan L’Antech. 157 ff.
There is no evidence except a doubtful interpretation of Clement, Cor. 6, Sia {rjAos iradivres (see also infra (c)), and Pseudo-Seneca’s correspondence with St. Paul, Ep. 12 (Seneca; ed. Haase iii 476 ff.), Christiani et Judaei quasi machinatores incendii affecti supplicio uri solent. This fourth-century statement might possibly be derived from some earlier source. But the silence of Josephus seems to me conclusive.
(c) The Christiana alone accused and punished, probably at the instigation of the Jewa (Lightf. Ign. i 10-11, Harnack EC ii 116, n.).
APPENDIX E
365
To this last probably the passage in Clem. Cor. 6, cited above, refers. The Christians suffered ‘ through spite ’ (Jewish), for I should reject the view of Hardy (o.c. 68) of two parties in the Church, one of which denounced the other. The words of Tacitus, ‘indicio eorum,’ &c. (quoted supra p. 54 n.), do not necessitate this, though there may have been those who turned traitor under torture (cf. Heb. vi 4-6). Eather the ‘ evidence ’ was that of the Jews (Fumeaux ii 580).
As regards the extent of the persecution of 64 there are two theories—
(i.) Confined to Rome. So Dodwell de Martyrum Paucitate (Oxford, 1684) xiii, Merivale, Gibbon, Harnack EC ii 116, and many others.
(ii.) General, at any rate in Asia Minor. The only evidence earlier than the late Orosius Hist, vii 17 is I Peter and Apoc. Their evidence depends on their date. If this be settled as early (see Appendix A), the evidence is conclusive. (Cf. Renan L’Ant. 183.) But the fact of Pliny’s hesitation (supra p. 211) is proof that the persecution of 64 was not founded on any imperial rescript, and was merely executive. The supposed graffito of Pompeji (CIL iv 679, the letters hristian, traced in charcoal, now faded), which has been accepted (e.g Hardy o.c. 64, Lightf. Ign. i 416) as evidence of persecution and use of the name Christian in that region, is very doubtful; see Mau Pompei 18, Renan
o.c. 184, n.; and cf. Tert. Apol. 40, who states that there were no Christians in the Campagna at the time of the destruction of Pompeii. But Tertullian is too rhetorical to be pressed. Moreover, St. Paul found Christians at Puteoli (Acts xxviii 14). A copy of the graffito may be seen in Aub6 PE 416. The oft-quoted Lusitaninn inscription at Clunia (OIL ii fals. 231) is also a forgery. For the supposed evidence of Sulpio. Sev. Cliron. ii 29 see infra App. E.
APPENDIX E
THE LAWS UNDER 'WHICH CHRISTIANS WERE CONDEMNED
Tho article of Tb. Mommsen: Der lleligionxfrevel nach rdmischen llecht iu Hid. Zeiteclirift (1890) lxiv pp. 389-429 creatod a revolution in tho views takon by historiaus of this matter. The views of Mommsen have been followed by Hardy CltG, Ramsay ChE, Lo
366
APPENDIX E
Blant (in his Bases juridiques des poursuites dirigees contre les martyrs, reprinted in his Les Perstcuteurs et les Martyrs, Paris, 1893), and the majority of recent historians. The arguments have been set forth at length in c. II of this Lecture. Only by Mommsen’s view— briefly stated, that persecution in the first two centuries was a police matter rather than the result of special laws—does it seem to me that we are able to explain the correspondence of Pliny and Trajan, the fact that Ulpian put the regulations against Christians under the heading of ‘ de officio proconsulis ’ (see supra p. 240 n. 1), and, above all, the alternations of toleration and persecution as set forth in c. IV. The control of religion, moreover, was undoubtedly a magisterial function, part of their regular ‘jus exercitionis.’ On this matter, in addition to Mommsen’s article, the student may consult with advantage Dr. Max Conrat (or Cohn) Die Chridenverfolgungen im romischen Beiche vom Standpunkte des Juriden (Leipzig, 1897).
The views of Mommsen have not, however, been accepted by all historians. The best statement of the arguments against that I am acquainted with is C. Callewaert: Les premiers Chretiens furent-ils persecutes par €dits g€n€raux ou par mesures de police 1 two articles in the Revae Eistoire Ecclesiastique for Oct., 1901, and April, 1902 (readers at the Brit. Mus. should look under “ Academies; Louvain ”). Cf. also Allard I HP 164-7. Callewaert, who quotes many other writers, none of which, so far as I have checked them, add to his arguments, makes much of certain passages in Tertullian (especially Apol. 4, and ad Nat. i 6, ‘ non licet esse vos,’ ‘ Christianum puniunt leges ’), and also of the passage in Sulpic. Severus Chron. ii 29 (not 41 as Callewaert) speaking of Nero, ‘ post, etiam datis legibus religio vetebatur, palamque edictis propositis Christianum esse non licebat.’ But Sulpicius Severus, in spite of his indebtedness to Tacitus, as Bernays has shown, is too late an authority to be relied upon. I cannot see that Callewaert has made out his case. Tho only thing that can be said in favour is this, that undoubtedly the laws against Christianity, if any such existed in the first two centuries, would bo destroyed by the Justinian legislators, just as the edicts of Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian were unfortunately destroyed, so that all that we have left in the Digest are certain police regulations which would affect Christianity inter alia. On the existing evidence I see no escape from the conclusions of Mommsen.
APPENDIX F
367
APPENDIX F
THE NUMBER OF THE MARTYRS; THE PERCENTAGE OF CHRISTIANS IN THE POPULATION OF THE EMPIRE
These two questions are intimately bound up togethor. To tho Church, if small, a few martyrs would seem many, and its proportions would in time certainly become exaggerated.
I. Many difficulties would be solved if we could settle the population of the Empire. The latest attempt, Beloch’s Die BevolJcerung der gr-rom. Welt, gives the total under Augustus at 54 millions; Egypt, 5 millions, including Alexandria 500,0U0; Syria, 6 millions, under Nero 7 millions, including Autioch 300,000 without slaves. Rome: male plebeians over 10 in B.C. 5, 320,000, or about 800,000 in all. Beloch’s figures seem rather small, as in this caso tho Jews would form about one-eighth of the population of the Empire, unless indeed all our sources of information as to the number of Jews are grossly exaggerated (see supra p. 113). The figures of Gibbon (i 42),
120 millions, are however far too large. The figures of Durean de la Malle ficonomie Politique have boon adopted by Merivale ERE cc. 39, 40. They give for Italy below the Rubicon a total of 8 or 9 millions, including 1,200,000 for Sicily ; for Asia Minor and Syria, 27 millions; and for Egypt, 8 millions (cf. Joseph. BJ ii 1G, 4, who states that his figures were taken from tho poll-tax); a total for the Empire of 85,000,000. Ilis estimate for Rome (506,000, i.e. of freemen) is practically tho same as Beloch’s, and Boloch’s is as generous as tho data will allow, as 3-400,000 is a liberal allowance for foreigners and slavos.
Taking, then, tho population of tho Empire under Nero as about 60 millions, wo shall not be far wrong, in view of the plagues, famines, and disasters of tho time, if wo computo it as somowhat less, at any rate no greater, under Decius, Valerian, and Dioclotian.
II. In this population, what was tho proportion of Christians under (a) Decius and Valerian, (b) undor Diocletian ?
(a) We may dismiss at onco tho exaggerations of the Fatliora (supra pp. 231 ff.). At the outsido, in the year 180 tho Christians would not outnumber the Jews (supra 233 n.), whose numbers had boon much reduced by their strugglo. with Hadriau. Only for a few towns have we any data-
368
APPENDIX F
At Rome in the time of Decius there were 46 presbyters, 14 in deacous’ orders, and 52 clergy in minor orders (Euseb. HE vi 43), and a congregation which supported as well 1,500 poor people, at a cost of £5-10,000 a year (Harnaek EG i 195). At the outside this means a church of from 40-50,000, or about one-sixteenth of the population. In Lyons, the largest city of Gaul, in 177, as a result of a severe persecution, not 48 adults were executed (supra 296 u.). At the most the Church cannot have numbered more thau 200-300 persons, including children, if we take into account its alien character. If the reader will take the list of places in which Christianity existed in or about 180 (see Harnaek EG ii 245-6), and will compare it with the excellent map, constructed on the eame principles, of where Mithraism existed (in Cumont TAI vol. 2), he will see how feeble Christianity was at this date. By the time of Decius no doubt there had been great growth, but nothing to warrant us in supposing that the Church was anything yet but a small fraction of the population.
(6) Materials for framing an estimate of the strength of Christianity under Diocletian will be found iu Harnack’s elaborate survey (EG ii 240-456). From a careful study of this survey, I see no reason to believe lhat the Christians, exoept in a few great towns, were other than a small, though powerful, wealthy, and well-organized minority, at the outside one-ninth or so of the whole (see Bury’s Gibbon, Appendix ii 542); i.e. not much more than 6,000,000 in all at the time of the conversion of the Empire to Christianity. But numbers are not everything, and no other body in the Empire was its equal in unity and driving power.
III. From the above arguments, if correct, it is evident that the unlimited massacres of the martyrologists must be ruled out, though often repeated even to-day. Persecution was intensive rather than extensive, and relatively rather than absolutely great, except, of course, in certain special districts and times. But the estimate of Gibbon (ed. Bury ii 95 ff. 137) is too small. He relied, following Dodwell’s de Martyrum Paucitate (Oxford, 1684), on the statement of Origen that those who perished before his time were few and far between (Cels, iii 8, o\lyoi nark Kaipovs, xal ircpSdpa evap(6/xi)Toi virlp twv Xpumavwv Oeoaefielas riBviiKiari), on the fact that Dionysius only mentions ten men and seven women who suffered in the great city of
APPENDIX Q
369
Alexandria during the persecution of Decius (Euseb. HE vi 41), and on the atatementof Eusebius MB 13 that the martyrs of Palestine were ninety-two in all. From these figures he deduces 2,000 martyrs for the whole Diocletian persecution at the outside. But Gibbon and Dodwell minimize almost as much as the martyrologists exaggerate. We must remember (a) No systematic lists were kept, or if kept in the case of Rome were all destroyed, possibly by Diocletian (supra p. 37. For a very imperfect Roman list see Ruinart AM G17. We sorely miss the records of Anteros, supra p. 241). (b) Only by accident do we hear from Pliny of the severe persecution in Bithynia, and Tertullian seems to be ignorant of the great outbreak at Lyons. But for St. Augustine we should never have known of the persecution at the same time in Madaura. (c) Our knowledge of persecutions is chiefly derived from apologotic writers, whoso wholo policy it was to accentuate the indulgent attitude of good emperors, Trajan, &c., in times anterior to their own (supra p. 208).
We conclude, therefore, that the truth lies between the small figure of Gibbon and the usual exaggerations, though nearer Gibbon than to the martyrologists. (Cf. Boissier FP i 443-59 for some judicious remarks.)
APPENDIX G
THE APOLOGIES OF ARISTIDES AND QUADRATUS
It is of some importance that we examine moro fully the connexion of tho Apology of Aristidos with Hadrian, as also the date of the Apology of Quadratus. The following are the data :—
(i.) Hadrian paid two visits to Athens—one in the winter of 125, the other in the winter of 128-9. Either year would be possible for tho Asian proconsulate of Minicius Fundanus and his predecessor Granianus, though perhaps the earlier year would bo the moro probable, considering tho somewhat lengthy period since they had passed their earlier unknown offices (ace supra, p. 217 n. 2). If then, as Eusebius HE iv 3, Chron. s.v, 125, represent, the rescript of Hadrian was tho effect of tho Apology of Quadratus—with whom Eusebius couples Aristides and his Apology—we aro able to dato approximately as either 124-5 or 128-9.
2 B
370
APPENDIX G
(ii.) The question, however, arises whether Eusebius was not mistaken, certainly as regards Aristides, and possibly Quadratus. The Apology of Aristides until of late was supposed to be lost. Recently, however, it was discovered by the research of Dean Robinson. Curious to say, in reality the major part of this supposed lost work had been known for centuries. It had been incorporated in the romance entitled Barlaam and Joasaph or Josaphat (i.e. Buddha, under which name Buddha has obtained a place in the Christian calendar), popularly attributed to John of Damascus. (For this romance in Latin, see Rosweyd Vitae Patrum i in Migne PL lxxiii 443 ff. It was translated into Icelandic as early as 1204. The Apology exists also in various Syriac, first recovered by Rendel Harris, and Armenian versions.) According to the second superscription of the Syriac version, which gives us also the full name of the author, it was dedicated, not to the well-known Hadrian, as Eusebius asserted, but to Antoninus Pius (i.e. T. Aurelius Fulvius, who became known as Hadrian Antoninus Pius on his adoption on Feb. 25, 138, though the use of his first name (Hadrian) is not common). If the Syriac is correct, this fixes the date as later than Feb., 138. (Harnaek CALi 271-3 gives 138-61, and adds possibly 138-47 as the narrower limits.) In this case the Apology of Aristides was not connected with the rescript of Hadrian at all. As evidence of a late date we may urge the total absence in Aristides of the usual Jewish hatred. This would indicate a time removed from the insurrection of Bar-Kokheba (see supra, p. 116 n.),
(iii.) The same doubt applies, but in a lesser degree, to the statement of Euseb. EE iv 3 as to Quadratus presenting his Apology to Hadrian/ It is possible that Eusebius, and after him Jerome Vir. Ill-19 Ep. 70, confused the apologist with an earlier Quadratus of Athens, ‘ who was bishop after the martyrdom of Publius’ (EE iv 23). The name, in fact, was fairly common (Renan EG 40 n., see Euseb. EE v 17, iii 37). On this view the Apology of Quadratus was also presented to the other Hadrian, i.e. Antoninus Pius (see the arguments of Lightf. Ign. i 540). In the absence of the Apology itself it is not easy to decide. The one sentence that has been preserved for ua (Euseb. EE iv 3), if correct, is however conclusive for the earlier date. Quadratus claims that the miracles of Jesus were ‘ true miracles,’ and instances that some whom He had healed ‘ lived to our own times.’ Harris (o.c. 6-16) and Ramsay ChE 341 date under Hadrian.
(iv.) The best edition of the Apology of Aristides, with full discussions, is that by Harris and Robinson Cambridge TS (i) 1, or
APPENDIX H
371
Hennecke in TJJ (iv) 3, or the elaborate study of Seeberg in Zahn FOK v 245. A translation will be found in the additional volume of Clark’s ANCL.
APPENDIX H
THE PUNISHMENTS OF WOMEN
Instances of the danger of women, especially of young and beautiful girls, are too numerous to be dismissed as fiction. In spite of the repulsiveuess of the subject, the student should realize all that it meant to be a Christian iu early days. The following cases, in addition to those mentioned supra p. 301 ff., seem to me to contaiu historical elements, though often mixed up with legendary matter, created by the demand of an age that exalted virginity above all else. Euseb. MP 5 states that there were many cases at Alexandria.
Sabina (certainly genuine); AM 143. ‘Rides? Ilia respondit : Rideo, si Deus vult. Turn illi : passura es, inquiunt, ilia quae noris. Quae non sacrificent enim, lupanaribus deputatae praesteut meretri-cibus collegium, et lenonibus supplementum.’
Irene AM 395 for keeping copies of the Scriptures, ‘ in lupanari nudam statui praecipio,’ with the provision of one loaf a day. She was finally burnt on April 1st, 304. (Cf. Harnack CAL ii 475.)
The Seven Virgins of Ancyra, with a certain Tecusa at their head, were driven naked to the annual bathing of the images of Artemis and Athene, and drowned (a.d. 303).
More doubtful cases are those of Dionysia (AM 1G0), Domnina (AM 476), ‘ Non metuebat ne quis latera ipsi effoderet, sed ne quis filiarum corrumperet virginitatom ’ (cf. Pelagia AM 518). But tho story of Polyxena in the Acts of Xanthippe and Vohjxena c. 3G (cd. Dr. Montague James in TS (2) no. 3) is myth. But such myths, like tho tale in Lucian Asinus c. 52 (ii 620 ed. Dind.), Apuleius Met am. x 23, witness to the horrors that were possible for condemned Christian women.
Tertullian Apol. 50 mentions another ‘recent’ case, but in such a way as to show that these brutalities were tho rare exception, a conclusion at which we should otherwise arrive from the study of such documents as tho Passio Perpetuae, «Src. Like tho ‘ Danaids and Dircae ’ (supra p. 287 n. 2), they belong to special outbursts of horror and rage. But Tert. ad Nat. 4 tells us that he knew of more than one heathen husband who tried to drive his Christian wife into prostitution.
372
APPENDIX J
APPENDIX J
THE FATHERS AND THE EMPIRE
Orig. Cels. viii 69 ff. The views of the Fathers, &c., on the Empire would form an interesting study, but would take us too far afield. Some knowledge is, however, indispensable to our subject, and to the understanding of the relations of Christianity and the State. Broadly spoaking, we discern the following drifts of thought, both often held by the same writer.
(1) Absolute antagonism to the Empire, as a diabolic state.
So Jewish apocalyptic literature in general.
So Apoc. John throughout. Orac. Sibyllina (some Christian, some Jewish, supra p. 154 n.), see especially viii 50 ff.
Christian writers in part inherited this idea from Judaism, in part developed it as the result of the self-oonsciousness of the Church of herself as a ‘ third race’ (supra p. 190) of universal extent. We find the idea brought out more or less in the following passages:—
Justin Dial. 39; Tert. Apol. 21, ‘ Yea, and the Caesars would have believed in Christ ... if the Caesars could have been Christians ’ (antagonism so absolute that a Christian Caesar is impossible I) 37; Hippolytus in Dan. iv. 9.
(2) The idea of co-operation, providential in design, mutually beneficial. When Tert. Apol. 32 owns that Christians should pray for the Emperor, ‘ because we know that the end of all things is only delayed by the continued existence of the Empire,’ when he states that ‘Caesar is more ours than yours, for our God has appointed him’ (ib. 35), we see in germ the whole theory of the Holy Roman Empire, and of much of the logic in Dante’s De Monarchia. See my Dawn of the Reformation, i o. 2, and Bryce, I1RE c. 7, especially p. 93 n.
Of early writers holding this view note St. Paul II Thess. ii 5-7, where ‘ that which restrains ’ is probably the Empire; Rom. xiii 1-3; Tert. ad Scap. 2 (quoted on p. 194). Athenag. Plea 37; Justin M.
I Apol. 12, ‘We, more than any others, are great helpers and allies in promoting peace.’ Apology of Melito in Euseb. EE iv. 26 (a remarkable passage). Augustine Civ. Dei v 3, 6, 12. Add also the passage cited, supra, p. 168 n., from the Ep. Diognetus.
(3) Without any formal theory of relation or antagonism, the fact of the Empire is accepted, and its value as a factor of stability, universality, &c., pointed out. So Orig. Cels, ii 30 (value in the spread of Christianity). In time this will lead to the universal dominion of the Church, Orig. Cels, viii 67-75.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
This table deals only wilh events or writings directly connected with the lecture. Though based in the main on Harnach's OAL, I have not hesitated in certain cases to adopt a different data. Many dates are, of course, very doubtful. For matters connected with the emperors I have relied on Bury and Schiller.
? Mar. 18, 29. Mar. 16, 37. Mar. 18, 37—Jan. 24, 41. Jan. 41—Oct. 51.
44. c. 50.
Oct. 54—June 9, 68.
57.
59.
March, 60. Summer, 61. Late autumn, 61.
July 19, 64.
Autumn, 61.
Feb. (?), 65. 66-73. Summer, 68 (?).
68-9.
July 1, 69—Juue 23, 79.
69.
Crucifixion of Jesus.
Death of Tiberius.
Caius (Caligula) emperor.
Claudius emperor.
Execution of St. James (Zebedce).
Banishment of Jews and Christians from Rome.
Nero emperor.
Arrest of St. Paul at Jerusalem. Trial at Rome of Pomponia Graecina.
Recall of Felix. Festus sends St. Paul to Rome.
Arrival of St. Paul in Rome.
Death of Festus ; execution of St. James.
Trial of St. Paul; his release; arrival of St. Peter in Rome.
Burning of Romo; persecution of tho Christians. Ep. Peter written.
Martyrdom of St. Peter. Arrost of St. Paul.
Martyrdom of St. Paul.
Wars of the Jews and Romans.
Jewish Christians rotiro to Pella.
Galba, Otho, and Vitollius successive emperors.
Vespasian emperor.
Birth of Polycarp.
374
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
Before Aug. 70. Aug. 70. June 23,79—Sept. 13, 81. Sept. 13,81—Sept. 18,96.
93-95 (?). 94-5.
c. 96 (?).
Sept. 96—Jan. 27, 98.
Jan. 27, 98—Aug. 117.
99 (?). 104.
c. Dec. 112. c. 115. 115-7.
Aug. 11, 117—July 138.
120.
124-5, or 128-9.
c. 130.
130.
132-5. c. 133. 135-160.
137.
July 10,138—Mar. 7,161.
138-9. c. 140.
144. 150-5. c. 151.
Feb. 23, 155. 155-60. 159.
Mar. 7,161—Mar. 17,180.
160-70.
Part of the Apocalypse written. Destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem. Titub emperor.
Domitian emperor.
Epistle of Clement sent from Rome. Persecution of Domitian; persecution of Clement the consul and Domitilla. Publication of the Apocalypse in present form.
Nerva emperor; recall of those banished by Domitian.
Trajan emperor.
Death of St. John at Ephesus.
Martyrdom of Symeon of Jerusalem. Correspondence of Pliny and Trajan re Christians.
Journey and martyrdom of Ignatius.
Epistles of Ignatius, Epistle of Polycarp. Annals of Tacitus written.
Hadrian emperor.
Suetonius’ de Vitis Caesarum written. Rescript of Hadrian to Minicius Fundanus. Epistle of Barnabas.
Aelia Capitolina founded.
War of Bar-Kokheba.
Justin’s conversion to Christianity.
The Didache written in the recension of the MS. of Jerusalem.
Martyrdom of Pope Telesphorus at Rome. Antoninus Pius emperor.
Marcion comes to Rome from Pontus.
The Shepherd of Hermas published.
Irenaeus born.
Marcion’s schism.
Birth of Tertullian.
Justin’s I Apology published. Hegesippus journeys to Rome.
Martyrdom of Polycarp.
Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho.
Beginnings of Montanism.
Marcus Aurelius emperor.
Acts of Paul and Thekla written.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
375
e. 165.
c. 170. 169-176 (?). e. 175. 174-89. 176.
176-80.
177-80. 177-8.
Mar. 17, 180—Dec. 31, 192.
180-5. July 17, 180.
c. 180.
181-9. 185.
Ap. 13, 193-4 Feb. 211.
179.
198-202.
202.
Mar. 7, 203. c. 203.
207.
210.
Feb. 4,211—Feb. 27,212. Fob. 27, 212—Ap. 8, 217.
211. 212.
Autumn 212. 210-15.
217/8—222/3.
218.
218—Mar. 10, 222.
Martyrdom of Justin; self-immolation of Proteus Peregriuus.
Dionysius of Corinth writes.
Apology of Melito written.
Death of Montanus.
Hegesippus writes his Hypomnemata. Commodus joint Caesar.
Writings of Celsus.
The Plea of Athenagoras written.
Great persecution in Lyons.
Commodus emperor.
Martyrdom of Apollonius in Rome.
The martyrs of Scili.
The Gnostic Gospels and Acts of Thomas written.
Irenaeus writes his adv. Eaeres.
Birth of Origen.
Septimius Severus emperor.
Tertullian writes his ad Mart, and ad Nationes; also his Apology.
Tertullian writes his de Spectuc.; de Praescript.; adv. Marc.; de Idol.; and ad Uxor.
Outbreak of the persecution under Severus.
Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas. Cloment of Alexander writes his Stro-mateis.
Tertullian joins the Montanists.
Tertullian writes his de Pallio.
Caracalla and Geta emporors. Caracalla sole emperor.
Tertullian writes bis de Corona.
Tertullian writes hia de Fuga.
Tertullian writes hia ad Scaimlam.
Birth of Cyprian; death of Clement of Alexandria.
Callistus bishop of Romo.
Origen meets Mamea at Antioch. Elagal'ali's emperor.
376
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
Mar. 10, 222—Mar. 19,
235. Alexander Severus emperor.
222-3. Death of Tertullian.
Mar. 25, 235-Ap. 238. Maximin Thrax emperor.
o. 235. Origeu writes his Exhortation to Martyrs. Sept. 235. Bishop Pontian exiled with Hippolytus to Sardinia.
Mar. 244—Dec. 248. Julius Philip, the Arab, emperor.
246. Baptism of Cyprian.
Ap. 21, 248. The 1000th anniversary of the founding of Rome; the Secular games.
246-9. Origen writes his work agaimt Celsus. 248-9. Cyprian appointed Bishop of Carthago. Dec. 248—Aug. 251. Decius emperor.
Jan. 250. Great persecution commenced.
Feb. 250—May 251. Cyprian in exile, c. Aug. 251—May 253. Gallus emperor; persecution of Gallus. 254. Death of Origen in Tyre, c. Oct. 253—(?) 260. Valerian and Gallienus emperors.
Aug. 257. First Rescript of Valerian.
End of July, 258. Second Rescript of Valerian.
Sept. 14, 258. Martyrdom of Cyprian.
260—Mar. 20, 268. Gallienus! sole emperor. The Thirty Tyrants.
Autumn, 260. Edict of Toleration.
247-64. Dionysius bishop of Alexandria.
260-5. Birth of Eusebius of Caesarea.
270—Aug. (?), 275. Aurelian emperor.
270-5. Death of Gregory Thaumaturgus.
272. Deposition of Paul of Samosata.
274. Birth of Constantine the Great.
Sept. 17,284—May 1,305. Diocletian emperor.
Ap. 1, 284. Maximian associated with Diocletian. Mar. 1, 293. Association of the two Caesars, Galerius and Constantinus.
Feb. 23, 303. Outbreak of the great persecution.
Nov. 20, 303. Diocletian’s triumph (?) and Vicennalia at Rome.
Winter, 304. Illness of Diocletian.
July 25, 306. Death of Constantius at York. Elevation of Constantine.
Oct. 27, 306. Maxentius declared emperor at Rome.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
377
Nov. 11, 307.
Ap. 30, 311. May 5, 311. Nov. 311. 312-14.
Oct. 27, 312.
Mar. 313. Ap. 30, 313.
314-15.
Sept. 18, 324.
Licinius (Licinian) elevated to the rank of Augustus.
Galerius’ edict of Toleration.
Death of Galerius.
Death of Peter of Alexandria.
Eusebius concludes his Ecclesiastical History and Martyrs of Palestine.
Constantine defeats Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge.
Edict of Milan.
Licinian defeats Maximin near Adria-nople.
Lactantius writes his de Mortibus Perse-cutorum.
Constantine finally defeats Licinian. Constantine sole emperor.
This index ia in the main restricted to names. For subjects see “ Contents ” of each chapter. Authors quoted, &c., whether ancient or modern, are not indexed unless some criticism or account is given of them. The names of martyrs are given under “ Martyr.”
Abyssinian Church, 21 n Acts of Martyrs, 285 n Aelia Capitolina, 122, 333 n Aesculapius, 74, 89 n, 97 n 3, 135-8 agape, 71, 211 n Akmonia, 109 n Alee, 140, 308 Alexamenos, 112 n, 288 u Alexander of Abonutichos, 134-6 Alexander, Pope, 260 n Alexander the coppersmith, 39 Alexandria, 37 n, 241, 247-8 ’AAA.orpjoeiricrwoTros, 139 n Anicetus, 307 n Annas, 11-13 Anthony, 131 Antinous, 92 n, 98-9 Apocalypse, 46 n, 355-7 apostoli, 33 n, 120 Apuleius, 161
Aristides, 216; Apology of, 116 n Aristion, 45 n, 122 n Armenia, 187 n, 270, 281 Arrius Antoninus, 227 n, 332 Artemidorua, 21 n, 128 n Asiarcha, 95, 96 n Atheists, 88, 91 n, 92-4 ‘ Augustan band,’ 39 n Augustine, 86, 126 n Augustus, worship of, c. 2 § 7 Aurelian, 97 n, 257
Bacchanalian scandal, 76 Barnabas (Epistle), 59, 116 n Bithynia, Christians of, 210 Burial clubs, 261 n
Caecilian, 273-4 Caesar of Heisterbach, 133 Callistus, 119, 147-8, 151-2, 229 Caracall a, 235 Catacombs, 257 ff Celsus, 7, 132, 155, 160 n, 179, 184, 188, 189, 329 Christian, meaning of, 53 n 3, 58 n
Christians, talea against, 119 n; slang of, 166 n; names of, 171; teachers among, 173-4; Greek of, 175 n; and office, 178 ff,
180 n; and the army, 181 ff; and politics, 191 ff Claudius Herminianus, 144 n Clemens, Flavius, 186 n, 204 Clement of Alexandria, 175 n, 237 n
Clement of Rome, 83, 205-6, 259 Clubs, c. 2 § 3, 69 n cognitiones, 212 n Commodus, 228 Constantine, 278-82 Constantius, 271 Cornelius, Pope, 25U
INDEX
379
Cyprian, 133, 179, 247,253, 310 ff
Damasus, 265 n Datian, 271 Days of week, 82 n Daza: see Maximin Deacons, 211 n Decius, 242 ff delatio, 215
Demons, 91, 127 ff, 129 deportcitio, 47 n, 64 n diaspora: see Jews Diocletian, 136, 265 ff Diognetus, Epistle of, 117, 168-9 Dionysius of Alexandria, 90,134,
247-8, 253 Dionysius of Corinth 360 DM, 147
Domitian, 47, 96-7, 123, 128, 203-7 Domitilla, 83, 205 Druidism, 77-8
Ebionites, 122, 153 Elagabalus, 238
Elvira, 151 n, 162 d, 175 u, 180 n Empire, causes of fall, 177 n Etecusa, 246 n Euctemon, 342 Exorcists, 131-2
Fabiau, Pope, 235, 240 n, 241 u, 244 n Faustina, 98 n Felix, 32
Felix of Aptungi, 273-4 Festivals, outbreaks at, 102 n Festus, 27 n, 33 Fontane, Trc, 40 n Fronto of Cirta, 157 u
Galerius, 191 n, 2G8 ff Gallienus, 251, 256 Gaudentius, 55 n Glabrio, 204
Gnosticism, 8, 363 Graecina, Pomponia, 41 n, 60 Gregory Thaumaturgus, 41 n,
133-4, 248,345 Gregory the Great, 175 n
Hadrian, 215 ff
Hermas, Shepherd of, 151 n, 219 n 3, 221 Herod, Agrippa, 17 Hierocles, 160 n, 268-9 Eippolytus, Canons of, 173 Hippolytus of Portus, 119, 14S Eoros, 8
Irenaeus, 295 n, 310 Isis, 77, 81-2
James, St., 13 n, 26-8 James, Ascents of, 26 n James, St. (Zebedee), 25 Jerusalem, fall of, 109-10 Jesus, 10 n, c. 1 § 2 Jewish Christians, 29, 46, 120 ff Jews, 51, 56, 107, 108 ff, 111-2, 113, 115 ff, 157 u Jews and Christians distinguished, 58-9, 118 John, Acts of, 48 n John, St., 26, 45-8, 206 n, 358 f Judo, grandsons of, 123 Justin Martyr, 227 n, 287 n, 327, 316
Kcmpis, Thomas h, 22 n Kiss of peace, 158
Lanuvium, 99
libelli, 310 ff
Libertini, 21 n
Licinian, 187 n, 278, 282
Luciau: sre Proteus Pcregrinus
Lucina, 41, 61 n, 262 n
Lucius, Pope, 250
380
INDEX
Lyons, 96 n, 160, 227 n, 293 n, 295 ff
Macrianus, 134, 252 Macrobius, 127 n Madaura, 227 n Maecenas, 89
Magic, Christians and, c. Ill § 2 magieterianuf, 302 n majestas, 14-5, 19, 101 n Mamaea, 239 Mandaeans, 58 n, 122 fiapTvs, 345 n Marcellinua, Pope, 342 n Marcia, 228, 229 n Marcion, 117
Marcus Aurelius, 112,129, 222 ff Mar on, 99 n
Marriage, Christians and, 140-1, 147-8
Martin of Toura, 9,130 Martyrs, cases of—
Abdon, 246 Achatius, 132, 330 Afra, 321 Agathonice, 328 Agnea, 302 n Alban, 271-2 Alexander, 249, 260 n Alphaeus, 191 n Anteros, 240 n Antipas, 97 Apollonia, 291
Apollonius, 180 n, 218 n, 299 n Asclepiades, 237 n, 297 Attalus, 104 n Babylas, 157, 249, 329 Biblias, 341 Blandina, 295 n, 349 Caecilia, 227 n Callistratus, 333 Calocerus, 246, 298 Carpus, 227 n, 328 Cassian, 174 Claudius, 298 n, 330 Conon, 119,124 Cyprian, 310 ff Cyril, 255 n
Martyrs, cases of ([continued)— Dasius, 183 Dativus, 143, 327 Dionysia, 321 Dioscuroa, 247 Dorotheus, 266, 269 Eulalia, 328 Euplius, 275 Fabian, 244 n, 245 Febronia, 196 Felicitaa, 102 n, 313 ff Fclicitaa, 237 n, 320 Felix of Tibjuca, 275 Flavian, 324 Fructuosua, 325 Genesius, 288-90 Germanicus, 307 Gorgonius, 266, 269 Guddene, 237 n Hermes, 275 Hippolytus, 240 Ignatius, 306, 325, 335 ff Irenaeus of Lyona, 237 n Irenaeus of Sirmium, 320, 334-5 Irene, 143
James of Cirta, 323 n, 324, 328
Januarius, 320 n
Julian, 247, 295 n
Julitta, 298
Julius, 78
Justin, 327
Lawrence, 255
Leonides, 237
Leo of Patara, 162-3
Lucian of Antioch, 142, 332
Lyons, martyrs of, 295 ff
Marianus, 322, 323 n, 324
Maura, 334 n
Mavilus, 237 n
Maximilian, 185-6, 335
Maximus, 196, 330
Montanus, 324 n
Natalis, 237 n
Nestor, 334
Nicander, 334
Origen, 248, 319
Papylus, 180 n
Parthenius, 246
INDEX
381
Martyrs, cases of (continued)— Perpetua, 102 n, 313 ff, 319,
322
Phileas of Thmuis, 291,319-20, 328
Phocas, 212 n
Pionius, 292, 297 ff, 333, 342 Pollio, 142
Polycarp, 102 n, 297, 306 ff, 32G '
Pontian, 240
Potamiaena, 302, 325, 346 n
Pothinus, 295
Probus, 304 n
Ptolemy, 144
Quartillosia, 323
Quatuor Coronati, 137 n
Quintus, 340
Sabina, 152 n, 297
Sanctus, 300
Saturniuus, 323, 328
Saturus, 316-17, 323
Seili, martyrs of, 193, 327
Sebaste, Forty of, 186 n, 188 n
Sennen,246
Sirmium, masons of, 136 Symeon, 123-4 Symphorian, 162 Symphorosa, 320 n Renus, 324 Romanus, 163
Tarachus, 285 n, 301 n, 330-1 Tarsicius, 157 n Telesphorus, 219 n Thalelaeus, 219 n Theodora, 302 Theodoro, 163-4 Theodulus, 295 n Theonilla, 301 n Ursula, 200 n
Yettius Epagathus, 101 n, 296 Xystus, 253 n, 254 Zaechaeus, 191 n Maxentius, 278, 281 Maximin Daza, 277 ff Maximin Thrax, 240 Melitene, 189 n, 270 Mensurius, 273 Milan, deerce of, 282
Minucius Felix, 221 n Minucius Fundanus, 217 Mithraism, e. 2 § 5, 81 n, 84, 160, 171 n, 184 “ monarchy,” 93-4 Montanism, 154, 181 n, 305 n, 343 n
Mother, Great, 77,160
Name,” “ The, 40, 55 n, 104 vetoicSpos, 97 n
Nero, 53-4, 133, 202, 285-6, 361 Nersae, 85 “New people,” 190 Nicomedeia, 68, 267, 282 Numeria, 246
Origen, 248, 294
Paehomius, 9 Pagan, meaning of, 234 n itapoiKovvres, 103 n Parousian beliefs, 23, 53 n 4, 153 ff, 232-3 patria potestas, 145 Paul of Samosata, 257 Paul, St., 30-5, 36-42, 43, 138-9 149, 262, 362-4 Paul, St. (dates of), 33 n, 34 n, 38 n, 48 n, 57 Peregrinus I’roteus, 136, 155, 176, 293, 331, 345, 346 Perpetua (handkerchief of), 41 n, Perpetua: see Martyrs Peter, Acte of, 43 n Peter, Gospel of, 19 n Peter of Alexuudria, 340 n, 362 f Peter, St., 42-5, 262, 351-5 Petronilla, 204 n Philip of Trales, 309 Philip the Arab, 211 ff Pilate, 13-20
Pilate, Acts of, 18 n, 20 n, 21 n Pius (Antoninus), 220-1 Pius, Pope, 151 Pliny, 209 ff
382
INDEX
Pompeji, 24 n Pontus, Christians of, 210 Popes, martyrdom of, 22 n Poppaea, 34 n, 38, 57, 08 n 3, 115
Porphyry, 94, 159, 160 u Pothinus, 37 Praetorium, 35 n Prophets, 154 n, 155 n Prosenes, 229 Pudens (magistrate), 214
Quadratue, 216, 369
Readers, 142 n relegatio, 47 n Rome, Church at, 37 u Rome, fire of, 53-4
Sacramentum, 211 u Sardinia, 300 Secular games, 88, 242 Servianus, 217 Severus Alexander, 238 ff Severus Septimius, 69, 71 n, 235 ff
Sibylline Oracles, 154 n, 191 Simon Magus, 128 n Sirmium, masons of, 136 ff
Slavery, Christianity and, 149 ff Smyrna, 97 n Soldiers and Mithra, 84 Soldiers and Christianity, 181 ff Spain, St. Paul and, 35, 36 n Stephen, St., 24 Stephen, Pope, 253 n Superstition and Christianity, c.
3 § 2 Syncretism, 86
Taurobolium, 160 Teachers, 144 n
Tertullian, 14G, 171-2, 178-9,
181 n
Thehla, Acts of, 102 n, 140 n, 140-2
Theotecnus, 277, 280
“Third Race,” 158n, 190, 217 n
Thundering Legion, 186
titulus, 20
Trajan, 209 ff
Tyre, 280
Yaleria, 266 Valerian, 134, 251 ff Victor, Pope, 235 n, 295 n
Zephyrinus, 260
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
Vol. I.—THE AGE OF WYCLIF.
Small Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
“ Always readable, and its matter is as good as its style. Mr. Workman treats Wyclif in a scientific yet sympathetic spirit.”— Athenmum.
“ Uncommonly interesting.”—Glasgow Herald.
“ Thorough grasp, both in spirit and detail.”—Birmingham Gazette.
“ Mr. Workman is a studiously fair writer. . . . We may specially
note the appreciation of Wyclif as a philosophical thinker.....V
volume of great value.”—Spectator.
“ Singularly clear, and on the whole remarkably fair. Mr. Workman is not only in many respects quite without prejudice; he is— what is mueh more important—remarkably aeeurate.”—Pilot.
“Has all the value of an independent judgement; ... it has no pretension, and it is excellent.”—Church Quarterly.
“Seizes the essential in a movement and lets the trifling go.”— Expository Times.
“At once scholarly and popular, founded on real research, manifesting individuality of thought and judgement, and carrying its message in perspicuous and graceful language.”—Aberdeen Free Press.
“ A thorough study whieh might well have been expanded into a larger treatise.”—British Monthly.
“The volume is packed full with interesting matter, and is, of course, brightly and vigorously written. Tho writer knows his own mind and how to express it. When complete, the work will add greatly to our knowledge of an obseure period of history.”—Prof. Banks in Methodid Recorder.
“ Enriched by the same wealth of reading and the same skill in reproducing its results as his earlier volumes.”—London Quarterly Review.
London: CHARLES II. KELLY, 2 Castle Street, City Road, and 2G Paternoster Row, E.C.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
Vol. II.—THE AGE OF HUS.
Small Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
“ Remarkably well done, and most useful. . . . Written in so lively and attractive a style that no one oan become weary in the perusal. ... It is a student’s work, an independent investigator’s results that are given in the pleasant pages of this volume.”— Professor Salmond in The Critical Review.
“ It is seldom one comes across a book on Church history which is at once so readable and scholarly.”—The Glasgmo Herald.
“ Untiring industry in research and absolute impartiality in judgement are characteristics of his latest work on ‘ The Age of Hus.’ . . . Accuracy in details is combined with the rarer gift of a fine power of generalization.”—Methodist Recorder.
“The writer shows the trained aptitude of a literary and historical critic. His judgements on these topics are eminently sane and safe. The volume on Hus is worthy to take its place beside the other.”—Princ. Iverach, Aberdeen Free Press.
“ In his judgements Mr. Workman is studiously fair and impartial. He shows not only great meutal detachmcnt, but real historical instinct, in his power of looking at movements.”—The Guardian.
“ The book does for an important and obscure period what is not done with the same fullness and care by any other book in English.” —Dr. Moss in the Methodist Times.
“ A valuable contribution to Church history.”—Spectator.
London: CHARLES H. KELLY, 2 Castle Street, Citz Road, and 26 Paternoster Row, E.C.
I
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY