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THE EARLY PERSECUTIONS OF THE CHRISTIANS<
BY
LEON HARDY CANFIELD
PREFACE
The following pages are an outgrowth of a seminar on “
Paganism and Christianity,” given by Professor James T. Shotwell in the year
1909-1910. At that time a series of monographs was planned, the object of which
was, as Dr. Humphrey expresses it, to treat of the conflict of religions fully
and impartially in the light of all available documentary evidence. But there was also a further object, namely, to collect all the scattered
source material and present it in such a way that the reader might have
constantly before him the documents upon which the opinions expressed in the
text were based. Accordingly, this work has been so arranged that each chapter
in the first part corresponds to a chapter in the second part in which is given
all the source material bearing upon that period. Where the importance of the
document warrants, the text is given both in the original and in translation.
The author
wishes to express his deep sense of obligation to the Graduate Faculty in
History at Columbia University, and in particular to Professor James T. Shotwell. To Professor Shotwell, under whose directions this study has been
prepared, the writer owes a great debt. The author is also deeply indebted to
Professor William Walker Rockwell of Union Theological Seminary, who has not
only made many invaluable suggestions, but
who, as Librarian at the Seminary, has offered every possible assistance. The
writer is also most appreciative of the work of Munroe Smith, Professor of
Roman Law, who has given many keen suggestions on the Roman Law, and upon the
translation of legal sources. For his assistance on several difficult points of
Latin translation, the writer is indebted to Dr. Mario E. Cosenza, of the
College of the City of New York. He also wishes to acknowledge the many hours
of assistance on the part of Mrs. Canfield.
L. H. C.,
College of
the City of New York, April, 1913.
PART I THE EARLY PERSECUTIONS
CHAPTER I. Legal Basis of the Persecutions
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V Attitude of Hadrian
PART II TEXTUAL
CHAPTER I Sources on the Legal Status of the Christians
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER
III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
PART I THE
EARLY PERSECUTIONS
CHAPTER I
Legal Basis of the Persecutions
Religion is a social phenomenon. This fact is being
daily impressed upon us by anthropologists and sociologists. It is, in both
cult and belief, the expression of those things treasured most by the society
which professes or practices it. These are “sacred” things, and any attack
upon them, even in the name of reform, has consistently met with repression.
From the primitive taboo, with its automatic power of avenging sacrilege by
supernatural terrors, to priestly and then legal codes inflicting their own
penalties, the mysteries of religion have been universally safeguarded from
profanation. Religion, therefore, has always been the special center of
intolerance and persecution, because its content is more highly valued by
society than that of other departments of social life, such as politics or
philosophy. Persecution, viewed from the standpoint of the dominant group of
society, is the preservation of ancient belief and cult from the attack of
sacrilege; it is part of the august process of the maintenance of the moral
order. Only the victim and his sympathizers, who suffer from what to them is
injustice, speak of persecution. So, from the origin of society to the present,
intolerance has been an intrinsic part of the process of history.
This study
is concerned with but a relatively small chapter in the history of such a
universal subject, but it is a chapter upon which has been concentrated more
attention than any other in the whole field. The persecution of Christians by
pagan mobs and by the Roman authorities has attracted a degree of attention
second only to the narrative of
the New Testament itself. It has been exaggerated by historians from the
credulous Orosius at the opening of the fifth century to the sceptical Renan
in the nineteenth. It has been emphasized and worked over in every history of
the church, and has been an exhaustless theme of art and literature. The very
paucity of the earlier sources has invited controversy and accordingly swelled
the volume of writings upon the subject. Conjecture and surmise as to the
motives of persecutions, the attitude of the emperors, the extent and intensity
of successive persecutions, have furnished plentiful material for many a
so-called history, while as much genuine historical research has been produced
to sweep away speculations and present the facts as they come to us in the
sources. But since the data are so few, they still invite controversy in the
days of scientific history as they drew conjecture in the pre-scientific.
The
persecution of the Christians was not begun on religious grounds, but for
reasons purely social and political. Christianity by no means presented a new
problem in the Roman state. Long before this sect was heard of, the state had
developed a well-defined policy for dealing with foreign religions. In general
this policy was syncretistic, that is to say, as the Romans conquered new
communities their gods were gradually adopted into the Roman state worship,
either by being identified with some of the dii indigetes and admitted within
the pomerium, or by being incorporated into the national worship as dii
novensiles. But with the rapid expansion of Rome and with
the constant influx of
The exceptions to this policy of toleration occur only when the cults were reputed to be immoral or were a danger to the good order and security of the state. For the most part the cults which were suppressed for such reasons were of oriental origin and of an ecstatic nature. The best example of such suppression is that of the Bacchic cult of which Livy has given a detailed account.
According to Livy the grand maxim of this religion was to think that nothing was unlawful. The Bacchic associations were, so he says, hotbeds of indescribable vice and the source of a variety of civil crimes such as murder, forgery, and conspiracy. A thorough investigation was carried on by the consul Postumius, who laid the whole matter before the Senate. Of the seven thousand adherents, perhaps the majority was put to death, while many were imprisoned and the places of worship demolished. By decree of the Senate, no Bacchanalian rites could thereafter be celebrated in Rome or Italy, but in case any person felt it a religious duty to carry on the worship, he might do so under severe restrictions by getting special permission of the authorities. This saving clause makes it very clear that this was not a religious persecution, but that the cult was suppressed on moral grounds.
A century
and a quarter later the state attempted a similar repression for like reasons
of the Isis cult. But at this time the cult was so firmly established that in
spite of repeated attempts to destroy it the religon survived and became
practically a tolerated cult at Rome, although under Tiberius it
was again temporarily suppressed, the temples destroyed, the priests crucified,
and the worshipers banished from Italy, all because of the immorality
perpetrated under the cloak of its rites.
In the Roman provinces toleration was even more complete than in Italy and at Rome. In the provinces supervision of morality was hardly attempted. Interference here was confined to cases where it was necessary to preserve order or to prevent such enormities as human sacrifices.
The treatment of monotheistic Judaism was not essentially different from that of the other religions. In the provinces toleration was practically complete; at Rome the difficulties of the Jews were due to the fact that, for one reason or another, they fell under the ordinary rule of intolerance. Their temporary expulsion at the time of Tiberius was occasioned by the fact that a noble Roman lady, a convert to Judaism, had been victimized by a number of Jewish adventurers.Four thousand Jews who were Roman citizens were enrolled in the army and sent to Sardinia; the others were to be expelled from Italy unless before a certain day they should put aside the profane rites. But this suppression fell not alone upon the Jews, for both Tacitus and Suetonius connect it with that of other foreign cults, particularly the Egyptian. Under Claudius they were banished from Rome because they were continually disturbing the peace and good order of the state at the instigation of one Chrestus.
But in
spite of the toleration which was extended to the Jews, they were coming to be
regarded both at Rome and in the provinces with an increasing hatred and
contempt.1 When Christianity appeared as an offshoot of Judaism,
this antipathy was part of their heritage.
But as
time went on and as the Christians came to be distinguished from the Jews, this
hostility toward the Christians was greatly accentuated. In the first place
they were regarded by the Romans as a deplorable, unauthorized, and desperate
faction, made up of credulous women and gathered from the very scum of mankind.
But still worse, they interfered with the established order of society, with
trade interests,with family life,with popular amusements,
with the ordinary religious observances, and with the lax but
conventional morality of the time. They avoided military service,and were averse to all civic duties and offices. To a people whose
first duty was to the slate this lack of interest in public affairs rendered
the Christians worthy of their utmost contempt.
But the
mere fact that the Christians were hated and were now and then suppressed by
the Roman government
The rumors
concerning their immorality were due in part to the fact that they held secret
meetings in private houses under cover of darkness, where they were
believed to give free license to their impious lusts, to revel in the practice
of incest, and even to feed upon the blood of their own infant
children. The taunts and accusations hurled at them from all sides
not only give us an insight into the attitude of the populace, but show also
that they were regarded as dangerous to the peace and good order of the state.
For example, they were reproached for worshiping the cross, the sun, and the
head of an ass, and for bearing the name of one who had been
crucified by Pontius Pilate. Their belief was a new and mischievous
superstition, for the sake of which they were guilty of an
inflexible obstinacy. They were charged with being impious,
irreligious, atheists, guilty of sacrilege and of
treason (majestas),
Two facts,
however, must be emphasized. In the first place, and this is extremely
important, most of these accusations and taunts refer to the second or third
century. In the second place, they were for the most part the current
accusations of the populace. As Callewaert expresses it, these
beliefs were the cause of the cries of death and popular tumults; they stimulated the zeal or excited the animosity of the magistrates.
They might be the motive invoked to excuse or to justify the measures taken
against the Christians, but not for a moment should it be supposed that they
were the specific charges made in the indictments of the Christians.
This
question of the specific charge upon which the Christians were formally
indicted, tried, and punished has been much disputed and presents many
difficulties. The appearance in 1890 of Mommsen’s epoch-making article on
Crimes of Religion in Roman Law has produced vol-
solutions
which so far have been offered may be conveniently grouped under three heads:
first, no specific charge, but rather a repression by measures of police in
virtue of the power of coercitio; secondly, accusation and trial for violation
of the Roman criminal law, particularly for the crime of majestas or treason,
and also for sacrilege, immorality, magic, incest, murder, etc.; thirdly, a
similar procedure under a special law issued by Nero, institutum N eronianum,
which proscribed Christianity as such, namely, “ Non licet esse Christianos
The first solution mentioned was offered by Mommsen in the article referred to above. Mommsen showed that all the previous cases of suppression of cults had been by administrative measures of police. Precisely the same thing was true of the treatment of the Christian sect, at least in the great majority of cases. Mommsen explained that the Roman magistrates who participated in the imperium, both at Rome and in the provinces, possessed in addition to their regular criminal jurisdiction a very extensive police power, the jus coercendi.By virtue of this power of coercitio the magistrate could take any measures which he judged necessary or useful for checking any disorder or abuse or to maintain the order and security of the state.In the exercise of this power the magistrates were not restricted to the regular mode of procedure; on the contrary, nothing was fixed, neither the nature of the offense, the form of the process, nor the penalties, so long as the penalty was not contrary to custom. The whole process was purely arbitrary, and its nature was largely determined by what the magistrate believed to be demanded by the exigencies of public order and security.
It was in
the exercise of this unlimited power of coercitio, says Mommsen, that most of
the Christians were tried and punished. Accordingly, the status of the Christians
depended largely upon the individual attitude of the governors of the various
provinces and upon the trend of popular opinion.The interventions
of the emperors were merely administrative measures intended to regulate the
exercise of this power.
This theory at least has the advantage of clearing up many difficult points in the suppression of the Christian sect by the Roman government. First, and most important, it explains why the periods of repression were intermittent, and why the persecutions were local and of varying degrees of severity.It also explains the lack of any specific definition of the crime for which the Christians were convicted,and the anomalies and irregularities in the procedure,of which the apologists so frequently complained.These very facts, on the other hand, become serious stumbling blocks in the way of accepting the theory of a special law proscribing the Christians as such.
But in
both the Religionsfrevel and the Strafrecht more particularly in the latter,
Mommsen maintains that while the suppression of the Christians actually took
place through the exercise of this extraordinary power of immediate action
called coercitio, legally they were guilty of majestas or high treason, and
could also be regularly accused and tried upon this charge. The refusal of the
Christians to take the oaths and to offer the sacrifices required of them
constituted a twofold crime of majestas, the crime against the gods, and that
against the emperor. Both offences came under the single head of majestas.
Mommsen
goes on to explain that the Roman religion, like all religions of antiquity,
was intimately connected with the state. It was, however, one of the immutable
maxims of Roman administration not to exact manifestations of belief in the
national worship nor to do more than exercise a simple police surveillance over
foreign cults.This toleration was extended even to monotheistic
Judaism, which remained a religio licita even after the taking of Jerusalem.But this toleration had its limits. The citizens of Rome, and for that matter
of any municipality, could not at the same time be Jews and recognize the gods
of the state. To be a worshiper of Jehovah was to apostatize from the national
religion. Such apostacy constituted a crime at Roman law, called by Tertullian,
crimen laesae religionist The question arose in two cases, first, when the Jews
became Roman citizens; secondly, when a Roman citizen was converted to Judaism.
In the first case, the question would come up only when a Jew became a citizen
through
manumission.The second case was the more important, particularly
after the establishment of the princi- pate, with its emphasis on the imperial
religion, when this apostasy was treated as a capital crime.2
But as for
the Christians, continues Mommsen, the mere profession of their religion was at
first sight a crime of majestas of the gravest sort, namely, perdnellio.The Christian, who was a man without a nation, and whose community had never
had a political basis, was necessarily an apostate from polytheism, and was
hence properly designated as &8eoc* As a logical result the avowal made
before the tribunal that one was a Christian was considered and punished as an
avowal of the crime of majestas. Or, as the Christians expressed
it, the mere name, as evidence of such atheism, constituted a crime in the eye
of the law.
1 Mommsen
here gives but a single example, the expulsion under Tiberius referred to
above, and admits that even this case was perhaps a simple measure of police.
Callewaert, “Les premiers chretiens et l’accusation de lese-majeste,” in Rev.
des ques. hist., 1904, vol. lxxvi, p. 10, says that Mommsen has failed to prove
that the practice of the Jewish religion by a Jew who had become a citizen was
a crime in law.
J Mommsen,
op. cit., p. 574. Here Mommsen gives but three examples, the expulsion under
Tiberius, the case of Pomponia Graecina, who had been condemned before a
domestic tribunal for superstitio extranea (Tacitus, Annals, xiii, 32), and the
case of Domitilla and Flavius Clemens (Dio, lxvii, 14). The last case is very
doubtful indeed in its application (Vide infra, chap. iii on Domitian). Mommsen
recognizes the weakness of his evidence, for he admits his theory is not easily
reconciled with the fact that Domitian recognized the legality of citizens
being Jews and collected the Jewish tax from them (Ibid., p. 754, note 3; Vide
Suetonius, Dorn., 12).
This rule
applied alike to citizen and non-citizen. In both cases there was apostasy from
the religion of the empire, and the penalty is the same in principle, though
more rigorous against the Roman citizen.1 If the crime of apostasy
appeared in an organized form the penalty, as in the case of sedition, was not
confined to the leaders, but singled them out in preference.2 The
absence of punishment in case the accused recanted was a regular inducement to
recant in crimes of opinion or in crimes committed in mass.® Mommsen
recognizes, however, that the oath taken in the name of the gods and the
sacrifice which is offered to them were only tests for proving the orthodoxy of
those who, accused of apostasy, denied this apostasy or else recanted.4
The two
theories of Mommsen as outlined above received enthusiastic and at first
almost universal support.5
Some of
his followers have emphasized the administrative power of coercitio, while
others have insisted rather upon crimes at law, particularly majestas.
But while
all the partisans of the theory of suppression because of crimes at common law
recognize majestas as the chief crime of which the Christians were accused,
some of them 1 invoke other crimes as well. Le Blant, for example,
groups sacrilege 2 along with majestas, treason against the gods or
the emperors, and maintains that the Christians were also punished as magicians8
and even as murderers and conspirators.4 Conrat adds incest and
infanticide to the list.5 Moreover, they argue, the law cited by Cicero®
could still be invoked during the principate against the re- ligio illicita,
and hence, superstitio nova et extranea constituted a
crime. Conrat believes that in this theory lies the explanation of the
intermittent nature of the persecutions and of the fact that only the leaders
of the Christians were singled out for punishment. Since the trial was for a
recognized legal crime, the case was necessarily introduced by private
prosecution (accusatio), which entailed upon the accuser very heavy responsibilities
which few would undertake.1
The theory
proposed in 1905 by Profumo 2 is as unique as it is interesting.
Basing his theory upon his interpretation of Tertullian’s institntum
Neronianum,s he rejects both the theory of coercitio and of
the existence of a special law proscribing Christianity as such. He believes
that Ter- tullian’s phrase refers to the three crimes of immorality, sacrilege
or atheism, and majestas. By a rule of evidence4 called institntum
these three crimes had at the time of Tiberius been so intimately associated
that the proof of one furnished legally the proof of a state of mind which
implied guilt of the other two.5 In the case of the Christians this
guilt was usually proven by their refusal to sacrifice. Nero, he believes, sent
a mandatum 6 to the magistrates of Rome and the provinces that the
Christians should be punished under this institntum, and Tertullian accordingly
named it the institntum Neronianum.7
That the
process against the Christians was by virtue of a special law is by no means a
new explanation, though it is but recently that it has come to occupy a place
alongside the opinion of Mommsen as one of the possible solutions of the
problem.1 The development and wide acceptance of this opinion has
been due very largely to a series of brilliant articles by Callewaert.2
According
to this theory there existed a penal law which expressly prohibited anyone from
being a Christian. The fundamental idea, if not the exact words, of this law
was, “ Non licet esse Christianos,” and the technical denomination of the
crime was, “ esse Christianum.” 9 Accordingly
This law
did not appear as an anomaly or even as an exceptional measure in the treatment
of religious matters by the Roman state;4 on the contrary, it
harmonized perfectly with the traditional treatment and proceeded naturally
from the fundamental principle of Roman religious policy.5 It was
based upon the principle expressed by Cicero,6 and was due to the
fact that the Christians were a menace to morals and public safety.7
The repression began under Nero as a temporary measure of police.8
But as soon as the police discovered the number and the irreconcilable
obstinacy of the accused, the many ramifications of the sect, and the
continuance of a propaganda which would perpetuate the same supposed abuses,
the temporary and local measures of police naturally gave way to a general and
permanent law.9 It was to this law that Tertullian referred when he
spoke of the institntum Neronianum.10
According
to Callejvaert, a correct interpretation of Tertullian,
who is the all-important source for the whole question of the legal basis of
the persecutions, proves the existence of such a law. In the case of every
text, particularly in the case of Tertullian, it is of the greatest importance
to find out whether the charge against the Christians is to be taken in the
sense of a technical legal accusation, or in the sense of a current
extra-judicial imputation.1 A study of the plan of the Apology
reveals the fact that from the seventh chapter on Tertullian refuted the
popular and current charges, while from the fourth to the sixth he dealt
explicitly with the legal situation.2 In the fourth chapter he
discussed the unjustness of the law—“ Non licet esse vos In the following
chapter he spoke of the origin of such laws, and in this connection referred to
the persecution under Nero, and in the sixth chapter enumerated similar laws
that had been permitted to lapse.®
The
supporters of this theory see further proof in the letters of Pliny and Trajan.4
The whole procedure of Pliny proves that the crime was to be a Christian.5
Furthermore, the rescript of Trajan proves that their crime was legally esse
Christianum, and that the formal reason for acquittal was the negation of the
esse Christianum.6 Like most rescripts this presupposed a law of
which it only defined the meaning.
Lastly
this theory is supported by Sulpicius Severus,7’
who
distinguishes two phases of the Neronian persecution. Callewaert supposes that
Sulpicius used for his authority Ulpian’s De officio proconsulis/ which was
still in existence at the time.2
Moreover,
the authorities prove overwhelmingly that the Christians were punished for
their religion and not for murder, robbery, or for any other ordinary crime.8
The entire procedure, the accusation, the interrogation, and the sentence, all
indicate that the crime was esse Christianum.4, The proof is
particularly clear in the case of the sentence, for according to the Roman law
the sentence should be written and read publicly 5 and should
mention the crime which constituted the legal ground for accusation.8
In view of the evidence the sentence could have been for no other crime than
that of being a Christian.7
In stating
these different theories I have endeavored to express each as completely and as
forcefully as space would permit. However, before subscribing to any one of
these explanations, one should become familiar not only with the documents
which relate directly to this problem but with the whole question of the
relationship between the Roman government and Christianity. The fact is that
our information is
very meager at best, and that we can not hope to determine authoritatively the
exact legal status of the Christians; yet the following opinion may at least
serve as a working hypothesis, even though it may not prove to be a solution of
the difficulty.
In the
first place, no one of the above theories can be accepted unconditionally. The
case which Callewaert has developed to prove that the crime was esse
Christianum is practically unanswerable, but his proof is based upon the late
second-century evidence, and hence proves the case only for the period after
Trajan and Hadrian. There is not room for the slightest doubt that after the
rescripts of these emperors Christianity constituted a crime punishable by
death. In fact, it is by no means improbable that, as a result of the precedent
set by Nero, there were cases where persons were condemned as Christians even
during the late first and early second century;1 but if so it was
because the term Christian designated a person who was considered hopelessly
immoral, who was dangerous to public order and security, and who was guilty of
every crime. It was not because he had been definitely and legally proscribed
or because his religion had been expressly declared to be a religio illicit a.2
In fact,
the existence of a law dating from the time of Nero is totally inconsistent
with the facts as we know them. A law to the effect that Christians were not to
be permitted to exist would certainly imply a general and more or less
continuous persecution. That this was far from being the case will appear in
the following chapters. Such a law would have meant thousands of martyrs if not
the
actual
extermination of the sect, whereas in reality the total number of martyrs up to
the time of Trajan would probably not exceed a few score.
Moreover
this theory is not supported by any satisfactory evidence. The only source, at
all trustworthy, which can be appealed to is an incidental remark by Tertullian.1
But it must be remembered that Tertullian wrote nearly a century and a half
after the events described, after the rescript of Trajan had made Christianity
a proscribed religion. In the fourth chapter of the Apology Tertullian refers
to the laws against the Christians and discusses their injustice. In the
following chapter he speaks of the origin of such laws, arid begins with the
legendary story of Tiberius and his attempt to receive Christ among the dii
noven- siles. He then makes the statement that Nero was the first to persecute
the Christians.2 Although he has not even implied that Nero issued
any law proscribing the Christians, nevertheless it is from this statement,
taken in connection with the preceding chapter, that Callewaert concluded that
Nero issued an edict to the effect that Non licet esse Chris- tianos. In
Tertullian’s statement there is absolutely no proof that Nero issued a law
proscribing Christianity.3
But, after
all, with the essentials in the theory of Callewaert we must necessarily
agree. The essential part of the theory is that there were in existence laws
which made the profession of Christianity a crime punishable by death. It is
only in the matter of time that we are compelled to disagree. The definite
legislation dates from the time of Tra-
jan, and
not from the time of Nero.1 It was the legislation of Trajan which
was in effect at the time of Tertullian and it was to this legislation that he
referred.2
So far as
the half century between the first outbreak under Nero and the rescript of
Trajan is concerned the solution seems very simple. In the first place, there
was nothing even resembling a persecution, except possibly in some places in
Asia Minor where the Christians were particularly numerous and heartily
disliked. It is pretty generally agreed that the first suppression under Nero
was by measures of police. This suppression would in turn serve as a precedent
for the administrative authorities throughout the empire.8 There is
no reason to believe that any special policy was adopted until the time of
Trajan. Whatever martyrdoms occurred before the rescript of Trajan took place
as a result of police suppression in virtue of the power of coercitio. The
reputed immorality of the Christians, the fact that they were believed to be
guilty of all kinds of crimes, or even the fact that they were a cause of
popular disturbances and disorders would be ample justification for such
police interference.
Such
repression may also have been due to the fact that their religion constituted
an illegal cult. Under the law which required all associations to be licensed
by the Emperor or Senate4 the external organization of the Chris-
tians was
illegal. However, this law was not as a rule rigidly enforced, particularly in
the provinces, and, as a result, there were many associations, especially of a
religious character, which were technically illegal, but which because of
their insignificant or harmless nature, were left unmolested. Ordinarily,
therefore, the Christians had nothing to fear from such a law, but there is no
reason why at times their assemblies could not have been suppressed on this
ground. But such occurrences would have been exceptional, and would by no means
have constituted anything like a persecution. It would simply have amounted to
a treatment which was shared by a large number of other similar organizations.
Still, it may have been to this law that Tertullian was referring in the early
chapters of the Apology, for when he discussed the origin of the laws against
the Christians he began by explaining how Christianity had failed to become a
religio licita.1 In later chapters he implies that Christianity
was regarded as such an illegal faction, though he says nothing to warrant the
supposition that this was the cause of their persecution.2
The crimes
of sacrilege, magic, homicide, and so forth, need not detain us long. Mommsen 3
has shown that in juristic language the term sacrilege applied to the robbery
of sacred objects, a crime of which the Christians certainly never were
accused. It was only in a purely popular sense that it was used to refer to
religious crimes in general,4 and it was in this sense that it was
used concerning the Christians.5 As for the other crimes there is
absolutely-no
reliable
evidence to show that the Christians were thus formally accused. In fact the
evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. To be sure there may have been
isolated cases where Christians were tried before the regular court (quaestio)
upon some of these charges, but these cases were clearly exceptional.
Though
technically Mommsen may be correct in saying that the Christians could legally
fall under the accusation of majestas, the fact must be emphasized that so far
as we know they were never during the first two centuries proceeded against on
this formal charge. As Callewaert says, the history of St. Paul proves
conclusively that the profession, even by a citizen, of a monotheistic
religion was not considered by the magistrate as a legal offence.1
Moreover, it was a well-established fact that a Christian could always save
himself by apostatizing, whereas if he were on trial for majestas or for any
recognized crime neither denial nor reparation would save him.2 If
the formal charge of majestas had been brought against the Christians for refusing
to worship the emperor, the persecution would have been much more systematic
and general than the evidence gives ground for supposing it was.8 If
the Christians had been punished for majestas Pliny would have been familiar with
the fact, but there is not a word in Pliny’s letter to indicate that he
punished the Christians as re os majestatis; on the contrary, it is a clear
case of the use of the power of coercitio.
Indeed it
is doubtful whether the Christians were formally accused of majestas even as
late as the time of Ter- tullian. If we take into consideration the plan of the
Apology, we must admit that Tertullian was refuting popular and current
accusations when he refutes the charge of majestas and of crimen laesae
religionis. When in the tenth chapter he turns from the charges of secret
crimes to the crimes of open day, he mentions majestas and sacrilege as the
chief grounds upon which the Christians were accused. But sacrilege is
certainly not used in a juristic sense and in all probability majestas is used
in the same way, namely, to designate the current extra-legal accusations which
were made against the Christians. As Callewaert expresses it,1 the
terms crimen laesae religionis, laesae divinitatis, in- religiositatis, laedere
deos, inreligiosi, impii, sacrilegi, all express to the apologist practically
the same idea, and apply to every action, speech or omission which constituted
an injury or an offense to the deity. The same is true of the expression hostis
pablicus, which in legal language signifies one guilty of majestas, a traitor.
Tertullian shows in the refutation of the charge that he uses the word only in
the sense of a popular accusation.2 Finally he indicates • that the
Christians were treated in a way entirely different from that of criminals
guilty of majestas. While everyone should aid in seeking out the latter, it
was forbidden to search out the former.8 Nor were the Christians
permitted to defend themselves like other criminals; and if they apostatized
they received absolute freedom.4 Moreover, no examination was made
into the charge,5 and if they con-
fessed
they were tortured to secure a denial of the same.1 This procedure
would be inconceivable if the charge had been majestas.
The
second-century evidence that the Christians were punished for the name alone is
overwhelming.2 Mommsen recognizes this fact, but attempts to explain
it by saying that the avowal that one was a Christian was considered and
punished as an avowal of the crime of majestas.8 This explanation,
however, is merely a hypothesis on the part of Mommsen and is altogether
unsupported by the evidence. He refers to Pliny’s letter as proof, but the fact
is that this letter proves quite the contrary. All his other references on this
point prove only that the Christians were punished for their faith alone.4
CHAPTER II
Persecution of the Christians under Nero
Christianity first appeared in the Roman State as a sect
of the Jews. As such it shared with Judaism not only the tolerance but even the
protection of the Roman Government. But if to the outside world the sect was indistinguishable
from the body of Jews, to the Jews themselves the Christians were heretics and
schismatics.1 Almost from its very inception the new religion had to
struggle against the jealousy and hatred of the mother cult. In this early
struggle the Roman authorities, so far as they came into contact with the
Christian sect, asumed the role of protectors, by preventing violence and
outrage,2 or, when accusation was brought by the Jews before the
tribunals, by refusing to interfere in their sectarian differences.3
The first
direct collision between the Roman Government and the rising sect appears to
have taken place at Rome during the latter part of the reign of Nero. Unfortunately
our information on this so-called “ first persecution of the Christians ” is
very slight. But the very slightness of the evidence has resulted in volumes
of discussion and commentary, and incidentally has raised many questions and
controversies which we can never hope to settle.
Indeed,
tragic as the event may have been, it has re
ceived an
amount of attention wholly out of proportion to its importance. It is true that
it was the first act of hostility on the part of the Roman government against
the Christian sect, but from the very nature of both parties this hostility was
bound to come. But it is also true that the Christians enjoyed comparative
peace for a considerable period after the first attack, and that this act of
tyranny on the part of a single ruler, which directly affected only the city of
Rome, was by no means the beginning of a series of persecutions as the later tradition
would have it In their efforts to make the good emperors appear as protectors
and to make the tyrants appear as persecutors, the apologists little by little
darkened the tradition of the Neronian persecution, until it came to be
regarded in a light wholly unfounded in fact.1
The cause
of this first outbreak is a difficult and much disputed question. The
traditional view is that Nero, who was accused of burning a large part of the
city of Rome, in order to divert suspicion from himself, accused the Christians
of setting fire to the city, and thus started the persecution. This view rests
entirely upon the account of Tacitus, which until recently was received by
historians without question. Twenty years ago, however, P. Batiffol raised,
without answering, the question of the incongruity of the narrative of Tacitus
with what seemed implied in the straightforward account of Suetonius, and
suggested that Tacitus had combined two unconnected events, a fire in Rome and
a persecution of the Christians, into one incident, in order to heighten the
dramatic effect of his history.2 A decade later Profumo, after an
elaborate inves
tigation,
reached the conclusion that Tacitus was either himself mistaken or else he had
intentionally misstated the situation, in making the persecution the result of
the fire.1 As a matter of fact, he says, no one, either pagan or
Christian was punished as an incendiary; the attention of Nero was drawn to
the Christians in the year following that of the fire through the conspiracy of
Piso.2 A certain slave or freedman, according to Profumo, by
refusing to take the required oaths at the trial, caused the denunciation of
his religion. Two years later two other critics, Klette and Bacchus, writing
independently, also broke away from the traditional explanation of the cause of
the persecution. Klette held that the whole description of the fire and the
persecution was biased by the attempt of the author to paint Nero as the
blackest possible tyrant.8 The conclusion of Bacchus is based upon
the supposition that the persecution began before the fire, and that so little
was made of the charge of incendiarism that nobody paid any attention to it.4
Let us now
turn to Tacitus. In the chapters 5 just preceding the account of
the persecution he describes the great fire of the year 64. In the first
sentence he states explicitly that it is uncertain whether the fire was
accidental or whether it was caused by the emperor, as his sources gave both
accounts. He then proceeds with a detailed descrip-
tion of
the fire.1 It began, he says, on the nineteenth of July in that part
of the circus which adjoins the Palatine and Caelian hills, in the midst of
shops containing inflammable wares. Fanned by the wind, the blaze soon covered
the entire length of the circus. It first consumed the level portions of the
city, then rose to the hills. To the confusion of the fire was added the
distress of the people. The wailings of terror-stricken women, the feebleness
of old age, and the helplessness of childhood, the crowding, and the delay in
order to save others, all aggravated the general confusion. Those who escaped
to a place apparently secure, soon found themselves again enveloped in flame.
Many in utter despair perished though they might have escaped. No one dared to
try to stop the mischief because of incessant threats of a number of persons
who forbade the extinguishing of the flames. Others went around openly hurling
fire-brands, and shouting that they were following orders in so doing, perhaps,
however, in order to plunder more freely. Nero was at Antium and returned only
just in time to see the palace destroyed. The Emperor did everything in his
power to check the suffering of the people. But his acts failed to put down the
rumor, that even while the city was in flames, he had appeared on a private
stage and sang of the destruction of Troy. At the end of five days the fire was
finally under control, but it broke out a second time, now running through the
more spacious districts. It seemed as though Nero was aiming at the glory of
founding a new city and calling it by his name. Of the fourteen districts of
Rome, but four were left uninjured, three were leveled to the ground, the other
seven were partially destroyed.
Tacitus
then briefly describes the rebuilding of the royal palace and of the city. The
streets were broad and carefully laid out, the height of houses was
restricted, porticoes were added, at Nero’s expense, to protect the front of
the tenements, and the method of building was to be improved.
“ But,”
continues Tacitus, “ the suspicion that the fire was the result of an order
yielded neither to human effort, nor to the lavish gifts of the emperor, nor
even to the propitiation of the gods.1 Therefore to check this
rumor Nero substituted as culprits and afflicted with the most exquisite
tortures those who were called Christians by the mob and were hated for their
enormities.” His explanation is remarkably clear. His meaning is not only
perfectly plain, but the picture which he has presented leaves such an impression
that nearly all have accepted without question this account as the true
explanation of the beginning of the persecution.
If Tacitus
were the only source for the Neronian persecution we could stop here,
accepting the account without serious misgivings. But there are other sources
and it is a striking fact that not one of them connect in any way the fire with
the persecution.2 They not only do not mention the charge of
incendiarism, but they fail to make the slightest reference to the fire, where
such a reference would be most natural, and where their silence is a matter of
too great significance to be ignored.
Consider,
for example, the earliest source which has come down to us, namely, Clement of
Rome. The sufferings of the Christians under Nero furnished him a well
known and
striking example upon which he could moralize in his letter to the Corinthians.
This letter had been called forth by a serious quarrel in the Corinthian
church. Envy and jealousy were at work. He proceeded to give examples from the
Old Testament to warn his readers against the sin of envy. Envy, he said, led
Cain to kill his brother, sent Jacob into exile, persecuted Joseph, compelled
Moses to flee, and incited Saul against David. Then coming to his own time he
gave as another example of the result of envy and jealousy the persecution of
Nero.
Certainly
in the mind of Clement who wrote many years before Tacitus the persecution was
due to envy and jealousy. He emphasized the fact again and again; the
apostles, the women, the great multitude, all suffered because of envy and
strife. But to what envy does he refer? Was it possible that the Roman
government was jealous of the Christians, and for this reason instituted a
persecution? Such an explanation would be absurd, for the Christian community
at that time was too insignificant to have aroused any envy—except from one
quarter. Now it seems significant in this connection that the suffering of the
apostles under Nero are spoken of by Clement as though continuous with those sufferings
which had been caused by the Jews. The natural inference is that the Jews,
because of their jealousy of the Christians, had stirred up the persecution
directed against the Christians.1 To be sure Clement takes for
granted a knowledge of the circumstances which we do not possess. It is not
impossible, of coursd, that the occasion for the exercise of this jealousy was
the fire at Rome. Perhaps, as Allard 2 explains,
Nero in
looking for a scapegoat upon whom he might divert suspicion, succeeded in
turning the indignation of the populace against the Jews. The facts would have
suited this purpose admirably, for the fire had begun in the shops of the great
circus, occupied by oriental merchants, among whom were many Jews, but it had
not reached the region of the Porta Capena where the Jews lived. But they had
at court powerful protectors, especially Poppaea.1 Allard proposes
as a probable hypothesis that Poppaea, or some other Jewish servants in the
palace, turned the attention of Nero to the Christians, still confused with
the \ Jews by the masses, but really long pursued by them with a \fierce hatred
and irreconcilable jealousy.2
Suetonius,
a contemporary of Tacitus, completed the Lives of the Caesars only three or
four years after Tacitus wrote the Annals. He must have been familiar with the
account of the persecution in the Annals, for in some passages of the Lives he
has apparently used and followed the account of Tacitus. But Suetonius failed
to give the slightest hint which world in any way indicate a connection between
the fire and the suppression of the Christians; in fact, he separates by many
chapters the accounts of the two events. According to Schoenaich3
the historical method of Suetonius accounts for this fact, inasmuch as he
grouped his material by topic without regard to the mere external relation of
cause and effect, and therefore often arbitrarily
rearranged
his material.1 But if this hypothesis is correct it only serves to
emphasize the importance of the fact that he mentions the suppression of the
Christians along with a number of other police regulations of a permanent
nature.2 Suetonius does not explain what called the attention of the
police administrative officers to the Christians, but it seems most unlikely
that he would have placed the notice of this suppression in a list of police
measures if he had believed that the persecution had been caused by the charge
of incendiarism. His statement implies rather that Nero maintained a more or
less steady suppression of these undesirable citizens in order to preserve the
good order of the city. Or, in other words, the account of Suetonius indicates
that the Christians were suppressed for the same reason that the worshipers of
Bacchus and Isis had been suppressed before them. They fell under the ordinary
rule of Roman intolerance, and as a result, their suppression became the duty
of the Roman officials.3
As in the
case of Clement of Rome, innumerable attempts have been made to reconcile
Suetonius and Tacitus. Ramsay, for example, maintains that Suetonius gives
merely a brief statement of the permanent administrative principle into which
Nero’s action ultimately resolved itself. Tacitus, on the other hand, prefixes
to his account of the same result a description of the origin and gradual
development of Nero’s action'; and the picture which he draws is so impressive
and so powerful as to concentrate attention,
and
withdraw the mind of the reader from the final stage and the implied result of
the Emperor’s action.1 Accordingly, he concludes, the persecution
of Nero, begun for the sake of diverting popular attention, was continued as a
permanent police measure under the form of a general persecution of the
Christians as a sect dangerous to the public safety.2 Hardy,8
in the same connection, says that the attempt to convict the Christians of
burning the city failed; the people saw through it. Hence Suetonius does not
think it worth while to disturb his summary of events by bringing the
punishment of the Christians into connection, generally admitted to be
fictitious, with the burning of the city. The charge of incendiarism, he adds,
had developed into a general charge of disaffection to the government,
resulting from a mischievous and morose superstition.
If it were
not for the singular silence of every other writer on the charge of
incendiarism we might accept some of these attempts at reconciliation, and
admit that the contradictions are more apparent than real. Of course any
argument based merely upon the silence of this or that writer is inconclusive
at best, but when we look in vain for even the slightest mention of such a
supposedly notorious fact as the charge of incendiarism, we are at least
justified in questioning the accuracy of Tacitus. In view of the unreliability
of our historical evidence in general, and of the large number of traditional
beliefs that melt away under critical examination, it would be by no means
surprising to find that Tacitus either deliberately connected unassociated
events or else was himself laboring-under a misconception.
The
apologist Melito of Sardis, writing a half-century later, says that Nero and
Domitian were persuaded to persecute the Christians by certain malicious
slanderers. By most writers this short quotation has received but little attention.
Klette,1 however, is inclined to lay considerable stress upon his
explanation. It certainly agrees with the statements of Clement of Rome, and
Klette’s explanation that the calumniators were the Jews is a point well taken.
He argues 2 that the slanderers in the first place must have been
well acquainted with the distinction between Jews and Christians, and in the
second place they must have hated the Christians with an unrelenting hatred.
One does not have to go far to discover who these malicious advisers are likely
to have been. Even in the court of Nero there were influential Jews or Jewish
proselytes. The Jewish actor Aliturus was in special favor,8 but by
far the most influential of all was the Jewish proselyte Poppaea Sabina, who
by a series of crimes had become empress. Tacitus speaks of her along with
Tigellinus as the emperor’s most confidential adviser in times of rage.4
The malicious slanderers then would seem to have been none other than the
Jewish advisers of Nero. '
Tertullian,
writing still thirty years later, says not a word about the cause of this
persecution, except to suggest that it occurred per Neronis saevitiam/ through
the cruelty of Nero. The very silence of Tertullian on this point is remarkable,
the more so because he was a Westerner, entirely familiar with western
tradition. That the great apologist, who above all others labored to explode
the calumnies
heaped
upon the Christians, should have entirely neglected the opportunity offered by
this charge of incendiarism, which even according to Tacitus had been
completely disproved, is significant to say the least. Here was just the case
he was looking for. The Christians had been falsely accused, they had been made
to suffer for another’s crime, so many innocent Christians had suffered to
satisfy the tyrant’s rage that even the hardened Roman populace became sorry
for them. What an argument for the vindication of the oppressed Christians!
Why did Tertullian neglect to use it ? Since he was trying to show that the
Christians had only been persecuted by the tyrants, why did he not make use of
this act of tyranny? There seems to be but one explanation—there had never been
any such a thing. It certainly seems that if Tacitus had been correct
Tertullian would have known it, and if he had known these fects he most
certainly would have mentioned them.
But
Tertullian is by no means an isolated case. On the contrary, the charge of
incendiarism is not mentioned in a single one of the apologies 1
which has come down to us. The apologists neither took any advantage of the
false accusation, nor did they feel called upon to defend themselves against
such a charge.2 The reason is certainly not because they are afraid
to raise the question, for there is also not the slightest mention of such a
charge in any of the known pagan polemics.3 More than all this, of
the half-dozen or
so
accounts of the fire by both pagan and Christian writers,1 not one
except Tacitus even hints at the implication of any religious sect, or of any
persecution as a result.
The
silence of Eusebius is particularly important because his history embodies a
great number of early Christian writings which he used as sources for his
Church History and for his Chronicle. To be sure he was not a Roman and he is
not always reliable when it comes to western traditions, but it is at least
reasonable to suppose that if the Christians had suffered as incendiaries he
would have known the fact, and would have mentioned it either in the Church
History or in the Chronicle. In the Chronicle,* under the ninth year of Nero,
he says, “ Conflagrations broke out in great numbers at Rome.” Under the thirteenth
year he gives the notice on the persecution which is translated and repeated by
Jerome.8 He not only does not connect these events, then, but he
separates them by a period of four years. Eusebius’s statements in the Church
History4 would seem to indicate that he was fairly well acquainted
with the sources on Nero.
But if
Eusebius, as a Greek, unfamiliar with western tradition, had committed such an
error, surely Jerome, a western Christian, would correct it in his translation
of the Chronicle. And so he does to a certain extent, for he found it necessary
to correct and amplify the account of the fire.
Under the
tenth year of Nero’s reign he says,1 “ Nero, in order to witness a
likeness of the burning of Troy, burned a great part of the city of Rome.”
Later, however, under the year 68, he speaks of the persecution,2
making no allusion whatever to any connection between the two events. Jerome’s
statement can be taken as fairly representative of the accepted belief of the
fourth century.
The De
Mortibus Persecutorum3 says that Nero began the persecution when it
was brought to his attention that Peter by his miracles was winning many
converts to the new faith. When he realized that not only at Rome but
everywhere a great multitude was condemning the old religion and joining the
new, since he was an execrable and wicked tyrant, he tried to destroy the new
religion. The author says nothing as to who the informers were; in fact his
account is of little value as evidence. However, he too fails to connect in any
way the fire and the persecution.
There are
two possible exceptions to the general statement that Tacitus alone connects
the fire and the persecution, namely, Sulpicius Severus and a fourth-century
forger. The relation which exists between Sulpicius Severus and Tacitus is
quite evident.4 In this particular chapter he has hardly more than
transcribed word for word much of the account of Tacitus. In fact, Halm, in his
edition of Tacitus, has used the account of Severus to correct the manuscript.
This is not an exception then, since this account can have no more value than
the account which he slavishly used.
On the
other hand, if Lightfoot is correct in his supposition that the author of the
apocryphal letter of Seneca to Paul1 used some account of the
Neronian fire and persecution which is no longer extant, we apparently have an
exception to the general statement that only Tacitus connects the two events.
Lightfoot gives as his reason for this theory the fact that the writer says
that both the Jews and Christians suffered as incendiaries, and that a hundred
and thirty-two houses and six insulae were burnt in six days. Since Tacitus is
the only author who connects the fire and the persecution, and since this
forger differs in these two points from Tacitus, he must, therefore, argues
Lightfoot, have used some other source, now lost, which also said the
Christians were persecuted as incendiaries. But this forger was familiar with
Tacitus, for Fleury2 has called attention to the fact that many
expressions are borrowed from him. At best this evidence of a fourth-century
forger as to the existence of some other source connecting the fire and the
persecution is not likely to be of much value. So far as the small amount of
damage is concerned Eusebius had a similar misconception. His statement that
the Christians and Jews were wont to be punished as incendiaries is in all
probability simply his own amplification of Tacitus’ account, and it is by no
means necessary to suppose that he followed some other source of which we know
absolutely nothing. Undoubtedly these statements are simply examples of the
errors of which the letters are full.
We are
confronted then with the fact that Tacitus alone gives the fire as the cause of
the persecution. Not only that, but every other available document on the
persecution gives an explanation of the cause, which if not actually
inconsistent
with Tacitus, must be reconciled by most ingenious theories. It certainly
would seem that the evidence against the reliability of Tacitus on this point
is overwhelming, in spite of the fact that most modem authorities still accept
his account. At any rate, the above discussion ought to be sufficient to raise
a serious question about this old traditional theory, even though it is
impossible to entirely dispel it. It at least should suffice to cause us to
admit that in the last analysis we simply do not know.
On minor
points Tacitus has been attacked time and again. Schiller,1 for
example, unable to understand how Christianity, which was developing under the
toleration extended to the Jews, could have been singled out for special
punishment, suggested that the persecution really fell upon the Jews.2
Individual Christians, he admits, may have been involved, but Tacitus in
specifying the Christians has committed an anachronism, and wrote as a contemporary
of Trajan rather than as a historian of the period of Nero. In other words,
according to Schiller, Tacitus made a distinction which was well known in his
time, but which had not yet been made in the Neronian period. A statement in
Suetonius 8 would seem to indicate that they had been confused in
the time of Claudius. But the evidence of the sources, particularly of
Suetonius, Clement, and Melito, together with the silence of Josephus and Dio
Cassius concerning any persecution of the Jews
would seem
to be conclusive that the persecution fell upon the Christians.1
One of the
stumbling-blocks in the interpretation of Tacitus, the one which has caused the
greatest amount of dispute, is the phrase, qui fatebantur. Although most
scholars2 have interpreted it as a confession that they were
Christians, it has been argued that fatebantur could not be used to refer to a
religious confession; therefore it must mean that they confessed to the charge
of incendiarism.8 Accordingly the Christians were punished as convicted
incendiaries,4 and not because of their beliefs. In a work written
later, to answer his critics, Schiller expresses the opinion that after a
number of those accused of incendiarism was found guilty, the mere membership
in the sect sufficed as a ground for condemnation, since from this membership
they derived participation in the crime of incendiarism.6 Arnold 6
goes one step further and holds that
from whom
a confession was drawn which would suffice for accusing the ingens multitudo of
Christians. He cites Tacitus, Annals, xiv. 60, for a parallel case.
the
Christians, either under torture or else because as Millenarians they were
actually guilty, confessed to the charge of incendiarism. But he distinguishes
a second phase in which they were tried for hatred of mankind, odium generis
humani.
It
remained for Paschal, however, to carry this train of thought to its limit. He
goes so far as to denounce the Christians, or at least some of them, as the
true authors of the fire.1 From the last passage in the chapter he
concludes that it was the Christians who had executed the orders of Nero.2
According to Paschal the Christians were a class of people animated with base
envy, slaves full of resentment, wretches eager for vengeance and pillage, and
profligates freed from all check human or divine.8 This attack
called forth such a storm of criticism as one might expect if he had struck at
the very foundation of the Church itself.4 It is sufficient to
remark that his thesis has been overwhelmingly disproved.
The
discussion in the previous chapter on the legal basis of the persecutions,
bears very directly upon this suppression of the Christians. As was there
suggested, there is no proof that Nero issued an edict forbidding Christianity
to
exist. The
only source for such a statement is Sulpicius Severus,1 who wrote
nearly three and a half centuries after the persecution. He appends an account
of the edict to his description of the persecution, which, as we have seen
above, is practically a literal rendering of Tacitus. As Tacitus himself says
nothing about such a law, we are forced to conclude that Sulpicius is referring
to the action of later emperors, or else that his statement on this point is
unreliable.2
Under what
procedure, therefore, did the Neronian persecution take place ? It was not
under the existing criminal laws, for immorality, atheism, and majestas,3
nor at this early date because of their membership in a collegium illici- turn.4
The truth of the situation is rather implied in the short statement of Suetonius,5
which intimates that the Christians were suppressed as a police measure,
perhaps because of supposed immorality, at least because for one reason or
another they fell under the rule of intolerance. Their trial in the first
instance probably came before the praefectus urbi, as the chief police
magistrate at Rome, or before other executive magistrates at Rome in whom was
vested the power of coercitio.
By the
Romans the Christians were probably regarded as magicians, since the Christians
openly boasted of theit power over demons and impure spirits. But that this persecution
consisted of condemnations on the specific charge of magic is out of the
question, though undoubtedly their magical practices would constitute an
element in the hatred
of the
Romans for the members of the sect. Perhaps Suetonius had something of this
sort in mind when he spoke of the Christians as a class of people of a
superstition novae ac maleiicae. The word maleiicae may mean magical, and it
is perhaps in this sense that Suetonius used it. It is possible also that
Tacitus 1 implied something of the sort when he says that the
Christians, who were adherents of an exitabilis superstito, were hated for
their flagitia, and were really punished for odium generis humani. The flagitia
refer especially to the secret crimes and impure orgies which were imputed to
the Christian sect, but the hatred for mankind might mean among other things
the practice of magic.2 At any rate the mode of punishment described
by Tacitus is the same as that which was prescribed for magic, that is, by
being thrown to the beasts, or by being crucified or burned alive.8
Suetonius
says nothing about the details of the punishment, but Clement states that the
Christians endured many outrages and torments, and that the women suffered
cruel
and unholy
tortures as Danaids and Dircae.1 Lightfoot2 questions the
text here, but if correct, he says it must refer to those refinements of
cruelty, practiced by Nero and Domitian, which combined theatrical
representations with judical punishments, so that the offender suffered in the
character of some hero of ancient legend or history. The story of Dirce, tied
by the hair and dragged along by a bull, would be very appropriate for this
treatment; but all attempts to make anything of the legend of the Danaids
entirely fail. Arnold8 suggests that additions were made to the
original legend for the purposes of the ampitheater; just as Orpheus was tom to
pieces by a bear without any mythological justification.
A question
which is very closely connected with the issuance of an edict by Nero is that
of the universality of the persecution. If an edict was issued by Nero it
follows that the persecution was general throughout the provinces. Accordingly
those writers who have supported the theory of an edict also support the theory
that the persecution extended to the rest of the empire and continued for many
years, even up to the end of the reign of Nero.4 Calle- waert5
distinguishes two phases of the persecution. The first, in connection with the
charge of incendiarism was local and of short duration;6 the second,
followed the first
after an
interval difficult to determine, but probably very short. It was rather a
systematic repression having a permanent and legal character. It was, he says,
the second phase which Suetonius had in mind,1 and which was acute
particularly in Asia Minor.2
Most
scholars, however, have maintained that the so- called persecution was simply
an act of violence, limited to the city of Rome and short in duration.3
This is certainly the only view that can be sustained by the evidence of the
sources. The only authority for a general persecution is the totally unreliable
Orosius,4 who wrote three and a half centuries afterward. However,
it is by no means improbable that there were isolated cases of martyrdom
outside of Rome,5 in which cases the provincial authorities would
have been following the precedent set at Rome. It must be remembered, however,
that at the time of Nero Christianity was by no means widespread, except in
Asia Minor.
First
Peter may indicate the danger of such trials in Asia Minor, though the evidence
of this epistle is of a very uncertain nature and probably applies to a period
a decade or two later.6 This letter was directed to the faithful in
Pontus, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.7 The writer urges
them to
submit to the authority of the government,1 and encourages them in
the face of threatened persecution.8 But to say that it was written
by Peter at Rome to the Christians of Asia Minor, after some Christians had
been punished in the capital, in order to warn his co-worshipers of similar
dangers,8 or even to say that it refers in any way to the episode at
Rome, is mere hypothesis. It is more likely that it refers to those
persecutions in Asia Minor to which the Christians had always been more or less
subject.
Attempts
have been made, but without success, to prove that there were martyrs in the
West outside of Rome. Allard’s 4 hypothesis that there may have
been martyrs in the south of Gaul is based upon no authority whatever.8
Nor is there any better basis for the traditions of martyrdoms in many of the
towns of Italy.6 The acta which recount the martyrdom of Gervasius
and Protasius in Milan and Vitalio in Ravenna and of others are worthy of no
credence whatever.7 Certain inscriptions8 discovered at
Pompeii seem to indicate not only the presence of Christians there
before 79
A. D., but also the fact that they were the object of ridicule and insult. But
to suppose that there were martyrs in Pompeii at the time of Nero is simply a
guess.1
If we
reject the arson hypothesis we at once raise the question of the date of this
suppression of the Christians. Bacchus, arguing that qui fatebantur was used by
Tacitus to indicate that the Christians avowed themselves members of a sect
already being hunted down by the government, dates the beginning of the
persecution some time before 64 A. D.2 We have the isolated evidence
of one inscription pointing apparently to the case of a Roman woman of noble
birth suffering for her belief in Christianity as early as 57 A. D.s
Nero left Rome in 66 A. D., so it is not likely that the suppression began
later than this date, though the later church tradition placed it in 67 or 68
A. D.4 Probably the repression as a police measure, continued to
some extent throughout the latter part of the reign of Nero, and there may have
been cases even in the early Flavian period. If the widely-extended tradition
of the martyrdom of Paul and even Peter in 66 or 67 A. D. can be accepted, we
would have examples of trials even after Nero’s departure.5 However,
if there was any such an active suppression as
Tacitus
describes, it could have lasted only a very short time.1
The ingens
niultitudo of Tacitus and the ttoAv 7^% of Clement would at first thought seem
to indicate not only that the persecution extended for quite a long period, but
also that there was a comparatively large number of victims. But it is rather
difficult to accept the statement of Tacitus that there were sufficient victims
to rouse a feeling of pity among a populace which, as he says, hated the Christians
as criminals worthy of death and which found its amusement in just such scenes
as Tacitus describes. Schiller,2 who minimizes the whole occurrence,
treats the statement as absolutely incredible. Even the great multitude of
Clement would mean a small number comparatively, for the Christian community
at Rome could have been only an insignificant part of the population,3
and what to him would seem a great multitude would in reality be a very small
number. The Martyrologium Hieronymianum* which gives 974 or 979 martyrs for the
Peter-Paul day, June 29th, is too late and too unauthoritative to shed any
light whatever on the question.6 When we make the necessary
allowances for exaggeration on the part of Tacitus and Clement the actual
number of those who suffered death becomes relatively small.
But
whatever the number of martyrs, none of their names have come down to us with
the exception of two. There is a very old and a very strong tradition that both
Paul and
Peter were at Rome and that they suffered martyrdom under Nero. That Paul was
martyred at Rome is pretty generally admitted, but even Peter's presence there
has been most vigorously denied by some Protestant scholars.1
However, Clement implies that both marytrdoms took place at Rome during the
persecution of Nero,2 and this in turn is corroborated by the
evidence of Caius and of Dionysius of Corinth,8 though their
evidence is late. Ori- gen 4 is the first to mention the fact that
Peter was crucified head downward, while Tertullian 5 states that
Paul was beheaded.6 The tradition that Peter was crucified at Rome
and that Paul was beheaded there was so well established by the time of
Eusebius that it is unnecessary to mention any later sources. There are still
other probable references to the martyrdom of Peter which are practically contemporaneous
but which do not give any hint as to the
place. The
fourth gospel, which was written after his death, seems to refer to his
martyrdom and to imply crucifixion as the manner of death.1
.Another reference is to be found in the Ascension of Isaiah, which probably belongs
to the late first century, and which speaks of the martyrdom of one of the
Apostles.2 This one must be Peter, since Paul was not included as
one of the Apostles till a half-century later.
According
to a widespread tradition 8 the martyrdom of Peter and Paul took
place on the same day, June 29th, of the year 67. Prudentius, at the end of the
fourth century, represented them as suffering one year apart.4 As a
matter of fact the date simply cannot be determined, but if one accepts the
martyrdom of both at Rome, 67 A. D., seems as likely as any.5 The
tradition that they perished on the same day is late and very far from
conclusive.
The
conclusions to be drawn from this chapter are already obvious. In the first
place that part of Tacitus which connects the persecution with the fire should
be discarded. It is irreconcilable with the accounts in the other sources, as
well as with the implications in the rest of the evidence
obtainable
on the whole Neronian period. Tacitus has either misrepresented the situation
or else he was himself mistaken. The true cause of the persecution seems rather
to be the “ envy ” mentioned by Clement and the influence of malicious
slanderers as given by Melito; at least some jealousy or dissension, probably
with the Jews, because of which the Jews, working through Poppaea or some other
of the Jewish religion powerful at court, called the attention of the Roman
authorities to the Christian religion. This led to the police measures which
Suetonius mentions. It does not follow that the whole chapter of Tacitus must
be thrown out. On the contrary, it is a valuable source, but it must be used
only with the most extreme care.
There is
no question but that the repression fell upon the Christians and not upon the
Jews. That the two were clearly distinguished by the authorities when the
repression began, or at least very soon after is very probable.
The
Christians were not persecuted in virtue of an edict issued by Nero, nor under
existing laws, but were repressed by the police magistrates in virtue of the
power of coercitio.
The
persecution was by no means universal, though there may have been isolated
cases tried by the police authorities outside of Rome, following the precedents
set at Rome. Such cases may have occurred in Asia Minor where the Christians
were most numerous and most disliked.
Vigorous
repression could have lasted only for a short time, though there were probably
cases of martyrdom until late in the reign of Nero or even in the reigns of the
early Flavians. It is difficult to determine when the first repression took
place; it was probably during the last few years of Nero’s reign.
The total
number of martyrs was small, perhaps as a conjecture a score or two. The names
of but two of these martyrs have come down to us, Paul and Peter. The most
satisfactory date for their martyrdom seems to be 67 A. D.
The
Christians under the Flavian Emperors Much has been written on the policy of
the Flavians towards the Christians, but few agree as to what that policy was.
So far as Vespasian is concerned, however, it seems fairly clear that he troubled
himself very little about the Christians, and that they were at peace. Only a
few fragments by the way of sources have come down to us. Melito* definitely
mentions Nero and 'Domitian as the only persecutors, whereas Tertullian2
names Vespasian as one who did not enforce the laws against the Christians.
Dio3 tells us that he rescinded the disfran- v chisement of such
persons as had been condemned for impiety (aokpeia) by Nero and succeeding
rulers, and that he stopped the indictments made upon such complaints; all of
which may or may not have any bearing upon the Christians.4
Eusebius,5 too, states that he had undertaken nothing prejudicial
to the Christians. The only mention of Vespasian as a persecutor is that of
Hilary of Poitiers,6 who, writing in the latter half of the fourth
century, probably confused the Christian tradition and named him instead of his
son Domitian.
Lightfoot prefers to believe that his statement was
based upon
some facts known to him, but since obliterated from the permanent records of
history. De Rossi,1 on the other hand, takes quite the opposite view
when he concludes from the archeological evidence that after the death of Nero
and the condemnation of his memory the Christians certainly enjoyed a profound
peace for more than thirty years. The inscriptions and the cemeteries, he
says, indicate a period when the Christians did not fear to make open
profession of their worship.2 The entrances to the cemeteries were
not hidden; they even sometimes showed monumental fagades,3 and
paintings representing biblical subjects were placed near the entrance,
exposed to the light of day.4 At any rate, there are no traces of
martyrdoms under Vespasian, though of course there may have been isolated
cases, any record of which has failed to reach us.5 •
As for the
attitude of Titus we are even less well informed than we are concerning that of
Vespasian. The only evidence bearing on this question is contained in the
chronicle of Sulpicius Severus, written at the beginning of the fifth century.6
Bernays7 has suggested that Sulpicius used for his description of
the destruction of Jerusalem a part of the history of Tacitus now lost. This
particular selection, however, is too characteristic
of a
Christian writer to be a part of that taken from Tacitus. As Linsenmayer*
suggests, we have here an independent expression of the Christian author. The
improbability of Titus maintaining before Jerusalem that Christianity ought to
be destroyed, and of that fact being recorded in a pagan writer is indeed very
great.2 So far as our evidence goes, then, there is no reason for
differentiating between the status of the Christians under Vespasian and their
status under Titus.
The
question of the policy of the early Flavians is simplified if one remembers
that they inherited the policy of Nero. Upon the determination of the legal
status of the Christians under Nero depends the interpretation of the Flavian
policy. If, then, the conclusion reached in the chapter on the Neronian
persecution is correct, namely, that their repression was largely a matter of
police administration, then their status under the Flavians becomes clear. If
there were disturbances, or if the Christians aroused the hostility of the
populace, or if for any other reason they came under the ordinary rule of
intolerance, then the police authorities may have acted; otherwise the
Christians likely were left in peace. Whether or not there were such actions of
the police we simply do not know. Our records fail entirely to answer that
question. *
A careful
study of the sources on the period of Domi- tian reveals at once the slender
foundation upon which is built the tradition of the second persecution of the
church. Clement of Rome, the only contemporary
source,
says nothing about such a repression. He drops one or two incidental remarks*
which may or may not refer to what is properly called a persecution. He speaks
of the unexpected calamities and disasters which had befallen the church at
Rome one after another.1 Later he says,2 referring to the
time of Nero: “For we are in the same arena, and the same conflict is imposed
upon us.” In the first place we are not entirely sure of the date of this
letter, for it must be remembered that these very selections have been largely
responsible for placing the date at 95, so as to coincide with the persecution
of Domitian. In the second place this reference is too indefinite to prove very
much by itself. The question arises whether or not there are other reliable
sources to fix its meaning.
One or two
vague notes in the epistles of Ignatius may refer to some such oppression in
Asia Minor, but they are of a very doubtful character indeed.3 The
two letters were written from Smyrna while he was on his way to Rome where he
suffered martyrdom during the reign of Trajan. They refer to some form of
oppression in Asia Minor which had taken place before the time of writing.
Suetonius4
wrote twenty-five years after the date set for the persecution. He refers to
the collection of the Jewish poll-tax and to the death of Flavius Clemens, but
in connections which in no way suggest a persecution of the Christians.5
The first
actual mention of a persecution appears in the Christian apologists, Melito and
Tertullian.1 Just how much authority they had for fastening, upon
one of the worst of emperors and naming him along with Nero as a persecutor can
not, of course, be determined. The fact that these apologists, were endeavoring
to show that the Christians had been persecuted by the bad emperors and
protected by the good must certainly be taken into consideration. It is
significant, too, that Melito wrote some eighty years after the date set for
the persecution, and Tertullian still twenty-five years later, at a time when
the state had assumed an entirely different attitude towards the Christians.
Melito
says simply that Nero and Domitian alone have wished to falsely accuse our
doctrine; Tertullian goes a little further and names Domitian along with Nero
as a persecutor. The apologists may have used sources which have not survived,
but so far as we know their only grounds for this statement was the fact that a
few who may have happened to be Christians suffered along with others as the
victims of Domitian’s tyranny. But did they suffer as Christians? So far as
Flavius Clemens is concerned Suetonius would seem to answer that question in
the negative.
Turning to
the only pagan source of importance, we have an epitome of Dio Cassius, made by
an eleventh century Christian monk. Dio, who in turn wrote about one hundred
and twenty-five years after the period under consideration, says that Flavius
Clemens and Flavia Domitilia were both charged with atheism, under which many
others who drifted into Jewish ways were condemned.* Some of these, he says,
were killed, and the remainder were at least deprived of their property. Dio
never once
mentions Christianity or anything like a persecution, but it is likely that he
had the Christians in mind, for in his time they were called atheists by the
populace though atheism1 never constituted a crime at Roman law.
Dio’s
account, however, must be set over against the statement of Suetonius, who
wrote a full century earlier. The latter, who was in a position to be much
better informed than Dio, describes almost the same circumstances, but from
an entirely different point of view, and incidentally leaves an entirely
different impression. Those living according to Jewish customs were not persecuted
for atheism or Jewish living. On the contrary, the emperor, to restore a
depleted treasury, levied the Jewish poll-tax with great severity, and those
who lived according to Jewish customs were compelled to pay. Flavius Clemens,
according to Suetonius, was not brought up in connection with Jewish living at
all, but- was put to death by the emperor for purely political reasons.
However,
those Christians who were brought before the tribunal in connection with the
levying of the poll- tax would naturally deny their connection with Judaism. If
so they might have been regarded by the public as atheists, though, so far as
we know, this term was not applied to the Christians until more than half a
century after the time of Domitian.2 Inasmuch as their worship
had never
been made a religio licita, and accordingly, since they would have had no claim
to protection or even toleration on the part of the state, it is possible that
some of them may have been persecuted by the police authorities. Perhaps Dio
had something of this sort in mind when he referred to the charge of atheism,
under which many who drifted into Jewish ways were condemned.
But even
if we grant that the two accounts are not inconsistent on this point, and if we
accept the statement of Dio that both Flavius Clemens and Domitilla were
charged with atheism, still this evidence is by no means sufficient to support
the tradition of a second great persecution of the church. He mentions but two
martyrs, one of whom was banished, the other put to death. Some others were
killed, and still others were at least deprived of their property. But such
occurrences were common at Rome, and would by no means receive the special
comment that they would receive to-day. Moreover it must be remembered that we
are not sure that Dio had the Christians in mind at all.1
Once the
statement was made definite by Tertullian that Domitian persecuted the
Christians, the tradition very easily became perpetuated. The Christian fathers
from this time on repeated the story over and over, adding details and making
the account more vivid. Lactantius,2 writing two centuries and a
quarter afterward, adds nothing to our information, but the account of his
contemporary Eusebius is more significant. In the chronicle3
Eusebius quotes an unknown writer Brut- tius who says that many Christians
suffered martyrdom
under
Domitian. But both in the chronicle and in the history1 Eusebius
follows with an anticlimax, for he can mention nothing more glaring than the
banishment of John and Domitilla, the trial of the descendants of Jude,* and
the stopping of the persecution. His authorities must have been meagre indeed
to permit of no greater elucidation.
The value
of the evidence of Bruttius depends upon his identity and the date of writing.
Unfortunately we have .no evidence on either of these points. It is an open
question whether he was or was not a Christian, though this passage would seem
to mark him as such. Lightfoot3 argues from the quotations in
Malalas4 that he was a Christian. It has been suggested on the other
hand that Eusebius had him in mind when he says that even those writers who
were far from our religion did not hesitate to mention in their histories the
persecution and the martyrdoms which took place under it.5 It is
more likely that Eusebius had Dio in mind for he follows his account, except in
minor details. The real criterion for determining the value of the evidence of
Bruttius is the data of composition, but only wide limits can be determined.
The Bruttian family, with which the author
was
perhaps connected held an important place in the state at the time of the
Antonines, 138-180 A. D. Allard thinks it probable that he was Bruttius
Praesens, the friend of Pliny the Younger.1 De Rossi has found the
tombs of some of the members of the family bordering upon the cemetery of
Domitilla,2 and Allard accordingly concludes that the writer,
Bruttius Praesens, without doubt knew the niece of Clement and that what he
records of her has authoritative value. This is, of course, a very interesting
hypothesis, but it fails to convince. As Lightfoot3 remarks, after
naming a number of the Bruttian family down to C. Bruttius Praesens, A. D. 246,
the last who holds a place in the consular lists, the chronographer might have
been any of the persons already named, or he might have been an entirely
different person, perhaps some freedman or descendant of a freedman attached
to the house. It is likely then that Bruttius was no better or earlier a
source than Melito or Tertullian, in fact was probably an obscure Christian
writer of the late second or the third century.
The meagre
amount of material that has come down to us does not support the tradition4
of a great persecution under Domitian. The principal facts at all supported
by the evidence are the following. First, the Christians at Rome at the time of
Clement met with unexpected calamities and disasters and seem to have been in
a position somewhat similiar to that of their predecessors under Nero.
Secondly, one at least who may possibly have been a Christian was put to death
by Domitian, probably because he was suspicious of his designs upon him and his
power, possibly because of
“ Jewish
living.” In the third place, two others, John and Domitilla appear to have been
banished. Finally, there is doubtful evidence for the fact that others suffered
martyrdom and still others were exiled. This falls a long way short of the
picture of the bloody persecution which is ordinarily believed to have taken
place in the reign of the tyrant Domitian.
What seems
most likely to have occurred at this time was a more stringent administration
on the part of those in authority. The status of the Christians would depend
very largely upon the attitude not only of the emperor but of the provincial
governors as well. If they were hostile they could make it extremely unpleasant
for the Christians. Domitian’s exaction of the poll-tax, his revival of the old
national worship,1 and his general tyranny would all indicate that
he was just the one to encourage such an administration as would result in an
increased number of cases being brought before the tribunal.
The name
of Flavius Clemens has always been associated with the persecution of
Domitian, as that of one of his most distinguished victims. Reference was made
above2 to the conflicting statements of Suetonius and Dio. The
former calls him a man of most contemptible indolence, but indicates that he
was put to death by Domitian as a precaution to prevent his own assassination.
According to Suetonius,3 Domitian was living in constant dread and
was taking every possible precaution to safeguard his life. Dio, on the other
hand, gives the charge against both Clemens and Domitilla as atheism and Jewish
living. Bruttius, as quoted by Eusebius,4
mentions
Domitilla, but says nothing of Clemens. In the history Eusebius speaks
generally of a number of well-born and notable men at Rome. Here again he
mentions Domitilla, daughter of a sister of Flavius Clemens, who at that
time was one of the consuls of Rome. He says nothing, however, about
the martyrdom of Clemens; and certainly if Clemens had been a Christian martyr
Eusebius would not have failed to mention that fact here.
Allard,1
in his attempt to prove Flavius Clemens a Christian, reconciles Suetonius and
Dio in the following manner. The supporters of Christianity were from the lower
classes, and Domitian feared that Clement was trying, by associating with these
people, to put either himself or his sons on the throne by fomenting an uprising
of the proletariats and slaves. He further explains 2 that the term
which Suetonius used, inertia, was used in connection with the Christians, due
to their difficulty in reconciling the duties of the new religion with the
acts of political life.3 It is significant, however, that the father
of Clemens was also deficient in energy,4 and that Flavius may have
inherited the characteristic from him, without the word having any implied
meaning. Allard also gives a list of quotations5 to show that the
Christians were regularly accused of being atheists, and holds that the
accusation of atheism had at that time in pagan language no other significance
than Christianity. While the majority of scholars6 maintain that he
was a
Christian,
the entire absence of any early tradition to that effect has led Gratz1
and others to suggest that he was a convert to Judaism. As McGiffert2
remarks, if he had been a Christian, certainly an early tradition3
to that effect would be somewhere preserved. The attempt has been made to
identify Flavius Clemens with St. Clement, and thus account for this absence of
tradition. But Eusebius4 distinguishes between the two; in fact
there is nothing to support the theory.5 This complete absence of
tradition is an unanswerable argument; we have therefore no ground for assuming
that Clemens was even a Christian, much less a Christian martyr.
The
tradition in favor of the Christianity of Domitilia is better substantiated
than that concerning Clemens. In this case Eusebius adds his authority to that
of Dio, and Jerome6 also speaks of her as a martyr. This tradition
in turn is seconded by a series of archaeological discoveries which apparently
place her Christianity beyond a doubt. Inscriptions have been found which seem
to prove that the catacombs of the Tor Marancia near the Ardeatine Way are
identical with the Coemeter- ium Domitillae. The inscriptions show that the
catacombs were situated on an estate once belonging to
Flavia
Domitilla,1 and granted by her to her dependents for a burial
place.* De Rossi argues from the architecture and painting and from the
openness and publicity of the entrance that it belongs to the first century.3
The
account of Eusebius4 has led certain writers to believe that there
was a second Domitilla, a virgin niece of Clemens.5 Dio6
says Domitilla was banished to the island of Pandateria. Eusebius, on the other
hand, banishes her to Pontia and calls her the daughter of a sister of Clemens
instead of the daughter of a sister of Domi- tian7 and the wife of
Clemens. Jerome in his letter to Eustochius follows Eusebius in naming Pontia
as the island. The existence of this second Domitilla forms the basis of the
fantastic story of Nereus and Achilleus. It is significant, however, that no
writer mentions two Domitillas. The discrepancies could easily have crept in,
since both are the daughters of the sister of the person in question, and since
the two islands are near together and easily confused. The fact is that either
Eusebius
was
mistaken or else the error is the fault of the copyists, and the belief in a
virgin Domitilla must be discarded.
Glabrio
may possibly have been a Christian, but there is not the slightest evidence for
believing that he was a martyr of Domitian’s persecution. Allard1
and Gsell* cite Dio3 to prove that he too was put to death on the
charge of atheism and Jewish living. A careful reading of the original text of
Dio, however, shows at once that he was accused on various stock charges, and
also of fighting with wild beasts. The statement concerning Glabrio is entirely
separate and distinct from that on Domitilla and Flavius Clemens, and there is
nothing whatever to indicate that he was accused of the same offences as they.
Suetonius4 says definitely that he was put to death with other
nobles for plotting a revolution, “ quasi molitores rerum ” On the other hand,
the discovery by De Rossi of the crypt of the family in the Catacombs of
Priscilla on the Via Salaria seems to prove at least that many members of his
family were Christians.5 Whether or not he was one of them is purely
problematical.
The Apocalypse
certainly indicates that the Christians were being oppressed in Asia Minor at
the time when it was written, though many allowances must be made for the
nature and tone of the work.6 The principal cause
of the
difficulties seems to have been the refusal of the Christians to worship the
image of the beast, that is to say, the image of the emperor. Domitian is known
to have been a supporter of the old national religion,1 and it is
altogether possible that it was during his reign that the worship of the
emperor first proved to be a stumbling block for the Christians in Asia Minor.2
This had become less than twenty years later the ordinary test applied to the
Christians,3 though we have no way of knowing just how long that had
been the case. It is likely that this test would be applied more rigorously in
Asia Minor than elsewhere, since this was the very center of all ecstatic
religions, and the worship of the emperor was the one thing which held their
worshipers together. The Christians were also better known in Asia Minor, and
were more subject to the outbreaks of the mobs here than elsewhere. It is
likely, then, that the Christians generally suffered more in Asia Minor than
elsewhere during this period, but even the evidence of the Apocalypse is not
sufficient to establish the belief that there was any systematic persecution,4
either on the
charge of
majestas,x or for the refusal to worship the emperor’s image.2
Domitian’s
death showed that his suspicions were well founded. He was treacherously
murdered in his palace by a steward and freedman of Domitilla.3
There is, however, no ground for implicating Domitilla in the plot.4
According to Tertullian5 and Eusebius6 the supposed
persecution ceased before the death of Domitian, but the other writers give
Nerva the credit for restoring the exiles and for stopping the condemnations
for majestas and for “Jewish living.”7 According to Jerome8
Domitilla did not return from exile, though John returned from Patmos.9
Trajan and the Christians
The
younger Pliny, nephew and adopted son of Pliny the Elder, was born about 61 A.
D.1 At the age of nineteen he entered upon his juristic career as a
pleader before the centumviral court in the Basilica Julia.2 He
rose rapidly in public life, and after holding a number of offices was
appointed praetor about 93 or 94 A. D.3 His public career continued
in the reign of Trajan, though he continued his pleading at the same time,
taking part in many of the important trials during this period. It was through
his defense of two governors of the province of Bithynia, probably in 104 and
106 A. D., that he became familiar with the affairs of that provirtee.4
About 111 A. D.5 he was selected by the Emperor Trajan as governor
of this same province with the special title of legate propraetor with consular
power.
Bithynia
at the time had fallen into great disorganization.6 The finances
were in disorder,7 the public buildings were dilapidated,8
and two of the governors had
recently
been charged with repetundcz.' It was Pliny’s duty to correct these evils, and
in general to remedy all abuses in the province. Under these conditions one
would naturally expect a rigid administration on the part of the governor.
In
administering the affairs of the province, Pliny came into contact with the
Christians; but just how, he does not explain. As a sect they certainly could
not have been entirely unknown to him, for at the very beginning of his career
he had been military tribune in Syria, where the Christians were especially
numerous.2 In Bithynia at this time certain members of the sect were
brought before his tribunal by informers. This information may possibly have
been called forth in connection with the enforcement of the law against
sodalities.3 Pliny has given a hint, however, which seems much more
likely to lead us to the real informers. At the end of his letter he sums up
the results of his method of procedure,—the temples were again being
frequented, the sacred rites were being restored, and the fodder for victims
was beginning to find purchasers. Those interested in the temple service were
then, according to Pliny, the ones most directly affected by the spread of the
new religion. Their means of making a livelihood was endangered. It is at least
likely then that they were the ones who brought the Christians before the
tribunal of Pliny.4
Turning
now directly to the letter of Pliny, our one source of information for these
events, we find that the letter consists of two parts.1 The first
part of the letter is made up of a series of questions for the emperor to pass
upon; the second of an account of what Pliny had done. Before he puts the
questions to the emperor he explains his reason for writing. He had never taken
part in the trials of Christians, hence he did not know for what crime or to
what extent it was customary to punish or investigate.
Pliny’s
confession of ignorance is not particularly surprising. Trials of Christians
had not been numerous at Rome where Pliny had practiced, nor had any of the
upper classes, with which Pliny was associated, been involved. Further than
that, such trials would come immediately under the supervision of the emperor
or of those magistrates who shared the imperium, and would never have reached
the courts where Pliny practiced.2
On the
other hand it seems pretty clear that Pliny knew that such trials had taken
place, and that the penalty for those convicted was death. As Ramsay puts it,
the only possible hypothesis seems to be that Pliny was acting according to a
standing procedure which had grown up through use and wont. He followed a precedent
and assumed that his course would be approved by the emperor.3 It
should be remembered too that a
very large
number of crimes were punished with the death penalty by the Roman law. The
fact that Christianity was thus punished does not necessarily indicate that it
was regarded as extremely dangerous to the state.
In the
second part of his letter Pliny explains the procedure which he at first
followed; apparently without hesitation. He asked them whether they were
Christians, apparently understanding that the mere status of being a Christian
was sufficient to warrant the death penalty. If they admitted that they were,
he repeated the question twice, giving them ample opportunity to deny their
Christianity, and giving them to understand that if they did not recant they
would be punished. Those who persisted in their confession were led away for
punishment, or if they were Roman citizens were held to be sent to Rome.
Pliny does
not seem to have bothered himself much about the criminality of the Christians.
He simply followed precedent without giving the matter serious consideration.
His knowledge of them was somewhat vague. He only knew that certain crimes
flagitia were attributed to them, and probably took it for granted that the
popular opinion was correct.1 It was in the second stage of the
trials, when he began to learn something definite about the sect, that his
conscience began to trouble him. He then found it necessary to justify his
action by saying that he punished them for their stubbornness and inflexible
obstinacy.2 That is to say he
regarded
the fact that he was deputed especially to correct the abuses and corruption
due to a lax administration as sufficient excuse for severe measures against a
class hated by the people, and responsible for disturbances and complaint.
Pliny’s
treatment of the Christians seems to have encouraged their enemies, for more
cases arose. An anonymous accusation implicated many whom the legate proceeded
to put to trial. He found that he had to deal with three distinct groups. The
first group was made up of those who confessed and who persisted in their
confession, the second of those who denied that they were or had been
Christians, while the third consisted of those who at first confessed and
afterwards denied their membership in the faith.
The first
group appears to have caused Pliny little trouble. Those who confessed were
treated just as they had been in the first stage of the trials. Still, there
are many scholars who hold that the letter of Pliny was written in behalf of
this very group. For example Ramsay suggests that the object of the letter was
to secure a modification of the whole imperial policy towards the Christians.
It was for this reason that he professed ignorance, and apologized so unduly
for the letter. “ Pliny,” he says, “ goes as far as he could go without
directly suggesting a change.” * Hardy expresses a similar interpretation, “
His own investigations had apparently convinced him that the Christians were
neither dangerous nor immoral: their obstinatio no doubt de-
served
death, but was it necessary to pursue a course which called forth this
obstinatio ? ” 1 This theory that Pliny was endeavoring to nullify
the imperial policy is to an extent supported by Tertullian,3 who
says that Pliny wrote to Trajan because he was alarmed at the very number of
those involved.
The second
group was also easily disposed of. He thought they ought to be dismissed since
they repeated after him an invocation to the gods and made supplication with
incense and wine to the image of the emperor, which he had ordered to be
brought for that very purpose. Furthermore they reviled Christ, proving conclusively
that they were not Christians. For, he says, those who were really Christians
could not be compelled to do a single one of these things.3 Here it
should be noticed that this procedure was simply a test. Both in the case of
those who denied their Christianity and of the apostates, this test was applied
to prove their sincerity. There is no indication that Pliny put the Christians
to death for refusing to worship the image of the emperor.4
The last
group, on the other hand, caused Pliny more difficulty. Some of them had ceased
to be Christians long before, a few even twenty years before. He put them to
the same tests that he had applied to the second group and they complied. Since
they were no longer Christians they could not be punished as such. On the other
hand, what about those crimes that they were
supposed
to have committed? If they had been guilty of child murders and of incestuous
immorality at their meetings while they were Christians, the mere fact that
they now no longer belonged to the sect should not render them immune.
This
question probably did not come up during the first stage of the trials. Pliny’s
language indicates that he had at first freed all renegades.1 It was
only those who were obstinate that were led away for punishment. Why then this
change in Pliny’s attitude? What had caused him to become more severe in spite
of the fact that such a large number was involved ? It certainly was not
because he was in favor of adopting more severe measures, so as to hold the
renegades for the Uagitia attributed to the name. The tone of his whole letter
implies that he was, on the contrary, in favor of freeing them. The last part
of his letter particularly is an appeal to the emperor to permit him to free
those whom he was detaining and to permit repentence.
Some
influence must have been brought to bear upon Pliny to cause him to start his
investigation into the alleged crimes. This influence may have been nothing
more than public opinion.2 Or it may have been due to the influence
of the orignial informers, those who first brought the Christians before the
court of Pliny. A theory has recently been developed, however, which explains
Pliny’s action perfectly. It is that the question arose out of a debate in the
provincial council.3 The
council,
which agreed with Pliny in persecuting those who confessed, objected to his
policy of freeing those who recanted.1 Pliny’s letter grew out of
this difference of opinion. He held the renegades until he could consult the
emperor and get his sanction for the course which he had pursued.2
Pliny’s
investigations only served to strengthen his opinion that the apostates should
be acquitted. By questioning the renegades he discovered nothing in any way
criminal. They insisted that they had done nothing except to meet before
daybreak at regular intervals for a service in which they sang hymns to Christ
as a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not for some crime, but that they
would not commit theft, robbery, or adultery, that they would not betray a
trust, nor deny a deposit when called upon. Later in the day they came together
again for the Agape.3 To confirm this evidence Pliny now proceeded
to put to torture two female slaves who were called deaconesses. He found
nothing but a vicious, extravagant superstition. He therefore postponed the
examination and hastened to consult the emperor.
He
considered the whole question one particularly worthy of a consultation because
of the great number of those involved. Many of all ages, of every rank, and
even of both sexes were implicated. Nor was the infection of this superstition
confined to the large cities, but it had spread to the villages and the country
districts as well. Still further, this condition had existed long enough to
affect the temple service, for the temples were
deserted,
the sacred rites neglected, and the fodder for victims found scarcely a
purchaser.
The three
questions which Pliny submitted to Trajan in the first part of his letter have
to do with these renegades and apostates. The real question is, shall they be
freed or shall they be punished for the flagttia. This is really expressed in
his last question,—is the name itself, without regard to crimes or are the
crimes attributed to the name to be punished? Upon the answer to this question
depends the answer to the preceding, does he who has been a Christian gain
nothing by having ceased to be one, or is pardon granted for repentance? If he
is punished for crimes at law, of course he gains nothing; but if he is punished
for the name alone, then if he no longer possesses the name he is not guilty
and should be freed. The answer to the first question would also depend on the
answer to the third. There was no fixed age of penal liability in Roman law.
The judge determined whether or not the minor was to be held responsible
according to the nature of the act.1 If they were punished for
flagitia the age of discretion would be reached sooner than if they were
punished for membership in an illicit religious sect. Pliny asked the first
question, not because he was seeking information on that point, but because his
answer to that question would determine his answer to the other two. Trajan’s
humanity would compel him to admit that there should be discrimination for age;
that answer would logically lead to the decision which Pliny wanted, namely
that the renegades should be acquited.
Trajan
apparently interpreted the questions just as
Pliny had
intended. He hesitated to lay down any definite rule which should be applied to
all cases, but he outlined a practice which implied the rule. He answered
directly only the second question proposed in the letter, but that is quite
sufficient to show his approval of Pliny’s procedure. One who was proven to be
a Christian was to be punished. But one who denies that he is such, and proves
it by the usual tests shall be pardoned on repentance. This applied to the
renegades as well as to those who denied their membership at first, for it made
no difference how much he may have been suspected in the past.
It is
possible that Trajan was impressed by the information contained in the letter,
and in fact by the tone of the letter itself, for he makes important
concessions. In the first place they ought not to be sought out. That is to say
the government should adopt so far as was possible the policy of laissez faire.
It was only when they were brought before the tribunal by their enemies that
the court should take cognizance of their crime. They were not a political
danger and as long as they were not the cause of disturbances they should be
left alone. It seems pretty clear that Trajan regarded the question as one of
police administration. The sole object was to preserve peace and quiet in the
provinces. As disturbers of this peace the Christians must be punished; but so
long as they were not the cause of riots or were not brought into court they
should not be interfered with.
His second
-concession was to insist for the future upon the regularity of the
proceedings. In spite of the provisions of Roman Law against receiving
anonymous accusations1 Pliny had proceeded to put to trial those
thus
accused. For this action the emperor gently chides him, and reminds him that
such accusations are altogether inadmissable.
This
rescript has been regarded from different points of view by different writers.
By some, particularly by the early fathers, it has been looked upon as
favorable to the Christians.1 By others2 it has been
regarded as the first legal authorization of persecution. To an extent both
points of view are correct. It was favorable to the Christians, in that it
sanctioned the freeing of renegades. They could henceforth always secure pardon
by forsaking their religion. It also gave them a certain security; for they
were not to be sought out, and were to receive a regular trial. Henceforth it
was their private enemies which they had to fear. •
But the
rescript is also the first legal authorization of persecution, or at least the
first that we know anything about. Christianity was hereby definitely declared
to be a religio illicita, and membership in the sect was a crime punishable
with death. This does not mean that they had not been so treated before.
Heretofore, so far as we know, each governor had used his own discretion to a
large extent. It was his duty to preserve the peace and good order of the
province, and in so doing was allowed a large amount of latitude. It it true,
that by the time of
Pliny the
precedent that they were to be punishable with death as a class dangerous to
the good order of society, was pretty firmly established. But that precedent
had developed particularly where they were very numerous, and a constant source
of popular tumult. On the other hand, from the time of Pliny on, the policy of
the Roman government was fixed. Henceforth there could be no question as to
whether definite crimes had to be proven; Christianity was now a crime, the
nomen ipsum was sufficient. They were no longer punished for ritual crimes of
which they were supposed to be guilty; they were punishei for the crime of
Christianity.1 Whereas before thisjfeB$n:he administrative officer
was at liberty to inquire as much or as little as he pleased into the charge or
charges made against the Christians, from this time on such inquiry would be
altogether unnecessary ; the mere name was sufficient. But it must be
constantly borne in mind that anything like a general persecution was out of the
question in view of the fact that the Christians were not to be sought out.
However,
this rescript was directed to the governor of a particular province. Its
application would accordingly extend legally only to that province.2
But the rescript was an expression of the imperial will, and as such would be
carried into effect wherever it became known.3 And it just happened
that it became pretty generally known because the letters were published a few
years later in the correspondence of Pliny and Trajan.4
The
history of the second century indicates that the rescript became for all
practical purposes a law in force throughout the empire.1
We have in
Pliny’s letter a remarkable account of the sort of thing that was likely to
take place at any time in the provinces where the Christians were most numerous.
The Christians, hated by the Jews and despised by the gentiles, and the objects
of calumny and slander from both, had come to be regarded as a class dangerous
to the peace and good order of society. They had come to be looked upon as
public enemies, and as such were punished wherever the tranquillity of the
province was endangered.
In this
whole procedure of Pliny we have a most striking example of the exercise of
administrative power of police. As was suggested in the opening chapter the
higher magistrates were invested with a very large power of immediate action on
their own responsibility for checking any disorder or abuse, and for correcting
and chastising any person who was acting in a way prejudicial or likely to be
prejudicial to the state. It was in virtue of this power that Pliny punished
the Christians brought before him. Had there existed a definite edict2
proscribing the Christians, Pliny would have had no occasion for addressing
such a letter to the emperor. As Ramsay expresses it, he refers
to the
emperor,
not questions of law, but questions of administration and policy.1
The fact
that we are fortunate enough to have this one excellent source for the period
of Trajan is likely to obscure any other information which has come down to us.
It is quite probable that there were similiar events in other provinces besides
Bithynia; and it is just this sort of persecution to which the Apocalypse seems
to refer, namely to continuous outbreaks due to the hostility of the
inhabitants in general. There is at least room for doubt as to whether this strange
document refers to the reign of Domitian or to the reign of Trajan.2
But there are one or two other references referring to this period which do
indicate that there were outbreaks elsewhere, resulting even in cases of
martyrdom.
Eusebius3
in his account of this period makes the general statement that a persecution
was stirred up in certain cities in consequence of a popular uprising. Besides
the events in Bithynia, the account of which he takes from Tertullian, he
describes the martyrdom of Symeon, the second bishop of Jerusalem. For this
story he follows the account of Hegesippus, according to whom Symeon was
accused by certain heretics of belonging to the race of David and of being a
Christian. Since it was clear that he was a Christian he suffered martyrdom
after being tortured for many days.
The
procedure in this case was apparently the same as that adopted by Pliny.
Without doubt the object of
the
torture was to make him recant. Hegesippus says nothing to indicate that there
were other martyrs. Perhaps Symeon was picked out as being the representative
of the sect, or perhaps there was a more serious uprising in Jerusalem at the
time of the martyrdom, probably near the year 107 A. D.
The
martyrdom of Ignatius of Antioch appears to have occurred at about the same
time.1 Polycarp2 connects the names of Zosimus and Rufus
with that of Ignatius. At Phillipi also, according to Polycarp, the Christians
were in danger. Some appear to have already suffered martyrdom, for he speaks
of them as suffering like the three just mentioned. The rest he exhorts to be
obedient and to practise the same endurance as they had witnessed in the
others.
Eusebius
sums up the situation in the East very well indeed when he attributes the
persecutions to popular uprisings.3 Even after the rescript of
Trajan, he concludes, there were still left plenty of pretexts for those who
wished to do the Christians harm. Sometimes the people, sometimes the rulers in
various places, would lay plots against them, so that, although no great persecution
took place, local persecutions were nevertheless going on in particular
provinces, and many of the faithful endured martyrdom in various forms.4
The names
of four martyrs from this period have come down to us, whereas up to this point
we are sure of but
one or
two. The whole number of martyrs during this reign, in fact the whole number up
to this time is probably very small, comparatively speaking. Eusebius1
certainly exaggerates when he speaks of a great number of martyrs under Pliny,
and says that the persecution had threatened to be a most terrible one.2
Origen3 is much nearer the truth when he says, speaking of the
number of martyrs up to his own time, that a few had been engaged in a struggle
for their religion.4 “ Some,” he says, “ on special occasions, and
these individuals who can be easily numbered, have endured death for the sake
of Christianity, God not permitting the whole nation to be exterminated, but
desiring that it should continue . . . dispersing by an act of his will alone
all the conspiracies formed against them ; so that neither kings, nor rulers,
nor the populace might be able to rage against them beyond a certain point.”
A number
of Acta are supposed to recount martyrdoms of this period, but none of them
are of any substantial value. Allard5 would include among the authentic
martyrs the chamberlains of Domitilla, Nereus
and
Achilleus. But the Acta1 which recount their martyrdom are late and
of no value whatever. Allard also thinks the
story of the martyrdom of S. Clement at least credible. But as Lightfoot3
says, these Acta are evidently fictitious from beginning to end. Clement to be
sure was accepted as a martyr after the beginning of the fifth century, for
example by Rufinus,4 Zosimus,5 and by the synod of Vaison6
in 442, but there is no foundation for this late tradition.7 The
Acts of Sharbil and Barsamya, which also refer to the period of Trajan, are
worth no more. As Lightfoot8 says, “The whole story indeed ... is
founded on the correspondence of Pliny and Trajan, and is disfigured by the
worst exaggerations of a debased hagiology.”
Attitude of Hadrian
Meager though they are, the sources upon the situation in Asia
Minor under Hadrian are sufficient to give us a somewhat definite impression
concerning his attitude toward the Christians. Asia Minor was, and had always
been, a center for strange cults. Recent research in archaeology and
anthropology have substantiated its ancient reputation in this regard. And here
Christianity was more definitely forced upon the administration as a problem.
As Hardy,1 in an excellent paragraph, expresses it, “ Asia was
undoubtedly the province in which the Christian difficulty was most urgent and
most persistent. Here probably the Christians were most numerous, the
populace most hostile, and accusers most plentiful ; here, too, all the social
conditions most repugnant to and most impatient of Christian ideas of morality
were most pronounced and most deeply rooted. Here certainly, sometimes in one
city, sometimes in another, persecution must have been almost continuous and
permanent. The proconsuls may have observed, and probably they did so, the
principle of Trajan, not to search out offenders, but this in a province so
full of sycophants, sophists, and delatores, was but scant protection.* And
not only were real Christians brought before the tribunal of the proconsul. In
a case where so little
had to be
substantiated, where the mere ‘ nomen Chris- tiani * was the gist, nay the
whole, of the charge, there was every inducement to make a trade of this sort
of delation, to accuse or to threaten with accusation those who were not
Christians, and then to exact money for letting proceedings drop.”1
Under such
circumstances certain abuses had developed in Asia Minor. Before the popular
excitement caused by the calumnies2 and excitations of the enemies of
Christianity, some of the magistrates must have forsaken the principles of the
Roman Law. Perhaps out of mere weakness, or out of the desire for popular
favor, they yielded to the outcries of the mob3 and condemned some
Christians by extra-legal measures. Under these conditions and in view of these
abuses the governor of the province addressed a letter of inquiry to the
Emperor.
Of this
letter to Hadrian written by Granianus, the predecessor of Fundanus, we have
only a short resume. In fact, we find a different summary of the letter in the
Church History of Eusebius from that in Jerome’s version of the chronicle. In
the history4 he says that the letter concerning the Christians
stated that it was unjust to slay them without a regular indictment and trial,
merely for the sake of gratifying the outcries of the populace. The statement
in the Chronicle5 reads as follows : “ He sent letters to the
emperor, saying that it
was very
unjust to sacrifice the blood of innocent men to the clamors of the mob, and to
make criminals of those who had committed no crime, simply for the name alone
and for their belief.”
The two
accounts by no means harmonize. The first statement is directed against the
extra-legal procedure which had developed in the province. Granianus wants the
law enforced; he wants those accused of being Christians to have a regular trial.
He in no way questions, or suggests a change in, the legislation of Trajan;
quite the contrary, he wants that legislation enforced. His object is to
preserve order and not to save the Christians. The resume in Jerome’s version
of the Chronicle, on the other hand, is decidedly favorable to the Christians.
Jerome imputes to Granianus the boldness of asking that the legislation of the
Emperor’s adoptive father be abrogated. To suggest that the name alone and the
membership in the sect was not sufficient reason for putting the Christians to
death, is to ask for a complete change of policy on the part of the Roman
government. But that is exactly what Jerome says that Granianus wrote.
In this
case, however, it is pretty clear that Jerome and not Eusebius is responsible
for the variation. If we compare Jerome’s version with the translation of the
Armenian version, we see at once that the Armenian corresponds exactly with the
text of the Church History.1
1 Eusebius,
Chronicle (Translation from the Armenian by J. Karst, Leipzig, 1911, G. C. S.),
ad Olymp. 226. Er hatte aber auch von Serenios, . . . eine Schrift
iiber die Christen empfangen, dass es nicht Rechtens ware, jene zu toten auf
blosses Geriicht hin ohne Unter- suchung und bei keinerlei Anklagegrund. Cf. the
Latin translation in the edition of Schoene (Berlin, 1866). Acceperat tamen et . . . scriptum de christianis, quod nempe iniquum sit
occidere eos solo rumore sine inquistiitione, neque ulla incusatione.
According
to the Armenian, Granianus said that it was unjust to put the Christians to
death upon report alone, without an examination and without any accusation.
This is precisely the same idea that is expressed by Eusebius in the Chtirch
History, and is practically conclusive evidence that the two accounts of
Eusebius originally agreed.
Nor are we
dependent alone upon the Armenian version in order to prove that Jerome’s
statement is merely his own amplification. It happens that this particular passage
of the Chronicon has been preserved probably almost verbatim in the
Chronographia of Georgius Syn- cellus, who wrote at the beginning of the ninth
century. It is from the chronicle of Syncellus, who made very abundant use of
the Chronicon of Eusebius, that scholars have been able to reconstruct a large
part of the original chronicle.1 This account2 also
agrees almost exactly with that of the Armenian text. He too emphasizes the
.fact that it was unjust to put the Christians to death without trial and without
any accusation.
There can
hardly be the slightest doubt then that the two accounts of Eusebius originally
agreed. He understood perfectly well that Granianus wrote that it was unjust
to slay the Christians without a regular denunciation and trial, merely for
the sake of gratifying the outcries of the populace. The variation found in
Jerome, which has such a decided Christian flavor, is altogether without
foundation. It is his own amplification pure and simple.3
Turning to
Hadrian’s answer to this letter of inquiry, we find that it is for the most
part devoted to answering the questions raised by Granianus. The Emperor states
his object in the second sentence. He has a double purpose,—in the first place
to prevent the people of the province from being harassed by the outcries and
petitions of the mob, and secondly, to put a stop to the misuse of delation and
false accusation. In other words his purpose is to restore order, to correct
those abuses called to his attention by the letter of Granianus. He is not for
a moment thinking of protecting the Christians as a sect; he is thinking only
of preserving order. Incidentally he is particularly anxious to protect those
who are falsely accused of being Christians,1 who have been confused
with the Christians by the blind passion of the mob, or by the denunciation of
sycophants who thought only of their legal fee of one-fourth of the property of
the accused.*
The Latin
text of Rufinus is misleading on this point. The word innoxii, which he uses
without any apparent justification, leaves an entirely different impression. He
not only does not distinguish the two objects of the rescript as Hadrian
-states them, but he appears to the casual reader to mean by this term the Christians.
If so, the rescript would seem to have for its object the pro-
Weiss,
Christenverfolgungen, p. 70, in fact practically all scholars have accepted the
Latin text of the Chronicon. So far as I know the only exception is C.
Callewaert (“ Le rescrit d'Hadrien a Minucius Funda- nus,” in Revue d'histoire
et de litterature religieuses, 1903, vol. viii, p. 156), who accepts the
reading of the Ch. Hist, on the ground that Eusebius was better able to give
an exact account of the bearing of the imperial rescript and the letter which
provoked it when he wrote the History.
tection of
the Christian sect, but as we understand it, this was by no means the purpose
of the rescript.1
Hadrian
then turns to the important question of Gra- nianus concerning the irregular
procedure. He says very definitely that petitions and popular accusations2
must not be recognized, but if the accusation is well founded so that it can be
sustained even in a court of law, then let the accusers follow the regular
procedure. The complainant must no longer excite a credulous mob, which in
turn would demand the execution of the suspect. “ For,” writes the emperor, “
it is far more proper, if any one wishes to make an accusation, that you should
examine into it.”
The single
short statement in which Hadrian referred to the regular procedure is so
concise that it is bound to leave something wanting in the way of clearness. “
If anyone therefore accuses them,” it reads, “and shows that they are doing
anything contrary to the laws, do you pass judgment according to the nature of
the crime.” He seems to assume in accordance with the rescript of Trajan that
they are not to be sought out. They are to be brought before the tribunal in
the regular manner. The accuser, however, is to show that they are doing
something contrary to the laws, and if the case is proven the magistrate is to
pass judgment according to the nature of the crime.
Ramsay1
comes pretty close to the mark in his interpretation of this passage. “There
is,” he says, “a studied vagueness in regard to crimes of which proof is
required. It is not expressly admitted, as it was by Trajan, that the Name is a
crime ; on the other hand, that established principle is not rescinded. As to
the offence against the law which must be proven against the Christians, it is
quite open to any governor to consider that the name is an offence; but it
would also be quite possible for him to infer from the rescript that some more
definite crime must be proved.” The history of the following century shows
that the name was sufficient, and that ordinarily it was necessary only to
allege and prove the Christianity of the accused. In fact it is safe to say
that after the rescript of Trajan Christianity in itself was a crime, and was
included as such in this sentence of Hadrian2. What the penalty was
for those convicted was well understood.
In fact
one would almost be inclined to believe that this was the uniform procedure
except for the evidence of a single passage of Justin Martyr.3
Justin here makes it very clear that in some cases at least the examination
went further than simply to prove the Christianity of the accused. He writes
that after some were put to death upon the false evidence brought against them,
their families, either children or weak women, were also dragged to the
torture and compelled to confess to those fabu
lous
actions, which their accusers openly perpetrated. This was written some
twenty-five years after Hadrian’s rescript, but Justin is apparently referring
to the time of his conversion, which took place near the end of the reign of
Hadrian. That this procedure was exceptional, however, is shown by the oft-repeated
allusions of the same writer to persecution for the name alone.1
In the
final sentence Hadrian refers to the treatment of those who falsely accuse one
of being a Christian. The calumniator is to be punished according to the established
principles of Roman Law. The emperor simply recalls the principle because of
the abuse of delation which had developed in Asia. According to the Roman Law
the calumniator should be punished before the same quaestio before which he had
brought his victim. This procedure was fixed by law, the penalty was severe,
and legally determined.2 In the cognitio, however, where the trials
of Christians took place, these rules were not obligatory.3 The
object of the emperor is simply to impress upon the governor the necessity of
severely punishing the sycophants.4
As has
been suggested, the purpose of the emperor was simbly to restore order and to
insist upon regularity in the judicial proceedings. It was by no means intended
to be a declaration of religious tolerance. Neither did it grow out of any
sympathy for the Christian sect. But, by the very fact that it aimed to put
down tumultuous proceedings it was bound to affect the Christians
favorably.1
By necessitating a regular accusation and by prescribing a severe punishment
for the delator unable to prove his charge it rendered their position much more
secure. It should constantly be borne in mind, however, that this was wholly
an indirect effect of the rescript.2
We might
be able to attain a better understanding of Hadrian’s real point of view if we
were more sure of the value of the statement of Lampridius3 and the
supposed letter of Hadrian found in Vopiscus.4- The former attributes
to Hadrian the desire to receive Christ among the Roman gods, and for that
purpose, he says, that emperor ordered temples without images to be built in
all cities. But even if we could accept this hearsay evidence it would
indicate an attempt at syncretism rather than any leaning toward or sympathy
for Christianity. If, on the other hand, the letter in Vopiscus has any value,
it shows quite the opposite of respect. Those who pretend to worship Serapis,
runs this letter, are in reality Christians, and even the bishops of Christ are
actually worshipers of Serapis. When the Jewish patriarch comes to Egypt he is
compelled by some of his followers to worship Christ, by others he is
compelled to worship Serapis. All, the Christians, the Jews, and the followers
of Serapis alike, have but a single god, and that god is “ the almighty
dollar.” But the evidence of either one of these extracts is of so doubtful a
value that
it is
unsafe to draw from them any conclusions whatever as to Hadrian’s attitude.
This
rescript of Hadrian, like that of Trajan, was directed to a single governor,
and directly applied only to the province of Asia. Whether or not it had any
effect outside of the vicinity of that province is at least doubtful. In the
first place it was probably unknown outside of the neighborhood of the province
of Asia. In the second place it was aimed at certain abuses, and even if known,
its provisions would be enforced only where similar abuses existed.
But if we
are to believe Melito,1 Hadrian appears to have sent similar
rescripts to many others as well as to Fundanus. Melito mentions this fact in
connection with a discussion of the false accusations directed against the
Christians, and the rescripts of the predecessors of Marcus Aurelius, which had
rebuked many who dared to attempt new measures against them. The natural conclusion
is that Hadrian wrote to the others on questions of the same nature, and that
he had insisted upon a regular procedure and had forbidden false accusations
wherever the occasion demanded.
In general
the attitude of Hadrian did not differ essentially from that of his adoptive
father. As Callewaert2 expresses it, he showed the same care for
regularity in the administration of the provinces and in the promotion of
justice. He in no way revoked any of the principles established by Trajan, nor
did he change to any extent the legal status of the Christians, except to
render them more secure by insisting upon a certain regularity in the procedure
directed against them.
Callewaert
sees in the rescript to Minucius Fundanus further proof that there were in
existence from the beginning laws forbidding the Christian sect.1
But if Hadrian had in mind a law which prohibited Christianity, it was in all
probability the law of Trajan. The rescript of Trajan to Pliny definitely made
Christianity a crime punishable with death. If there had been previous legislation
of this nature every trace of it has completely perished.
On the
other hand it is likely that the rescript of Hadrian did produce a certain
change in procedure. Up to the time of Trajan at least, the Christians had been
punished by measures of police in virtue of the power of coercitio vested in
the higher magistrates. That is to say, these magistrates had the power to take
the initiative in cases not regulated by law, where such action was judged
necessary to maintain public order. However, the two rescripts together, at
least in those provinces where they were known and hence were law, would so fix
the legal status of the Christians that this administrative power would be
considerably limited. Henceforth, the regular form of delation or accusation
would be the normal mode of procedure. It would only be in special cases, where
the peace and good order of society were especially disturbed, that the
magistrates would take the initiative against the Christians. There would still
be a place for both methods of procedure, but the more regular would be by
information charging the accused with the crime of Christianity.9
At the end
of the reign of Hadrian the status of the Christians, at least in Asia Minor,
and with all probability in a much wider zone, might be summed up somewhat as
follows. They were not to be sought out and the magistrates were not to
recognize anonymous accusations, nor were they to recognize the irregular and
tumultous accusations of the mob. All regular delations and accusations,
however, were to be examined into and if the accused proved to be a Christian
he was to be punished with death. If, on the other hand, he apostatized and
proved his sincerity by the ordinary tests he should be acquitted. If the
accused was not a Christian and the accusation had been calumnious, then the
false accuser should be severely punished.1
In looking
over the church writers of the early fifth century we find that a tradition had
developed which is entirely unsubstantiated by any reliable evidence. One reads
with interest the statement of Sulpicius Severus,* that the fourth persecution
took place under Hadrian. Either he was much better informed on this period
than we can ever hope to be, or else he reveals to us what the word persecution
really means in the later Christian tradition. Jerome goes one step further
and calls it a most severe persecution, gravissimam persecutionem.
Writers of
a still later period, accepting this tradition, found the reign of Hadrian a
very convenient period about which to write a species of historical romances,
many of which were later accepted as the true stories of Christian martyrdoms.
In all probability there were
here and
there a few martyrdoms during this period, and the letter of Granianus would
indicate that there were such in Asia Minor, but as to the details we have no
information whatever. In fact we know the name of just one martyr, Telesphorus,
who, according to the catalogue of Irenaeus,1 was the seventh bishop
of Rome, but we know absolutely nothing about the details. Even the date of his
martyrdom is not certain, as it has been assigned both to the last years of
Hadrian and to the first year of Antoninus Pius.2
Perhaps
the best known of the acts which refer to the period under consideration are
those of Symphorosa and her seven sons.3 Allard accepts the acts and
holds that it is impossible to doubt the reality of their martyrdom.4
A relative value has been assigned to them by Tillemont5 and by
Overbeck,6 but they have been attacked by other scholars. Aube, for
example, says that they appear to him to be absolutely apocryphal.7
Lightfoot condemns the Acta unconditionally, but says that some of the names as
Crescens and Julianus may have represented genuine martyrs.8 But
even so there is no reason to believe that
they
belong to the period of Hadrian. And even if we accept the conclusion of
Lightfoot that some of the names may be those of true martyrs, still the acts
as such have absolutely no claim to historical value.
Another
group of martyrs consisting of Cerealis, Getulius, the husband of Symphorosa,
Amantius, his brother, and Primitivus, has also been placed under Hadrian.*
Compared with the extravagant stories of some of the other Acta, this account
is very mild.2 The Acta undoubtedly antedate many of the others and
are much more credible, but are quite as worthless as historical evidence.3
Still
another group is made up of S. Alexander, Bishop of Rome, and his companions,
Hermes, Quirinus, Eventius, and Theodolus.4 Hermes, according to the
legend, was a prefect of Rome, who had been baptized by Alexander. Quirinus
held the office of tribune. The Acta carry their own condemnation, for they are
full of misstatements and exaggerations. The failure of Irenaeus5 to
mention such a martyrdom of Alexander, though he speaks of that of Telesphorus,
is in itself convincing evidence.6
Numerous
other martyrdoms have been assigned to the reign of Hadrian, but none of them
can be substantiated by reliable evidence. Following are some of them: S.
Sophia and her virgin daughters, Pistis, Elpis, and Agape;1 Serapia,
the virgin, and her convert Sabina;2 S. Hesperus and S. Zoe, and
their two sons;3 Placidus and his wife Trajana, renamed Eustathius
and Theopista, with their sons Agapius and Theopistus;< Marie,5
Dionysius,6 Thalelaeus,7 besides several martyrs of Italy
and Sardinia.8
The
evidence of the Acta on the period of Hadrian is late and practically
worthless. It is of course possible that some of the saints may have been real
martyrs, but even if so there is absolutely no evidence which places them under
Hadrian. As Lightfoot expresses it, Hadrian, who is represented as a ruthless
assailant of the Christians and to whose reign the fourth general persecution
is assigned, has come out of our investigation with comparatively clean hands.9
Except for a few purely local and temporary uprisings of a hostile popu
lace and
except for the local persecution by the Jews in the Jewish revolt,* the
Christians appear to have enjoyed a period of peace during this reign.
There is still another point in the fifth-century tradition which is worthy of notice. According to Jerome,* this persecution was checked because of the admiration felt by everyone for the apology submitted to the emperor by Quadratus. Orosius3 also, following Jerome, gives to the apologists Quadratus and Aristides along with Granianus, the credit for having called forth the letter of Hadrian to Fundanus. This curious misconception seems to be due to the fact that Eusebius in the Chronicon happened to place the notice concerning the apologies just before his discussion of the letter of Granianus and the answer of Hadrian.4 As a matter of fact the Apology of Aristides was in reality
PART II
TEXTUAL
Sources on the Legal Status of the Christians
The following selections from the sources bear more or less
directly upon the legal basis of the persecutions. Since completeness is out of
the question, the aim has been to select essential passages which shed as much
light as possible upon the different phases of the situation. At best the
sources are inadequate. Trials of the Christians were of such slight
consequence as to secure only the superficial notice of the non-Christian
writers, and even these brief references are tainted with hatred and contempt.
The Christian writers, on the other hand, with a point of view just as
distorted, saw only the injustice and tyranny of their oppression. From neither
the one nor the other can we glean any clear or satisfactory explanation of the
early relations between the state and the hated religious sect.
The
following general principle of early Roman Law, as stated by Cicero, gives us a
sort of starting point. However, this applied only to citizens, and its enforcement
would be the work of the administration officials. But by the time of Nero the
authorities had long since permitted this principle to fall into disuse. The
law stated by the jurist Paulus, who wrote near the beginning of the third
century, is more directly applicable to the Christians. Such a principle would
in itself be sufficient justification for suppressing the Christian
assemblies.
Cicero, On the Laws, II, 8, 19; 10, 25.
Let no one
have gods apart, neither new nor immigrant, unless publicly acknowledged; let
them worship in private the god’s cults which they have received from the
fathers as proper objects of worship.
To worship
their own gods, either new or foreign, brings in a confusion of religions and
ceremonies unknown to our priests. For, if the fathers themselves obeyed this
law, it is therefore settled that the gods accepted by the fathers are to be
worshiped.
Paul, Sentences, V, 21.
Whoever
introduces new doctrines or religious observances unknown as to their nature,
by which the minds of men would be disturbed, if from the upper classes let
them be banished, if from the lower classes, let them receive capital
punishment.
We search
the contemporary literature on the Nero-
nian
episode1 in vain to find any direct evidence on the legal basis of
this repression of the Christians. The most significant reference is that of
Suetonius, who groups the notice of the suppression of the Christians along
with other police measures,2 and hence implies that Christianity was
put down as a police measure. This is entirely in accord with the statement of
Tacitus,3 who gives as the ground for the persecution of Christians
their hatred for the human race, and the fact that they were malefactors who
were hated for their enormities.
There are
no early sources on the Flavian period. Tertullian4 leaves the
impression that there were laws against the Christians in existence which were
left unenforced by Vespasian, but in all probability he was referring to such
general laws as those which forbade all unauthorized religious sects. Dio,5
writing about 220 A. D., refers to the banishment of Domitilla on the charge of
atheism, but this was not a crime at Roman Law. There is in reality no evidence
which indicates that the legal status of the Christian was any different at
this time from what it had been at the time of Nero.
The letter
of Pliny6 is decisive on this point. Clearly, when this letter was
written the suppression of the Christians was a police matter, though the
confession that one was a Christian was quite sufficient to warrant his
condemnation, not because it was a crime to be a Christian, but because the
acknowledgment that one was a Christian was sufficient proof that he was guilty
of all
crimes.
The rescript of Trajan, on the other hand, practically settled the whole
question. It was this rescript which inaugurated the system of which the
apologists complained.
Hadrian,
in turn, completed the work of Trajan.1 He made no changes in the
laws introduced by Trajan, but did introduce certain changes in procedure,
applicable at least to Asia Minor.2 At this time we meet a striking
example of mob rule, which had all along been a potent factor.3
Once we
pass the period of Trajan and Hadrian the literature upon the legal situation
of the Christians becomes voluminous. In the apologetic writings of the second
century there is description after description of the result of the rescripts
of Trajan and Hadrian. The earliest of the apologists are the Greek
philosophers, Justin Martyr and Athenagoras, Melito, Bishop of Sardis,4
and Tatian. Justin and Tatian were contemporaries, both writing near the
middle of the second century. Melito wrote about 170 A. D., and Athenagoras
seven or eight years later.
Justin
Martyr,6 Apology y I, 3, 4.
But lest
anyone think that this is an unreasonable and reckless utterance, we demand
that the charges against the Christians 8 be investigated, and
that, if these be substantiated, they
.
be
punished as they deserve. But if no one can convict us of anything, true reason
forbids you, for the sake of a wicked rumor, to wrong guiltless men. . . . And
those among’ yourselves who are accused you do not punish before they are
convicted; but in our case you receive the name as proof,1 and this
although, so far as the name goes, you ought rather to punish our accusers. For
we are accused of being Christians, and to hate that which is good* is unjust.
Again, if anyone of the accused denies, saying he is not a Christian, you
acquit him, as having no evidence against him as a wrong-doer;* but if anyone
confesses, you punish him on account of this confession,4 though you
ought to inquire into the life both of him who confesses and of him who denies,
that by his deeds it may be apparent what kind of a man each is.
Tati an, 4 Address to the
Greeks, 27.
For how is
it not absurd that, while the robber is not to be punished for the name he
bears until the truth has been accurately ascertained, yet we are hated and
abused without a judicial inquiry?*
Athenagoras,1 A Plea for the
Christians, 1, 2.
But for us
who are called Christians, since you have not also cared for us, but, although
we commit no wrong, nay . . .
are of all
men most piously and righteously disposed toward God and toward your
government, you allow us to be driven, harrassed and pursued,1 the
multitude making war upon us for the name alone. We have ventured to make these
things known to you (and you will learn from this discourse that we suffer
unjustly and contrary to all law and reason),* and we beseech you to bestow
some consideration upon us also, that at length we may cease to be slaughtered
at the instigation of false accusers.* For the fine imposed by our persecutors
does not aim merely at our property, nor the disgrace at our honor, nor the
damage at any other of our lesser interests. . . . But, when our money fails
us, they plot against our very bodies and souls, pouring upon us a multitude of
accusations, of which we are guiltless even in thought, but which are appropriate
to these idle praters themselves, and to all who join in with them.
If,
indeed, anyone can prove that we have done illegal acts,4 be they
small or great, we do not beg off from punishment, but are prepared to undergo
the most bitter and merciless retribution. But if the accusation* relates
merely to a name (at any rate up to the present time the stories invented about
us are the common and undiscriminating popular talk, nor has any Christian been
convicted of wrong-doing*) it is your business, who are the greatest and most
benevolent and most learned sovereigns, to remove by law this despiteful treatment,
so that, as throughout the world both individuals and cities have partaken of
your beneficence, we also may feel grateful to you, exulting that we are no
longer the victims of false accusation.’ For it does not comport with your
justice,
that
others when charged with crimes should not be punished till they are convicted,
but that in our case the name we bear should have more force than the evidence
adduced on the trial,1 when the judges, instead of inquiring whether
the accused has committed any crime, vent their insults upon a name, as if
that were itself a crime.’. . . What, therefore, is the equal right of all we
claim for ourselves, that we shall not be hated and punished because we are
called Christians (for what has the name to do with wickedness) but be tried on
any charges which may be brought against us, and either be released on our
disproving them, or punished if convicted of wickedness,* not for the name (for
no Christian is a bad man unless he falsely profess our doctrines), but for the
illegal act which has been committed.4
By far the
clearest statement of the general situation is to be found in the Apology of
Tertullian. His legal training and his keen appreciation of the juristic status
of the Christians make his writings by far the most important source for a
determination of the legal basis of the persecutions. It must be remembered,
however, that Tertullian wrote at the very end of the second century, after the
development of a definite policy and a well-defined procedure for dealing with
the Christians.
The
following chapter of the Apology, which was addressed to the rulers of the
Roman Empire (Romani imperii antistites5), explains the lack of any
specific characterization of the crime of which the Christians were convicted.
The apologist emphasizes again and again the anomalies in the procedure against
the mem-
bers of
the sect, who were convicted for the name alone, or in other words, for simply
being Christians.
Tertullian, Apology, II.
If indeed
it is a certainty that we are the most criminal of men, why are we treated by
you so differently from our equals, that is from other criminals, since the
same offense
2 should receive the same treatment. When
others are accused as we are accused they make use both of their own and of
hired lips to prove their innocence; they have full opportunity to answer and
debate, since it is by no means permitted that they should be condemned
undefended and without a hearing-.
3 But the Christians alone are not
permitted to say anything for the sake of disproving the case, of defending the
truth, of withholding the judge from injustice, but that alone is desired which
the public hatred requires—a confession of the name,
4 not an examination of the crime. On the
other hand, if you are examining another criminal and he confesses that he
bears the name of murderer or temple robber or incestuous paramour or public
enemy (if I may cite the charges which are made against us), are you content to
proceed to sentence without ascertaining what the name implies—the character of
the deed, when, where, and how often it was committed, and
8 the accessories and accomplices ? . . .
Against traitors and public enemies every man is a public officer: search is
made
9 for accomplices and even for accessories.
The Christian alone may not be sought out although he may be brought before the
tribunal, as if a seeking out had any other object than an arraignment before
the tribunal. . . .
10 But in another respect you proceed in our
case contrary to the ordinary form of judicial investigation; for you torture
others when they deny, to make them confess, the Christians alone you torture
to make them deny, whereas, if it were an evil thing of which we were accused,
we on our part should deny and you would compel us by torture to confess. . . .
11 Accordingly you are the more perverse.
Since from the confession of the name you presume us guilty of crimes, it is
the more perverse on your part to torture us to abandon our confession, so
that by denying the name we may likewise deny also the crimes, which you have
presumed from the confession
13 of the name. . . . “I am a Christian/’ the
man shouts. He asserts a fact; you wish to hear what is not a fact. Placed in
authority to extort the truth, from us alone you strive to hear a lie. ‘*1 am,”
he says, “that which you ask me if I am. Why do you torture me to pervert the
truth ? I confess, and you torture me; what would you do if I should deny ? Assuredly
you do not readily have faith in others when they deny; if we have denied you
believe us at once.”
14 Let this perversity of yours awaken your
suspicion that
there is
some hidden power, which is making you its servants against the forms and the
nature of justice, and even against the laws themselves. For unless I am
mistaken, the laws order offenders to be sought out, not to be hidden away;
they provide that those who confess shall be condemned, not ac- 16 quitted. . .
. You believe a Christian to be a man guilty of all crimes, an enemy of the
gods, of the emperors, of the laws, of morality, and of all nature; still you
compel him to deny that you may acquit him, which you could not do had he not
[8 denied. . . . Therefore, seeing that in every way you treat us differently
from other criminals, all because of your struggle for a single object, that we
may be deprived of our name (indeed we lose it, if we do what Christians never
do), you are able to understand that there is no crime at all in the case, but
a name, which is pursued on a plan in which rival tendencies are at work, the
prime aim being that men should not wish to know for certain what they know for
certain that they
19 do not know. . . . Therefore, we are put
to the torture if we confess, punished if we persevere, and acquitted if we
deny,
20 because the whole battle is over a name.
Finally, why do you read from the docket that such a one is a Christian? Why
not also read that he is a murderer, if a Christian is a murderer? Why not also
read that he was guilty of incest or of whatever else you believe us guilty? In
our case alone you are ashamed or too conscious of error to pronounce sentence
with precise designation of our crimes. If the word Christian is not the name
of any crime, it is indeed most absurd if there should be crime in the name
alone.
The fourth
chapter is the one appealed to as a proof of the existence of a definite law
issued by Nero,1 which proscribed Christianity as such. There is
here no reference to the time when the laws originated. That occurs
‘For ch.
v, in which Nero is mentioned as the first persecutor, and likewise for
Sulpicius Severus, Chronicon, ii, 29, see the following chapter.
at the
beginning of the next chapter, where Tertullian explains how the senate under
Tiberius refused to make the Christian religion a religio licita, and
hence left it subject to the laws prohibiting illicit associations.1
Tertullian, Apology, IV.
But since,
when our truth meets you at all points, as a last resort the authority of the
laws is set up against it, so that either it is said that nothing is to be
considered that lies back of the laws, or the necessity of obedience, however
unpleasant, should be preferred to the truth, first in the matter of the laws
I will grapple with you as being their
guardians. Now first, when you declare legally: It is not lawful lor you to
exist! and without any more humane consideration order this enforced, you display
a violence and tyranny unjust in the high-
est
degree, if thus you declare a thing: unlawful, because you do not like it, and
not because it deserves to be unlawful* . . , If your law has erred,' I believe
it is conceived by man, for it did not fall from heaven.
Do you
wonder at man’s having been able to err in forming a law, or having come to
his senses in rejecting it? . . . Why do we call them unjust? Nay, if they
punish a name, they are even irrational; but if they punish acts, why do this
on the ground of a name alone, while in the case of others they insist that
these acts be proven by evidence, not by a name. I am guilty of incest, why do
they not question me on this point? I am a murderer of babes, why do they not
apply the torture? I am guilty of crimes against the gods, against the Caesars,
why am I not heard when I am able to clear myself?
After
discussing the laws, Tertullian turns to a refutation of the charges of secret
and ritual crimes. Then in the following chapter he considers the charges of
crimes committed in the open. But, as has already been emphasized, these are
the charges of a hostile populace and not the legal accusations made in the
indictments of the Christians.
Tertullian, Apology, X.
“ You do
not worship the gods,” you say, “ and you do not offer sacrifices for the
emperors.” It follows that we do not sacrifice for others for the same reason
for which we do not for ourselves, simply because we do not worship the gods.
Ac-
cordingly
we are charged with sacrilege and treason. This is the chief, nay the whole,
charge against us.
After
devoting seventeen chapters to a refutation of these accusations Tertullian
turns to the other charges made against the Christians. In the course of this
discussion he uses several expressions which many have believed to be the
specific legal crimes for which the Christians were tried.
Tertullian, Apology, XXIV.
This whole
confession of theirs (the daemons), in which they admit they are not gods and
in which they answer that there is no god save one, the God to whom we have surrendered
ourselves, is quite sufficient to disprove the crime of treason particularly
against the Roman religion. For if it is not certain that there are gods, it is
not certain that there is a religion; if there is no certain religion, because
there are no certain gods, then certainly we are not guilty of an offence
9 against religion. . . . But we alone are
restrained from having our own religion. We offend the Romans and are not given
the name of Romans because we do not worship the god of the Romans.
Tertullian, Apology, XXVII.
So much
for the charge of treason against divinity; since it does not seem that we can
harm that which we have shown to have no existence. Therefore, called upon to
sacrifice, we
2 refuse to approach. . . . But some think
it insanity, that when we are able to sacrifice at once and go away unharmed,
holding- as before the same opinion, we prefer obstinacy to safety.
Tertullian, Apology, XXVIII.
3 We come then to the second charge of
treason against a majesty more august, since indeed you worship Caesar with
greater reverence and with more subtle apprehension than
4 Olympian Jove himself. . . . Moreover,
you take a false oath in the name of all the gods more readily than by the
single genius of Caesar.
Tertullian, Apology, XXXV.
For this
reason then the Christians are called public enemies, that they pay no vain
nor deceitful nor thoughtless honors to the emperors, . . .
5 However, in this reverence also to a
second majesty, in regard to which the Christians are accused of a second sacrilege
for not celebrating with you the festivals of the Caesars, ... I should like to
point out your own good faith and sincerity, lest by chance you, who do not
wish us to be counted as Romans but as enemies of the Roman rulers, should be
discovered even in this respect to be worse than the Christians.
The
following chapter describes an interesting phase of the actual situation.1
Tertullian, Apology, XXXVII.
2 How often do you rage against the
Christians, partly because of your own inclination, partly in obedience to the
laws? How often also does the hostile mob, disregarding you and taking the law
into its own hands, attack us with stones and flames?
In the
following quotation the writer again refers to the fact that Christianity was
regarded as a religio illicita. It was written at a time when the law was
being
relaxed, in an effort to have the Christian religion authorized.
Tertullian, Apology, XXXVIII, XXXIX.
Accordingly,
this sect ought to be considered much more leniently and given a place among
the legal associations, since it does none of those things such as you guard
against
2 in the case of illegal associations. For
unless I am mistaken the reason for prohibiting associations is that it is a
precaution 9,20 against public disturbance. . . . This organization of the
Christians is of course deservedly illegal if it is like the illegal ones; it deserves
to be condemned if any one complains of it on that ground upon which complaint
is made of associations.
21 ... When the honest, when the virtuous,
come together; when the pious, when the pure assemble, it should not be called
an association, but a religious assembly.
The Ad
Nationes is strikingly like the Apology, in fact the second is probably an
expansion of the first. Accordingly, most of the ideas expressed above can
also be found in the Ad Nationes. These short selections refer principally to
procedure.
Tertullian, To the Nations, I, 2, 3.
Moreover,
in our case, though you consider us guilty of more horrible and more numerous
crimes (than the murderer), you prepare shorter and less weighty indictments. .
. .
3 Nevertheless your judgments contain no
statement except that one has confessed himself a Christian; no crime is named
unless it is the crime of the name. This is in truth the reason for all of the
hatred felt toward us. . . . And certainly names ought not to be punished by
the sword or the cross or by wild beasts.
Minucius
was a contemporary of Tertullian, and like him a lawyer, though it still
remains an open question as to whether he wrote before or after Tertullian. The
Octavius is an almost classical defense of the Christian faith in the form of a
dialogue between a Christian and a non-Christian. The following passage is the
denunciation of the Christians by Caecilius, the non-Christian.
Minucius Felix, Octavius, 8.
3 Why is it not, I say, a lamentable thing
that men of a deplorable, unauthorized, and desperate faction should rage
4 against the gods? The most ignorant men,
gathered in from the lowest dregs of society, together with credulous women,
who by the yielding nature of their sex easily go astray, form the rank and
file of a profane conspiracy, which is bound together by nightly meetings and
solemn fasts and inhuman food, not by any sacred rite, but by that which
requires expiation. They are a skulking and a light-shunning people, silent in
public but garrulous in corners. They despise the temples as they do pyres,
they spit upon the gods, they ridicule the sacred rites, they feel compassion
for the priests (if compassion is the word), they scorn public office and
purple attire, themselves going half naked.
In each of
the two following selections there is a substantial statement of the law as
Callewaert has expressed it, Non licet esse Christianos. But both of them are
late; Origen’s Homily belongs to the second quarter of the third century, while
the Acta, which refer to the period of Commodus, are certainly not much earlier
if in fact they are not later.1 The decree of the senate referred
to in the Acta is probably a decree which had to do directly with Apollonius,
who was himself a senator, and did not apply to the Christian sect in general.
Ads of
Apollonius, 23.
Perennius
the prefect said, “Apollonius, the decree of the senate is that Christians
shall not exist.”
Sources for the Neronian Persecution
The earliest reference to the persecution of Nero is to be
found in the so-called First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. This
letter was sent in the name of the community at Rome, but it is generally
admitted that Clement was the real author. Opinions differ somewhat as to the
date of writing, though the great weight of authority is for about 95 A. D. Its
genuineness is practically unquestioned.1
Clementis
Romani ad Corinthios, I, 5, 6, 7.
(ed. J. B.
Lightfoot, London, 1890, Apostolic Fathers.)
Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians, V,
VI,
VII.
V But to bring to an end the time-honored
examples, let us come to the very recent champions; let us take the noble examples
of our own generation. On account of envy and jealousy the greatest and most
righteous pillars of the Church were persecuted, and contended even unto death.
Let us set before our eyes the holy Apostles: Peter, who because of unjust
jealousy endured not one or two but many sufferings, and having thus been a
witness went to the place of glory due to him. On account of envy and
contention Paul by his example pointed out the reward of patience. After he
had been seven times in bonds, driven into exile, and stoned, and after he had
taught in the East and in the West, he gained the glory due to his faith,
having taught righteousness to the whole world and having come to the extreme
West. And when he had suffered martyrdom under the rulers, he accordingly departed
from the world and went to the holy place, a supreme example of patient
endurance.
VI Unto these men of holy lives was gathered a
great multitude of the elect, who having through envy endured many outrages
and torments, were a most noble example among us. The women having been
persecuted because of envy, having suffered cruel and unholy tortures as
Danaids and Dircae,1 safely reached the goal of faith, and though
weak in body received a noble reward. Envy has alienated women from their
husbands and has changed the saying of our father Adam, “ This is now bone of
my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Envy and strife have overthrown great cities,
and uprooted great nations. .
VII These things, beloved ones, we write not
only to admonish you, but also to remind ourselves, for we are in the same
arena, and the same conflict is imposed upon us.
1 Following Lightfoot’s suggested
emendation the translation would be, “women, tender maidens, even slave-girls”
The next
reference to the Neronian persecution is that in the Annals of Tacitus,
published between 115 and 117 A. D.,1 a half-century after this
so-called persecution. The earlier doubts as to the genuineness of this chapter
are now entirely silenced.2 Just what sources Tacitus used cannot
be determined with accuracy, and it is a difficult matter indeed to determine
the value of his account. As a youth he may have witnessed some of the events
described in this chapter. But writing fifty years later he would find it
difficult to divest himself of the knowledge of the Christians gained by his
additional experience. He should have been fairly well acquainted with them for
just before he completed the Annals he had held the pro-consulship of Asia,
the stronghold of Christianity.3
By some
his account of the persecution is regarded as the all-important source; by
others the accuracy is seriously questioned.4 The peculiar
rhetorical style of Tacitus, especially his attempts at brevity, accounts for
some of the difficulties, but the chief difficulty arises in attempting to
reconcile his explanation of the cause of the persecution with the statements
in the other sources.
Cornelii
Taciti Ab Excessu Divi Augusti, XV, 44.
Tacitus, Annals, XV, 44.
Such
things indeed were provided by human wisdom. Soon means of propitiating the
gods were sought for and the Sibylline books were consulted. As a result
prayers were offered to Vulcan, to Ceres, and to Proserpina, and Juno was
propitiated by the matrons, first in the temple of Jupiter, then on the neighboring
sea-coast, whence water was brought to sprinkle the shrine and image of the
goddess. Also sacred
1 Codex
Mediceus gives coniuncti.
* interirent . . . ubi (ed. Furneaux, 1907,
gives,—interirent, aut crucibus adfixi aut flammandi, atque, ubi).
banquets
and vigils were celebrated by the married women. But the belief that the fire
was the result of an order yielded neither to human effort, nor to the lavish
gifts of the emperor, nor even to the propitiations of the gods. Therefore, to
check this rumor Nero substituted as culprits and afflicted with the most
exquisite tortures those who were called Christians by the mob and were hated
for their enormities- Christ, from whom the name originated, had been crucified
by the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. Though checked for
the time this pernicious superstition again broke out, not only in Judea, where
the evil originated, but even in the city, where all things atrocious and
shameful from every part of the world come together and flourish. Therefore,
first / those who confessed were arrested, then from their disclosures a great
multitude was convicted, not so much for the crime of incendiarism, as for
their hatred for mankind. Mockery was added as they perished, for some, covered
with the skins of wild beasts, were mangled by dogs, many were crucified or
given to the flames,1 still others were used as a nightly illumination
after the daylight had faded. Nero had offered his gardens for this spectacle,
and was giving games fit for the circus, where in the dress of a charioteer he
mingled with the people or else stood on high in his chariot. Therefore, although
they were malefactors who deserved the most severe punishment, a feeling of
pity arose, since they were being put to death not for the public welfare but
to satisfy the rage of one person.
A short
but very important note concerning the Christians appears also in Suetonius’
life of Nero, which was written very shortly after the Annals, that is to say,
about 120 A. D. The entire chapter is quoted here, because the note without
the context would lose its significance. In a later chapter2 and in
an entirely different connection he describes the great fire under Nero.
Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, Nero, 16.
He devised
a new form of buildings in the city, in order that there should be porches
before the tenements and the houses, from the tops of which fires might be
prevented from spreading. These he built at his own expense. He also resolved
to extend the walls of the city as far as Ostia and from there to bring the sea
into the old city by means of a canal.
In his
reign many things were severely punished and repressed, and many new things
instituted. A limit was made to extravagance. Public dinners were reduced to
the measure of a client’s dole. Eating houses were forbidden to have any
cooked foods save leguminous plants and vegetables, although formerly all kinds
of dishes were
1 Teuffel, op. cit., vol. ii, § 347.
offered.
The Christians, a class of people of a new and mischievous superstition, were
severely punished. The games of the charioteers were interdicted, since they
had long assumed the license of wandering hither and thither, making it a jest
to cheat and pilfer. The factions of the pantomime players were banished along
with the players themselves. . . .
The most
disputed question in the whole history of the early persecutions is that
concerning the application of First Peter to the Neronian period. Where there
is a possibility for such a wide difference of opinion it is of course
impossible to draw any satisfactory conclusions whatever. Conservative
scholarship stilt maintains that it was written at Rome by Peter around the
year 64 A. D.1 Ramsay, who believes that Peter was the author,
places it as late as 80.3 Harnack, who rejects the Petrine
authorship, places it between 83-93 A. D., but admits that it may have been a
decade or two earlier.3 McGiffert places it about 90 A. D., and
suggests Barnabas as the author.4 A large number of scholars place
it under Hadrian, largely because of the reference to persecution for the
name.6 Personally I do not think that this colorless reference to
persecution throughout the world has any connection whatever with the Neronian
episode at Rome.
First
Peter. (Revised Version.)
I Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to
the elect who are sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, and Bithynia,
II having your behavior seemly amongst the
Gentiles; that, wherein they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your
good works, which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.
Be subject
to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as
supreme; or unto governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evil doers and for
praise to them that do well. For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye
should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:
III but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord:
being ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason
concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and fear: having a good
conscience; that, wherein ye are spoken against, they may be put to shame who
revile your good manner of life in Christ.
IV Beloved, think it not strange concerning
the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a
strange thing happened unto you: but insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s
sufferings, rejoice; that at the revelation of his gl9ry also ye may rejoice with
exceeding joy. If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye;
because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you. For let
none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil-doer, or as a medler
in other men’s matters: but if a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be
ashamed; but let him glorify God in this name.
V Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the
devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom
withstand steadfast in your faith, knowing that the same sufferings are
accomplished in your brethren who are in the world.1
1 A handy edition of the text by 'E.
Nestle, Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine (Stuttgart, 1906).
The
Ascension of Isaiah 1 is a composite work, some of the parts of which
date back to the first century. This selection probably belongs to the latter
part of the first century. The one referred to must be Peter, since Paul was
not included as one of the Apostles till half a century later. Isaiah is the
speaker. This is perhaps the earliest reference to the persecution under Nero
and to the martyrdom of St. Peter. The following is a translation from the
Ethiopic by R. H. Charles. He also gives a Greek recension of this chapter.
The
Ascension of Isaiah, IV, 1, 2, 3.
(ed. R. H.
Charles, 1900.)
IV. 1. And
now Hezekiah and Josab my son, these are the days of the completion of the
world. 2. After it is consummated, Beliar the great ruler, the king of this
world, will descend, who hath ruled it since it came into being; yea, he will
descend from his firmament in the likeness of a man, a lawless king, the slayer
of his mother: who himself (even) this king 3. will persecute the plant which
the Twelve Apostles of the Beloved have planted. Of the Twelve one will be
delivered into his hands.
A short
quotation made by Eusebius from the Apology of Melito of Sardis also has to do
with this problem. This apology was addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius
some time between 161 and 180 A. D. Jerome,2 in his version of
Eusebius’ Chronicon, assigns it to the tenth year of his reign, that is to 170
A. D., but this date is by no means
1 See the Introduction to R. H. Charles,
The Ascension of Isaiah (London, 1900) ; E. Tisserant, Ascension d’ I sale
(Paris, 1900), p. 117, pp. 42 et seq., p. 60.
2 Eusebi, Chronicorum Canonum quae
supersunt (ed. A. Schoene, Berlin, 1866), Olymp. 237.
conclusive.
The importance of this chapter has been especially emphasized by Klette.1
Eusebius, Church History, IV, 26, 9.
Melito’s
Apology.
“ Nero and
Domitian alone, persuaded by certain malicious slanderers, have wished to
falsely accuse our doctrine, from whom also it has come to pass because of this
absurd custom of false accusation that falsehood has become current against the
Christians.”
Tertullian
has aptly been designated as the Carthaginian lawyer-priest. His juristic
training has left its impress on his legalistic method of reasoning. His ideas
are powerfully expressed and denote a remarkable personality. The Apology is a
masterful defense of the Christians against the false attacks of the pagans.
The dates assigned for the Apology vary, but 197 A. D., or at least not later
than 200 A. D., seems the most acceptable. About 203 A. D. Tertullian became a
Montanist. The De Praescriptione Haercti- corum belongs to the pre-Montanist
period as does probably the Ad Nationes. Scorpiace belongs to the period after
203.
Tertullian, Apology, V.
3 Consult your histories, there you will
find that Nero was the first to rage with the imperial sword against this sect
which was then rising especially at Rome. We glory especially in having such a
one the author of our condemnation. For whoever knows him can understand that
nothing was condemned
4 by Nero unless is was of superior
excellence. Domitian, also, a companion to Nero in cruelty, started a
persecution, but since he was to a certain extent human, he quickly put a stop
to what he had begun, even restoring those whom he had sent into exile. Such
men as these have always been our persecutors, oppressive, irreverent,
infamous, men whom you yourselves have always condemned, the victims of whose
condemnation you have been wont to restore to their former condition.
Tertulliani
Ad Nationes, liber I, 7.
(ed. Jleifferscheid et Wissowa, 1890. Corp. Script. Eccl.
Lat.) Principe Augusto nomen hoc ortum est, Tiberio disciplina eius inluxit,
sub Nerone damnatio invaluit, ut iam hinc de persona persecutoris ponderetis:
si pius ille princeps, impii Christiani, si iustus, si castus, iniusti et
incesti Christiani, si non hostis publicus, nos publici hostes; quales simus,
damna- tor ipse demonstravit, utique aemula sibi puniens. et tamen permansit
erasis omnibus hoc solum institutum Neronianum, iustum denique ut dissimile sui
auctoris.
Tertullian,
To the Nations, I, 7.
This name
of ours originated in the reign of Augustus, its teachings began to shed light
in the time of Tiberius, condemnation grew strong under Nero, so that from
this ^.oint you may ponder on the character of its persecutor. If that prince
was a pious man, the Christians are impious; if he was just and pure, the
Christians are unjust and impure; if he was not a public enemy, then we are
public enemies. Of what sort we are, our persecutor himself has shown, since he
punished only what was discordant with himself. And although all other doings
of Nero have been wiped out, this one thing has remained settled by Nero’s
procedure,—that we may see what is just by considering what is unlike the
author of its persecution.1
Tertullian, Remedy for the Scorpion's Sting,2 15.
We read
the lives of the Caesars: Nero was the first to stain with blood the faith then
rising at Rome. Then was Peter girded by another, when he was fastened to the
cross. Then did Paul obtain the birth suited to a Roman, when there he was born
again by the nobility of martyrdom.
Tertullian,
The Prescription against Heretics,z36.
But if you
adjoin Italy, you have Rome from whence comes to us also the authority (of the
apostles). How fortunate is that church, for which the apostles poured forth
the whole doctrine along with their blood, where Peter endured a suffering
like his Master’s; where Paul was crowned by a death
1 This
passage presents considerable difficulty and has been variously interpreted.
Another rendering might be: And although . . . wiped out, this one alone has
endured, a persecu<ion of the just indeed since they are unlike the author
of their persecution.
* Tertulliani Scorpiace (ed. Reifferscheid
et Wissowa, Vienna, 1890, C. S. E. L.).
* Tertulliani De praescriptione
haereticorum (ed. E. Preuschen in Samtnlung ausgewahlter kirchen-und
dogmengeschichtlicher Quellen- schriften, Leipzig, 1892).
like
John’s; where the apostle John was plunged, unhurt, into burning oil, and then
sent to his island exile.
Tertulliani
Apologeticum, 21.
25
Discipuli vero diffusi per orbem ex praecepto magistri dei paruerunt, qui et
ipsi a Iudaeis insequentibus multa perpessi utique pro fiducia veritatis libenter
Romae postremo per Nero- nis saevitiam sanguinem christianum seminaverunt.
Tertullian, Apology, 21.
25 The
disciples also, following the bidding of the Master, scattered over the earth,
and after they had endured with patience many persecutions from the Jews even
with a cheerful heart, since they were confident of the truth, at last through
the cruelty of Nero they sowed the seed of Christian blood at Rome.
The De
mortibus persecntorum was written between 313 and 317 A. D., but it remains an
open question whether or not Lactantius was the author. Many critics ascribe
the work to an unknown Lucius Caecilius. It appeared in none of the earlier
editions of Lactantius, but was published from the one remaining manuscript in
1679. The general nature of the work is determined by the writer’s bitter
hatred of the persecutors.
Lactantius, On the Manner in which the Persecutors
died,1 2.
And now
while Nero was ruling, Peter came to Rome, and after he had performed certain
miracles through the power of God committed to him, he turned many to
righteousness and established a faithful and enduring sanctuary unto God. When
these things were brought to Nero’s attention and when he noticed that not only
at Rome but everywhere a great mul-
1 Lactantii
De mortibus persecutorum. 2 (ed. S. Brandt, 1893,
Edited as Lucii Caecilii de mortibus persecutorum liber vulgo Lactantio
tributus. C. S. E. L.).
titude
daily broke away from the worship of idols and condemning their old religion
went over to the new, since he was an execrable and wicked tyrant, he sprang
forward to destroy the heavenly sanctuary and to extirpate righteousness. He
first of all persecuted the servants of God; he crucified Peter and put Paul to
death. But he was not left unpunished. For God beheld the affliction of his
people. Therefore, deprived of power and hurled from the height of authority,
the powerless tyrant suddenly disappeared, so that even the burial place of so
noxious a beast was nowhere to be seen.
The Church
History of Eusebius was completed about 324.1 Even though it was
written so long after some of the events narrated, it is invaluable for the
reason that the writer used so many sources which are now lost. He used his
material, moreover, with considerable care and judgment. Both the History and
the Chronicle are perfect storehouses of material. Caius, whose history is
quoted here, wrote at the beginning of the third century; Dionysius,2
bishop of Corinth, lived during the latter part of the second century.
Eusebius, Church History? Ill, 1, 2.
Peter
seems to have preached to the Jews of the dispersion in Pontus and Galatia and
Bithynia and Cappadocia and in Asia. And finally, after he had come to Rome, he
was crucified head downwards,4 as he himself thought it fit that he
should die. What needs to be said concerning Paul who preached the glad tidings
of Christ from Jerusalem to Illyri- cum, and who later suffered martyrdom at
Rome at the hands
Eusebius, Church History/ II, 25.
When the
government of Nero was now firmly established, he began to plunge into unholy
pursuits, and armed himself
3 even against the religion of the God of
the universe. . . . But with all these things this particular in the catalogue
of his crimes was still wanting, that he was the first of the emperors who
showed himself an enemy of the divine religion. The Roman Tertullian is
likewise a witness of this. . . .
5 Thus publicly announcing himself as the
first among God’s chief enemies, he was led on to the slaughter of the
apostles. It is, therefore, recorded that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and
that Peter likewise was crucified under Nero. This account of Peter and Paul is
substantiated by the fact that their names are preserved in the cemeteries of
that place even
6 to the present day. It is confirmed
likewise by Caius, a member of the Church, who arose under Zephyrinus, bishop
of Rome. He in a published disputation with Proclus, the leader of the Phrygian
heresy, speaks as follows concerning the places where the sacred corpses of the
aforesaid apostles are
7 laid: “ But I can show the trophies of
the apostles.2 For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian
way, you will find the trophies of those who laid the foundations of this
church.”
8 And that they both suffered martyrdom at
the same time is stated by Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, in his epistle to the
Romans, in the following words: “ You have thus by such an admonition bound
together the planting of Peter and of Paul at Rome and Corinth. For both of
them planted and likewise taught us in our Corinth. And they taught together
in a like manner in Italy, and suffered martyrdom at the same
1
Translation by A. C. McGiffert in Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, vol. i. The
best edition of the original is that of E. Schwartz, op. cit.
* ra rp&naia rwv airoord/uw.
time.” 1
I have quoted these things in order that the truth of the history might be
still more confirmed.
Jerome’s
version of the Chronicle of Eusebius belongs to the very end of the fourth
century. He adds nothing to the sources already quoted, but his point of view
is significant as representing the tradition of the Western Church in the
fourth century.
Eusebi
Chronicorum Canonum quae super sunt, Versio Hier- onymi, Olymp., 211.
(ed. A.
Schoene, Berlin, 1866.)
Primus
Nero super omnia scelera sua etiam persecutionem in Christianos facit in qua
Petrus et Paulus gloriose Romae obcubuerurit.
Jerome, Version of Eusebius’ Chronicle, Olympiad,
211.
Nero over
and above all his other crimes first instituted a persecution against the
Christians in which Peter and Paul gloriously met their death at Rome.
The
history of Sulpicius Severus belongs to the early part of the fifth century,
probably about 403. He used the best sources with some historical
discrimination.2 His style has won for him the surname of the
Christian Sallust. The first part of chapter twenty-nine is practically a reproduction
of Tacitus. The latter part, which is independent of Tacitus, has been regarded
very differently by different writers.8 It is perhaps significant,
in this connection, that
Severus
was a distinguished jurisconsult. The text of the Chronicon rests on a single
eleventh century manuscript, now in the Vatican.
et seq.),
holds that it is a mere amplification of Suetonius possessing no authority, or
else it refers to the action of subsequent emperors. He inclines to the latter
view.
Sulpicius Severus, Sacred History, II,
28, 29.
He (Nero)
first attempted to destroy the name of Christian, since vices are always
hostile to virtue and since the best men are regarded by the wicked as a
reproach to themselves. For at that time the divine religion had become strong
throughout the city. Peter was bishop there and Paul had been brought to Rome
after he had appealed to Ceasar from the unjust decision of the governor.
After this many kept coming together to hear Paul, and they, moved by the truth
which they came to understand and by the good works of the Apostles which they
performed again and again, turned to the worship of God. . . .
In the
meantime, when the number of the Christians had become very large, it happened
that Rome was consumed by fire, Nero at the time being at Antium. But the
opinion of all cast the odium of causing the fire upon the prince, and it was
believed that the emperor had sought the glory of rebuilding the city. Nor did
Nero bring it about in any way, that it should be believed that the fire had
not been caused by his orders. Therefore he turned the odium against the
Christians, and the crudest tortures were inflicted upon the innocent. Nay,
even new kinds of death were contrived, so that covered with the skins of wild
beasts they were torn by dogs; many were affixed to crosses or consumed by the
flames, and many were saved so that when daylight had faded, they might be
burned to serve as a nightly illumination. With this beginning started the
violent treatment of the Christians. Afterwards the religion was forbidden by
laws which were enacted, and Christianity was rendered illegal by published
edicts. At this time Paul and Peter were condemned to death, the former was
beheaded, while Peter suffered on the cross.
The
history of Orosius, written to vindicate and glorify the church, belongs to the
first quarter of the fifth century. His statement concerning the extent of the
persecution is of little value, unsupported as it is by other authorities.
The work
is full of historical inaccuracies. This uncritical miscellany was a favorite
text-book of universal history during the middle ages.
Orosius, History, VII, 7.
For he
first punished the Christians at Rome with torture and death, and ordered that
they should be harassed by a similar persecution throughout all the provinces.
He even attempted to extirpate the very name, and put to death the most holy
apostles of Christ, Peter by crucifixion, Paul by the sword.
The
letters of Paul and Seneca are a forgery of the early fourth century, written
probably either to recommend Christianity to students of Seneca or to recommend
Seneca to Christian readers. Lightfoot says of the forger,1 “ Yet
the writer is not an ignorant man. He has read part of Seneca and is aware of
the philosopher’s relations with Lucilius; ... he is even aware of the Jewish
sympathies of the Empress Poppaea and makes her regard St. Paul as a renegade;
and lastly, he seems to have had before him some account of the Neronian fire
and persecution which is no longer extant, for he speaks of ‘ Christians and
Jews ’ being punished as the authors of the conflagration and mentions that ‘
a hundred and thirty-two houses and six2 in-
sulae were
burnt in six days \ St. Jerome includes Seneca in his catalogue of Christian
writers because of these letters,1 apparently accepting them as
genuine, but neither affirming nor denying their genuineness. Some modern
critics even maintain that the letters which we have are not the same letters
to which Jerome and Augustine refer,2 but are a forgery of the ninth
century. Fleury holds this opinion, at the same time questioning the
genuineness of the original letters. Lightfoot rejects the theory.8
Seneca, Epistles to Paul,4 XII.
Greetings,
my dearest Paul. Do you think that I am not exceedingly sad and sorrowful that
punishment is repeatedly inflicted upon you all in spite of your innocence?
and that the populace should regard you so criminal and so guilty, thinking
that whatever misfortune befalls the city is brought about by you? . . . Why
the city of Rome so often suffers from fire is quite evident. But if one in his
humility could speak out, what the cause is, and if it was permitted to speak
with impunity in these dark things, by this time everybody would understand all
about it. The Christians and the Jews are wont to be punished and tortured as
incendiaries.6 That idler, whoever he is, whose delight is an
execution and whose veil is falsehood, will soon meet his appointed end. As
that most holy one suffered for many, so also this one, an offering for all,
will be consumed forever. In six days one hundred thirty-two houses and four
tenements were burned;6 the seventh day brought a respite.
CHAPTER
III Sources for the Flavian Period
If the date assigned in the preceding chapter to Clement’s
epistle is correct, we have two references to the period of Domitian which are
contemporary in the true sense of the word.
Clement of Rome, Epistle to the
Corinthians, I, i.-
I. Because
of the unexpected calamities and disasters which have befallen us one after
another,1 dear brethren, we realize that we have been somewhat slow
in turning our attention to those matters concerning which you have consulted
us; and especially, dearly beloved, to that abominable and unholy sedition so
foreign and strange to the elect of God, which a few rash and headstrong
persons have kindled to such a state of madness that your name, revered and
illustrious and worthy of the love of all men, has been greatly blasphemed.
Chapter
VII of the First Epistle. Quoted in Part II, Chapter II. '
The
Apocalypse presents almost as many difficulties as First Peter, though there is
less disagreement as to its date and authenticity. The early Christian
tradition* is almost unanimous in ascribing it to the end of the reign
1 (ha rdf
au/rvifilovf nal kTzaXkfaovq yevofiivag rjfJ.lv ovfi<popag nal TrepnrTuoeic.
(ed. J. B.
Lightfoot, in Apostolic Fathers, London, 1890, pt. i, vol. ii, P. 7.)
a Vide
Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, v, 30, 3, vide also H. Swete, The Apocalypse of
St. John (London, 1907), p. xcix.
609] 161
of
Domitian, and most scholars to-day follow this tradition.1 Ramsay
is inclined to accept a date sometime after 90 and before 112 A. D.2
As a matter of fact there are many reasons for holding that it could not have
been written before about 90 A. D., but the chief reason for making 96 the
terminus ad quern is to make it coincide with the persecution of Domitian. For
my part I should be inclined to accept Ramsay’s later date, for, even after we
make every allowance for its exaggerated and ecstatic tone, it does not seem to
be applicable to the conditions which are described in the other sources
relating to this period. If it does refer to conditions in Asia Minor under
Domitian it is the only source for such a persecution.
Revelation.
(Revised Version.)
II And to the angel of the church in Smyrna
write; . . . I know thy tribulation, and thy poverty (but thou art rich), and
the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and they are not, but are a
synagogue of Satan. Fear not the things which thou art about to suffer: behold,
the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and
ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will
give thee the crown of life.8
And to the
angel of the church in Pergamum write; ... I know where thou dwellest, even
where Satan’s throne is: and thou holdest fast my name, and didst not deny my
faith, even in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed
among you, where Satan dwelleth.
g VI And
when he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of them
that had been slain for the word of xo God, and for the testimony which they
held: and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, the holy
and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that
11 dwell on the earth ? And there was given
them to each one a white robe; and it was said unto them, that they should rest
yet for a little time, until their fellow servants also and their brethren,
which should be killed even as they were, should be fulfilled.
VII And I say unto him, My lord, thou knowest.
And he said to me, These are they which come out of the great tribulation, and
they washed their robes, and made them white in the jg blood of the Lamb.
Therefore are they before the throne of God; and they serve him day and night
in his temple:1 . . . IO XII And I heard a great voice in
heaven, saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of
our God, and the authority of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is
cast down, which accuseth them before our God u day and night. And they
overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their
testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death. y XIII And it was
given unto him (the beast) to make war with the saints, and to overcome them:
and there was given to him authority over every tribe and people and tongue and
nag tion. And all that dwell on the earth shall worship him, every one whose
name hath not been written in the book of life of the Lamb that hath been slain
from the foundation of the xg world. And it was given unto him to give breath
to it, even to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both
speak, and cause that as many as should not worship, the image of the beast
should be killed. g XIV And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with
a great voice, If any man worshippeth the beast and his image,
also shall
drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is prepared unmixed in the cup of
his anger; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence
of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
XVI For they poured out the blood of saints and
prophets, and blood hast thou given them to drink: they are worthy.
XVII And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of
the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
And the
woman whom thou sawest is the great city, which reigneth over the kings of the
earth.
XVIII And in her was found the blood of
prophets and saints, and of all that have been slain upon the earth.
XX And I
saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I
saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and
for the word of God, and such as worshipped not the beast, neither his image,
and received not the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they
lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Suetonius,
writing some twenty-five years later, says nothing about a persecution of the
Christians under Domitian. The first paragraph quoted here is given among a
list of Domitian’s early tyrannies. The second is mentioned in connection with
the attempt to restore a depleted treasury. The last is included in a paragraph
in which Suetonius tells how Domitian had become suspicious and was taking
every possible precaution to safeguard his life.
Suetonius, Domitian, X, XII, XV.
IO He put to death many senators, among them
several of consular rank, among whom were Civica Cerealis while he was still
proconsul of Asia, Salvidienus Orfitus, Acilius Glabrio while in exile, on the
ground that they were plotting a revolution.
12 Besides these other exactions the Jewish
poll-tax was collected with very great severity, for which were reported those
who either lived according to Jewish customs without openly professing to be
Jews, or had concealed their origin and had not paid the tax levied upon that
race. I remember being present as a youth, when an aged man of ninety was
examined by a procurator and a numerous staff, to see whether or not he had
been circumcised.
Finally
upon a most trifling suspicion he suddenly slew his cousin Flavius Clemens
almost before he was well out of his consulship, a man of most contemptible
indolence, whose sons as mere children he had openly designated as his
successors, having settled that, after dropping their own names, one was to be
called Vespasian, the other Domitian.
Melito, Apology, in Eusebius, Church History, IV, 29, 9. Quoted in Part II,
Chapter II.
Tertullian, Apology, V.
Quoted in
Part II, Chapters II and IV.
The Roman
History of Cassius Dio was composed between 210 A. D. and 229 A. D. The books
from which the following excerpts were made probably belong to about 220 A.
D.; that is to say about one hundred and twenty-five years after the end of
the reign of Domitian. The note on Domitian is found in one of those books of
Dio which appear in the fairly reliable excerpt of Xiphilinus, an eleventh
century monk. It will be noticed that Dio does not mention any persecution of
the Christians.
Cassius Dio, Roman History, LXVI, 9, 1.
He
(Vespasian) sent a despatch to Rome rescinding the disfranchisement of such
persons as had been condemned for so-called acts of maiestas1 by
Nero and succeeding rulers. His action included living and dead alike, and he moreover
stopped the indictments made upon such complaints.2
Cassius Dio, Roman History, LXVII, 14.
During
this period the road leading from Sinuessa to Pu- teoli was paved with stones.
And the same year Domitian slew among many others Flavius Clemens the consul,
though he was a cousin and had to wife Flavia Domitilia, who was also a
relative of the emperor.1 The complaint brought against them both
was that of atheism, under which many others who drifted into Jewish ways were
condemned. Some of these were killed and the remainder were at least deprived
of their property. Domitilia was merely banished to Pandateria;2
but Gla- brio, colleague of Trajan in the consulship, after being accused on
various stock charges, and also of fighting with wild beasts, suffered death.
This ability in the arena was the chief cause of the emperor’s anger against
him,—an anger prompted by jealousy. In the victim’s consulship Domitian had
summoned him to Albanum to attend the so-called Juvenalia and had imposed on
him the task of killing a large lion. Glabrio not only escaped all injury but
had despatched the creature with most accurate aim.8
Cassius Dio, Roman History, LXVIII, i.
Nerva also
released such as were on trial for maiestas1 and
restored the exiles. . . . Others were not permitted to accuse anybody for
maiestas1 or for “ Jewish living ”.2
As was
indicated in Chapter II the De mortibus perse- cutorum was written about two
hundred and twenty years after the end of the reign of Domitian. It is significant,
not so much for. the information it gives concerning the period of Domitian,
as for the fact that it indicates a period of peace and prosperity extending
from Domitian to Decius.
Lactantius, On the Manner in which the Persecutors
Died/
III.
III. Some
years after Nero there arose another ruler no less a tyrant (Domitian), who,
although he administered a hateful despotism, for a long time oppressed his
subjects and ruled in safety, until he stretched forth his impious hands
against the Lord. But after he was instigated by evil spirits to persecute the
righteous people,4 he was delivered into the hands of his enemies
and suffered the penalties. . . . Accordingly after the commands of the tyrant
had been rescinded the church not only was restored to its former condition but
it shone forth much more brightly and with increased splendor. And in the
succeeding years when many noble princes held the helm and the command of the
Roman Empire, since the church suffered no attacks from its enemies it extended
into the East
and into
the West, so that now there was no corner of the earth so remote that the
religion of God had not penetrated it, indeed there was no nation of such
barbarous customs that it did not upon its conversion to the worship of God
become gentle and take up works of righteusness. But finally the long peace was
broken (by Decius).
The
following- extracts from Eusebius, written in the first quarter of the fourth
century, also refer to this period.
Eusebius, Chronicle/ Olympiad, 218.
Next after
Nero Domitian persecuted the Christians, and under him the apostle John was
exiled to the island of Patmos, where, as they say, he saw in a vision the
Apocalypse, as Iren- aeus explains. . . . Domitian ordered the descendants of
David to be put to death that no one of Jewish royalty might be left. Bruttius
writes that many Christians suffered martyrdom under Domitian. Also Flavia
Domitilla, the daughter of the sister of the consul Flavius Clemens, escaped to
the island of Pontia, since she had confessed that she was a Christian. .
Eusebius, Church History, III, 17, 18, 20.
Domitian,
having shown great cruelty toward many, and having unjustly put to death no
small number of well-born and notable men at Rome, and having without cause
exiled and confiscated the property of a great many other illustrious men,
finally became a successor of Nero in his hatred and enmity toward God. He was
in fact the second that stirred up
1 Translation from the Armenian version by
J. Karst (in G. C. S., Leipzig, 1911), p. 218. Peterman in Schoene’s edition
gives another reading which might indicate that Flavia Domitilla and Flavius, a
son of the consul Clemens, fled to Pontia. The first statement quoted and the
second are separated, probably by two years.
a persecution
against us, although his father Vespasian had undertaken nothing prejudicial to
us.1
It is said
that in this persecution the apostle and evangelist John, who was still alive,
was condemned to dwell on the island of Patmos in consequence of his testimony
to the divine word. Irenaeus, in the fifth book of his work against Heresies,
where he discusses the number of the name of AntiChrist which is given in the
so-called Apocalypse of John, speaks as follows concerning him: . . . “ For it
was seen not long ago, but almost in our own generation, at the end of the
reign of Domitian.”
To such a
degree, indeed, did the teachings of our faith flourish at that time that even
those writers who were far from our religion did not hesitate to mention in
their histories the persecution and the martyrdoms which took place during it.
And they, indeed, accurately indicated the time. For they recorded that in the
fifteenth year of Domitian, Flavia Domi- tilla, daughter of a sister of Flavius
Clemens, who at that time was one of the consuls of Rome, was exiled with many
others to the island of Pontia in consequence of testimony borne to Christ.2
Then they
(the grandchildren of Jude who were accused of belonging to the race of David)
showed their hands, exhibiting the hardness of their bodies and the
callousness produced upon their hands by continuous toil as evidence of their
own labor. . . . Upon hearing this, Domitian did not pass judgment against
them, but, despising them as of no account, he let them go, and by a decree put
a stop to the persecution of the
Church.1
But when they were released they ruled the churches, because they were
witnesses and were also relatives of the Lord. And peace being established,
they lived until the time of Trajan. These things are related by Hegesippus.
But after
Domitian had reigned fifteen years, and Nerva had succeeded to the empire, the
Roman Senate, according to the writers that record the history of those days,
voted that Domitian’s honors should be cancelled, and that those who had been
unjustly banished should return to their homes and have their property restored
to them.2 It was at this time that the apostle John returned from
his banishment in the island and took up his abode at Ephesus, according to an
ancient Christian tradition.3
The Contra
Arianos of Hilary belongs to about 365 A. D. He mentions Vespasian as a
persecutor, though he must have had in mind his son Domitian whom he omits,4
unlike the other Christian writers.
Hilarii
Pictaviensis Contra Arianos, 3.
(ed.
Migne, 1845. Patrologiae Latinae, vol. 10). Nerone se, credo, aut Vespasiano,
aut Decio patrocinantibus tuebatur? quorum in nos odiis confessio divinae
praedicationis effloruit.
Hilary of Poitiers, Against the Arians,
3.
Did it
(the church) look out for itself, indeed, when a Nero or a Vespasian or a
Decius was its protector, because of whose hatred against us the confession of
the divine faith flourished ?
Sulpicius,
at the beginning of the fifth century, adds no new details concerning Domitian,
but simply states that he persecuted the Christians, and then repeats the story
of John. His chapter on Titus is the only statement concerning that emperor’s
policy.
Sulpicius Severus, Sacred History,l II, 30,
6, 7, 8.
6 Titus is said to have first called a
council and deliberated whether a temple of such wonderful workmanship should
be destroyed. For it seemed to some that a sacred edifice renowned beyond all
things of human construction ought not to be destroyed, since preserved it
would furnish an evidence of Roman moderation, but if destroyed it would
furnish an ever-
7 lasting proof of cruelty. But, on the
other side, many and even Titus himself, thought the temple ought especially to
be destroyed, in order that the religion of the Jews *and of the Christians
might be more thoroughly uprooted, since these religions, though opposed to
one another, still proceeded from the same authors; the Christians had come
from the Jews: if the root was destroyed the offshoot would quickly perish.
8 Thus, by the. will of God, the minds of
all were inflamed, and the temple was destroyed, three hundred and thirty-one
years ago.
Sulpicius Severus, Sacred History, II,
31, 1.
Then after
an interval Domitian, the son of Vespasian, per-, secuted the Christians. At
this time he banished John the apostle and evangelist to the island of Patmos.
The
following extract from Jerome’s epistles is taken from the account of the
travels of Paula, 385 A. D. The letter itself was written in 404 A. D. It simply
shows the tradition at the beginning of the fifth century. Note that he refers
to the long martyrdom of Domitilla at Pontia.
1 Sulpicii
Severi Chronicorum liber ii (ed. C. Halm, 1866, C. S. E. L.).
Hieronymi
Epistola, CVIII, 7.
(ed.
Vallarsi in Migne, Pat. Lat., 22, 1857.)
Delata ad
insulam Pontiam, quam clarissimae quondam femi- narum sub Domitiano Principe
pro confessione nominis Chris- tiani, Flaviae Domitillae nobilitavit exilium,
vidensque cellulas in quibus ilia longum martyrium duxerat sumptis fidei alis,
Ierosolymam et sancta Loca videre cupiebat.
Jerome, Epistles, CVIII, 7.
She
(Paula) was borne to the island of Pontia which has long since been ennobled by
the exile of the most illustrious of women Flavia Domitilla, banished in the
reign of Domitian for confessing the name of Christ; and seeing the cells in
which she spent her long martyrdom, assuming the wings of faith, she was
anxious to see Jerusalem and the holy places.
Orosius,
also writing in the early fifth century, gives a detailed account of a
persecution under Domitian, but unfortunately he is entirely unreliable. He
indicates that the persecution was general, and that it was due to the refusal
of the Christians to worship Domitian as a god.
Pauli Orosii Historiarum adversum paganos, VII, 10, 1, 5. (ed. C.
Zangemeister, 1889, Teubner).
Anno ab urbe condita DCCCXXX Domitianus Titi frater, ab Augusto nonus,
fratri successit in regnum. qui per annos XV ad hoc paulatim per omnes scelerum
gradus crevit, ut con- firmatissimam toto orbe Christi Ecclesiam datis ubique
cru- delissimae persecutionis edictis convellere auderet. ... idem- que
efferatus superbia, qua se deum coli vellet, persecutionem in Christianos agi
secundus a Nerone imperavit. quo tempore etiam beatissimus Iohannes apostolus in
Patmum insulam re- legatus fuit.
Orosius, History, VII, 10, 1, 5.
In the
year 830 A. U. C., Domitian,*the brother of Titus and the ninth after Augustus,
succeeded his brother. And he for fifteen years rose little by little through
all grades of wickedness to the point where he dared to overthrow the
church" of Christ, well established throughout the earth; and everywhere
he issued edicts for a most severe persecution ... Exasperated by his own
arrogance, since he wished himself to be revered as a god, following Nero’s
footsteps, he ordered a persecution to be directed against the Christians. At
this time also the most holy apostle John was relegated to the island of
Patmos.
That
Domitilla was a Christian seems to be fairly well substantiated by a number of
inscriptions discovered by De Rossi in a catacomb which he identifies with the
Coemeterium Domitillae. Lightfoot1 concludes that the connection of
this cemetery with the wife of Flavius Clemens is established beyond any
reasonable doubt. He holds that it was land granted by her to her dependants
and co-religionists for a cemetery.2
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, VI, 8942 (p. 1187).
TATIA.BAVCYL
TRIX.SEPTEM.LIB
DIVI. VESPASIAN
FLAVIAE.DOMITIL
VESPASIANI.NEPTIS.A
IVS.BENEFICIO.HOC.SEPVLCRV m feci sic
MEIS.LIBERTIS.LIBERTABVS.PO sterisq. eor
1 Lightfoot, St. Clement, vol. i, p. 36.
2 Ibid., p. 39. See also De Rossi, Roma
Sotterranea, vol. i, pp. 266 et seq. In the English edition of Northcote and
Brownlow, vol. i, p. 69.
Mommsen1
has restored the inscription as follows: TATIA BAVCYL . . . [NV]TRIX SEPTEM
LIB[ERORVM PRONE- POTVM] DIVI VESPASIAN [I, FILIORVM FL. CLEMENTIS ET] FLAVIAE
DOMITIL(L) [AE VXORIS EIVS, DIVI] VES- PASIANI NEPTIS A[CCEPTO LOCO E]IVS
BENEFICIO HOC SEPVLCRV[M] cet. Lightfoot2 objects to the length of
the restoration and to the awkwardness of the expression ‘ liberorum nepotum.’
He suggests [NV]TRIX . SEPTEM . LIB[ERORVM] . DIVI . VESPASIAN [I . ATAVE]
FLAVIAE . DOMITIL[LAE etc.
I, Tatia
Baucylla, nurse of the seven grandchildren of the deified Vespasian, the
children of Flavius Clemens and of Flavia Domitilla his wife, the granddaughter
of the deified Vespasian, having received this plot of ground through her
kindness, have built this sepulchre for my freedmen and my freedwomen and for
their descendants.
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, VI, 16246 (p. 1836).
SER. CORNELIO IVLIANO. FRAT PIISSIMO. ET urceus CALVISiAE. EIVS patera
P. CALVISIVS PHILOTAS . ET. SIBI EX. INDVLGENTIA FLAVIAE. DOMITILL IN
FR. P. XXXV IN AGR. P. XXXX
P.
Calvisius Philotas (has built this sepulchre) for Sergius Cornelius Julianus,
his brother of most sacred memory, and for his (wife) Calvisia, and for
himself, by the favor of Flavia Domitilla.
Sources for the Period of Trajan
The letter of Pliny to Trajan concerning the Christians and
the rescript of Trajan together constitute one of the most important documents
in the whole history of early Christianity. These letters were written in the
year 112 A. D. or possibly the year following. They not only clear up many points
concerning the relation between the Roman State and Christianity, but they are
invaluable also for their information about the Christian religion itself. It
is their bearing upon the attitude of the Roman Emperor toward the Christians,
however, which particularly interests us here.
The
correspondence between Pliny and Trajan was first published in 1502 from a copy
of a manuscript then recently discovered and soon afterwards lost. Before this
time this correspondence was altogether unknown in spite of the references of
Tertullian, Eusebius, and others. No less than five editions of Pliny’s letters
had been published, but the correspondence with the emperor was in none of
them. It was in May, 1502, that Hieronymus Avantius of Verona published the
letters under the following title: C. Plinii lunioris ad Traianum Epistolae 46,
nuper reperte cum eiusdem responsis. This mutilated and corrupt text, which
left out entifely the first twenty-six letters, had been brought from France by
one Peter Leander. The edition was full of errors and misspellings.
Eight
months later the same forty-six letters were edited by Beroaldus at Bologna.
Many editorial corrections were made in this edition, but there is no indication
that the editor consulted an original manuscript. In 1506 the letters were
published by Catanaeus of Milan, but if he used any manuscript it was the same
copy that was used by Avantius. Two years later the first Aldine edition was
published, the first edition to contain the whole of the Pliny-Trajan
correspondence, including the twenty-six letters heretofore omitted. According
to Hardy,1 Aldus based his edition either on the original codex
itself or else on a copy of that codex made by one Joannes Jucundus. The codex
was probably taken to Italy sometime before 1508, and since that date has been
completely lost.*
Keil in
his edition follows Avantius for the letters which he published, namely,
41-121, and the first Aldine for the rest. Hardy,3 however, has
since discovered in the Bodleian library what he believes to be the oldest
extant authority for the letters. He believes that it was made from Jucundus’
copy of the Parisian codex, and was in fact the copy from which the first proof
of Aldus was made. He, therefore, takes this Bodleian copy as his principal
authority for the text of all the letters, adopting in some cases the reading
of the first Aldine edition.
The
genuineness of the two letters quoted herein has been questioned by a number of
scholars. In the eighteenth century Semler held that the letter of Pliny
was
apocryphal, and suggested that Tertullian was the forger.1 More
recently the doubts as to their authenticity have been expressed by Aube,3
Dupuy,3 Guignebert,4 and others.5
One of the
arguments against the genuineness of the letters is based upon the suspicious
nature of the history of the manuscript itself.6 But since the
discovery of the Bodleian manuscript by Hardy it is pretty certain that a
manuscript did exist and that the correspondence was not a fabrication of the
humanists.
The
following are some of the doubts that have been raised by those who attack the
genuineness of the letters. In general, the incoherence of the development and
the presence of propositions apparently strange to the rest indicate
alterations or interpolations.7 It is strange indeed that Pliny,
who had held the office of praetor and consul, and who had not quitted the bar
for more than twenty years did not know under what law the Christians were
punished, or in fact anything about them.8 But in spite of his
professed ignorance he pronounces without
hesitation
the sentence of death,1 and that too simply for their obstinacy.2
Guignebert believes that what Pliny is supposed to have said of the Christians
has “ a very characteristic Christian aroma.”3 It is not at all
likely for example that Pliny would have said that none who were really
Christians could be compelled to sacrifice or to curse Christ.4
Furthermore the declarations of the apostates seem improbable. Men who had
professed a religion perfectly moral and innocent had abandoned it. They
contented themselves with a beautiful eulogy which their judge benevolently
repeats without comment, at the risk of passing for a persecutor of virtue.5
Still another argument is that in no other place in his whole writings does
Pliny make any mention of the Christians in spite of their alleged importance;6
nor are the letters known to any of the contemporary writers.7 The
gravest doubts, however, are due to the statements concerning the ravages of
Christianity in the towns, villages, and country districts of Bithynia and
Pontus.8
Dupuy
concludes from his study that the letter is not absolutely contrary to the
facts, but that it is not Pliny’s. It betrays the hand of a forger preoccupied
with the establishment of evidence favorable to the Christians and
with
exaggerating the rigor of the persecutors. The rescript of Trajan is authentic,
except the phrase neque etiim universum. There was a genuine letter of Pliny
but it has been falsified and suppressed by a Christian anterior to Tertullian.1
Guignebert, who substantially agrees with Dupuy, admits that it is impossible
to give a decisive argument against the authenticity of the two letters, but he
maintains that it is just as impossible to establish their genuineness.3
It is
unnecessary either to answer all of these objections or to enter in detail
into all the arguments in favor of the genuineness of the letters. Perhaps it
is sufficient to say that to-day the weight of scholarship is decidedly in
favor of accepting the letters as authentic.3 The style, the
content, and the purport of the letters place their genuineness beyond a doubt.
The more one studies these letters the more significant they become. The more
one studies a forgery the more discrepancies he is likely to discover. That a
Christian forger could have produced this document seems out of the question.
As Lightfoot says,4 ‘‘What Christian writer,5 if bent on
a forgery, and therefore unfettered by any scruples of veracity, would have
confessed that crowds of his fellow- believers had denied their faith, that all
alike had abandoned their agape at the bidding of a heathen magistrate,
that the
persecution was already refilling the heathen temples which before were empty,
and that there was good hope, if the same policy was pursued, of a general
apostasy ensuing?” As for the statements of Pliny concerning the number of the
Christians, the situation probably had been much exaggerated by those who had
informed against the Christians, namely, the priests and butchers and in
general by those interested in the temple worship. It best served Pliny’s
purpose to accept their statements and even to add his own coloring in order to
gain from Trajan, by showing the great number involved, as clement an answer
as possible.1 But even if the temples were deserted, the Christians
were not necessarily entirely to blame. The Jews as well as the Christians
held themselves aloof from participation in the temple service.2
C. Plini
Caecili Secundi Epistidarum ad Traianum Imperar torem cum eiusdem responsis
liber, XCVI [XCVII].
Traianus Plinio.
Actum, quern debuisti, mi Secunde, in excutiendis causis eorum, qui
Christiani ad te delati fuerant, secutus es. Neque enim in universum aliquid,
quod quasi certam formam habeat, constitui potest. Conquirendi non sunt; si
defferantur et argu- antur, puniendi sunt, ita tamen, ut, qui negaverit se
Christi- anum esse idque re ipsa manifestum fecerit, id est suppli- cando dis
nostris, quamvis suspectus in praeteritum, veniam ex paenitentia impetret. Sine
auctore vero propositi libelli in nullo crimine locum habere debent. Nam et
pessimi exempli nec nostri saeculi est.
Letters of
Pliny the Younger and Trajan, XCVI [XCVII].
Pliny to
the Emperor Trajan.
It is my
custom, my lord, to refer to you all things concerning which I am in doubt.
For who is better able to guide my indecision or enlighten my ignorance? I have
never taken part in the trials of Christians, hence I do not know for what
crime or to what extent it is customary to punish or investigate. I have been
in no little doubt as to whether any discrimination is made for age, or
whether the treatment of the young does not differ from that of the more mature;
whether pardon is granted in case of repentance, or whether he who has ever
been a Christian gains nothing by having ceased to be one ^whether the name
itself, without regard to crimes, or the crimes attributed to the name are
punished. In the meantime I have followed this procedure in the case of those
who have been brought before me as Christians.,, I asked them whether they were
Christians. If they confessed I repeated
the
question a second and a third time with threats of punishment; those who were
obstinate I ordered to be executed. For I did not doubt that, whatever it was
that they confessed, their stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy ought
certainly to be
4 punished. There were others of similar
madness, who, because they were Roman citizens, I have noted for sending to
the city. Soon, the crime spreading, as is usual, because of
5 this very treatment, more cases arose. An
anonymous accusation containing many names was presented. Those who denied
that they were or had been Christians ought, I thought, to be dismissed, since
they repeated after me an invocation to the gods and made supplication with
incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for the purpose
together with the statues of the gods, and since besides they reviled Christ,
not one of which things, they say, those
6 who are really Christians can be
compelled to do. Others accused by the informer said that they were Christians
and then denied it; in fact they had been but had ceased to be, some three
years before, some many years before, several even twenty. All of these both
worshiped your image and
7 the statues of the gods and reviled
Christ. They continued to maintain that this was the amount of their fault or
error, that on a fixed day they were accustomed to come together before
daylight and to sing by turns a hymn to Christ as a god, and that they bound
themselves by oath, not for some crime, but that they would not commit theft,
robbery, or adultery, that they would not betray a trust, nor deny a deposit
when called upon. After this it was their custom to disperse and to come
together again to partake of food, of an ordinary and harmless variety,
however. Even this they ceased to do after the publication of my edict in
which, according to your command,
8 I had forbidden associations. Hence I
believed it the more necessary even to put to torture two female slaves, who
were called deaconesses, in order to find out what was true. I found nothing
but a vicious, extravagant superstition. Consequently I postponed the
examination and made haste to cong suit you. For it seemed to me a subject
worthy of consul-
tation,
especially on account of the number of those in peril. For many of all ages, of
every rank, and even of both sexes are and will be called into danger. The
infection of this superstition has spread not alone to the cities, but even to
the villages and country districts. It seems possible to check it and bring
about a reform. It is certainly evident that the temples, recently deserted,
have begun to be frequented, that the sacred rites, long neglected, have begun
to be restored, and that fodder for victims, for which until now there was
scarcely a purchaser, is sold. From which one may readily judge how great a
number of men can be reclaimed if repentance is permitted.
XCVII
[XCVIII], Trajan to Pliny.
You have
followed the correct procedure, my Secundus, in conducting the cases of those
who were accused before you as Christians. For no general rule can be laid down
as a set form. They ought not to be sought out; if they are brought before you
and the case is proven, they should be punished; provided that he who denies
that he is a Christian, and proves this by making supplication to our gods,
however much he may have been suspected in the past, shall secure pardon on
repentance. Anonymous accusations, however, are inadmissible for any crime, for
they afford a very bad precedent and are not worthy of our age.
The
epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians is probably a genuine letter of Polycarp1
written about the summer of no A. D.2 If so we have here a
contemporary authority for a number of martyrdoms both in Antioch and
Philippi, which are almost contemporaneous with the legation of Pliny in
Bithynia.
Epistle of
Poly carp to the Phillipians, 9.
I exhort you all therefore to be obedient
unto the word of righteousness and to practise all endurance, which also ye saw
with your own eyes in the blessed Ignatius and Zosimus and Rufus, yea and in
others also who came from among yourselves, as well as in Paul himself and the
rest of the Apostles.1
The
Apology of Tertullian bears directly upon the question of the genuineness of
Pliny’s letter and the emperor’s rescript. Tertullian, who wrote in the same
century, follows the letter so closely that he must have had it before him. The
second quotation bears upon the question of the existence of laws specifically
forbidding Christianity. This passage is the mainstay in the defense of
Callewaert, Allard, and in general, of those who argue that such laws existed.2
Tertullian, Apology, II.
But on the
contrary we find that even an investigation into our case is forbidden. For
Pliny the Younger, when he was governor of a province, having condemned some
Christians and driven some from their steadfastness, being nevertheless disturbed
by their very number, accordingly asked the advice of the Emperor Trajan as to
what he should do in the future. He related that except for an obstinacy in
refusing to sacrifice he had discovered nothing concerning their religious mysteries
save meetings before daybreak for singing to Christ as a god and for combining
in a creed which forbade homicide, adultery, cheating, dishonesty and other
crimes. Thereupon Trajan sent a rescript that the Christians were not indeed to
be sought out, but that if they were brought before him, they should be
punished.
O judgment necessarily inconsistent! It
forbids them to be sought out as if they were innocent, and commands them to be
punished as if they were guilty. It spares and rages furiously, it dissembles
and punishes. O severity, why do you so afflict yourself? If you condemn, why
do you not also inquire? if you do not inquire, why do you not also acquit?
Tertullian, Apology, V.
Of what
sort then are these laws, which only the impious the unjust the infamous the
ferocious the senseless and the insane enforce against us, which Trajan to an
extent made of no effect by forbidding the Christians to be sought out, which
neither Vespasian though the conqueror of the Jews, nor Hadrian though an
investigator of all things antiquated, nor Pius, nor Verus enforced?
Practically
all of the information concerning the period of Trajan which is not found in
the letter of Pliny is given in these extracts from Eusebius. The latter apparently
knew of the correspondence of Pliny and Trajan only through the Apology of
Tertullian. He also quotes Hegesippus, who wrote about 180 A. D., and whose
works are now lost. Eusebius seems to be responsible for the tradition of a
third great persecution of the Christians under Trajan. Jerome, in his
translation of the Chronicle speaks definitely of the Third Persecution.
Jerome, in fact, gives a very free interpretation of this passage.
Eusebius, Church History/ III, 32, 33.
It is
reported that after the age of Nero and Domitian, under the emperor whose times
we are now recording, a persecution was stirred up against us in certain
cities in consequence of a popular uprising.2 In this persecution
we have understood that Symeon, the son of Clopas, who, as we have shown, was
the second bishop of the church of Jerusalem, suffered martyrdom. Hegesippus,
whose words we have already quoted in various places, is a witness to this fact
also. Speak*. Translation by A. C. McGiffert in Nicene and Post Nicene
Fathers, vol. i.
ing of
certain heretics he adds that Symeon was accused by them at this time; and
since it was clear that he was a Christian,1 he was tortured in
various ways for many days, and astonished even the judge himself and his
attendants in the highest degree, and finally he suffered a death similar to
that of our Lord. But there is nothing like hearing the historian himself, who
writes as follows: “ Certain of these heretics brought accusation against
Symeon, the son of Clopas, on the ground that he was a descendant of David and
a Christian; and thus he suffered martyrdom, at the age of one hundred and
twenty years, while Trajan was emperor and Atticus governor. . . “ And after
being tortured for many days he suffered martyrdom, and all, including even the
proconsul, marvelled that, at the age of one hundred and twenty years, he could
endure so much. And orders were given that he should be crucified.”
So great a
persecution was at this time opened against us in many places that Plinius
Secundus, one of the most noted of governors, being disturbed by the great
number of martyrs,2 communicated with the emperor concerning the
multitude of those that were put to death for their faith. At the same time, he
informed him in his communication that he had not heard of their doing any
thing profane or contrary to the laws,— except that they arose at dawn and sang
hymns to Christ as a God; but that they renounced adultery and murder and like
criminal offenses, and did all things in accordance with the laws. In reply to
this Trajan made the following decree: that the race of Christians should not
be sought after, but when found should be punished. On account of this the
persecution which had threatened to be a most terrible one was to a certain
degree checked, but there were still left plenty of pretexts for those who
wished to do us harm. Sometimes the people, sometimes the rulers in various
places, would lay plots
against
us, so that, although no great persecution took place, local persecutions were
nevertheless going on in particular provinces, and many of the faithful endured
martyrdom in various forms.1 We have taken our account from the
Latin Apology of Tertullian which we mentioned above.
Eusebius,
Chronicle,* Olympiad, 221.
After
Trajan had instigated a persecution against the Christians, Simon, the son of
Clopas and the bishop of Jeru-. salem, suffered martyrdom.8 He in
turn was succeeded by Justus. Ignatius also, the bishop of Antioch, suffered
martyrdom,4 after whom Heron was appointed as the third bishop.
Pliny the
Younger, governor of a certain province, condemned many of the Christians to
death and led them to a fate corresponding to their reward.5
Distressed at the multitude of them, he knew not what to do. Reporting to
Trajan the emperor, he declared that except for a refusal to worship the idols
he had found nothing illegal8 about them. He also informed him that
the Christians arose before daybreak and glorified Christ as God, and that they
restrained themselves from adultery, murder, and similar crimes. And to this
Trajan sent back a rescript that the Christians should not indeed be sought
out. These things are reported by Tertullian.
* Translation from the Armenian by J.
Karst, Eusebius Werke, Die Chronik, p. 218.
8 Jerome
(in Schoene, Eusebi Chronicorum Canonum, p. 163) gives crucifigitur.
4 Jerome (ibid.) says he was taken to Rome
and thrown to the beasts.
5 Petermann (in Schoene, loc. cit.) reads:
and he in like manner
received a
retribution worthy of his deed.
8 Karst
gives unstatthaftes; Petermann gives absurditatis.
In the
case of Trajan, where we have one or two excellent authorities, we can see
from a glance at the following extracts how distorted the story became by the
time it reached the fifth century writers. It was the view of Sulpicius and
Orosius, however, which was perpetuated throughout the middle ages.
Sulpicii
Severi Chronicorum, liber II, 31.
(ed. Halm,
Vienna, 1866, C. S. E. L.)
Non multo
deinde intervallo tertia persecutio per Traianum fuit. qui cum tormentis et
quaestionibus nihil in Christianis morte aut poena dignum reperisset, saeviri
in eos ultra vetuit.
Sulpicius Severus, Sacred History, II,
31.
Then after
a short interval there was a third persecution under Trajan. But when, by
questioning and torture, he had found nothing in the Christians worthy of death
or punishment, he forbade the raging against them to continue.
Pauli Orosii Historiarum adv. paganos, VII, 12.
(ed. Zangmeister, 1889, Teubner).
In persequendis sane Christianis errore deceptus tertius a Nerone, cum
passim repertos cogi ad sacrificandum idolis ac detrectantes interfici
praecepisset plurimique interficerentur, Plinii Secundi, qui inter ceteros
iudices persecutor datus fuerat, relatu admonitus, eos homines praeter
confessionem Christi honestaque conventicula nihil contrarium Romanis legi- bus
facere, fiducia sane innocentis confessionis nemini mortem gravem ac
formidulosam videri, rescriptis ilico lenioribus tem- peravit edictum.
Orosius, History, VII, 12, 3.
However,
in persecuting the Christians he, beguiled by ignorance, was the third to
follow Nero, since he had sent orders that wherever Christians should be found,
they should be corn- compelled to sacrifice and that, if they refused, they
should be put to death, and since many were put to death. Admonished
by the
report of Pliny the Younger, who among other judges had been assigned as
persecutor, that these men did nothing contrary to the Roman laws save to
confess Christ and to meet in respectable assemblies, but that due to the
boldness of an innocent confession death seemed hard and terrible to none of
them, he immediately tempered his edict with milder rescripts.
Sources for the Period of Hadrian
The most important document for this period is the rescript
of Hadrian to Minucius Fundanus, This was written about the year 125 A. D.1
in response to a letter of inquiry sent by Granianus, the predecessor of
Fundanus.
According
to Eusebius this rescript was given in Latin in the Apology of Justin Martyr,
who wrote from fifteen to twenty-five years later. Eusebius expressly states in
the History that he translated it into Greek. Later, however, the Latin text of
Justin was replaced by the Greek of Eusebius, so that the text handed down with
the Apology is the same as that in Eusebius. However, in the Latin translation
of the History by Rufinus, the translator has given a Latin text which does not
exactly agree with the text as given in the Greek. The question has been
raised, then, as to whether Rufinus translated the Greek of Eusebius into
Latin, or whether he instead, as he had done in the case of Tertullian,2
did not turn directly to the text of Justin and give the original rescript as
he found it in the Apology.
The great
majority of scholars accept the second alter-
1 The date
has been fixed by W. H. Waddington, Fastes des provinces asiatiques (Paris,
1872), p. 197 et seq.
* Vide Harnack, “ Die
griechische Uebersetzung des Apologeticus Tertullians” in Texte u.
Untersuchungen, vol. xv (Leipzig, 1892), p. 11.
641] 193
native,1
and therefore cite or translate only the Latin text. If the Latin of Justin had
not already been replaced by the Greek of Eusebius when Rufinus made the translation,
it would not be unreasonable to suppose that he inserted the original Latin.
But it is altogether impossible to say just when the Latin was replaced.2
In order to prove the superiority of the Latin text, it has been argued that
Rufinus omits the very phrases in which Eusebius informs his readers that he
had translated the text into Greek. Furthermore, those who favor the Latin
text say that the language savors rather of the jurist than of Rufinus,3
who employs very little legal language in his own writings.
This
theory has in turn been opposed by a number of scholars.4 So far as
the omissions of Rufinus are concerned it should be remembered that he was by
no means a minute translator. He adds explanations where necessary and omits at
will what he considers useless. In this case he has made an adaptation rather
than a translation.5 On the use of legal terms, Callewaert ex-
‘Aube,
Hist, des pers., p. 262; Lightfoot, S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp, vol. i, p. 479;
Hardy, Christianity and the Rom. Govt., 2nd ed., p. 108, and many others. Otto,
in his edition of Justin, has replaced the Greek text with the Latin of
(Rufinus.
•Lightfoot
(op. cit., vol. i, p. 479) remarks that as Rufinus lived in the West, there
would be no occasion for substituting the Greek in the copies used in his
neighborhood. But vide F. Funk, “ Hadrians Rescript an Minucius
Fundanus,” in Theologische Quartalschrift, 1879, vol. 61, p. 126, revised in
Funk, Kirchengeschichtliche Abhand- lungen u. Untersuchungen (Paderborn, 1897),
vol. i, p. 341.
* Lightfoot, S. Ignatius, S. Poly carp,
vol. i, p. 479.
4Keim, Rom und das Christenthum, p. 553 et seq.; Funk, op.
cit.. p. 332 et seq.; Doulcet, Essai sur les rapports
d’eglise avec I’etat romain (Paris, 1883), p. 68 et seq.; C. Callewaert, “Le Rescrit
d’Hadrien a Min. Fund.,” in Rev. d’hist. et de lit. rel., 1903, p. 181 it seq.
1 Rev. d’hist. et de lit. rel.,
1903, loc. cit., p. 183.
plains
that a writer tries to adapt his style to the matter in hand, and that after
all the terms are not so technical as to be beyond ordinary usage.1
But
Callewaert2 goes further than simply to answer the arguments of
those who favor the Latin text. He introduces a number of arguments to prove
that the Latin of Rufinus is nothing more than a poor translation of Eusebius,
and that, therefore, the best text is that of Eusebius. He very carefully
analyzes the false edict of Antoninus Pius3 and calls attention to
certain amplifications made by Rufinus in his translation, namely, the
accentuating of the protective and benevolent tendencies of the rescript, and
making vague expressions more precise. The translator, he says, is guilty of
the same am- ( plifications in connection with the rescript of
Hadrian.4 He then calls attention to two or three words which seem
to mark the Latin text as a translation. In the first place the Greek
distinguishes two abuses: first, the use of petitions and outcries by the
population in general, instead of a regular trial; secondly, false
accusations. By introducing the word innoxii, Rufinus confuses the two and
refers only to false accusations. In the next place the outcries and petitions
might be well founded. If so they must be able to sustain them not only extrajudicially,
but even before the tribunal. The Greek renders this idea perfectly; it is
entirely lost in the translation. Finally, an error in the name of the
proconsul had crept in. His real name was not Serennius but Licinius Granianus.5
We would expect Justin to give it correctly, but if he did then Rufinus did
not use his text,
for
Rufinus follows the erroneous title given by Eusebius.1
It would
seem, then, that our best text of the rescript is the Greek of Eusebius. It is
of course not altogether impossible that the Latin text of Rufinus is the
original text of Justin, but the weight of argument is most certainly in favor
of the theory that Rufinus translated the Greek text of Eusebius and did not
revert to the original of Justin.
The
genuineness of the rescript to Minucius Fundanus has been much disputed. Keim 2
was the first to raise the question, but he in turn has been followed by a
number of others.8 But the arguments raised by Keim and his followers
are based upon a misconception of the situation as well as upon a
misunderstanding of the rescript, and incidentally of the rescript of Trajan as
well. Keim, for example, who would cut off the last chapter of the so-called
First Apology as a forgery, regards the rescript as a forged edict of toleration,4
but he is forced to the conclusion that it existed before the time of Melito
who wrote only twenty or possibly thirty years later than Justin.
Following
are some of the arguments introduced to disprove the genuineness of the
document. In the first place its parallelism to the rescript of Trajan suggests
a forgery.6
Moreover,
the inscription is unusual,1 and it is astonishing that Hadrian
should address the legate as Serennius when his name was Licinius.2
It is not less surprising that the same terms are used which appear later in
the apologists, for example, the phrase,—ne et innoxii perturbentur et
calumniatoribus latrocinandi tribuatur occasion Furthermore, the language is
vague, wavering, and in no way corresponds to the firmer style of the numerous
rescripts of Hadrian collected in the pandects.4 But of still
greater importance, according to those who reject the rescript, is the striking
silence of Tertullian, especially since he is very careful to give a summary of
the letter of Trajan,5 and since in a later chapter,6
where he also refers to the rescript of Trajan, he mentions Hadrian, but says
not a word about the letter, which incidentally would have furnished him an
excellent argument for his thesis.7
But as
Allard says in one of his most recent works,8 the scholarship of
to-day is almost unanimous in recognizing the authenticity of the rescript.9
The short notice of
Melito,1
who wrote less than a half-century after the descript was written, is quite
sufficient to prove its genuineness. The silence of Tertullian, who it must be
remembered wrote thirty years after Melito, loses its force in view of this
notice of the Bishop of Sardis. The rescript was in reality much less important
and less known than that of Trajan; in fact was probably practically unknown outside
of the province of Asia.
It is not
only possible to answer all of the arguments raised against the authenticity of
the rescript, but its genuineness is established beyond doubt by a number of
positive facts. In the first place, a forger would hardly have added a Latin
document to a Greek apology, and Eusebius says expressly that it was in Latin.2
Nor would a forger have addressed the letter to the successor of Granianus.8
As
Callewaert4 says, it fits so harmoniously into its historical
setting, it reflects so faithfully the character and tendencies of the pagans
in Asia Minor, it so harmonizes with the rules of Roman penal law and
procedure, and with the rescript of Trajan, that it could not possibly be a
forgery. It is favorable to the Christians, hence is not the work of a pagan.5
If it had been the work of a Christian it would have been worded so as to save
the Christians, instead of simply aiming at the preservation of order.6
647]
SOURCES FOR THE PERIOD OF HADRIAN
Eusebius, Church History, IV, 8, 9.
4 The same
writer (Justin), speaking of the Jewish war which took place at that time, adds
the following: “ For in the late Jewish war Barcocheba, the leader of the
Jewish rebellion, commanded that Christians alone should be visited with
terrible punishments unless they would deny and blas-
6 pheme Jesus Christ/’ . . . The same
writer, moreover, relates that Hadrian, having received from Serennius
Granianus, a most distinguished governor, a letter in behalf of the Christians,
in which he stated that it was not just to slay the Christians without a
regular indictment and without trial, merely
for the
sake of gratifying the outcries of the populace, sent a rescript to Minucius
Fundanus, proconsul of Asia, commanding him to condemn no one without an
indictment and a rea-
7 sonable charge. And he gives a copy of
the epistle, preserving the original Latin in which it was written, and
prefacing it with the following words: “ Although from the epistle of the
greatest and most illustrious Emperor Hadrian, your father, we have good ground
to demand that you order judgment to be given as we have desired, yet we have
asked this not because it was ordered by Hadrian, but rather because we know
that what we ask is just. And we have subjoined the copy of Hadrian’s epistle
that you may know that we are speaking the
8 truth in this matter also. And this is
the copy.” After these words' the author referred to gives the rescript in
Latin, which we have translated into Greek as accurately as we could. It reads
as follows:
9, 1 “ To
Minucius Fundanus. I have received art epistle, written to me by Serennius
Granianus, a most illustrious man, whom you have succeeded. It does not seem
right to me that the matter should be passed by without examination, lest the
people be harassed and opportunity be given to the informers
2 for practicing villainy. If, therefore,
the inhabitants of the province can clearly sustain this petition against the
Christians so as to give answer even in a court of law, let them pursue this
course alone, but let them not have resort to men’s petitions and outcries.
For it is far more proper, if anyone wishes
3 to make an accusation, that you should
examine into it. If anyone therefore accuses them and shows that they are doing
anything contrary to the laws, do you pass judgment according to the nature of
the crime. But, by Hercules! if any one bring an accusation through” mere
calumny, decide in regard to his criminality, and see to it that you inflict
punishment.”
Such are
the contents of Hadrian’s rescript.1
1 Except
for a few changes this is the translation of A. C. McGiffert in Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. i.
\
Rufinus, Translation of Eusebius, IV, 8, 9.
6 But the same man also writes that the
Emperor Hadrian, having received letters from the governor Serennius Grani-
anus, a most distinguished man, in which he earnestly inquired about the
Christians, sent a rescript saying it was not just for Christians accused of no
crime to be punished
7 without a trial and illegally. And at the
same time he appends a copy of his letter which reads as follows:
Transcript
of the letter of the Emperor Hadrian to Minu- cius Fundanus, proconsul of Asia.
9, i I
have received letters written to me by your predecessor in office Serennius
Granianus, a most distinguished man, and it does not seem right to me that the
report should be passed by in silence, lest innocent men be harrassed and
opportunity be
2 given to calumniators for practicing
robbery. If, therefore, the provincials can clearly sustain this petition of
theirs against the Christians, so as to accuse them on some point before the
tribunal, I do not prevent them from following this course. But I do not permit
them to make use of entreaties and outcries alone for this purpose. For it is
much more equitable, if any one wishes to make an accusation, that you should
make an investigation into the charges. If anyone therefore accuses the before
mentioned men and proves that they are doing anything contrary to the laws, do
you by all means pass judgment according to the deserts of the crimes.
3 But, by Hercules, you will particularly
look out for this, that if someone accuses anyone of these for the sake of
calumny, you will inflict upon him more severe punishments according to his
wickedness.
Justin
Martyr, a native of Palestine, was a pagan philosopher who was converted to
Christianity in mature life. He was probably martyred at Rome somewhere around
the year 165 A. D.1 Eusebius mentions two apologies of
1 Blunt,
Apology of Justin Martyr (Cambridge, 1911), Introduction, p. x; vide iR. Knopf, “Acten des Justin und seiner Genossen,” in Ausgewahlte Mdrtyreracten
(Tubingen, and Leipzig, 1901, S. Q.), p. 17.
Justin,
one written in the reign of Antoninus Pius and one in the reign of Marcus
Aurelius. It seems likely, however, that the two which have come down to us
really are but the first apology 1 and that the second has been lost.
The question of the date depends upon whether the two apologies as we have
them are in reality distinct. On the ground that they were distinct many have
dated the first about 138 or 139 A. D.2 But it seems most likely
that the two apologies were really one and that they belong to about 150 A. D.3
At any rate the conversion of Justin took place during the last years of
Hadrian’s reign or possibly at the beginning of the reign of his successor, so
that what he says about the Christians in this passage properly applies to the
reign of Hadrian.
Justin Martyr, Apology,4 II, 12.
For I
myself, while I was delighting in the teachings of Plato, when I heard the
Christians slandered and saw them fearless of death and of all the other things
ordinarily considered fearful, understood that it was impossible that they
could be living in wickedness and pleasure. For what man who is fond of
pleasure or is intemperate and who counts it good to feed on human fiesh could
welcome death that he might be deprived of his pleasures, and would not rather
strive
*Justini
Apologia (ed. Th. Otto, Jena. 1876, Corpus Apol. Christ.).
to
continue indefinitely the present life and escape the notice of the rulers,
instead of giving himself up to be put to death ? And this also the wicked
demons have now caused to be done by certain wicked men. For having put some to
death upon the false evidence brought against us, they also dragged to the
torture our families, either children or weak women, and by fearful torture
compelled them to confess to those fabulous actions, which they themselves
perpetrate openly.1 . . . But because we persuade men to avoid such
misfortunes and those who practice and imitate such deeds, as even now by these
words we have striven eagerly to persuade you, we are assailed in many and
various ways.
The
following extract from the Apology of Melito, which was written only same
thirty years after the death of Hadrian, has a very important bearing upon the
genuineness of the rescript to Minucius Fundanus.
Eusebius, Church History, IV, 26, 10.
Quoted
from the Apology of Melito.
“ But thy
pious fathers corrected their ignorance,2 having frequently rebuked
in writing many who dared to attempt new measures against them. Among them thy
grandfather Hadrian appears to have written to many others, and also to
Fundanus, the proconsul and governor of Asia. . .” 8
The
Chronicle of Eusebius gives no information not already found in the History.
The translation of Jerome, however, does not entirely agree with that of the
History.4
As a check
upon the accuracy of Jerome a translation of the Armenian text is given,
together with a translation of Georgius Syncellus who wrote at the beginning of
the ninth century. This quotation was in all probability taken directly from
the original Chronicle of Eusebius.1
Jerome's Translation of Eusebius, Chronicle,
Olympiad,
226.
Quadratus,
a disciple of the apostles, and Aristides, our Athenian philosopher, submitted
to Hadrian books written in behalf of the Christian religion. The governor,
Serenus Granius (Serennius Granianus), a man of most exceptional renown, sent
letters to the emperor, saying that it was unjust to sacrifice the blood of
innocent men to the clamors of the mob; and to make criminals of those who had
committed no crime, simply for the name alone and for their belief.2
Aroused by these things Hadrian wrote to Minutius Fundanus, proconsul of Asia,
that the Christians should not be condemned except for crimes, a copy of which
letter remained in existence up to our own time.
Eusebius, Chronicon, ad. Olymp., 226.
(Translation
from the Armenian.3)
He
received also from Serennius, an illustrious governor, a letter concerning the
Christians, that it indeed was unjust to put them to death upon report alone
without an examination and without any accusation. He wrote to Monicus Fundius
(Minucius Fundanus), proconsul of Asia, that they should not be condemned
without an offense and an accusation. And a copy of this edict is still in
circulation.
Georgius Syncellus, Chronographia,l An. Mun.,
5609.
The
Emperor Hadrian, having received these and also a letter from Serenius, a most
distinguished governor, that it was unjust to put the Christians to death
without trial and without any indictment,2 wrote to Minucius
Fundanus, proconsul of Asia, to put no one to death except upon charges and
upon an indictment.
Irenaeus
was born somewhere near the year 130 A. D. The note on the martyrdom of
Telesphorus is taken from his treatise Against Heresies, which was written
between 182 and 188 A. D.
Irenaeus,
Against Heresies,z III, iii, 3.
Then was
appointed the sixth after the apostles, Sextus, and following him Telesphorus
who also was gloriously martyred.4
Lampridius,
who wrote at the beginning of the fourth century, is the most important of
Scriptores Historiae Au- gustae, but by no means entirely reliable. As he
himself says, the passage concerning Hadrian is merely hearsay, and has very
little likelihood of being the truth; in fact seems almost incredible.
Lampridius, Life of Alexander Severus/ 43, 6, 7.
He wished
to raise a temple to Christ and to receive him among the gods, a desire
attributed also to Hadrian, who or- dred temples without images to be built in
all cities. They
are now,
therefore, since they are without divinities, called temples of Hadrian,
because he was said to have designed them for this purpose.1 But
Alexander was restrained by those who examined the entrails of the victims and
found that if he should do this all would become Christians, and the other
temples would be deserted.
Vopiscus,
the last of the same group of writers, belongs to the first third of the fourth
century.2 He meant well, and was conscientious, but was entirely lacking
in historical criticism. The letter of Hadrian which he quotes is manifestly a
forgery.3
Flavius Vopiscus, Life of Saturninus*
7, 8.
And lest
any of the Egyptians should be angry at me, and think I have expressed my
personal opinion, I will quote a letter taken from the writings of his freedman
Phlegon, which exposes to the core the life of the Egyptians.
“ Hadrian
Augustus to Servianus the Consul, greeting.
I have come to know Egypt, which you were
praising to me, my dearest Servianus, as a country totally capricious, irresolute,
and aspiring to every innovation. There those who worship Serapis are actually
Christians, and those who say they are bishops of Christ worship Serapis; there
is not a chief of the Jewish synagogue, nor a Samaritan, nor a Christian
priest, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer and an anointer. When the
patriarch himself comes to Egypt he is compelled to
worship
Christ by some and Serapis by others. . . } They have a single god, money. The
Christians, the Jews and all the people alike worship him.2 Oh that
the morals of the city were better, for, in view of its fruitfulness and its
magnitude, it is indeed worthy to be the leader of all Egypt! . . .
The
excerpts from Sulpicius Severus, Jerome, and Orosius all belong to the early
fifth century. They are interesting in that they show the traditions current
in the fifth century.
Sulpicius
Severus, Sacred History,z II, 31, 3.
Because of
this disturbance (the Jewish revolt) Hadrian, thinking that he would destroy
the Christian faith by an injury to the holy places, placed images of the gods
both in the temple and at the place of our Lord’s suffering. And since he
thought that the Christians were drawn principally from the Jews—for at that
time the church at Jerusalem did not have a priest except of the circumcision—he
ordered a cohort of soldiers to be placed as a constant sentinel, in order to
prevent all Jews from approaching Jerusalem. But this indeed was an advantage
to the Christians, for at that time nearly all worshipped Christ as God without
disregarding the law. . . . The fourth persecution took place under Hadrian,
the continuation of which, however, he afterwards forbade, saying that it was
unjust for anyone to be judged a criminal without having committed any crime.4
Jerome, Letters,1 LXX, 4.
Did not
Quadratus, a disciple of the Apostles and pontiff of the Athenian church,
submit to the emperor Hadrian, when he was visiting the Eleusinian mysteries, a
treatise in behalf of our religion? And everyone felt so much admiration that
due to his remarkable ability a most severe persecution was checked.2
Aristides the philosopher, a most eloquent man, presented to the same prince
an apology in behalf of the Christians, which was composed of the sayings of
the philosophers.
Orosius, History * VII, 13.
In the
year 867 A. U. C., Hadrian, the child of a cousin of Trajan, and the twelfth
emperor after Augustus, assumed control and thereafter ruled for twenty-one
years. Having been enlightened by Quadratus, a disciple of the apostles, and by
Aristides the Athenian, a man full of faith and wisdom, who composed treatises
concerning the Christian religion, and having been informed by the legate
Serenus Granius (Serennius Granianus), he commanded in a letter sent to
Minucius Fundanus, proconsul of Asia, that no one should be permitted to
condemn the Christians without the evidence or the proof of crime; . . .4
And he avenged the Christians, whom they (the Jews), under the leadership of
Cocheba, were tormenting because they did not join with him against the Romans.