HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH*
CHAPTER II:
PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANITY AND
CHRISTIAN MARTYRDOM.
"Semen est sanguis Christianorum."_Tertullian.
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§ 12. Literature.
I. Sources:
Eusebius: H.
E., particularly Lib. viii. and ix.
Lactantius: De Mortibus persecutorum.
The Apologies of Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix, Tertullian,
and Origen, and the Epistles of Cyprian.
Theod. Ruinart:
Acta primorum
martyrum sincera et selecta. Par. 1689; 2nd ed. Amstel. 1713 (covering the first four cent.).
Several biographies
in the Acta
Sanctorum.
Antw. 1643 sqq.
Les Acts des martyrs depuis l’origine de l’église Chrétienne jusqu’à nos
temps. Traduits et publiés par les R. R. P. P bénédictins de la congreg. de
France. Par.
1857 sqq.
The Martyrol.
Hieronymianum (ed. Florentini, Luc. 1668, and in Migne’s Patrol. Lat.
Opp. Hieron. xi. 434 sqq.); the Martyrol. Romanum (ed. Baron. 1586),
the Menolog. Graec. (ed. Urbini, 1727); De Rossi, Roller, and other works on the Roman Catacombs.
II. Works.
John Foxe (or
Fox, d. 1587): Acts and Monuments of the Church (commonly called Book
of Martyrs), first pub. at Strasburg 1554, and Basle 1559; first complete
ed. fol. London 1563; 9th ed. fol. 1684, 3 vols. fol.; best ed. by
G. Townsend, Lond. 1843, 8 vols. 8o.; also many abridged editions. Foxe
exhibits the entire history of Christian martyrdom, including the Protestant
martyrs of the middle age and the sixteenth century, with polemical reference
to the church of Rome as the successor of heathen Rome in the work of blood
persecution. "The Ten Roman persecutions" are related in the first
volume.
Kortholdt: De persecutionibus eccl.
primcevae. Kiel,
1629.
Gibbon: chap.
xvi.
MĂĽnter: Die
Christen im heidnischen Hause vor Constantin. Copenh. 1828.
Schumann Von Mansegg (R.C.): Die Verfolgungen der ersten christlichen Kirche. Vienna, 1821.
W. Ad. Schmidt:
Geschichte der Denk u. Glaubensfreiheit im ersten
Jahrhundert der Kaiserherrschaft und des Christenthums. Berl. 1847.
Kritzler: Die
Heldenzeiten des Christenthums. Vol. i. Der Kampf mit dem Heidthum. Leipz. 1856.
Fr. W. Gass: Das
christl. Märtyrerthum in den ersten Jahrhunderten. 1859-60 (in Niedner’s
"Zeitschrift fĂĽr Hist. Theol." for 1859, pp. 323-392, and 1860, pp.
315-381).
F. Overbeck: Gesetze der
röm. Kaiser gegen die Christen, in his Studien zur Gesch. der alten
Kirche, I.
Chemn. 1875.
B. Aubé: Histoire
des persécutions de l’église jusqu’ à la fin des Antonins. 2nd ed. Paris 1875
(Crowned by the Académie française). By the same: Histoire
des persécutions de l’église, La polémique paÿenne à la fin du II. siècle, 1878. Les
Chréstiens dans l’empire romain, de la fin des Antonins au milieu du IIIe
siécle (180-249),
1881. L’église et
L’état dans la seconde moitié du IIIe siécle, 1886.
K. Wieseler: Die
Christenverfolgungen der Cäsaren, Hist. und chronol. untersucht. Gütersloh, 1878.
Gerh. Uhlhorn:
Der Kampf des Christenthums mit dem Heidenthum. 3d ed. Stuttgart, 1879. Engl.
transl. by Smyth & Ropes, 1879.
Theod. Keim: Rom und das
Christenthum. Berlin,
1881.
E. Renan: Marc-Aurèle.
Paris, 1882, pp. 53-69.
§ 13. General Survey.
The persecutions of Christianity
during the first three centuries appear like a long tragedy: first, foreboding
signs; then a succession of bloody assaults of heathenism upon the religion of
the cross; amidst the dark scenes of fiendish hatred and cruelty the bright
exhibitions of suffering virtue; now and then a short pause; at last a fearful
and desperate struggle of the old pagan empire for life and death, ending in
the abiding victory of the Christian religion. Thus this bloody baptism of the
church resulted in the birth of a Christian world. It was a repetition and
prolongation of the crucifixion, but followed by a resurrection.
Our Lord had predicted this
conflict, and prepared His disciples for it. "Behold, I send you forth as
sheep in the midst of wolves. They will deliver you up to councils, and in
their synagogues they will scourge you; yea and before governors and kings
shall ye be brought for My sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.
And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his child: and
children shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death. And
ye shall be hated of all men for My name’s sake: but he that endureth to the
end, the same shall be saved." These, and similar words, as well as the
recollection of the crucifixion and resurrection, fortified and cheered many a
confessor and martyr in the dungeon and at the stake.
The persecutions proceeded first
from the Jews, afterwards from the Gentiles, and continued, with interruptions,
for nearly three hundred years. History reports no mightier, longer and
deadlier conflict than this war of extermination waged by heathen Rome against
defenseless Christianity. It was a most unequal struggle, a struggle of the
sword and of the cross; carnal power all on one side, moral power all on the
other. It was a struggle for life and death. One or the other of the combatants
must succumb. A compromise was impossible. The future of the world’s history
depended on the downfall of heathenism and the triumph of Christianity. Behind
the scene were the powers of the invisible world, God and the prince of
darkness. Justin, Tertullian, and other confessors traced the persecutions to
Satan and the demons, though they did not ignore the human and moral aspects;
they viewed them also as a punishment for past sins, and a school of Christian
virtue. Some denied that martyrdom was an evil, since it only brought
Christians the sooner to God and the glory of heaven. As war brings out the
heroic qualities of men, so did the persecutions develop the patience, the
gentleness, the endurance of the Christians, and prove the world-conquering
power of faith.
Number of Persecutions.
From the fifth century it has
been customary to reckon ten great persecutions: under Nero, Domitian, Trajan,
Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Maximinus, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and
Diocletian.12 This
number was suggested by the ten plagues of Egypt taken as types (which,
however, befell the enemies of Israel, and present a contrast rather than a
parallel), and by the ten horns of the Roman beast making war with the Lamb,
taken for so many emperors.13 But the
number is too great for the general persecutions, and too small for the
provincial and local. Only two imperial persecutions_those, of Decius and
Diocletian_extended over the empire; but Christianity was always an illegal
religion from Trajan to Constantine, and subject to annoyance and violence
everywhere.14 Some persecuting emperors_Nero, Domitian,
Galerius, were monstrous tyrants, but others_Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Decius,
Diocletian_were among the best and most energetic emperors, and were prompted
not so much by hatred of Christianity as by zeal for the maintenance of the
laws and the power of the government. On the other hand, some of the most
worthless emperors_Commodus, Caracalla, and Heliogabalus_were rather favorable
to the Christians from sheer caprice. All were equally ignorant of the true
character of the new religion.
The Result.
The long and bloody war of
heathen Rome against the church, which is built upon a rock, utterly failed. It
began in Rome under Nero, it ended near Rome at the Milvian bridge, under
Constantine. Aiming to exterminate, it purified. It called forth the virtues of
Christian heroism, and resulted in the consolidation and triumph of the new
religion. The philosophy of persecution is best expressed by the terse word of
Tertullian, who lived in the midst of them, but did not see the end: "The
blood of the Christians is the seed of the Church."
Religious Freedom.
The blood of persecution is also
the seed of civil and religious liberty. All sects, schools, and parties,
whether religious or political, when persecuted, complain of injustice and
plead for toleration; but few practise it when in power. The reason of this
inconsistency lies in the selfishness of human nature, and in mistaken zeal for
what it believes to be true and right. Liberty is of very slow, but sure
growth.
The ancient world of Greece and
Rome generally was based upon the absolutism of the state, which mercilessly
trampled under foot the individual rights of men. It is Christianity which
taught and acknowledged them.
The Christian apologists first
proclaimed, however imperfectly, the principle of freedom of religion, and the
sacred rights of conscience. Tertullian, in prophetic anticipation as it were
of the modern Protestant theory, boldly tells the heathen that everybody has a
natural and inalienable right to worship God according to his conviction, that
all compulsion in matters of conscience is contrary to the very nature of
religion, and that no form of worship has any value whatever except as far as
it is a free voluntary homage of the heart.15
Similar views in favor of
religious liberty were expressed by Justin Martyr,16 and at the close of our period
by Lactantius, who says: "Religion cannot be imposed by force; the matter
must be carried on by words rather than by blows, that the will may be
affected. Torture and piety are widely different; nor is it possible for truth
to be united with violence, or justice with cruelty. Nothing is so much a
matter of free will as religion."17
The Church, after its triumph
over paganism, forgot this lesson, and for many centuries treated all Christian
heretics, as well as Jews and Gentiles, just as the old Romans had treated the
Christians, without distinction of creed or sect. Every state-church from the
times of the Christian emperors of Constantinople to the times of the Russian
Czars and the South American Republics, has more or less persecuted the
dissenters, in direct violation of the principles and practice of Christ and
the apostles, and in carnal misunderstanding of the spiritual nature of the
kingdom of heaven.
§ 14. Jewish Persecution.
Sources.
I. Dio Cassius: Hist. Rom. LXVIII.
32; LXIX. 12-14; Justin M.: Apol.
I. 31, 47; Eusebius: H.
Eccl. IV. 2. and 6. Rabbinical traditions in Derenbourg: Histoire
de la Palestine depuis Cyrus jusqu’à Adrien (Paris 1867), pp. 402-438.
II. Fr. MĂĽnter.: Der
Judische Krieg unter Trajan u. Hadrian. Altona and Leipz. 1821.
Deyling: Aeliae Capitol. origines et
historiae. Lips.
1743.
Ewald: Gesch.
des Volkes Israel, VII. 373-432.
Milman: History
of the Jews, Books 18 and 20.
Grätz: Gesch.
der Juden. Vol.
IV. (Leipz. 1866).
SchĂĽrer: Neutestam.
Zeitgeschichte (1874),
pp. 350-367.
The Jews had displayed their
obstinate unbelief and bitter hatred of the gospel in the crucifixion of
Christ, the stoning of Stephen, the execution of James the Elder, the repeated
incarceration as of Peter and John, the wild rage against Paul, and the murder
of James the Just. No wonder that the fearful judgment of God at last visited
this ingratitude upon them in the destruction of the holy city and the temple,
from which the Christians found refuge in Pella.
But this tragical fate could
break only the national power of the Jews, not their hatred of Christianity.
They caused the death of Symeon, bishop of Jerusalem (107); they were
particularly active in the burning of Polycarp of Smyrna; and they inflamed the
violence of the Gentiles by eliminating the sect of the Nazarenes.
The Rebellion under Bar-Cochba.
Jerusalem again Destroyed.
By severe oppression under
Trajan and Hadrian, the prohibition of circumcision, and the desecration of
Jerusalem by the idolatry of the pagans, the Jews were provoked to a new and
powerful insurrection (a.d. 132-135).
A pseudo-Messiah, Bar-Cochba (son of the stars, Num. 24:17), afterwards called
Bar-Cosiba (son of falsehood), put himself at the head of the rebels, and
caused all the Christians who would not join him to be most cruelly murdered.
But the false prophet was defeated by Hadrian’s general in 135, more than half
a million of Jews were slaughtered after a desperate resistance, immense
numbers sold into slavery, 985 villages and 50 fortresses levelled to the
ground, nearly all Palestine laid waste, Jerusalem again destroyed, and a Roman
colony, Aelia Capitolina, erected on its ruins, with an image of Jupiter and a
temple of Venus. The coins of Aelia Capitolina bear the images of Jupiter
Capitolinus, Bacchus, Serapis, Astarte.
Thus the native soil of the venerable
religion of the Old Testament was ploughed up, and idolatry planted on it. The
Jews were forbidden to visit the holy spot of their former metropolis upon pain
of death.18 Only on
the anniversary of the destruction were they allowed to behold and bewail it
from a distance. The prohibition was continued under Christian emperors to
their disgrace. Julian the Apostate, from hatred of the Christians, allowed and
encouraged them to rebuild the temple, but in vain. Jerome, who spent the rest
of his life in monastic retirement at Bethlehem (d. 419), informs us in
pathetic words that in his day old Jewish men and women, "in corporibus et in habitu suo
iram a Domini demonstrantes," had to buy from the Roman watch the privilege of
weeping and lamenting over the ruins from mount Olivet in sight of the cross,
"ut qui
quondam emerant sanguinem Christi, emant lacrymas suas, et ne fletus quidem i
eis gratuitus sit."19 The same sad privilege the Jews now enjoy under
Turkish rule, not only once a year, but every Friday beneath the very walls of
the Temple, now replaced by the Mosque of Omar.20
The Talmud.
After this the Jews had no
opportunity for any further independent persecution of the Christians. Yet they
continued to circulate horrible calumnies on Jesus and his followers. Their
learned schools at Tiberias and Babylon nourished this bitter hostility. The
Talmud, i.e. Doctrine, of which the first part (the Mishna, i.e.
Repetition) was composed towards the end of the second century, and the second
part (the Gemara, i.e. Completion) in the fourth century, well
represents the Judaism of its day, stiff, traditional, stagnant, and
anti-Christian. Subsequently the Jerusalem Talmud was eclipsed by the
Babylonian (430-521), which is four times larger, and a still more distinct
expression of Rabbinism. The terrible imprecation on apostates (pratio haereticorum), designed to deter Jews from
going over to the Christian faith, comes from the second century, and is stated
by the Talmud to have been composed at Jafna, where the Sanhedrin at that time
had its seat, by the younger Rabbi Gamaliel.
The Talmud is the slow growth of
several centuries. It is a chaos of Jewish learning, wisdom, and folly, a
continent of rubbish, with hidden pearls of true maxims and poetic parables.
Delitzsch calls it "a vast debating club, in which there hum confusedly
the myriad voices of at least five centuries, a unique code of laws, in
comparison with which the law-books of all other nations are but
lilliputian." It is the Old Testament misinterpreted and turned against
the New, in fact, though not in form. It is a rabbinical Bible without
inspiration, without the Messiah, without hope. It shares the tenacity of the
Jewish race, and, like it, continues involuntarily to bear testimony to the
truth of Christianity. A distinguished historian, on being asked what is the
best argument for Christianity, promptly replied: the Jews.21
Unfortunately this people, still
remarkable even in its tragical end, was in many ways cruelly oppressed and
persecuted by the Christians after Constantine, and thereby only confirmed in
its fanatical hatred of them. The hostile legislation began with the
prohibition of the circumcision of Christian slaves, and the intermarriage
between Jews and Christians, and proceeded already in the fifth century to the
exclusion of the Jews from all civil and political rights in Christian states.
Even our enlightened age has witnessed the humiliating spectacle of a cruel Judenhetze
in Germany and
still more in Russia (1881). But through all changes of fortune God has
preserved this ancient race as a living monument of his justice and his mercy;
and he will undoubtedly assign it an important part in the consummation of his
kingdom at the second coming of Christ.
§ 15. Causes of Roman Persecution.
The policy of the Roman
government, the fanaticism of the superstitious people, and the self-interest
of the pagan priests conspired for the persecution of a religion which
threatened to demolish the tottering fabric of idolatry; and they left no
expedients of legislation, of violence, of craft, and of wickedness untried, to
blot it from the earth.
To glance first at the relation
of the Roman state to the Christian religion.
Roman Toleration.
The policy of imperial Rome was
in a measure tolerant. It was repressive, but not preventive. Freedom of
thought was not checked by a censorship, education was left untrammelled to be
arranged between the teacher and the learner. The armies were quartered on the
frontiers as a protection of the empire, not employed at home as instruments of
oppression, and the people were diverted from public affairs and political
discontent by public amusements. The ancient religions of the conquered races
were tolerated as far as they did not interfere with the interests of the
state. The Jews enjoyed special protection since the time of Julius Caesar.
Now so long as Christianity was
regarded by the Romans as a mere sect of Judaism, it shared the hatred and
contempt, indeed, but also the legal protection bestowed on that ancient
national religion. Providence had so ordered it that Christianity had already
taken root in the leading cities of the empire before, its true character was
understood. Paul had carried it, under the protection of his Roman citizenship,
to the ends of the empire, and the Roman proconsul at Corinth refused to
interfere with his activity on the ground that it was an internal question of
the Jews, which did not belong to his tribunal. The heathen statesmen and
authors, even down to the age of Trajan, including the historian Tacitus and
the younger Pliny, considered the Christian religion as a vulgar superstition,
hardly worthy of their notice.
But it was far too important a
phenomenon, and made far too rapid progress to be long thus ignored or
despised. So soon as it was understood as a new religion, and as, in
fact, claiming universal validity and acceptance, it was set down as unlawful
and treasonable, a religio illicita; and it was the constant reproach of the Christians: "You have no
right to exist."22
Roman Intolerance.
We need not be surprised at this
position. For with all its professed and actual tolerance the Roman state was
thoroughly interwoven with heathen idolatry, and made religion a tool of
itspolicy. Ancient history furnishes no example of a state without some religion
and form of worship. Rome makes no exception to the general rule. "The
Romano-Hellenic state religion" (says Mommsen), "and the Stoic
state-philosophy inseparably combined with it were not merely a convenient
instrument for every government_oligarchy, democracy, or monarchy_but
altogether indispensable, because it was just as impossible to construct the
state wholly without religious elements as to discover any new state religion
adapted to form a substitute for the old."23
The piety of Romulus and Numa
was believed to have laid the foundation of the power of Rome. To the favor of
the deities of the republic, the brilliant success of the Roman arms was
attributed. The priests and Vestal virgins were supported out of the public
treasury. The emperor was ex-officio the pontifex maximus, and even an object of divine worship. The gods were
national; and the eagle of Jupiter Capitolinus moved as a good genius before
the world-conquering legions. Cicero lays down as a principle of legislation,
that no one should be allowed to worship foreign gods, unless they were
recognized by public statute.24 Maecenas counselled Augustus: "Honor the gods according to
the custom of our ancestors, and compel25 others to worship them. Hate and
punish those who bring in strange gods."
It is true, indeed, that individuals
in Greece and Rome enjoyed an almost unlimited liberty for expressing
sceptical and even impious sentiments in conversation, in books and on the
stage. We need only refer to the works of Aristophanes, Lucian, Lucretius,
Plautus, Terence. But a sharp distinction was made then, as often since by
Christian governments, between liberty of private thought and conscience, which
is inalienable and beyond the reach of legislation, and between the liberty of
public worship, although the latter is only the legitimate consequence of the
former. Besides, wherever religion is a matter of state-legislation and
compulsion, there is almost invariably a great deal of hypocrisy and infidelity
among the educated classes, however often it may conform outwardly, from
policy, interest or habit, to the forms and legal acquirements of the established
creed.
The senate and emperor, by
special edicts, usually allowed conquered nations the free practice of their
worship even in Rome; not, however, from regard for the sacred rights of
conscience, but merely from policy, and with the express prohibition of making
proselytes from the state religion; hence severe laws were published from time
to time against transition to Judaism.
Obstacles to the Toleration of
Christianity.
To Christianity, appearing not
as a national religion, but claiming to be the only true universal one making
its converts among every people and every sect, attracting Greeks and Romans in
much larger numbers than Jews, refusing to compromise with any form of
idolatry, and threatening in fact the very existence of the Roman state
religion, even this limited toleration could not be granted. The same
all-absorbing political interest of Rome dictated here the opposite course, and
Tertullian is hardly just in changing the Romans with inconsistency for
tolerating the worship of all false gods, from whom they had nothing to fear,
and yet prohibiting the worship of the only true God who is Lord over all.26 Born under Augustus, and crucified under Tiberius at the sentence
of the Roman magistrate, Christ stood as the founder of a spiritual universal
empire at the head of the most important epoch of the Roman power, a rival not
to be endured. The reign of Constantine subsequently showed that the free
toleration of Christianity was the death-blow to the Roman state religion.
Then, too, the conscientious
refusal of the Christians to pay divine honors to the emperor and his statue,
and to take part in any idolatrous ceremonies at public festivities, their
aversion to the imperial military service, their disregard for politics and
depreciation of all civil and temporal affairs as compared with the spiritual
and eternal interests of man, their close brotherly union and frequent
meetings, drew upon them the suspicion of hostility to the Caesars and the
Roman people, and the unpardonable crime of conspiracy against the state.27
The common people also, with
their polytheistic ideas, abhorred the believers in the one God as atheists and
enemies of the gods. They readily gave credit to the slanderous rumors of all
sorts of abominations, even incest and cannibalism, practised by the Christians
at their religious assemblies and love-feasts, and regarded the frequent public
calamities of that age as punishments justly inflicted by the angry gods for
the disregard of their worship. In North Africa arose the proverb: "If God
does not send rain, lay it to the Christians." At every inundation, or
drought, or famine, or pestilence, the fanatical populace cried: "Away
with the atheists! To the lions with
the Christians!"
Finally, persecutions were
sometimes started by priests, jugglers, artificers, merchants, and others, who
derived their support from the idolatrous worship. These, like Demetrius at
Ephesus, and the masters of the sorceress at Philippi, kindled the fanaticism
and indignation of the mob against the new religion for its interference with
their gains.28
§ 16. Condition of the Church before the Reign of Trajan.
The imperial persecutions before
Trajan belong to the Apostolic age, and have been already described in the
first volume. We allude to them here only for the sake of the connection.
Christ was born under the first, and crucified under the second Roman emperor.
Tiberius (a.d. 14-37) is reported
to have been frightened by Pilate’s account of the crucifixion and
resurrection, and to have proposed to the senate, without success, the
enrollment of Christ among the Roman deities; but this rests only on the
questionable authority of Tertullian. The edict of Claudius (42-54) in the year
53, which banished the Jews from Rome, fell also upon the Christians, but as
Jews with whom they were confounded. The fiendish persecution of Nero (54-68)
was intended as a punishment, not for Christianity, but for alleged
incendiarism (64). It showed, however, the popular temper, and was a
declaration of war against the new religion. It became a common saying among
Christians that Nero would reappear as Antichrist.
During the rapidly succeeding
reigns of Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespacian, and Titus, the church, so far as
we know, suffered no very serious persecution.
But Domitian (81-96), a
suspicious and blasphemous tyrant, accustomed to call himself and to be called
"Lord and God," treated the embracing of Christianity a crime against
the state, and condemned to death many Christians, even his own cousin, the
consul Flavius Clemens, on the charge of atheism; or confiscated their
property, and sent them, as in the case of Domitilia, the wife of the Clemens
just mentioned, into exile. His jealousy also led him to destroy the surviving
descendants of David; and he brought from Palestine to Rome two kinsmen of
Jesus, grandsons of Judas, the "brother of the Lord," but seeing
their poverty and rustic simplicity, and hearing their explanation of the
kingdom of Christ as not earthly, but heavenly, to be established by the Lord
at the end of the world, when He should come to judge the quick and the dead,
he let them go. Tradition (in Irenaeus, Eusebius, Jerome) assigns to the reign
of Domitian the banishment of John to Patmos (which, however, must be assigned
to the reign of Nero), together with his miraculous preservation from death in
Rome (attested by Tertullian), and the martyrdom of Andrew, Mark, Onesimus, and
Dionysius the Areopagite. The Martyrium of Ignatius speaks of "many persecutions
under Domitian."
His humane and justice-loving successor, Nerva (96-98),
recalled the banished, and refused to treat the confession of Christianity as a
political crime, though he did not recognise the new religion as a religio licita.
§ 17. Trajan. a.d.
98-117_Christianity Forbidden_Martyrdom of Symeon of Jerusalem, and Ignatius of
Antioch.
I. Sources.
Plinius,
jun.: Epist. x. 96 and 97 (al. 97 sq.). Tertullian: Apol. c. 2; Eusebius: H. E. III. 11, 32, 33, 36. Chron. pasch. p.
470 (ed. Bonn.).
Acta Martyrii
Ignatii, in Ruinart, p. 8 sqq.; recent edd. by Theod. Zahn, in Patrum Apost. Opera (Lips. 1876), vol. II. pp. 301
sqq.; FUNK, Opera
Patr. Apost., vol.
I. 254-265; II. 218-275; and Lightfoot:
S. Ignatius and S. Polyc., II. 1, 473-570.
II. Works.
On Trajan’s reign in
general see Tillemont, Histoire
des Empereurs; Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire.
On Ignatius: Theod. Zahn: Ignatius von Antiochien.
Gotha 1873 (631 pages). Lightfoot:
S. Ignatius and S. Polyc., London 1885, 2 vols.
On the chronology: Adolph Harnack: Die Zeit des Ignatius.
Leipzig, 1878 (90 pages); Comp. Keim,
l.c. 510-562; but especially Lighfoot,
l.c. II. 1, 390 sqq.
The Epistles of
Ignatius will be discussed in chapter XIII. on ecclesiastical literature, §164
and 165.
Trajan, one of the best and most
praiseworthy emperors, honored as the "father of his country," but,
like his friends, Tacitus and Pliny, wholly ignorant of the nature of
Christianity, was the first to pronounce it in form a proscribed religion, as
it had been all along in fact. He revived the rigid laws against all secret
societies,29 and the provincial officers applied them to the
Christians, on account of their frequent meetings for worship. His decision
regulated the governmental treatment of the Christians for more than a century
. It is embodied in his correspondence with the younger Pliny, who was governor
of Bithynia in Asia Minor from 109 to 111.
Pliny came in official contact
with the Christians. He himself saw in that religion only a "depraved and
immoderate superstition," and could hardly account for its popularity. He
reported to the emperor that this superstition was constantly spreading, not
only in the cities, but also in the villages of Asia Minor, and captivated
people of every age, rank, and sex, so that the temples were almost forsaken,
and the sacrificial victims found no sale. To stop this progress, he condemned
many Christians to death, and sent others, who were Roman citizens, to the
imperial tribunal. But he requested of the emperor further instructions,
whether, in these efforts, he should have respect to age; whether he should
treat the mere bearing of the Christian name as a crime, if there were no other
offence.
To these inquiries Trajan
replied: "You have adopted the right course, my friend, with regard to the
Christians; for no universal rule, to be applied to all cases, can be laid down
in this matter. They should not be searched for; but when accused and
convicted, they should be punished; yet if any one denies that be has been a
Christian, and proves it by action, namely, by worshipping our gods, he is to
be pardoned upon his repentance, even though suspicion may still cleave to him
from his antecedents. But anonymous accusations must not be admitted in any
criminal process; it sets a bad example, and is contrary to our age" (i.e.
to the spirit of Trajan’s government).
This decision was much milder
than might have been expected from a heathen emperor of the old Roman stamp.
Tertullian charges it with self-contradiction, as both cruel and lenient,
forbidding the search for Christians and yet commanding their punishment, thus
declaring them innocent and guilty at the same time. But the emperor evidently
proceeded on political principles, and thought that a transient and contagious
enthusiasm, as Christianity in his judgment was, could be suppressed sooner by
leaving it unnoticed, than by openly assailing it. He wished to ignore it as
much as possible. But every day it forced itself more and more upon public
attention, as it spread with the irresistible power of truth.
This rescript might give
occasion, according to the sentiment of governors, for extreme severity towards
Christianity as a secret union and a religio illicita. Even the humane Pliny tells us that he applied
the rack to tender women. Syria and Palestine suffered heavy persecutions in
this reign.
Symeon, bishop of Jerusalem,
and, like his predecessor James, a kinsman of Jesus, was accused by fanatical
Jews, and crucified a.d. 107, at
the age of a hundred and twenty years.
In the same year (or probably
between 110 and 116) the distinguished bishop Ignatius of Antioch was condemned
to death, transported to Rome, and thrown before wild beasts in the Colosseum.
The story of his martyrdom has no doubt been much embellished, but it must have
some foundation in fact, and is characteristic of the legendary martyrology of the
ancient church.
Our knowledge of Ignatius is
derived from his disputed epistles,30 and a few short notices by
Irenaeus and Origen. While his existence, his position in the early Church, and
his martyrdom are admitted, everything else about him is called in question.
How many epistles he wrote, and when he wrote them, how much truth there is in
the account of his martyrdom, and when it took place, when it was written up,
and by whom_all are undecided, and the subject of protracted controversy. He
was, according to tradition, a pupil of the Apostle John, and by his piety so
commended himself to the Christians in Antioch that he was chosen bishop, the
second after Peter, Euodius being, the first. But although he was a man of
apostolic character and governed the church with great care, he was personally
not satisfied, until he should be counted worthy of sealing his testimony with
his blood, and thereby attaining to the highest seat of honor. The coveted
crown came to him at last and his eager and morbid desire for martyrdom was
gratified. The emperor Trajan, in 107, came to Antioch, and there threatened
with persecution all who refused to sacrifice to the gods. Ignatius was tried
for this offence, and proudly confessed himself a "Theophorus"
("bearer of God") because, as he said, he had Christ within his
breast. Trajan condemned him to be thrown to the lions at Rome. The sentence
was executed with all haste. Ignatius was immediately bound in chains, and
taken over land and sea, accompanied by ten soldiers, whom he denominated his
"leopards," from Antioch to Seleucia, to Smyrna, where he met
Polycarp, and whence be wrote to the churches, particularly to that in Rome; to
Troas, to Neapolis, through Macedonia to Epirus, and so over the Adriatic to
Rome. He was received by the Christians there with every manifestation of
respect, but would not allow them to avert or even to delay his martyrdom. It
was on the 20th day of December, 107, that he was thrown into the
amphitheater: immediately the wild beasts fell upon him, and soon naught
remained of his body but a few bones, which were carefully conveyed to Antioch
as an inestimable treasure. The faithful friends who had accompanied him from
home dreamed that night that they saw him; some that he was standing by Christ,
dropping with sweat as if he had just come from his great labor. Comforted by
these dreams they returned with the relics to Antioch.
Note on
the Date of the Martyrdom of Ignatius.
The date a.d.107 has in its favor the common reading of the best of
the martyrologies of Ignatius (Colbertium) ejnnavtw/ e[tei, in the ninth year, i.e. from Trajan’s accession, a.d. 98. From this there is no good
reason to depart in favor of another reading tevtarton e[to", the nineteenth year, i.e. a.d.
116. Jerome makes the date a.d.
109. The fact that the names of the Roman consuls are correctly given in the Martyrium
Colbertinum, is proof of the correctness of the date, which is accepted by
such critics as Ussher, Tillemont, Möhler, Hefele, and Wieseler. The latter, in
his work Die Christenverfolgungen der Caesaren, 1878, pp. 125 sqq., finds
confirmation of this date in Eusebius’s statement that the martyrdom took place
before Trajan came to Antioch, which was in his 10th year; in
the short interval between the martyrdom of Ignatius and Symeon, son of Klopas
(Hist. Ecc. III. 32); and finally, in the letter of Tiberian to Trajan,
relating how many pressed forward to martyrdom_an effect, as Wieseler thinks,
of the example of Ignatius. If 107 be accepted, then another supposition of
Wieseler is probable. It is well known that in that year Trajan held an
extraordinary triumph on account of his Dacian victories: may it not have been
that the blood of Ignatius reddened the sand of the amphitheatre at that time?
But 107 a.d. is by no means universally accepted. Keim (Rom
und das Christenthum, p. 540) finds the Martyrium Colbertinum wrong in stating that
the death took place under the first consulate of Sura and the second of
Senecio, because in 107 Sura was consul for the third and Senecio for the
fourth time. He also objects that Trajan was not in Antioch in 107, but in 115,
on his way to attack the Armenians and Parthians. But this latter objection
falls to the ground if Ignatius was not tried by Trajan personally in Antioch.
Harnack concludes that it is only barely possible that Ignatius was martyred
under Trajan. Lightfoot assigns the martyrdom to between 110 and 118.
§ 18. Hadrian. a.d.
117-138.
See Gregorovius: Gesch.
Hadrians und seiner Zeit (1851); Renan: L’E’glise,
chrétienne (1879),
1-44, and Wagenmann in Herzog,
vol. v. 501-506.
Hadrian, of Spanish descent, a
relative of Trajan, and adopted by him on his death-bed, was a man of brilliant
talents and careful education, a scholar an artist, a legislator and
administrator, and altogether one of the ablest among the Roman emperors, but
of very doubtful morality, governed by changing moods, attracted in opposite
directions, and at last lost in self-contradictions and utter disgust of life.
His mausoleum (Moles Hadriani) still adorns, as the castle of Sant’ Angelo, the
bridge of the Tiber in Rome. He is represented both as a friend and foe of the
church. He was devoted to the religion of the state, bitterly opposed to
Judaism, indifferent to Christianity, from ignorance of it. He insulted the
Jews and the Christians alike by erecting temples of Jupiter and Venus over the
site of the temple and the supposed spot of the crucifixion. He is said to have
directed the Asiatic proconsul to check the popular fury against the
Christians, and to punish only those who should be, by an orderly judicial
process, convicted of transgression of the laws.31 But no doubt he regarded, like Trajan, the mere profession of
Christianity itself such a transgression.
The Christian apologies, which
took their rise under this emperor, indicate a very bitter public sentiment
against the Christians, and a critical condition of the church. The least
encouragement from Hadrian would have brought on a bloody persecution.
Quadratus and Aristides addressed their pleas for their fellow-Christians to
him, we do not know with what effect.
Later tradition assigns to his
reign the martyrdom of St. Eustachius, St. Symphorosa and her seven sons, of
the Roman bishops Alexander and Telesphorus, and others whose names are
scarcely known, and whose chronology is more than doubtful.
§ 19 Antoninus Pius. a.d.
137-161. The Martyrdom of Polycarp.
Comte de Champagny (R.C.): Les Antonins. (a.d.
69-180), Paris, 1863; 3d ed. 1874. 3 vols., 8 vo. Merivale’s History.
Martyrium Polycarp (the oldest, simplest, and least objectionable of the martyr-acts), in a
letter of the church of Smyrna to the Christians in Pontus or Phrygia,
preserved by Eusebius, H. Eccl.
IV. 15, and separately edited from various MSS. by Ussher (1647) and in nearly
all the editions of the Apostolic Fathers, especially by O. v. Gebhardt,
Harnack, and Zahn, II. 132-168, and Prolog. L-LVI. The recension of the text is
by Zahn, and departs from the text of the Bollandists in 98 places. Best
edition by Lightfoot, S. Ign. and
S. Polycarp, I. 417 sqq., and II. 1005-1047. Comp. the Greek Vita Polycarpi,
in Funk, II. 315 sqq.
Ignatius: Ad. Polycarpum. Best ed., by Lightfoot, l.c.
Irenaeus: Adv.
Haer. III. 3. 4. His letter to Florinus in Euseb. v. 20.
Polycrates of
Ephesus (c. 190), in Euseb. v.
24.
On the date of Polycarp’s death:
Waddington: MĂ©moire
sur la chronologie de la vie du rhéteur Aelius Aristide (in "Mém. de l’
Acad: des inscript. et belles letters," Tom. XXVI. Part II. 1867, pp. 232 sqq.), and in Fastes
des provinces Asiatiques, 1872, 219 sqq.
Wieseler: Das
Martyrium Polykarp’s und dessen Chronologie, in his Christenverfolgungen, etc. (1878), 3 87.
Keim: Die
Zwölf Märtyrer von Smyrna und der Tod des Bishops Polykarp, in his Aus dem
Urchristenthum (1878),
92-133.
E. Egli: Das
Martyrium des Polyk., in Hilgenfeld’s "Zeitschrift für wissensch. Theol." for
1882, pp. 227 sqq.
Antoninus Pius protected the
Christians from the tumultuous violence which broke out against them on account
of the frequent public calamities. But the edict ascribed to him, addressed to
the deputies of the Asiatic cities, testifying to the innocence of the
Christians, and holding them up to the heathen as models of fidelity and zeal
in the worship of God, could hardly have come from an emperor, who bore the
honorable title of Pius for his conscientious adherence to the religion of his
fathers;32 and in any case he could not have controlled the
conduct of the provincial governors and the fury of the people against an
illegal religion.
The persecution of the church at
Smyrna and the martyrdom of its venerable bishop, which was formerly assigned
to the year 167, under the reign of Marcus Aurelius, took place, according to
more recent research, under Antoninus in 155, when Statius Quadratus was
proconsul in Asia Minor.33 Polycarp
was a personal friend and pupil of the Apostle John, and chief presbyter of the
church at Smyrna, where a plain stone monument still marks his grave. He was the
teacher of Irenaeus of Lyons, and thus the connecting link between the
apostolic and post-apostolic ages. As he died 155 at an age of eighty-six years
or more, he must have been born a.d.
69, a year before the destruction of Jerusalem, and may have enjoyed the
friendship of St. John for twenty years or more. This gives additional weight
to his testimony concerning apostolic traditions and writings. We have from him
a beautiful epistle which echoes the apostolic teaching, and will be noticed in
another chapter.
Polycarp steadfastly refused
before the proconsul to deny his King and Saviour, whom he had served six and
eighty years, and from whom he had experienced nothing but love and mercy. He
joyfully went up to the stake, and amidst the flames praised God for having
deemed him worthy "to be numbered among his martyrs, to drink the cup of
Christ’s sufferings, unto the eternal resurrection of the soul and the body in
the incorruption of the Holy Spirit." The slightly legendary account in
the letter of the church of Smyrna states, that the flames avoided the body of
the saint, leaving it unharmed, like gold tried in the fire; also the Christian
bystanders insisted, that they perceived a sweet odor, as of incense. Then the
executioner thrust his sword into the body, and the stream of blood at once
extinguished the flame. The corpse was burned after the Roman custom, but the
bones were preserved by the church, and held more precious than gold and
diamonds. The death of this last witness of the apostolic age checked the fury
of the populace, and the proconsul suspended the persecution.
§ 20. Persecutions under
Marcus Aurelius. a.d.
161-180.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: (b. 121, d. 180)::Tw'n eij"
eJauto;n Bibliva ib J|'’, or Meditations. It is a sort of diary or common place book, in which
the emperor wrote down, towards the close of his life, partly amid the turmoil
of war "in the land of the Quadi" (on the Danube in Hungary), for his
self-improvement, his own moral reflections) together with striking maxims of
wise and virtuous men. Ed. princeps by Xylander Zurich 1558, and Basle
1568; best ed with a new Latin trans. and very full notes by Gataker,
Lond. 1643, Cambr. 1652, and with additional notes from the French by Dacier,
Lond. 1697 and 1704. New ed. of the Greek text by J. M. Schultz, 1802
(and 1821); another by Adamantius CoraĂŻs, Par. 1816. English translation
by George Long, Lond. 1863, republ. Boston, revised edition, London, 1880.
There are translations into most European languages, one in Italian by the
Cardinal Francis Barberini (nephew of Pope Urban VIII), who dedicated his
translation to his own soul, "to make it redder than his purple at the
sight of the virtues of this Gentile." Comp. also the letters of the famous
rhetorician M. Corn. Fronto, the teacher of M. Aurelius, discovered and
published by Angelo Mai, Milan 1815 and Rome 1823 (Epistolarum ad Marcum Caesarem
Lib. V.,
etc.) They are, however, very
unimportant, except so far as they show the life-long congenial friendship
between the amiable teacher and his imperial pupil.
Arnold Bodek:
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus als Freund und Zeitgenosse les
Rabbi Jehuda ha-Nasi. Leipz. 1868. (Traces the connection of this emperor with the Jewish
monotheism and ethics.)
E. Renan: Marc-Aurèle
et la fin du monde antique. Paris 1882. This is the seventh and the last vol. of his work of twenty
years’ labor on the "Histoire des Origines du Christianisme." It is
as full of genius, learning and eloquence, and as empty of positive faith as
the former volumes. He closes the period of the definite formation of
Christianity in the middle of the second century, but proposes in a future work
to trace it back to Isaiah (or the "Great Unknown") as its proper
founder.
Eusebius: H.
E. V. 1-3. The Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne to the Christians
of Asia Minor. Die Akten, des Karpus, des Papylus und der
Agathonike, untersucht von AD. Harnack. Leipz., 1888.
On the legend of the
Legio
fulminatrix see
Tertullian: Apol. 5; Euseb.: H. E V. 5.; and Dion Cass.: Hist. LXXI. 8, 9.
Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher
on the throne, was a well-educated, just, kind, and amiable emperor, and
reached the old Roman ideal of self-reliant Stoic virtue, but for this very
reason he had no sympathy with Christianity, and probably regarded it as an
absurd and fanatical superstition. He had no room in his cosmopolitan
philanthropy for the purest and most innocent of his subjects, many of whom
served in his own army. He was flooded with apologies of Melito, Miltiades,
Athenagoras in behalf of the persecuted Christians, but turned a deaf ear to
them. Only once, in his Meditations, does he allude to them, and then with
scorn, tracing their noble enthusiasm for martyrdom to "sheer
obstinacy" and love for theatrical display.34 His excuse is ignorance. He probably never read a line of the New
Testament, nor of the apologies addressed to him.35
Belonging to the later Stoical
school, which believed in an immediate absorption after death into the Divine
essence, he considered the Christian doctrine of the immortality of the soul,
with its moral consequences, as vicious and dangerous to the welfare of the
state. A law was passed under his reign, punishing every one with exile who
should endeavor to influence people’s mind by fear of the Divinity, and this
law was, no doubt, aimed at the Christians.36 At all events his reign was a stormy time for the church, although
the persecutions cannot be directly traced to him. The law of Trajan was
sufficient to justify the severest measures against the followers of the
"forbidden" religion.
About the year 170 the apologist
Melito wrote: "The race of the worshippers of God in Asia is now
persecuted by new edicts as it never has been heretofore; shameless, greedy
sycophants, finding occasion in the edicts, now plunder the innocent day and
night." The empire was visited at that time by a number of conflagrations,
a destructive flood of the Tiber, an earthquake, insurrections, and particularly
a pestilence, which spread from Ethiopia to Gaul. This gave rise to bloody
persecutions, in which government and people united against the enemies of the
gods and the supposed authors of these misfortunes. Celsus expressed his joy
that "the demon" [of the Christians] was "not only reviled, but
banished from every land and sea," and saw in this judgment the fulfilment
of the oracle: "the mills of the gods grind late." But at the same
time these persecutions, and the simultaneous literary assaults on Christianity
by Celsus and Lucian, show that the new religion was constantly gaining
importance in the empire.
In 177, the churches of Lyons
and Vienne, in the South of France, underwent a severe trial. Heathen slaves
were forced by the rack to declare, that their Christian masters practised all
the unnatural vices which rumor charged them with; and this was made to justify
the exquisite tortures to which the Christians were subjected. But the
sufferers, "strengthened by the fountain of living water from the heart of
Christ," displayed extraordinary faith and steadfastness, and felt, that
"nothing can be fearful, where the love of the Father is, nothing painful,
where shines the glory of Christ."
The most distinguished victims
of this Gallic persecution were the bishop Pothinus, who, at the age of ninety
years, and just recovered from a sickness, was subjected to all sorts of abuse,
and then thrown into a dismal dungeon, where he died in two days; the virgin
Blandina, a slave, who showed almost superhuman strength and constancy under
the most cruel tortures, and was at last thrown to a wild beast in a net;
Ponticus, a boy of fifteen years, who could be deterred by no sort of cruelty
from confessing his Saviour. The corpses of the martyrs, which covered the streets,
were shamefully mutilated, then burned, and the ashes cast into the Rhone, lest
any remnants of the enemies of the gods might desecrate the soil. At last the
people grew weary of slaughter, and a considerable number of Christians
survived. The martyrs of Lyons distinguished themselves by true humility,
disclaiming in their prison that title of honor, as due only, they said, to the
faithful and true witness, the Firstborn from the dead, the Prince of life
(Rev. 1:5), and to those of his followers who had already sealed their fidelity
to Christ with their blood.
About the same time a
persecution of less extent appears to have visited Autun (Augustodunum) near
Lyons. Symphorinus, a young man of good family, having refused to fall down
before the image of Cybele, was condemned to be beheaded. On his way to the
place of execution his own mother called to him: "My son, be firm and fear
not that death, which so surely leads to life. Look to Him who reigns in
heaven. To-day is thy earthly life not taken from thee, but transferred by a
blessed exchange into the life of heaven."
The story of the
"thundering legion"37 rests on the fact of a
remarkable deliverance of the Roman army in Hungary by a sudden shower, which
quenched their burning thirst and frightened their barbarian enemies, a.d. 174. The heathens, however,
attributed this not to the prayers of the Christian soldiers, but to their own
gods. The emperor himself prayed to Jupiter: "This hand, which has never
yet shed human blood, I raise to thee." That this event did not alter his
views respecting the Christians, is proved by the persecution in South Gaul,
which broke out three years later.
Of isolated cases of martyrdom
in this reign, we notice that of Justin Martyr, at Rome, in the year 166. His
death is traced to the machinations of Crescens, a Cynic philosopher.
Marcus Aurelius was succeeded by his cruel and
contemptible son, Commodus (180-192), who wallowed in the mire of every sensual
debauchery, and displayed at the same time like Nero the most ridiculous vanity
as dancer and singer, and in the character of buffoon; but he was accidentally
made to favor the Christians by the influence of a concubine,38 Marcia, and accordingly did not
disturb them. Yet under his reign a Roman senator, Apollonius, was put to death
for his faith.
§ 21. Condition of the Church
from Septimius Severus to Philip the Arabian. a.d.
193-249.
Clemens Alex.:
Strom. II. 414. Tertull.: Ad Scapulam, c. 4, 5; Apol. (a.d. 198), c. 7, 12, 30, 37, 49.
Respecting the
Alexandrian martyrs comp. Euseb.:
VI. 1 and 5.
The Acts of the
Carthaginian martyrs, which contain their ipsissima verba from their diaries in the
prisons, but bear a somewhat Montanistic stamp, see in Ruinart, p 90 sqq.
Lampridius: Vita Alex. Severi, c. 22, 29, 49.
On Philip the
Arabian see Euseb.:VI. 34, 36. Hieron.: Chron. ad ann. 246.
J. J. MĂĽller: Staat und
Kirche unter Alex. Severus. ZĂĽrich 1874.
F. Görres: Kaiser
Alex. Severus und das Christenthum. Leipz., 1877.
Jean RĂ©ville:
La religion à Rome sous les Sévères. Paris, 1886 (vii and 302 pp.);
Germ. transl. by KrĂĽger, 1888.
With Septimius Severus
(193-211), who was of Punic descent and had a Syrian wife, a line of emperors
(Caracalla, Heliogabalus, Alexander Severus) came to the throne, who were
rather Oriental than Roman in their spirit, and were therefore far less
concerned than the Antonines to maintain the old state religion. Yet towards
the close of the second century there was no lack of local persecutions; and
Clement of Alexandria wrote of those times: "Many martyrs are daily
burned, confined, or beheaded, before our eyes."
In the beginning of the third
century (202) Septimius Severus, turned perhaps by Montanistic excesses,
enacted a rigid law against the further spread both of Christianity and of
Judaism. This occasioned violent persecutions in Egypt and in North Africa, and
produced some of the fairest flowers of martyrdom.
In Alexandria, in consequence of
this law, Leonides, father of the renowned Origen, was beheaded. Potamiaena, a
virgin of rare beauty of body and spirit, was threatened by beastly passion
with treatment worse than death, and, after cruel tortures, slowly burned with
her mother in boiling pitch. One of the executioners, Basilides, smitten with
sympathy, shielded them somewhat from abuse, and soon after their death
embraced Christianity, and was beheaded. He declared that Potamiaena had
appeared to him in the night, interceded with Christ for him, and set upon his
head the martyr’s crown.
In Carthage some catechumens,
three young men and two young women, probably of the sect of the Montanists,
showed remarkable steadfastness and fidelity in the dungeon and at the place of
execution. Perpetua, a young woman of noble birth, resisting, not without a
violent struggle, both the entreaties of her aged heathen father and the appeal
of her helpless babe upon her breast, sacrificed the deep and tender feelings
of a daughter and a mother to the Lord who died for her. Felicitas, a slave,
when delivered of a child in the same dungeon, answered the jailor, who
reminded her of the still keener pains of martyrdom: "Now I suffer, what I
suffer; but then another will suffer for me, because I shall suffer for
him." All remaining firm, they were cast to wild beasts at the next public
festival, having first interchanged the parting kiss in hope of a speedy
reunion in heaven.
The same state of things
continued through the first years of Caracalla (211-217), though this gloomy
misanthrope passed no laws against the Christians.
The abandoned youth, El-Gabal,
or Heliogabalus (218-222), who polluted the throne by the blackest vices and
follies, tolerated all the religions in the hope of at last merging them in his
favorite Syrian worship of the sun with its abominable excesses. He himself was
a priest of the god of the sun, and thence took his name.39
His far more worthy cousin and
successor, Alexander Severus (222-235), was addicted to a higher kind of
religious eclecticism and syncretism, a pantheistic hero-worship. He placed the
busts of Abraham and Christ in his domestic chapel with those of Orpheus,
Apollonius of Tyana, and the better Roman emperors, and had the gospel rule,
"As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,"
engraven on the walls of his palace, and on public monuments40. His mother, Julia Mammaea, was
a patroness of Origen.
His assassin, Maximinus the
Thracian (235-238), first a herdsman, afterwards a soldier, resorted again to
persecution out of mere opposition to his predecessor, and gave free course to
the popular fury against the enemies of the gods, which was at that time
excited anew by an earthquake. It is uncertain whether he ordered the entire
clergy or only the bishops to be killed. He was a rude barbarian who plundered
also heathen temples.
The legendary poesy of the tenth
century assigns to his reign the fabulous martyrdom of St. Ursula, a British
princess, and her company of eleven thousand (according to others, ten
thousand) virgins, who, on their return from a pilgrimage to Rome, were
murdered by heathens in the neighborhood of Cologne. This incredible number has
probably arisen from the misinterpretation of an inscription, like "Ursula
et Undecimilla" (which occurs in an old missal of the Sorbonne), or
"Ursula et XI M. V.," i.e. Martyres Virgines, which, by substituting
milia for martyres, was increased from eleven
martyrs to eleven thousand virgins. Some historians place the fact, which seems
to form the basis of this legend, in connexion with the retreat of the Huns
after the battle of Chalons, 451. The abridgment of Mil., which may mean
soldiers (milites) as well as thousands (milia), was another fruitful source
of mistakes in a credulous and superstitious age.
Gordianus (208-244) left the
church undisturbed. Philip the Arabian (244-249) was even supposed by some to
be a Christian, and was termed by Jerome "primus omnium ex Romanis
imperatoribus Christianus." It is certain that Origen wrote letters to him
and to his wife, Severa.
This season of repose, however,
cooled the moral zeal and brotherly love of the Christians; and the mighty
storm under the following reign served well to restore the purity of the
church.
§ 22. Persecutions under Decius, and Valerian. a.d. 249-260. Martyrdom of Cyprian.
Dionysius Alex.,
in Euseb. VI. 40-42; VII. 10, 11.
Cyprian: De
Lapsis, and particularly his Epistles of this period. On Cyprian’s
martyrdom see the Proconsular Acts, and Pontius: Vita Cypriani.
Franz Görres:
Die Toleranzedicte des Kaisers Gallienus, in the "JahrbĂĽcher fĂĽr
protest. Theol.," 1877, pp. 606-630. By the same: Die
angebliche Christenverfolgung zur Zeit der Kaiser Numerianus und Carinus, in Hilgenfeld’s
"Zeitschrift fĂĽr wissenschaftl. Theologie." 1880 pp. 31-64.
Decius Trajan (249-251), an
earnest and energetic emperor, in whom the old Roman spirit once more awoke,
resolved to root out the church as an atheistic and seditious sect, and in the
year 250 published an edict to all the governors of the provinces, enjoining
return to the pagan state religion under the heaviest penalties. This was the
signal for a persecution which, in extent, consistency, and cruelty, exceeded
all before it. In truth it was properly the first which covered the whole
empire, and accordingly produced a far greater number of martyrs than any
former persecution. In the execution of the imperial decree confiscation,
exile, torture, promises and threats of all kinds, were employed to move the
Christians to apostasy. Multitudes of nominal Christians,41 especially at the beginning,
sacrificed to the gods (sacrificati, thurificati), or procured from the, magistrate a false certificate
that they had done so (libellatici), and were then excommunicated as apostates (lapsi); while hundreds rushed with
impetuous zeal to the prisons and the tribunals, to obtain the confessor’s or
martyr’s crown. The confessors of Rome wrote from prison to their brethren of
Africa: "What more glorious and blessed lot can fall to man by the grace
of God, than to confess God the Lord amidst tortures and in the face of death
itself; to confess Christ the Son of God with lacerated body and with a spirit
departing, yet free; and to become fellow-sufferers with Christ in the name of
Christ? Though we have not yet shed our
blood, we are ready to do so. Pray for us, then, dear Cyprian, that the Lord,
the best captain, would daily strengthen each one of us more and more, and at
last lead us to the field as faithful soldiers, armed with those divine weapons
(Eph. 6:2) which can never be conquered."
The authorities were specially
severe with the bishops and officers of the churches. Fabianus of Rome, Babylas
of Antioch, and Alexander of Jerusalem, perished in this persecution. Others
withdrew to places of concealment; some from cowardice; some from Christian
prudence, in hope of allaying by their absence the fury of the pagans against
their flocks, and of saving their own lives for the good of the church in
better times.
Among the latter was Cyprian,
bishop of Carthage, who incurred much censure by his course, but fully
vindicated himself by his pastoral industry during his absence, and by his
subsequent martyrdom. He says concerning the matter: "Our Lord commanded
us in times of persecution to yield and to fly. He taught this, and he
practised it himself. For since the martyr’s crown comes by the grace of God,
and cannot be gained before the appointed hour, he who retires for a time, and
remains true to Christ, does not deny his faith, but only abides his
time."
The poetical legend of the seven
brothers at Ephesus, who fell asleep in a cave, whither they had fled, and
awoke two hundred years afterwards, under Theodosius II. (447), astonished to
see the once despised and hated cross now ruling over city and country, dates
itself internally from the time of Decius, but is not mentioned before Gregory
of Tours in the sixth century.
Under Gallus (251-253) the
persecution received a fresh impulse thorough the incursions of the Goths, and
the prevalence of a pestilence, drought, and famine. Under this reign the Roman
bishops Cornelius and Lucius were banished, and then condemned to death.
Valerian (253-260) was at first
mild towards the Christians; but in 257 he changed his course, and made an
effort to check the progress of their religion without bloodshed, by the
banishment of ministers and prominent laymen, the confiscation of their
property, and the prohibition of religious assemblies. These measures, however,
proving fruitless, he brought the death penalty again into play.
The most distinguished martyrs
of this persecution under Valerian are the bishops Sixtus II. of Rome, and
Cyprian of Carthage.
When Cyprian received his
sentence of death, representing him as an enemy of the Roman gods and laws, he
calmly answered: "Deo gratias!"
Then, attended by a vast multitude to the scaffold, he proved once more,
undressed himself, covered his eyes, requested a presbyter to bind his hands,
and to pay the executioner, who tremblingly drew the sword, twenty-five pieces
of gold, and won the incorruptible crown (Sept. 14, 258). His faithful friends
caught the blood in handkerchiefs, and buried the body of their sainted pastor
with great solemnity.
Gibbon describes the martyrdom
of Cyprian with circumstantial minuteness, and dwells with evident satisfaction
on the small decorum which attended his execution. But this is no fair average
specimen of the style in which Christians were executed throughout the empire.
For Cyprian was a man of the highest social standing and connection from his
former eminence, as a rhetorician and statesman. His deacon, Pontius relates
that "numbers of eminent and illustrious persons, men of mark family and
secular distinction, often urged him, for the sake of their old friendship with
him, to retire." We shall return to Cyprian again in the history of church
government, where he figures as a typical, ante-Nicene high-churchman,
advocating both the visible unity of the church and episcopal independence of
Rome.
The much lauded martyrdom of the
deacon St. Laurentius of Rome, who pointed the avaricious magistrates to the
poor and sick of the congregation as the richest treasure of the church, and is
said to have been slowly roasted to death (Aug. 10, 258) is scarcely reliable
in its details, being first mentioned by Ambrose a century later, and then
glorified by the poet Prudentius. A Basilica on the Via Tiburtina celebrates
the memory of this saint, who occupies the same position among the martyrs of
the church of Rome as Stephen among those of Jerusalem.
§ 23. Temporary Repose. a.d.
260-303.
Gallienus (260-268) gave peace
to the church once more, and even acknowledged Christianity as a religio
licita. And this calm continued forty years; for the edict of persecution,
issued by the energetic and warlike Aurelian (270-275), was rendered void by
his assassination; and the six emperors who rapidly followed, from 275 to 284,
let the Christians alone.
The persecutions under Carus,
Numerianus and Carinus from 284 to 285 are not historical, but legendary.42
During this long season of peace
the church rose rapidly in numbers and outward prosperity. Large and even
splendid houses of worship were erected in the chief cities, and provided with
collections of sacred books and vessels of gold and silver for the administration
of the sacraments. But in the same proportion discipline relaxed, quarrels,
intrigues, and factions increased, and worldliness poured in like a flood.
Hence a new trial was a necessary and wholesome process
of purification.43
§ 24. The Diocletian Persecution, a.d. 303-311.
I. Sources.
Eusebius: H.
E. Lib. VIII. - X; De Martyr. Palaest. (ed. Cureton, Lond, 1861); Vita Const. (ed. Heinichen, Lips. 1870).
Lactantius: De Mortibus Persec. c. 7 sqq. Of uncertain authorship.
Basilius M.: Oratio
in Gordium mart.; Oratio in Barlaham mart.
II. Works.
Baronius: Annal.
ad ann. 302-305.
Gibbon: Chrs.
XIII., XIV. and XVI.
Jak. Burckhardt: Die Zeit Constantins des Gr. Basel, 1853, p. 325.
Th. Keim: Der
Uebertritt Constantins des Gr. zum Christenthum. ZĂĽrich 1852. The same: Die
römischen Toleranzedicte für das Christenthum (311-313), in the "Tüb.
Theol. Jahrb." 1852. (His. Rom und das Christenthum only comes down to a.d. 192.)
Alb. Vogel: Der
Kaiser Diocletian. Gotha 1857.
Bernhardt: Diokletian
in s. Verhältnisse zu den Christen. Bonn, 1862.
Hunziker: Regierung und Christenverfolgung des Kaisers
Diocletianus und seiner Nachfolger. Leipz. 1868.
Theod. Preuss:
Kaiser Diocletian und seine Zeit. Leipz. 1869.
A. J. Mason: The Persecution of
Diocletian. Cambridge, 1876. Pages 370. (Comp. a review by Ad. Harnack in
the "Theol. Literaturzeitung" for 1877. No. 7. f. 169.)
Theod. Zahn: Constantin
der Grosse und die Kirche. Hannover, 1876.
Brieger.: Constantin
der Gr. als Religionspolitiker. Gotha, 1880. Comp. the Lit. on Constantine, in vol.
III., 10, 11.
The forty years’ repose was
followed by, the last and most violent persecution, a struggle for life and
death.
"The accession of the
Emperor Diocletian is the era from which the Coptic Churches of Egypt and
Abyssinia still date, under the name of the ’Era of Martyrs.’ All former
persecutions of the faith were forgotten in the horror with which men looked
back upon the last and greatest: the tenth wave (as men delighted to count it)
of that great storm obliterated all the traces that had been left by others.
The fiendish cruelty of Nero, the jealous fears of Domitian, the unimpassioned
dislike of Marcus, the sweeping purpose of Decius, the clever devices of
Valerian, fell into obscurity when compared with the concentrated terrors of
that final grapple, which resulted in the destruction of the old Roman Empire
and the establishment of the Cross as the symbol of the world’s hope."44
Diocletian (284-305) was one of
the most judicious and able emperors who, in a trying period, preserved the
sinking state from dissolution. He was the son of a slave or of obscure
parentage, and worked himself up to supreme power. He converted the Roman
republican empire into an Oriental despotism, and prepared the way for
Constantine and Constantinople. He associated with himself three subordinate
co-regents, Maximian (who committed suicide, 310), Galerius (d. 311), and
Constantius Chlorus (d. 306, the father of Constantine the Great), and divided
with them the government of the immense empire; thereby quadrupling the
personality of the sovereign, and imparting vigor to provincial administration,
but also sowing the seed of discord and civil war45. Gibbon calls him a second
Augustus, the founder of a new empire, rather than the restorer of the old. He
also compares him to Charles V., whom he somewhat resembled in his talents,
temporary success and ultimate failure, and voluntary retirement from the cares
of government.
In the first twenty years of his
reign Diocletian respected the toleration edict of Gallienus. His own wife
Prisca his daughter Valeria, and most of his eunuchs and court officers,
besides many of the most prominent public functionaries, were Christians, or at
least favorable to the Christian religion. He himself was a superstitious
heathen and an oriental despot. Like Aurelian and Domitian before him, he
claimed divine honors, as the vicar of Jupiter Capitolinus. He was called, as
the Lord and Master of the world, Sacratissimus Dominus Noster; he guarded his Sacred Majesty
with many circles of soldiers and eunuchs, and allowed no one to approach him
except on bended knees, and with the forehead touching the ground, while he was
seated on the throne in rich vestments from the far East. "Ostentation,"
says Gibbon, "was the first principle of the new system instituted by
Diocletian." As a practical statesman, he must have seen that his work of
the political restoration and consolidation of the empire would lack a firm and
permanent basis without the restoration of the old religion of the state.
Although he long postponed the religious question, he had to meet it at last.
It could not be expected, in the nature of the case, that paganism should
surrender to its dangerous rival without a last desperate effort to save
itself.
But the chief instigator of the
renewal of hostility, according to the account of Lactantius, was Diocletian’s
co-regent and son-in-law, Galerius, a cruel and fanatical heathen.46 He prevailed at last on Diocletian in his old age to authorize the
persecution which gave to his glorious reign a disgraceful end.
In 303 Diocletian issued in
rapid succession three edicts, each more severe than its predecessor. Maximian
issued the fourth, the worst of all, April 30, 304. Christian churches were to
be destroyed; all copies of the Bible were to be burned; all Christians were to
be deprived of public office and civil rights; and at last all, without
exception, were to sacrifice to the gods upon pain of death. Pretext for this
severity was afforded by the occurrence of fire twice in the palace of
Nicomedia in Bithynia, where Diocletian resided 47. It was strengthened by the
tearing down of the first edict by an imprudent Christian (celebrated in the
Greek church under the name of John), who vented in that way his abhorrence of
such "godless and tyrannical rulers," and was gradually roasted to
death with every species of cruelty. But the conjecture that the edicts were
occasioned by a conspiracy of the Christians who, feeling their rising power,
were for putting the government at once into Christian hands, by a stroke of
state, is without any foundation in history. It is inconsistent with the
political passivity of the church during the first three centuries, which
furnish no example of rebellion and revolution. At best such a conspiracy could
only have been the work of a few fanatics; and they, like the one who tore down
the first edict, would have gloried in the deed and sought the crown of
martyrdom.48
The persecution began on the
twenty-third day of February, 303, the feast of the Terminalia (as if to
make an end of the Christian sect), with the destruction of the magnificent
church in Nicomedia, and soon spread over the whole Roman empire, except Gaul,
Britain, and Spain, where the co-regent Constantius Chlorus, and especially his
son, Constantine the Great (from 306), were disposed, as far as possible, to
spare the Christians. But even here the churches were destroyed, and many
martyrs of Spain (St. Vincentius, Eulalia, and others celebrated by
Prudentins), and of Britain (St. Alban) are assigned by later tradition to this
age.
The persecution raged longest
and most fiercely in the East under the rule of Galerius and his barbarous
nephew Maximin Daza, who was intrusted by Diocletian before his retirement with
the dignity of Caesar and the extreme command of Egypt and Syria49. He issued in autumn, 308, a
fifth edict of persecution, which commanded that all males with their wives and
servants, and even their children, should sacrifice and actually taste the
accursed offerings, and that all provisions in the markets should be sprinkled
with sacrificial wine. This monstrous law introduced a reign of terror for two
years, and left50 the Christians no alternative but apostasy or
starvation. All the pains, which iron and steel, fire and sword, rack and
cross, wild beasts and beastly men could inflict, were employed to gain the
useless end.
Eusebius was a witness of this
persecution in Caesura, Tyre, and Egypt, and saw, with his own eyes, as he
tells us, the houses of prayer razed to the ground, the Holy Scriptures
committed to the flames on the market places, the pastors hunted, tortured, and
torn to pieces in the amphitheatre. Even the wild beasts, he says, not without
rhetorical exaggeration, at last refused to attack the Christians, as if they
had assumed the part of men in place of the heathen Romans; the bloody swords
became dull and shattered; the executioners grew weary, and had to relieve each
other; but the Christians sang hymns of praise and thanksgiving in honor of
Almighty God, even to their latest breath. He describes the heroic sufferings
and death of several martyrs, including his friend, "the holy and blessed
Pamphilus," who after two years of imprisonment won the crown of life
(309), with eleven others_a typical company that seemed to him to be "a
perfect representation of the church."
Eusebius himself was imprisoned,
but released. The charge of having escaped martyrdom by offering sacrifice is
without foundation.51
In this, as in former
persecutions, the number of apostates who preferred the earthly life to the
heavenly, was very great. To these was now added also the new class of the traditores, who delivered the holy
Scriptures to the heathen authorities, to be burned. But as the persecution
raged, the zeal and fidelity of the Christians increased, and martyrdom spread
as by contagion. Even boys and girls showed amazing firmness. In many the
heroism of faith degenerated to a fanatical courting of death; confessors were
almost worshipped, while yet alive; and the hatred towards apostates distracted
many congregations, and produced the Meletian and Donatist schisms.
The number of martyrs cannot be
estimated with any degree of certainty. The seven episcopal and the ninety-two
Palestinian martyrs of Eusebius are only a select list bearing a similar
relation to the whole number of victims as the military lists its of
distinguished fallen officers to the large mass of common soldiers, and form
therefore no fair basis for the calculation of Gibbon, who would reduce the
whole number to less than two thousand. During the eight years52 of this persecution the number
of victims, without including the many confessors who were barbarously
mutilated and condemned to a lingering death in the prisons and mines, must
have been much larger. But there is no truth in the tradition (which figures in
older church histories) that the tyrants erected trophies in Spain and
elsewhere with such inscriptions as announce the suppression of the Christian
sect.53
The martyrologies date from this period several legends,
the germs of which, however, cannot now be clearly sifted from the additions of
later poesy. The story of the destruction of the legio Thebaica is probably an
exaggeration of the martyrdom of St. Mauritius, who was executed in Syria, as tribunus militum, with seventy soldiers, at the
order of Maximin. The martyrdom of Barlaam, a plain, rustic Christian of
remarkable constancy, and of Gordius, a centurion (who, however, was tortured
and executed a few years later under Licinius, 314) has been eulogized by St.
Basil. A maiden of thirteen years, St. Agnes, whose memory the Latin church has
celebrated ever since the fourth century, was, according to tradition, brought
in chains before the judgment-seat in Rome; was publicly exposed, and upon her
steadfast confession put to the sword; but afterwards appeared to her grieving
parents at her grave with a white lamb and a host of shining virgins from
heaven, and said: "Mourn me no longer as dead, for ye see that I live.
Rejoice with me, that I am forever united in heaven with the Saviour, whom on
earth I loved with all my heart." Hence the lamb in the paintings of this
saint; and hence the consecration of lambs in her church at Rome at her
festival (Jan. 21), from whose wool the pallium of the archbishop is made.
Agricola and Vitalis at Bologna, Gervasius and Protasius at Milan, whose bones
were discovered in the time of Ambrose Janurius, bishop of Benevent, who became
the patron saint of Naples, and astonishes the faithful by the annual miracle
of the liquefaction of his blood, and the British St. Alban, who delivered
himself to the authorities in the place of the priest he had concealed in his
house, and converted his executioner, are said to have attained martyrdom under
Diocletian.54
§ 25. The Edicts of Toleration. a.d.
311-313.
See Lit. in § 24, especially Keim, and Mason (Persecution of Diocletian, pp. 299 and 326
sqq.)
This persecution was the last
desperate struggle of Roman heathenism for its life. It was the crisis of utter
extinction or absolute supremacy for each of the two religions. At the close of
the contest the old Roman state religion was exhausted. Diocletian retired into
private life in 305, under the curse of the Christians; he found greater
pleasure in planting cabbages at Salona in his native Dalmatia, than in
governing a vast empire, but his peace was disturbed by the tragical
misfortunes of his wife and daughter, and in 313, when all the achievements of
his reign were destroyed, he destroyed himself.
Galerius, the real author of the
persecution, brought to reflection by a terrible disease, put an end to the
slaughter shortly before his death, by a remarkable edict of toleration, which
he issued from Nicomedia in 311, in connexion with Constantine and Licinius. In
that document he declared, that the purpose of reclaiming the Christians from
their wilful innovation and the multitude of their sects to the laws and
discipline of the, Roman state, was not accomplished; and that he would now
grant them permission to hold their religious assemblies provided they
disturbed not the order of the state. To this he added in conclusion the
significant instruction that the Christians, "after this manifestation of
grace, should pray to their God for the welfare of the emperors, of the
state, and of themselves, that the state might prosper in every respect, and
that they might live quietly in their homes."55
This edict virtually closes the
period of persecution in the Roman empire.
For a short time Maximin, whom
Eusebius calls "the chief of tyrants," continued in every way to
oppress and vex the church in the East, and the cruel pagan Maxentius (a son of
Maximian and son-in-law of Galerius) did the same in Italy.
But the young Constantine, who
hailed from the far West, had already, in 306, become emperor of Gaul, Spain,
and Britain. He had been brought up at the court of Diocletian at Nicomedia
(like Moses at the court of Pharaoh) and destined for his successor, but fled
from the intrigues of Galerius to Britain, and was appointed by his father and
proclaimed by the army as his successor. He crossed the Alps, and under the
banner of the cross, he conquered Maxentius at the Milvian bridge near Rome,
and the heathen tyrant perished with his army of veterans in the waters of the
Tiber, Oct. 27, 312. A few months afterwards Constantine met at Milan with his
co-regent and brother-in-law, Licinius, and issued a new edict of toleration
(313), to which Maximin also, shortly before his suicide (313), was compelled
to give his consent at Nicomedia.56 The second edict went beyond the first of 311; it was a decisive
step from hostile neutrality to friendly neutrality and protection, and
prepared the way for the legal recognition of Christianity, as the religion of
the empire. It ordered the full restoration of all confiscated church property
to the Corpus
Christianorum,
at the expense of the imperial treasury, and directed the provincial
magistrates to execute this order at once with all energy, so that peace may be
fully established and the continuance of the Divine favor secured to the
emperors and their subjects.
This was the first proclamation
of the great principle that every man had a right to choose his religion
according to the dictates of his own conscience and honest conviction, without
compulsion and interference from the government.57 Religion is worth nothing except as an act of freedom. A forced
religion is no religion at all. Unfortunately, the successors of Constantine
from the time of Theodosius the Great (383-395) enforced the Christian religion
to the exclusion of every other; and not only so, but they enforced orthodoxy
to the exclusion of every form of dissent, which was punished as a crime
against the state.
Paganism made another spasmodic
effort. Licinius fell out with Constantine and renewed the persecution for a
short time in the East, but he was defeated in 323, and Constantine became sole
ruler of the empire. He openly protected and favored the church, without
forbidding idolatry, and upon the whole remained true to his policy of
protective toleration till his death (337). This was enough for the success of
the church, which had all the vitality and energy of a victorious power; while
heathenism was fast decaying at its root.
With Constantine, therefore, the
last of the heathen, the first of the Christian, emperors, a new period begins.
The church ascends the throne of the Caesars under the banner of the once
despised, now honored and triumphant cross, and gives new vigor and lustre to
the hoary empire of Rome. This sudden political and social revolution seems
marvellous; and yet it was only the legitimate result of the intellectual and
moral revolution which Christianity, since the second century, had silently and
imperceptibly wrought in public opinion. The very violence of the Diocletian
persecution betrayed the inner weakness of heathenism. The Christian minority
with its ideas already controlled the deeper current of history. Constantine,
as a sagacious statesman, saw the signs of the times and followed them. The
motto of his policy is well symbolized in his military standard with the
inscription: "Hoc signo vinces."58
What a contrast between Nero,
the first imperial persecutor, riding in a chariot among Christian martyrs as
burning torches in his gardens, and Constantine, seated in the Council of Nicaea
among three hundred and eighteen bishops (some of whom_as the blinded Confessor
Paphnutius, Paul of Neocaesarea, and the ascetics from Upper Egypt clothed in
wild raiment_wore the insignia of torture on their maimed and crippled bodies),
and giving the highest sanction of civil authority to the decree of the eternal
deity of the once crucified Jesus of Nazareth!
Such a revolution the world has never seen before or since, except the
silent, spiritual, and moral reformation wrought by Christianity itself at its
introduction in the first, and at its revival in the sixteenth century.
§ 26. Christian Martyrdom.
I. Sources.
Ignatius: Epistolae. Martyrum Polycarpi. Tertullian: Ad Martyres. Origenes: Exhortatio ad martyrium (protreptikoV" Lovgo"
ei*" martuvpion.) Cyprian: Ep. 11
ad mart. Prudentius: PeriV
stefavvwnV hymni
XIV. Comp. Lit. § 12.
II. Works.
Sagittarius: De mart. cruciatibus, 1696.
H. Dodwell: De paucitate martyrum, in his
Dissertationes Cyprianiae. Lond. 1684.
Ruinart (R.C.):
Praefatio
generalis in Acta Martyrum.
P. W. Gass: Das
christl. Märtyrerthum in den ersten Jahrhunderten, in Niedner’s "Zeitschrift
f. Hist. Theol." 1859 and ’60.
E. de Pressensé: The Martyrs and
Apologists. Translated from the French. London and N. Y. 1871. (Ch. II. p.
67 sqq.).
Chateaubriand:
Les martyrs ou le triomphe de la rel. chrét. 2 vols. Paris 1809 and often
(best Engl. trsl. by O W. Wight, N. York, 1859.) Has no critical or historical value, but
merely poetical.
Comp. in part Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art. Lond.
1848. 2 vols.
To these protracted and cruel
persecutions the church opposed no revolutionary violence, no carnal
resistance, but the moral heroism of suffering and dying for the truth. But
this very heroism was her fairest ornament and staunchest weapon. In this very
heroism she proved herself worthy of her divine founder, who submitted to the
death of the cross for the salvation of the world, and even prayed that his
murderers might be forgiven. The patriotic virtues of Greek and Roman antiquity
reproduced themselves here in exalted form, in self-denial for the sake of a
heavenly country, and for a crown that fadeth not away. Even boys and girls
became heroes, and rushed with a holy enthusiasm to death. In those hard times
men had to make earnest of the words of the Lord: "Whosoever doth not bear
his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple." "He, that loveth
father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me." But then also the
promise daily proved itself true: "Blessed are they, who are persecuted
for righteousness’ sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." "He,
that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it." And it applied not only
to the martyrs themselves, who exchanged the troubled life of earth for the
blessedness of heaven, but also to the church as a whole, which came forth
purer and stronger from every persecution, and thus attested her indestructible
vitality.
These suffering virtues are
among the sweetest and noblest fruits of the Christian religion. It is not so
much the amount of suffering which challenges our admiration, although it was
terrible enough, as the spirit with which the early Christians bore it. Men and
women of all classes, noble senators and learned bishops, illiterate artisans
and poor slaves, loving mothers and delicate virgins, hoary-headed pastors and
innocent children approached their tortures in no temper of unfeeling
indifference and obstinate defiance, but, like their divine Master, with calm
self-possession, humble resignation, gentle meekness, cheerful faith,
triumphant hope, and forgiving charity. Such spectacles must have often
overcome even the inhuman murderer. "Go on," says Tertullian
tauntingly to the heathen governors, "rack, torture, grind us to powder:
our numbers increase in proportion as ye mow us down. The blood of Christians
is their harvest seed. Your very obstinacy is a teacher. For who is not incited
by the contemplation of it to inquire what there is in the core of the
matter? And who, after having joined
us, does not long to suffer?"59
Unquestionably there were also
during this period, especially after considerable seasons of quiet, many
superficial or hypocritical Christians, who, the moment the storm of
persecution broke forth, flew like chaff from the wheat, and either offered
incense to the gods (thurificati, sacrificati), or procured false witness of their return to paganism
(libellatici, from libellum), or gave up the sacred books (
