CHAPTER X. THE FIRST AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.

“Magnum hæreditatis mysterium! Templum Dei factus est uterus

nescientis virum. Non est pollutus ex ea carnem assumens. Omnes

gentes venient dicentes, Gloria tibi, Domine.”

_Antiphon on Vespers of Circumcision._

The world which Augustus and Tiberius ruled was not conscious of the fact

that there was an order of truth, and of morality based upon that truth,

the maintenance of which was to be purchased, and cheaply purchased, with

the loss of life, or of all that made life valuable. This world was indeed

familiar with the thought and with the practice of sacrificing life for

one object—an object which collected all the natural affections and

interests of a man together, and presented them to him in the most

attractive form, his country. Greek and Roman history, and indeed the

history of all nations up to that time, had been full of instances in

which privations and sufferings were endured, and, if necessary, life

itself given up for wife and children, for the dear affections of house

and home, for friends, for freedom, for fatherland. Man, civilised and

uncivilised, was alike capable of this, and capable of it in profusion.

Rome had many a Regulus and Sparta many a Leonidas in the humblest ranks

of their citizens: Gaul had thousands as noble as Vercingetorex, and Spain

not one but many Numantias. Human nature had never been wanting in the

courage to die for the visible goods of human life. But to labour, to

combat, to endure pain, sorrow, privations, to suffer in every form for

the invisible goods of a future life, to recognise, that is, an inviolable

order of religion and morality, so far superior to all that a man can

grasp and hold in his possession, to wife, children, goods, friends,

freedom, and fatherland, and to life adorned and crowned with these, that

any or all of these, and life itself, are to be sacrificed for its

preservation; this may be said to be a thought of which the whole heathen

world ruled by Augustus and Tiberius was unconscious.(132) For other

reasons also it was familiar enough with the sacrifice of life, since the

continual practice of war and the permanent institution of slavery had

made human life the cheapest of all things in its eyes. And further, to

die rather than to live dishonoured was still the rule of the nobler among

the millions who yielded to the sway of Augustus. But to die for the

maintenance of moral truth, that is, for faith,—this was known indeed to

the Jews, who had already their “cloud of witnesses” to it; but it was

unknown to heathendom, which has in all its ranks and times but one

man(133) to offer whose death approaches to such a sacrifice, and

therefore shines with incomparable lustre among all deeds of purely human

heroism. But the death of Socrates found in this no imitators, he created

here no line of followers; and he stands alone in this greatness, an

exception to an otherwise invariable rule.

However, in our two preceding chapters we have been describing something

much more than the exhibition of this order of truth; that is, we have set

forth the union of it with a Person, who both exhibits it in Himself, and

is the source of it to others. And the difference between these two things

is very great. Many at different times have said, “I teach the truth.” One

only has said, “I am the Truth:” and to say it is the most emphatic

indirect assumption of Godhead which can be conceived. And with it that

One also joined a similar expression, containing the same assumption of

Godhead, and which equally was never approached by any other teacher, “I

am the Life.” The union of the Truth at once and of the Life with His

Person, which is thus become the root of both to human nature, was the

subject of the last two chapters. Now, as we have said, that there was an

order of truth sacred and inviolable above all things, was borne witness

to by the Hebrew martyrs, and therefore was not new to the chosen race of

Israel, though it was new to heathendom, at the time at which our Lord

appeared. But the union of the Truth and of the Life with the Person of

One appearing visibly in the world as man, was as new to the Hebrews as to

the heathen, was an absolute novelty to human nature. And so the Christian

Faith also, as a system of belief and action, that is, as embracing the

mind and the will of man, as giving both Truth and Life, is entirely new

in this respect; that in this double action it is in its origin and in its

whole course and maintenance bound up with a Person. Thus all which it

teaches is not naked truth, unlocalised as it were, and impersonal, but is

the development of relations in which the disciples of Christ stand to

Him; for instance, as King, as God, as Head, as Bridegroom, as Father. As

these, He is at once The Truth and the Life. Thus it is that the Christian

Faith flows out of the Person of Christ the God-man; and, as its Truth is

centered in that Person, so also its continuous Life depends on Him.

And further, as the connection of doctrine, or truth, and of life, that

is, action, with a Person is the point from which all this movement

springs, in which respect we have said it was absolutely new, so the term

to which it reaches is the creation of something in both these things

correlative to that Person, the creation of a Kingdom, a Temple, a Body, a

Mother, a Race, in which respect also the term is as new as that from

which it springs. That He is the Truth and the Life is shown in this

creation, which has a distinctive character, as He has, an unique

existence, and an organic unity with Him.

The subject on which we are now employed is to describe as an historic

fact how the duty of maintaining, propagating, and dying for the truth and

conduct thus identified with the Person of Christ, was carried out through

many generations and under difficulties which seemed to preclude the

possibility of its success; and to show the means by which this great

creation, starting from the day of Pentecost, made a home and established

itself in the Roman empire, by which, after a conflict of nearly three

hundred years, it was finally recognised.

The worship of the one true God had been fixed in the children of Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob, as the faith which made them a nation, that is, as the

dogma on which their national existence was so based, that through

maintaining it they were to continue a people. The Jewish polity lived in

and by this belief, and, as a nation, was its prophet. Certainly, this was

the noblest form which nationalism has ever assumed. Yet it was

nationalism still; and the proselyte who would enter into the full worship

of the God of Abraham and all its privileges had to become a Jew. But now,

instead of this bond another was substituted, signifying that the King of

the Jews who had appeared was come as the saviour of _man_, not of this or

of that nation. The bond is therefore placed at the point which

constituted the salvation of the whole race, that is in the Person of the

God-man, and by this the corporation was put beyond the bounds of a

nationality, and made coextensive with the world. The Christian creed was

formed round the Person, the actions, and the sufferings of Christ. Now

here, precisely in what constituted the character, the greatness, and the

glory of the Christian faith, was seated the principle and the beginning

of the persecution which it encountered from the Roman empire. In that

empire every species of idolatry(134) had a right of homestead as the

national or tribe religion of any one of its constituent parts; and the

worship of even one God, exclusive as that Jewish worship was of the whole

heathen pantheon, was allowed by the laws of Rome to the Jews, because he

was considered their national god. But the Christians had no such

justification in Roman eyes for their exclusive worship. They were not a

nation nor a province of the empire; they had not, therefore, that title

for their worship which constituted the charter of toleration to all

besides, including the Jew, who worshipped the same God. For the

Christians worshipped Him, not as their ancestral God, but as the Father

of that Son who had taken human flesh, and become the Saviour of men.

Their worship of the one true God was not only exclusive, but in and

through the fact of the Incarnation claimed the homage of all men to it.

It knew of no bond of brotherhood but in Him who had deigned to call men

His brethren. Thus its special character and preëminent glory were the

cause of its persecution, and from the moment that it came before the

notice of the Roman governor not as a Jewish sect but as a distinct

belief, it was considered as not a lawful religion. Thus too it was that

the selfsame point which kindled Jewish hatred entailed Roman persecution.

The Christian faith was a mortal offence to the Jew because it extended

what had been his special privileges to all the Gentiles. He abhorred the

substitution of the Person of the God-man for the race of Abraham after

the flesh; as the Roman at once despised and hated a worship which not

only adhered to one God, but dethroned from his political supremacy the

capitoline Jupiter, and whose title rested not on tradition and national

inheritance, but on a fact touching the whole race of man, and therefore

claiming the allegiance of the whole race—the assumption of human nature

by a divine Person. Thus the doctrine in which lay the whole creative

force, the truth and the life of Christianity, was that which from the

first caused the dislike of the Jew and the persecution of the Gentile—the

kingship of Christ, involving the headship of a universal religion, and a

power which was not that of Cæsar.

We have, then, now to treat of a period of 280 years, homogeneous in its

character from the beginning to the end, which is, that it is the carrying

out by a people ever increasing in number and strength of that good

confession made before Pontius Pilate—that witness at its proper time of

which S. Paul(135) in its first stage said that he was the herald and

apostle. The course and life of Christians during these ten generations is

to be the prolongation of this testimony, the embodiment of this

confession. It is as soldiers, imitators, followers of one Chief, that all

appear on the scene in their respective order.(136) It is by a direct

virtue drawn from the cross of that Chief that they move onward to their

own passion. They endure and they conquer simply as under His command, and

because He endured and conquered before them. Their oath of military

fidelity is the bond of their discipline; they prevail because they are

His, and because they are one in Him:

“And they stand in glittering ring

Round their warrior God and King—

Who before and for them bled—

With their robes of ruby red,

And their swords of cherub flame.”

The whole process and cause of Christians during this long period, the

ground of their accusation, the conduct and principles of the judges, and

their judgment, are summed up as in a parable in that scene which passed

before Pilate, while the subsequent day of Pentecost is in the same manner

an image of the final result won in these three hundred years. For as the

crucifixion of the Truth in the Person of Christ is followed by the

descent of the Holy Ghost forming the Church, so the persecution and

crucifixion of the truth in ten generations of His people is followed by

the empire’s public recognition of His eternal kingdom—of that Body of

Christ seen visibly in a council of its prelates assembling freely from

all lands.

Take first the seventy years which form the Apostolic age. What do we find

as the result when S. John, the last apostle, is taken away? In a large

number of cities throughout the Roman empire a community has been planted

after the pattern of that which we have described as arising at Jerusalem,

and by the same means, the power of oral teaching. Every such community

has at its head its bishop, or angel, who sums up and represents in his

own person the people over which he presides. This is exactly the picture

presented to us at the close of this period by S. John in the Apocalypse,

when he is directed by our Lord personally appearing to him to write seven

letters to as many bishops of cities on the seaboard of the province of

Asia. Each, with his people, is addressed as a unit. One, “I know thy

works, and thy labour, and thy endurance, and how thou canst not bear

those which are evil;” a second, “Fear not what thou art about to suffer;

behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison;” a third, “I have

against thee some few things, that thou hast there some who hold the

doctrine of Balaam.”(137) Each has around him his council of priests, his

ministering deacons, his faithful people. The last apostle is still

living; but in all these communities many exist, both of teachers and

taught, who have learned Christian doctrine, either from the mouth of an

apostle or the comrade of an apostle—a Mark, a Luke, a Silvanus, a

Clemens. Thus they live mainly upon oral teaching: the voice which went

forth from the day of Pentecost is sounding freshly in their ears.

Doctrine is in the stage of simple tradition and authority. The writings

of the New Testament are completed, but being addressed to various parts

of the Church, are best known to those for whom they were written. They

are not yet collected and made the common patrimony of the whole Church.

S. John leaves the earth without performing any such function; without

setting the seal of his apostolical authority upon the New Testament as a

whole; nay, the authorship of some of his own writings, as we now receive

them, will be partially contested after his death before their final

reception. Of the absolute number of these Christian communities, and of

the multitude they severally embrace, we have no account; we can form no

estimate, save to infer that the whole number of the faithful, at the end

of this period, was very small in comparison with the mass out of which

they had been drawn. Still it was a germ with a living force of expansion,

planted in every considerable spot of the empire; and wherever it was

planted, a Christian people, in the full sense of the word, existed,

having a complete spiritual life of its own, possessing the sacraments

which insured the beginning and the continuance of that life, an order of

worship based on the great central fact which made them a people, and a

ministry charged with the power to teach and to convey on to their

successors the doctrines delivered to them.

But in the mean time how had the empire treated it? In these seventy years

it has traversed the seven last years of the Emperor Tiberius, and the

whole principates of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero; the revolutionary

crisis in which Galba, Otho, and Vitellius reigned for an instant, and

then the settled time of Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, and Nerva. Now,

during this period its treatment by the empire has been a singular

reproduction of what passed in the hall of Pilate. For the Jewish religion

was one allowed by Roman law. The profession of it entailed no penalty.

Now the first heralds of the Gospel, as Jews, preached their message

boldly and publicly, and in doing so it does not seem that Roman law would

have interfered with them.(138) At this stage it looked upon Christians as

a sect of Jews. As no authority of the empire had interfered with the

public ministry of our Lord, so it would seem to have left the ministry of

His disciples in the first instance free. It is from another quarter that

opposition arises. The Jew in his jealous anger at the promulgation of a

Messiah and a spiritual kingdom which is not after Jewish taste, both

because it is a kingdom not of this world, and because it raises the

Gentile to coinheritance with the race of Abraham, drags the Christian

missionary before the tribunal of the Roman magistrate and imputes to him

“sedition.” Then many a Gallio, many a Felix, many a Festus have as it

were unwillingly to enter into and decide these questions of the Jewish

law. It would seem that converts to the Christian faith in these its

earliest days might long have escaped the notice of the magistrate, as

belonging to a Jewish sect, but for this enmity of the Jews themselves.

But as the teachers of the new faith everywhere addressed themselves first

to their countrymen, so everywhere they found these countrymen alive to

their progress and bitterly set against it.(139) This state of things is

pretty well expressed by that answer of the Roman Jews to S. Paul when he

excuses himself before them for having been compelled to appeal to the

Emperor Nero: “as concerning this sect, we know that it is spoken against

everywhere.”(140) This, however, was Jewish, not Roman, contradiction. So

far as everywhere Jewish hatred and jealousy could malign and counterwork

the progress of the Christian Faith, and bring suffering on its teachers,

it had been done. But nevertheless with this exception it would seem that

for thirty-five years after the day of Pentecost that Faith had been

freely and publicly taught throughout the empire. It was through the

malignity of his own countrymen, stirring up a dangerous conspiracy

against him, that S. Paul felt himself compelled to appeal to the emperor,

and the result of his appeal was that he was set free. But in the year 64

another state of things had arisen. The ruin of a large part of Rome by

fire had brought a great odium upon Nero. Now his wife Poppæa is said to

have been a Jewish proselyte, he himself to have been surrounded by Jewish

influences, and nothing is more probable than that Jewish hatred, which

had tracked the Christians everywhere, pursued them especially here, and

suggested them to him both as authors of the conflagration, and as

convenient scapegoats whereon to divert the odium against himself which

had arisen from it. Thus he took the opportunity of exposing to shame and

torment, as victims of the popular dislike, and in popular opinion guilty

of “hatred of the human race,” or of being hated by them, “a vast

multitude”(141) of Christians, who, says the heathen historian, were put

to the most exquisite suffering, being wrapt in the skins of wild beasts,

and torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or clothed in garments of pitch

and set on fire to illuminate the night. Thus it is, as decorations of

Nero’s games, in his gardens of the Vatican, where the obelisk from

Heliopolis, once the ornament of his circus, now bears witness to the

victory of Christ, that Christians first come before us in the pages of

Roman historians, just at the middle of the period we are now describing,

thirty-five years after the Ascension.

It may be considered part of this first persecution that the two great

Apostles—Peter, who had founded the Roman Church, and Paul, who after its

first foundation had helped to build it up—were condemned in the last year

of Nero, and by his deputies(142) during his absence, to suffer as

Christians, the one the death of a Roman citizen by the sword, and the

other that of a slave by crucifixion. Thus the two great brethren by

enduring together the martyr’s death, the highest mark of Christian

charity, sealed their joint foundation of Christian Rome, that like as the

Rome which had gained the conquest of the world by the strong hand of

violence, had been planted in the blood of one brother shed by another, so

the Rome which was to be the centre of Christ’s kingdom, and in the words

of S. Ignatius “preside over charity,” should have for her founders

brethren in supernatural love, pouring forth their blood together for the

seat of that Christian unity which binds the earth in one.

But this persecution by Nero is not transitory in its consequences. The

emperor had judged that Christians as such professed a religion not

allowed by the Roman laws, and were guilty therein of a capital crime.

This crime, if technically expressed, would amount to sacrilege and

treason;(143) for they could not acknowledge the Roman gods as gods, nor

the emperor as Pontifex Maximus; nor could they swear by his genius, which

was the oath expressing fidelity to the Roman constitution in its civil

and religious aspect. This was that “hatred of the human race,” that is,

in other words, of the Roman empire, of which in the eyes of Tacitus and

Pliny, of Nero now and of Trajan afterwards, they were guilty as

Christians. But the singular thing is this, that the Jew, who was the

first to drag them before the Roman tribunal, who was their omnipresent,

ever-ready antagonist and traducer, though he worshipped one only God,

though he abhorred the whole Roman polytheism, though he swore not by the

genius of the emperor, was exempt from punishment: his religion was

recognised by Roman law and the senate its interpreter, because it was the

national and time-honoured religion of a constituent part of the empire.

On the same ground the vilest Egyptian, Asiatic, African idol was allowed

the worship of those who claimed it as their ancestral god. The Christian

Faith was the sole exception to this universal tolerance, because it was

not the religion of a subject nation, because it was new, because, in

fine, it rested on principles which, if carried out, would sweep away the

whole fabric of polytheism on which the Roman State rested. And the act of

Nero had its great importance in that it formally distinguished the

Christian from the Jewish religion, and took away from it by a legal

decision of the State’s highest authority the claim to be considered

“licit.”

Nero then bestows the crown of martyrdom on S. Peter and S. Paul, and on

what Tacitus calls, even within Rome alone, a vast multitude. But he does

more than this. On the first appearance of Christians before the supreme

authority he so applies an existing law to their case as to establish

their liability under it to capital punishment, and this liability rests

upon them henceforth down to the time of Constantine. It is by no means

always carried out; it is often suspended, sometimes for many years

together, according to the character of the ruling prince, or the maxims

of his government, or the state itself of the empire. But it is henceforth

the legal position of Christians. It is a danger which besets their

condition, and may be called into action at any moment, in any city of the

empire, from any motive of private enmity, cupidity, or passion. It is the

legal Roman equivalent and interpretation of their Master’s words, “You

shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.”(144)

How often, and in how many instances, it was carried out in this period of

seventy years we have no means of telling; but another emperor is named as

a persecutor. Domitian not only put to death as Christian his cousin, the

Consul Flavius Clemens, but, as it would seem, a great many others at

Rome, in the latter years of his principate.(145) Domitian and Nero are

mentioned as persecutors by Melito when addressing Marcus Aurelius, and by

Tertullian,(146) in the time of Severus, though it was the object of both

to make the emperors appear to have been not unfavourable to Christians.

But, independent of any general act which would constitute an emperor a

persecutor,(147) this liability to punishment,(148) in virtue of which the

confessor or martyr was brought before the local magistrates, was that

under which individual Christians, in most peaceful times, and in the

reign of emperors generally just and moderate, endured their sufferings.

The Emperor Tiberius is said by Tertullian to have brought before the

senate a proposition to allow the Christian Faith as a lawful religion.

Had this been done, the whole course of Christian history in these three

centuries would have been changed. As it was, every one, in becoming a

Christian, accepted the chance that he might thereby be called upon to

forfeit the possession of wife, children, goods, every civil right, and

life itself.

The end of the reign of the first Antonine, in the year 161, furnishes us

with a second fitting epoch at which we may estimate the growth and

position in the empire of the Christian Faith.

During the sixty years which elapse from the death of S. John to the

accession of Marcus, the Roman empire is ruled by three sovereigns, who

have each left a fair name and a considerable renown behind them, and who,

compared with most of those who preceded or who followed them, may almost

be termed great. Trajan by his military successes raised to the highest

point the credit of the Roman arms, by his moderation in civil government

effaced the remembrance of Domitian’s cruelties, and gave the Romans

perhaps as much liberty as they could bear. His successor Hadrian, joining

great energy, administrative ability, and moderation of his own to the

fear and respect for the Roman name, which the powerful arm of Trajan had

spread around, was able at once to exercise his army with unwearied

discipline, and to maintain the empire at its full tide of power in

honourable peace, while Antoninus crowned the forty years of equable and

generally just government—bestowed on the Roman world by Trajan and

Hadrian—with a further happy period of more than half that length, wherein

the glory of the empire may be said to have culminated. Imperial Rome

never saw again such a day of power, or such a prospect of security, as

when Antoninus celebrated the secular games at the completion of nine

hundred years; and for ages afterwards his name carried respect, and men

looked back on his reign as on an ideal period of happiness for those whom

he ruled.

One of the most competent observers of our time has marked the last ten

years of the reign of Pius as the period at which the independent

development of Græco-Roman heathenism terminated, when it had exhausted

all the forms of its own inward life, since the Neoplatonic philosophy

which is the only striking product of intelligence that arises afterwards,

is manifestly due to the antagonism with Christianity, and is no pure

offspring of the heathen spirit.(149) From this time forth Christian

influences become unmistakable in their action upon heathen thought and

society. This, then, affords another reason why we should endeavour to

trace the progress and extension which the Church had reached at this

point.

Now a contemporary of Antoninus declares that in his time, that is, about

the year 150, there was no race of men, either barbarians or Greeks, none

even of Scythian nomads roaming in waggons, or of pastoral tribes dwelling

in tents, among whom prayers and thanksgivings were not offered to the

Father and Creator of the universe in the name of the crucified

Jesus.(150) Thus, in a hundred and twenty years the Church had outstripped

the limits of the empire. The germ which in the time of S. John was rooted

in the chief cities, had spread out thence and increased, taking more and

more possession of the soil in all directions. Still we must consider the

Christian Church in each place of its occupation as a small minority of

the people: nor is there any reason to doubt the statement made by Celsus,

that at the period when he wrote, the middle of the second century, the

Christian Faith counted few of the educated, distinguished, and rich among

its adherents;(151) for Origen, in replying to him, alleges no specific

example to the contrary. Yet, here too we must consider the justice of

Origen’s remark,(152) that these classes are everywhere few in proportion

to the poor and ignorant, and that Christianity being the day-star arising

on every soul took of all classes alike. So much, then, as to the Church’s

material extension: now as to its internal growth.

As this period opens, comrades of the Apostles still abound in the

churches. We know of several instances wherein such persons hold eminent

rank. At Rome, S. Clement is the third successor of S. Peter; and S.

Irenæus,(153) recording him as such eighty years afterwards, specially

notes that he had seen and lived with Apostles, and had their preaching

still sounding in his ears, and their tradition before his eyes; at

Antioch, S. Ignatius, second after the same S. Peter; in the See of

Jerusalem, S. Simeon, the brother of James, still survives; at Smyrna, S.

John’s disciple Polykarp is bishop. Many more such S. Irenæus declares

that there were. This would prepare us for the strength with which the

principle of authority and tradition was held, and show how completely the

sense of a spiritual government, of cohesion, and continuity of moral

life, and of a common doctrine and teaching, the foundation of these,

prevailed. But we are not left to inferences, we have the clearest

statements on this point about fifteen years after S. John’s death. It has

been remarked above how in the Apocalypse our Lord himself, addressing the

seven churches, gathers them up in their bishops, and speaks of them each

collectively as of one person. In the year 116, as is supposed, Ignatius

still after forty-eight years bishop of one of the three great mother

churches, all of them Sees of Peter, and types and models of church

government, whence missions went forth, and the layers of apostolic

teaching were propagated, in his seven extant epistles conveys the same

idea as that presented by those divine words which S. John had heard in

vision, and was commanded to record, but with much greater detail. As he

is being led to martyrdom, in the long transit between Antioch and Rome,

he pours forth the earnestness of one under sentence of death, glowing at

the prospect of shedding his blood for Christ, and being for ever united

with Him. These letters remain as a sample of numberless conversations

held with the deputations which came to meet him on his way, mingling

their tears at his approaching passion with their exultation in his

triumph. They are of one tissue throughout. Ignatius dwells with incessant

repetition upon union with God and with Christ through obedience to the

hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons, by maintenance of one faith,

in one body of the Church, which is wherever Christ is.(154) Let us take

one instance from his letter to the Ephesians. After saying that he had

“received their whole multitude in the person of Onesimus, their bishop,”

he continues: “It is, then, fitting that you should by all means glorify

Jesus Christ who has glorified you; that by a uniform obedience you may be

perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment, and

may all speak alike concerning everything, and that being subject to the

bishop and the presbytery, you may be altogether sanctified. I am not

giving you commands, as if I were any one; for, though I am in bonds for

His name, I am not yet perfected in Jesus Christ. For now I begin to

learn, and I speak to you as my fellow-disciples, for I had need to be

encouraged by you in faith, exhortation, endurance, long-suffering. But

since charity suffers me not to be silent to you, I have taken on me to

exhort you to run together all with the mind of God. For Jesus Christ,

your inseparable life, is the mind of the Father, as also the bishops,

placed in their several limits, are the mind of Jesus Christ. Therefore

you should run together with the bishop’s mind, as indeed you do. So then

in your concord and harmonious charity Jesus Christ is sung. And each

several one of you makes up the chorus; so that all being harmonious in

concord, you take up the melody in unity, and sing with one voice through

Jesus Christ to the Father, that He may hear you, and perceive by your

good works that you are members of His Son. It is good for you then to be

in blameless unity, that you may always have fellowship with God.” And

then he adds: “For if I in a short time have had such familiarity with

your bishop, and that not human, but spiritual, how much more should I

think you happy, who are so fused with him as the Church with Jesus

Christ, and as Jesus Christ with the Father, that all things may be

accordant in unity.”(155)

This is an incidental passage out of a very short letter, in which the

speaker is addressing practical exhortations to the people of a great

church, founded by S. Paul about sixty years before, dwelt in by S. John

up to about fifteen years of the time at which he was speaking. We should

not in such a writing expect S. Ignatius to speak with the scientific

correctness of a theologian, nor is he completely exhibiting his subject

in a treatise; yet here, as it were at the first moment after the Apostles

have left the earth, we have a picture of the Church as a world-wide

institution, held together by a divine unity, which has its seat in the

Person of Christ as the mind of the Father. It is a composite unity which

is contemplated in the image of a harp with its strings pouring forth one

song—the song of Christ—to the Father. It is a unity wide as the earth;

for the bishops, placed in their several limits, constitute the mind of

Christ, who is Himself the Father’s mind. It is the unity of the diocese,

for it is summed up in the bishop: but it is the unity likewise of the

whole Church, for the bishops are linked together in One whose mind they

collectively represent, and that One is He from whose Person their

authority radiates; in whom, as he says in this same letter, “the old

kingdom was being destroyed, God appearing in the form of a man, unto the

newness of eternal life.”(156) Again, it is not merely an outward unity of

government, but an inward unity of the truth held in common, and also held

as given by authority: not truth, as a result of the curiosity of the

human intellect, rather truth, as a participation in the mind of Christ.

Thus the Catholic unity of government is at the same time a unity of

belief, which two unities are not, in fact, separable, for their principle

is one in the Person of Christ, in respect of whom submission to the Ruler

is one and the same thing with belief in the truth revealed by Him, who is

King no less than Word, Word no less than King.

We have, then, here the principle of authority and tradition as seated in

the hierarchy, and at the same time the whole order and unity of the

Church as girdling the world by its chain of the Episcopate, and as

possessing the truth and exhibiting it in its quality of an institution.

It is before us and at work in its succession of men, in its sacraments

which they administer,(157) in its truth which is imparted by the one and

delivered by the other. It is no vague congeries of opinions held by

individuals with the diversity of individuals, but a body strongly

organised, and possessing an imperishable life, the life of its Author.

And we have all this mentioned as fulfilled at the distance of one life

from our Lord’s ascension, while indeed his kinsman and elder in age, S.

Simeon, is still bishop of Jerusalem, and mentioned by one of whom a

beautiful though insufficiently grounded legend says that he was that

child whom our Lord had called and placed before His disciples as the

model of those who should enter into His kingdom. He was at least so near

in time to Christ that this could be said of him. He is the bishop of

Antioch; he is on his way to be thrown to the beasts in the Colosseum at

Rome;(158) he is welcomed on his way by church after church, and he sees

and describes the bishops, in their several boundaries through the earth,

as each maintaining the mind of Christ in the unity of his Body.

Such is the Church merely stated as a fact towards the beginning of the

second century.

And the trial which in these sixty years the Church was going through was

well calculated to test her constitution. It is against the spread of

false doctrine that S. Ignatius in these epistles so constantly appeals,

to the unity of the faithful among each other.(159) He warns them to use

only Christian nourishment, and to abstain from strange food, which is

heresy.(160) The Church was then continually receiving into her bosom

converts at all ages of life, some from the Jews, many more from the

Gentiles; among these, therefore, minds brought up in Jewish prejudices,

and others which had run havoc in eastern superstitions and systems of

philosophy. In the course of these sixty years she probably multiplied

many times over in number; and the multiplication was rather by the

accession of adults than by the education of children born of Christian

parents. The Church was composed of a small minority of the general

population scattered at wide intervals over an immense empire; and, so far

from being assisted by the civil power, was under constant persecution

from it. Whatever force her spiritual government possessed could be

exercised only by the voluntary submission of her members. Let us weigh

the fact that, under these circumstances, a number of heresies arose. Some

were of Jewish, some of Gentile parentage. But we are not here concerned

either with their cause or with their matter: we dwell at present only on

the fact of their existence. In number they were many; in character most

diverse; they arose and flourished in different places. Hardly anywhere

was the Church free from them. Let us ask only one question here: by what

power were they resisted? The human mind had then the fullest liberty of

action in Christians. It was by a free choice—a choice accompanied with

danger, and persisted in through suffering—that men became Christians. The

liberty which men exercised in becoming Christians they could use further

against Christian doctrine, by innovating; by mixing it up with other

doctrines, with which, perhaps, their minds had been familiar before their

conversion; by developing it after their own fashion. The desire of fame,

the self-will of genius, the mere luxury of thought, would offer a

continual temptation to such a course. Many, from one motive or another,

fell into it. The question which we repeat is, what power prevented the

one Church from breaking up under this process of free thought into

fragments? These heresies began even while the Apostles were teaching. S.

Peter, S. Paul, and S. John speak strongly against them. They swarm in the

two generations succeeding the death of S. John. How is it that, at the

accession of Marcus Aurelius, Christians having passed the limits of the

empire, and being found so far as the wandering tribes of the north, there

is still one Church, surrounded, indeed, by a multitude of sects,

differing from her and from each other, but herself distinguished and

unmistakable among them all? We think the epistles of S. Ignatius furnish

us with a reply to this question. As we have seen above, he views the

Church in each place as a community closely bound together under a

spiritual government which is summed up in the bishop, while the bishops

in their several dioceses are as closely linked to each other, and all

form one society, wherein is Jesus Christ. And these two truths are not

separated from each other, but the unity of the part is deduced from the

unity of the whole, and is subordinate to it. See, first, with what force

he states the unity of the diocese.(161) “Avoid divisions, as the

beginning of evils. Follow all of you the bishop as Jesus Christ the

Father, and the presbytery as the Apostles, and reverence the deacons as

God’s command. Let no one without the bishop do aught of what appertains

to the Church. Let that be deemed a sure Eucharist which is under the

bishop, or under him who has the bishop’s authority for it. Wherever the

bishop appears, there let the multitude (of the faithful) be.” But this

strict unity of the diocese is derived from that of the whole Church; for

he adds as the reason of the foregoing, “just as wherever Jesus Christ is,

there is the Catholic Church.”(162) This is the first time when the word

“catholic” is known to be used, and it is applied to the Church as its

distinctive character, to convey the two attributes of unity and

universality, in connection with the Person of Christ, exactly as it has

been used, an unique term for an unique object, from that day to this. S.

Ignatius further views the Church in each place as having one faith; and

not only so, but the same faith in every place; one faith at Antioch, one

at Rome, one at every city between them, beyond them, around them. Here,

then, is a double unity, inward and outward. As the double unity of body

and spirit makes the man, so the double unity of government and of faith

makes the Church. As neither mind nor body alone make the man, so neither

faith nor government alone make the Church, but the coherence of both. The

Incarnation is the joining a human soul and body with the Person of the

Divine Word; after which pattern the Church, which is His special

creation, is the joining of one faith and one government in a moral unity.

It is by this force, by the same hierarchy everywhere guarding the same

faith, by the principle of authority and tradition planted in this one

living organisation throughout the earth, that the attacks of heresy are

everywhere resisted. What S. Paul(163) lays down in dogma, history

exhibits in fact. A hundred years after his words are written, the Church

has stretched her limits beyond the empire, has multiplied incessantly,

has been attacked by a crowd of heresies striving to adulterate her

doctrine, and has cast them out of her by this double unity of her faith

and her government, and so is one Body and one Spirit. Her victory lies

not in being without heresies, but in standing among them as a contrast

and a condemnation.

The solidity of internal organisation, and the definiteness of the One

Faith which animated it, kept pace with the material increase of numbers.

At the expiration of this period it is probable that among all the

contemporaries and immediate disciples of the Apostles one only of high

rank remained, that Polykarp, joint-hearer with Ignatius of S. John, and

to whom in his passage the martyr addressed a letter as well as to his

Church; whose own letter written at the time of the martyr’s combat, and

commemorating the wonderful patience therein shown forth, is yet extant.

But in the mean time in every Church the transmission of authoritative

teaching passed to those who had grown up themselves in the bishop’s

council—his presbytery, which Ignatius loved to represent as being to each

bishop what the Council of Apostles was to their Lord. And as the death of

Apostles themselves had caused no break in this living chain, so the

gradual departure of their immediate disciples was made up by the careful

handing-on of the same deposit, lodged securely in its receptacle, the

succession of men, which carried on the teaching office of the

Church.(164)

In the mean time, what was the attitude of the empire to the Christian

Faith under Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius? Domitian’s reign had

ended in active persecution, to which Nerva had put a stop on his

accession.(165) But though Domitian’s edicts had been reversed, like those

of Nero, one of the most ancient laws of the Roman empire forbad the

worship of any god not approved by the Senate.(166) This, as we have said

above, was the sword perpetually suspended over the heads of Christians,

without any fresh action on the part of the emperors. By virtue of this,

even when it was forbidden to accuse them, yet if they were brought before

justice it was forbidden to absolve them.(167) And even senators,(168) if

accused, were not exempt from this severity. We find Trajan acting upon

this law in the year 111, when Pliny, being governor of Bithynia, brings

expressly the case of the Christians before him. And the terms in which he

does this show at once the temper of the Roman magistrate in such cases

and the state of the law.

“I have never been present,” he says, “at the trials of Christians, and

therefore do not know either the nature of their crime, or the degree of

the punishment, or how far examination should go. And I have been in great

hesitation whether age made any difference, or the tender should not be

distinguished from the strong; whether they should be pardoned upon

repentance, or, when once a man had been a Christian, ceasing to be so

should not profit him; or whether the mere profession without any crime,

or whether the crimes involved in the profession should be punished. In

the mean time, with regard to those brought before me as Christians, my

practice has been this: I asked them if they were Christians. If they

admitted it, I put the question a second and a third time, threatening

them with death. If they persevered, I ordered them to be led away to

execution.(169) For whatever it was which they were confessing, I had no

doubt that stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy deserved punishment.

There were others of a like infatuation, but as being Roman citizens I

directed them to be sent to the city. Presently the crime spreading, from

being under prosecution, as is usual, several incidents happened. An

anonymous delation was sent in to me, containing the names of many who say

that they are not Christians, nor ever were. As at my instance they

invoked the gods, and made supplication with frankincense and wine to your

image, which I had ordered for that purpose to be brought, together with

the statues of the gods, and as moreover they reviled Christ, none of

which things, it is said, real Christians can be induced to do, I thought

they might be let go. Others, being accused by a witness, admitted that

they were Christians, and presently said that they had been, some three

years before, some many years, and some even twenty, but were no longer.

All venerated your image and the statues of the gods, and reviled Christ.

But they alleged that the utmost of their fault or error was this: They

were accustomed to meet before dawn on a stated day, and addressed

themselves in a certain form to Christ as to a god, binding themselves by

oath not to any crime, but not to commit theft, robbery, adultery, the

breaking of their word, or the refusal to restore a deposit. After this

they were wont to separate, and then reassemble to take a common and

harmless meal. This, however, they had ceased to do from the publication

of my edict forbidding, according to your command, private assemblies. I

therefore thought it the more necessary to examine into the truth by

putting to the torture two female slaves, who were said to be deaconesses

among them. I found, however, nothing but a perverse and immoderate

superstition, and so, adjourning the inquiry, I took refuge in consulting

you. For the matter seemed to me worthy of consultation, specially on

account of the number of those involved in danger. For many of every age,

every rank, both sexes, have been already, and will be endangered, since

the contagion of this superstition has spread not only through cities but

through villages and country. And it seems capable of being arrested and

corrected. At all events there is proof that the almost deserted temples

have begun to be frequented, and the long intermitted rites renewed, and

victims for sacrifice are found ready, whereof hitherto there were very

few purchasers. Hence it is easy to form an opinion what a number of

persons may be reclaimed if pardon be allowed.”(170)

To which the emperor replies: “You have pursued the right course, my dear

Secundus, in examining the causes of those delated to you as Christians.

For no universal rule can be laid down in a certain formula. They are not

to be searched after; but if brought before you and convicted, they must

be punished. Yet with this condition, that whoever denies himself to be a

Christian, and makes it plain in fact, that is, by supplicating our gods,

though he has been in past time suspected, shall obtain pardon for his

repentance. But anonymous delations must not be admitted for any

accusation. This is at once the very worst precedent, and unworthy of our

time.”

A great difficulty in tracing the progress of the Christian Faith in these

three centuries is that we possess nothing like a consecutive secular or

religious history of them. We only catch glimpses of what passes at

intervals. Incidents are recorded which, like a flash of lightning,

suddenly reveal the landscape and the actors. Such an incident is this

letter of Pliny to Trajan, and his reply. We have here the governor of a

province before whom Christians are brought as criminals. We find that if

they acknowledge their faith and persist in professing it, he sentences

them to death. But embarrassed by their numbers, and perplexed also by the

fact, that, save the profession of their faith, there appeared nothing

criminal in their conduct, he refers the matter to the emperor. The

emperor, no Nero or Domitian, but one renowned for his justice and

moderation, praises what the governor has done; pronounces that Christians

as such are guilty of a capital crime, and that Pliny was right in so

interpreting the existing law; that, however, it is not desirable to seek

them out; that even when brought before justice they are to be released if

they deny their faith, but that if they persist in it, they are to be

punished with death.

Here, then, is the law—an original law of Rome before the Christian Faith

began—under which the martyrs suffered at different times, throughout

every province and city, without anything which could be called a general

persecution on the part of the emperor directed to the destruction of the

whole religion. This perpetual liability to punishment might be called

into action anywhere in the empire for various causes. The first in time,

and one of the most constant, was the enmity of the Jews; then the dislike

of the heathens to Christians and their ways, which was further sharpened

by local calamities or distress irritating the mind of the population, or

by the jealousy of the heathen priests and worshippers at the desertion of

their temples. Then, again, there was the ascription to Christian

godlessness, as it was called, that is their refusal to acknowledge the

Roman gods, of famines, pestilences, and whatever troubled the popular

mind. To these we must add a copious harvest of private grudges, and a

host of calumnies, which seem now almost grotesque, but then found wide

belief. But it was the existence of such a law as this, acted on by Pliny

before he referred to the emperor, and confirmed by Trajan, that gave

force and effect to all these causes of persecution. And it would appear

that when Christians were brought before the magistrates, as guilty of the

Christian Faith, it was not in the magistrates’ power to decline hearing

the case, any more than any other accusation of sacrilege or treason, for

it had been determined that Christians were not a mere Jewish sect, and

therefore could not in security worship one God, as the Jews did. It was a

ruled point that their worship was unauthorised.

The practice of Trajan himself was in accordance with his answer to Pliny.

The very ancient and genuine acts of the martyrdom of S. Ignatius state

that having struggled with difficulty through the persecution of Domitian,

he had carefully governed his church of Antioch, grieving only that he had

not yet reached the rank of a perfect disciple by the sacrifice of his

life, for he considered that the confession which is made by martyrdom

brings into closer union with the Lord. Trajan then having come to the

East, full of exultation at the victories which he had gained, and

considering that the subjugation of the Christians was all that was

wanting to the perfect obedience of his empire, began to threaten them

with the alternative of sacrifice or death. Then Ignatius fearing for his

church caused himself to be brought before the emperor, and being in the

presence was thus addressed by him. “Who are you, evil spirit, who are

zealous to transgress our commands, besides persuading others to come to

an evil end?” Ignatius replied, “No one calls the bearer of God an evil

spirit, for the demons fly away from the servants of God. But if you mean

that I am a trouble to these, and so call me evil to them, I admit it, for

having Christ my Heavenly King, I continually dissolve their plots.”

Trajan said, “Who is a bearer of God?” Ignatius replied, “He who has

Christ in his breast.” Trajan said, “We then appear to you not to have

gods in our minds, whom we use to help us against our enemies.” Ignatius

answered, “You in your error call gods the demons of the nations, for

there is one God who made the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and all that

is in them; and one Christ Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, of whose

friendship may I partake.” Trajan said, “You mean him who was crucified

under Pontius Pilate?” Ignatius answered, “Him who crucifies my sin, with

its inventor, and condemns all the error and the malice of the demons

under the feet of those who carry him in their heart.” Trajan said, “You

then carry the Crucified in your heart?” Ignatius replied, “Yes; for it is

written, I will dwell in them, and walk in them.” Trajan gave sentence:

“It is our command that Ignatius, who says that he carries the crucified

one about in him, be taken in chains by soldiers to the great Rome to

become the food of wild beasts, for the pleasure of the people.” The holy

martyr, when he heard this sentence, cried out with joy, “I thank Thee, O

Lord, who hast thought me worthy to be honoured with perfect charity

towards Thee, and to be bound in iron chains together with Thy Apostle

Paul.”(171)

So, with great eagerness and joy, through desire of his passion, having

commended his church to God, he set out on that long journey, “fighting,

as he says, with wild beasts all the way from Syria to Rome, over land and

sea, by day and by night,” a captive under sentence of death, in the hands

of soldiers, but receiving at each city a deputation from the bishop and

people, who came forth to honour him as their champion. And he has but one

anxiety, expressed again and again in that fervent letter to the Roman

Christians, that they should not by their prayers intercept his martyrdom.

“I entreat you not to be untimely kind to me. Suffer me to be the food of

the beasts, since by them I may enjoy God. I am God’s grain: let me be

ground by their teeth, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ:”(172)

and then, presently, “I do not command you, as Peter and Paul;” thus

giving an incidental but most powerful witness of the special relation

which those Apostles bore to the Roman Church.

And it may be remarked that while he has words of honour, praise, and

affection for the other five churches which he addresses, yet in speaking

of Rome his heart overflows with emotion. Upon this church he pours out

epithet upon epithet, as “the beloved and enlightened in the will of Him

who has willed all things which are according to the charity of Jesus

Christ our God,” whose people are “united to every command of His in flesh

and spirit, filled undividedly with the grace of God, and thoroughly

cleansed from every spot of foreign doctrine.” She is not only the Church

“which presides in the fortress of Roman power,” but likewise, “worthy of

God, and of all honour and blessing and praise, worthy to receive that

which she wishes, chaste, bearing the name of Christ and the name of the

Father, and presiding over charity.” What is the meaning of this last

phrase? As she presides in the fortress of Roman power, so she presides

over charity. May we thus interpret the mind of the martyr? God in His

Triune Being is Charity; the Holy Spirit, the ineffable embrace of the

Father and His Image, their Love, or Delight, or Joy, or Blessedness, or

whatever human name we may dare to give to what is most divine, is

charity: by charity God became man; charity is the individual Christian’s

state; charity makes men one in the Body of the God-man; charity is the

condition of angels and men in the great kingdom to come, the God-formed

kingdom. Thus charity is the distinctive mark of the Christian religion,

that from which it springs, that which it is, that which it points to, and

in which it will be consummated. When, then, S. Ignatius said of the Roman

Church, using the same word in one sentence,(173) that as she presided

over the country of the Romans, so she presided over charity, does he not

with equal delicacy and emphasis indicate her primacy? she presides over

that in which the Unity of the Church consists, in which its truth, its

grace, and its holiness coinhere.

The desire of the martyr was accomplished: he reached Rome on the last day

of the great games, and was thrown in the Colosseum before the beasts,

which, according to his repeated prayers, so entirely devoured him that

only the greater bones remained. These, says the contemporary account, “a

priceless treasure,” were carried back to Antioch. Somewhat less than

three hundred years afterwards S. Chrysostom, preaching on his day in his

city, thus speaks of him: “It was a divine benefaction to bring him back

again to us, and to distribute the martyr to the cities:—Rome received his

dripping blood, but you are honoured with his relics.—From that time he

enriches your city, and like a perpetual treasure, drawn upon every day

and never failing, gives his bounty to all. So this happy Ignatius,

blessing all that come to him, sends them home full of confidence, bold

resolution, and fortitude. Not, then, to-day only but every day go to him,

reaping spiritual fruits from him. For, indeed, he who comes hither with

faith may reap great goods. Not the bodies only, but the very coffins of

the saints are full of spiritual grace. For if in the case of Eliseus this

happened, and the dead man who touched his bier broke through the bonds of

death, how much more now, when grace is more abundant, and the energy of

the Spirit fuller?—So, I beseech you, if any one be in despondency, in

sickness, in the depth of sin, in any circumstance of life, to come here

with faith, and he will put off all these.”(174)

Before S. Ignatius reached that completion of his faith to which he

aspired, he was cheered with the account that his sacrifice had produced

its effect, and peace had been restored to his church, with the

completeness of its body.(175)

Now in all this—in Pliny’s conduct as governor, in his reference to

Trajan, in the emperor’s reply, in his treatment of S. Ignatius, and in

the restoration of peace afterwards—there is, we conceive, a very exact

sample of what the position of Christians was in Trajan’s time. His answer

ruled the question of Roman law for the following two hundred years. It

declared the profession of Christianity to be illicit and a capital

offence; but to call this law into action, or to leave it suspended as a

threat over the heads of Christians, was a matter of expedience. When the

latter took place, the churches were said to be at peace; when the former,

a persecution was said to rage; but at any time and place an individual

might suffer; while on the other hand a persecution directed to root out

the whole Christian name was not yet thought of.

And this state of things seems to continue through Hadrian’s principate.

In his first year, Alexander, fifth successor of S. Peter at Rome, having

been imprisoned under Trajan, suffers martyrdom; It would seem as if the

same hand had struck down about the same time the heads of the two great

churches of Rome and Antioch, the first and the third in rank, and perhaps

ordered the execution of the bishop of Antioch at Rome, with that of the

Roman bishop, in order to give greater force to the example.(176) Many

other martyrs at Rome and in the north of Italy are found at this time. It

is not at all necessary to suppose the personal action of Hadrian in

these.

After this he was engaged during fifteen years in those splendid

progresses, in which he examined personally every part of his vast empire,

from its northern frontier between Carlisle and Newcastle to the

Euphrates. While he was so engaged, the governors of the various provinces

would apply the existing law in the cases brought before them. He would

have had to interfere, and that with the whole weight of the imperial arm,

if he wished to check the course of the law. We have, however, recorded

the most interesting fact that when he was at Athens in the year 126,

Christians for the first time approached a Roman emperor with a public

defence of their doctrines, and a persecution is said to have been stopped

by the apologies which Quadratus and Aristides presented to him. Perhaps

the rescript to Minucius Fundanus, proconsul of the province of Asia,

which Justin has preserved, was a result of this. It runs thus: “I have

received the letter written to me by your predecessor, the noble Serenius

Granianus. And indeed it seems to me that that affair should not be passed

by without a diligent examination, in order that Christians may not be

disturbed, nor an occasion of false accusation be opened to informers. If,

then, the provincials can present themselves openly with their petitions

against Christians, so as to answer before the tribunal, let them do that,

and not betake themselves to mere requests and outcries. It would be much

more just that you should take cognisance of the matter, if any one be

willing to accuse. If, then, any one denounce them, and prove that they

are doing anything illegal, sentence them according to the gravity of the

crime. But, by Hercules, if it be a mere false accusation, punish the

informer according to its importance.”

Here would seem to be a considerable modification of Trajan’s rescript.

The profession of Christianity is not taken by itself as a capital

offence. Proof must be given that something illegal has been committed. So

far it approaches to an act of toleration. It plainly discourages

anonymous and malicious attacks. But on the other hand it was not

difficult to show that Christians did commit something illegal. Any real

accuser bringing them before the tribunal could prove by their own

testimony that they declared the gods worshipped by the Romans to be

demons, while they refused to swear by the emperor’s genius. Thus,

favourable as this decree was to them, it fell far short of declaring

their religion to be allowable.

And the same emperor who could thus write, whose curiosity made him

acquainted with all the religious sects of his empire, whose temper, as an

exceedingly accomplished man, having the widest experience of men and

things, and ruling an empire of the most diverse races with the most

various religions, led him to an eclectic indifference, and so far

toleration of all, yet showed by his personal conduct at a later period of

his life how he would treat the profession of the Christian Faith if it

thwarted a ruling desire. When, after fifteen years of incessant travel,

study, and observation, he returned to Rome, and had enclosed at Tivoli a

space of eight miles in circumference, adorned with copies of the most

beautiful temples in his wide dominion, he offered sacrifices and

consulted the gods as to the duration of his work; but he received for

answer that the gods who inhabited their images were tormented by the

prayers which the widow Symphorosa and her seven sons offered daily to

their God.(177) If she and her children would sacrifice, they promised to

grant all his demands. Upon this Hadrian ordered Symphorosa and her seven

sons to be brought before him, and endeavoured by kind words to bring them

to sacrifice. She replied, “It was for not consenting to what you ask that

my husband Gætulius and his brother Amantius, both tribunes in your army,

suffered various tortures, and, like generous champions, overcame your

demons by a glorious death. If their death was shameful before men, it was

honourable in the sight of the angels, and now they are crowned with

immortal light. They live in heaven, and follow everywhere the King who

reigns there, covered with glory by the trophies they have gained in dying

for Him.” Hadrian, stung by this reply, could not contain himself, but

said: “Either sacrifice this instant to the immortal gods, or I will

myself sacrifice you with your children to these gods whom you despise.”

“And how should I be so happy,” said Symphorosa, “as to be worthy with my

children to be sacrificed to my God?” “I tell you,” said Hadrian, “I will

have you sacrificed to my gods.” “Your gods,” replied she, “cannot receive

me in sacrifice. I am not a victim for them; but if you order me to be

burnt for the name of Christ my God, know that the fire which consumes me

will only increase their punishment.” “Choose, I tell you,” said the

emperor; “sacrifice or die.” “You think, doubtless, to frighten me,”

rejoined Symphorosa; “but I desire to be at rest with my husband, whom you

put to death for the name of Christ.” Then the emperor ordered her to be

taken before the temple of Hercules, to be struck in the face, and hung up

by her hair. But finding that these torments only served to strengthen her

in the faith, he had her thrown into the Anio. Her brother Eugenius, being

one of the chief men at Tibur, drew her body from the water, and buried

her in the suburbs of the town.

The next day Hadrian ordered the seven sons of Symphorosa to be brought

before him. And, seeing that neither his threats nor his promises, nor the

exhibition of the most fearful punishments, could shake their constancy,

nor induce them to sacrifice to idols, he caused seven poles to be planted

round the temple of Hercules, on which they were raised by pulleys. Then

Crescentius, the eldest, had his throat cut; Julian, the second, was run

through the breast; Nemesius was struck in the heart; Primitivus in the

stomach; Justin in the back; Stactæus in the side; while the youngest,

Eugenius, was cleft to the middle.

The day following the death of these brethren Hadrian came to the temple

and ordered their bodies to be removed, and to be cast into a deep hole.

The priests and sacrificers of the temple called this spot the place of

the Seven Executed. Their blood stopped the persecution, which was only

rekindled eighteen months afterwards.(178)

As the rescript to Minucius Fundanus did not prevent the emperor from thus

acting, neither was it an obstacle to such an incident as this occurring

in any part of the empire.

That it was so likewise in the principate of his successor, of all down to

this period the most tranquil and the least persecuting, we have strong

and clear evidence in the earliest of the extant apologies, that of Justin

Martyr, presented to the emperor Antoninus Pius about the year 150. He who

would breathe the atmosphere in which the early Christians lived will find

it in this work of a distinguished convert from heathen philosophy, which

is the more interesting as being composed at a moment when the empire

seems to have reached its highest point, and the ruler of it was its most

moderate spirit. We may cite a few passages bearing on the condition of

Christians.

“To the Emperor Titus Ælius Adrianus Antoninus Pius Augustus Cæsar, and to

his son Verissimus the Philosopher, and to Lucius the Philosopher, son of

Cæsar by birth, and of Pius by adoption, the lover of learning, and to the

sacred Senate, and to all the Roman people, in behalf of those out of

every race of men who are unjustly hated and persecuted, I, that am one of

such myself, Justin, son of Priscus, and grandson of Baccheius, natives of

Flavia Neapolis, of Palestine, in Syria, offer this address and

supplication.

“Reason dictates that those who are really pious and philosophers should

love and honour truth alone, declining to follow the opinions of the

ancients if they be corrupt. For right reason not only forbids us to

assent to those who are unjust either in practice or in principle, but

commands the lover of truth to choose that which is just in word and deed

in every way, even before his own life, and with death threatening him.

Now you hear yourselves called on all sides Pious, Philosophers, Guardians

of Justice, and Lovers of Learning; but, whether you be such in truth, the

event will show. For we have come before you, not to flatter you in this

address, nor to gain your favour, but to demand of you to pass judgment

according to strict and well-weighed reason, not influenced by prejudice,

nor by the desire of pleasing superstitious men, nor by inconsiderate

passion, nor by the long prevalence of an evil report, in giving a

sentence which would turn against yourselves. For, as to us, we are fully

persuaded that we can suffer no injury from anyone, unless we be found

guilty of some wickedness, or proved to be bad men; and, as to you, kill

us you may, but hurt us you cannot.(179)

“We ask, then, that the actions of those who are accused before you may be

examined, that he who is convicted may be punished as an evildoer, but not

as a Christian. And, if anyone appears to be innocent, that he may be

dismissed as a Christian who has done no evil. For we do not require you

to punish our accusers: they are sufficiently recompensed by their own

malice, and their ignorance of what is good. Moreover, bear in mind that

it is for your sakes that we thus speak, since it is in our power to deny

when we are questioned. But we choose not to live by falsehood.(180)

“And you, when you hear that we are expecting a kingdom, rashly conceive

that we mean a human one, whereas we speak of that with God, as is evident

even from those who are under examination by you confessing that they are

Christians, whilst they know that death is the penalty of the confession.

For if we expected a human kingdom, we should deny in order to obtain our

expectations; but, since our hopes are not of the present, we do not

regard those who kill us, knowing that death is an inevitable debt to

all.(181)

“We adore God only, but in all other matters joyfully serve you,

confessing that you are kings and rulers, and praying that you may be

found to possess, together with your royal power, a sound and discerning

mind. If, however, notwithstanding that we thus pray and openly lay

everything before you, you treat us with contempt, we shall receive no

injury; believing, or rather, being convinced, that every one, if his

deeds shall so deserve, shall receive the punishment of eternal fire, and

that an account will be required of him in proportion to the powers which

he has received from God, as Christ has declared in those words, ‘To

whomsoever God has given much, of him shall be much required.’(182)

“Though death be the penalty to those who teach or even who confess the

name of Christ, we everywhere accept it, and teach it. And if you as

enemies meet these words, you can do no more, as we have already said,

than kill us, which brings no hurt to us, but to you, and to all who hate

unjustly, and do not repent, the chastisement of eternal fire.”(183)

And his concluding words are: “If now what we have said appears to be

reasonable and true, honour it accordingly; but if folly, despise it as

foolish; yet pass not sentence of death against those as enemies, who have

done no evil. For we tell you beforehand that you will not escape the

future judgment of God, if you continue in injustice, and we shall cry,

Let the will of God be done.”(184)

Such then is the testimony of a Christian as to the way in which the

confessors of his religion were treated; and it is corroborated by that of

the heathen philosopher Celsus, who writes his books against Christianity

about this time, and imputes the secrecy practised by Christians in their

teaching and their actions to their attempts to escape the punishment of

death hanging over their heads.(185) And again having put into the mouth

of Christians the remark, that if they blaspheme or strike a statue of

Jupiter or Apollo, these gods cannot defend themselves, he subjoins: “Do

you not, then, see that your own demon is not merely blasphemed but

expelled from every land and sea, while you, his consecrated image,(186)

are chained, and led away to prison, and crucified; and the demon, or as

you call him, the Son of God, gives you no protection.” And in another

place, comparing Christians with Jews, to whom God had made so many

promises: “See,” he says, “what good has He done to them and to you? To

them, instead of being lords of all the earth, not a clod of soil or a

hearth remains;(187) while of you, if any one still wanders about in

hiding, yet justice pursues him with the doom of death.”

However, we know that at this time at least the bold words of Justin drew

down no punishment from Antoninus, and a rescript of this emperor, dated

about two years after the presentation of this first apology, has been

preserved, which is more favourable to Christians than that of Hadrian. It

is addressed to that province of Asia which contained so many flourishing

Christian churches, and which accordingly was so bitter against them. They

had written to complain of the Christians, and to accuse them as the cause

of the earthquakes which had happened. The emperor replies: “It was my

belief that the gods would take care that such men as you describe should

not escape. For much rather would they, if they could, punish such as will

not worship them. Now these men you are annoying, and accusing their

opinion as atheistical, and charging them with sundry other things which

we cannot prove. Yet it would be serviceable to them to seem to meet their

death for such an accusation; and they surpass you in giving up their

lives rather than comply with what you call upon them to do. But as to the

earthquakes which have happened or are happening now, it is not reasonable

that you should mention them, you who lose heart when they take place,

comparing your conduct with theirs, who have more confidence than you

towards God. And you indeed in such a time seem to have no knowledge of

the gods, and neglect the temples, and know nothing of worshipping God;

whence it is that you are jealous of those who do worship him, and that

you persecute them to death. Respecting such men various other rulers of

provinces wrote to my divine father, and his reply was, not to trouble

such men, except they appear to be contriving something against the Roman

empire. Many too have referred to me about such, and my reply was in

agreement to my father’s decision. Now if anyone has an accusation to

bring against such a one as such, let the accused be released from the

charge, even though he appear to be such, and let the accuser be

punished.”(188)

Here we reach the highest point of toleration which Christians received in

the first 130 years. Instead of Trajan’s somewhat reluctant order to

punish Christians as Christians, when once convicted, instead of Hadrian’s

decision that something contrary to Roman law must be proved against them,

Antoninus, while quoting the latter, goes far beyond it, and lays down

that as Christians they were blameless, and were only to be punished in

case some hostility to the Roman empire could be proved in their conduct.

Moreover, their accuser was to be punished. And this rescript being

repeated to several places, amounted to an assurance that Christians

should be left in tranquillity during the principate of Pius.

Putting ourselves into the position of a Roman emperor at this middle of

the second century, let us endeavour to form a notion of what Christianity

would appear to him. In the first place, he who had all the threads of

Roman organisation gathered in his hand, would certainly recognise it as a

sect spread throughout the empire, the Jewish origin of which was known to

him, and the author as one crucified by order of a Roman governor under

Tiberius.(189) Yet he would hardly distinguish accurately the Church from

the different heresies which everywhere sprang up around it, holding more

or less of its doctrines and mixing them up with corruptions and

abuses.(190) And it would scarcely appear to him as a power in the State,

either from its numbers or the influence of the people belonging to it;

yet on the other hand it would appear as something not inconsiderable in

either of these respects. Moreover, we may suppose it would come before

him as a _belief_, and not as an _institution_. It had as yet no public

churches.(191) A heathen would say of Christians at this time that they

had no temples, altars, or statues;(192) no ceremonial worship, for he

could not, as a heathen, get admittance to Christian rites, which moreover

were carried on in private houses, and carefully concealed. The emperor

would be well aware that Christians had rulers of their own;(193) it was

as such that Trajan had fixed upon the bishop third in rank among

Christian communities for punishment the most severe and degrading, to be

thrown as food for wild beasts, for the pleasure of the people. But

nevertheless, the internal constitution of the Church would lie hidden

from him: the link which bound together the bishops of the various local

communities, and so formed the Catholicism of the Church, would be quite

invisible to all outside. Jealous as Trajan was of secret societies, so

that he could hardly tolerate a guild of firemen in a provincial town, he

had no suspicion of a society which had become even in his time

conterminous with his empire, and was bound together not only by the

profession of one faith, but by the living links of one government. Nor,

fifty years later, could Antoninus have had any such knowledge. The

persecution which we have seen arose from simpler causes; the faith of

Christians in one God who had made heaven and earth, and in one Son of God

who had become Man and redeemed them, and with this, and indeed as part of

this, their summary rejection, their utter intolerance of all the heathen

gods; this it was that had drawn down the Roman sword upon them in answer

to the popular cry,(194) Away with the godless! And again, their standing

aloof from heathen life, their refusal to take part in heathen festivals,

their withdrawal as far as possible from all public concerns: this was

part of the hatred of the human race imputed to them, which made them

objects of suspicion first, and then, when any special excitement arose,

of persecution. These peculiarities also, and the secrecy with which their

worship was necessarily conducted because it was not allowed, had led to

calumnies concerning them, imputing the grossest immorality as well as

cruelty.

The apologies of Quadratus, Aristides, and Justin, were probably the first

connected revelation of the Christian doctrines which the emperor could

have; but these would be very far from conveying to him the character of

the Church as an institution. They were intended to obviate the

persecutions arising from the causes above described, to show the purity

of Christian morality, the reasonableness of Christian belief, the

fidelity of Christian sentiment to the imperial rule as established by a

divine providence. They were not in the least intended to lay before him

the Christian Church as a whole. Thus Justin, replying to the accusation

that they were expecting a kingdom, says, “You rashly conceive that we

mean a human one, whereas we speak of that with God.” We may then, it

seems, conclude with certainty that Antoninus was only partially aware of

what Christianity was. That discipline of the secret, which was itself the

result of persecution—of the Christian Faith having to make itself a place

in a world utterly opposed to it,—became at once its protection, and the

cause of further persecution; of persecution, in so far as it put

Christians under general suspicion, but of protection, inasmuch as it

covered with a veil that complete moral revolution to which the Christian

Faith was tending from the first, and towards which it was continually

advancing. Could Trajan have foreseen what was apparent under Constantine,

his treatment of Christians would have had no forbearance or hesitation in

it, his blows no intermission or doubtfulness. As it is, up to the time we

are now considering, there are no traces of a general persecution against

the Christian name organised by the emperor as head of the State. There

are numberless local and individual persecutions starting up in this city

and in that, and arising from the fundamental contrariety of Christian

belief to the existing heathen worship and the ordinary heathen life. Such

we have and no more. And so a great host of martyrs in single combat won

their crown. But the emperor did not set himself to destroy a unity which

he did not see.

Now as to the character in Christians which their condition in these

hundred and thirty years tended to produce, we can form a clear

conclusion. Of the relative proportion of actual martyrs to the whole mass

of believers, we can indeed have no accurate notion; but it is plain that

all were liable to suffering as Christians in every various degree up to

that ultimate point of witnessing by death. Thus the acceptance of the

Christian Faith itself involved at least the spirit of confession, if not

that of martyrdom. A man lived for years, perhaps a whole generation, with

the prospect of suffering, which it may be never came, or came as the

crown of a long period in which heroic virtues had been called forth. Thus

S. Ignatius had been more than forty years bishop of Antioch, and had

carried his church hardly through the bad times of Domitian, when he

gained at last what he deemed perfect union with his Lord, by being ground

under the teeth of lions, as “the pure bread of God.” What is here

expressed with so sublime a confidence by one actual martyr, must have

made the tissue of Christian life in general. Those early disciples of the

cross put in the cross their victory. The habitual danger which hung about

their life must have scared away the timid, the insincere, the

half-hearted. Yet alternations of peace rapidly succeeded times of

suffering. Throughout these hundred and thirty years there is no

long-continued even local persecution. Breathing-times of comparative

tranquillity come, wherein Christians can grow, propagate, and mature for

the conflict which may at any time arise. Thus while the opposition made

to the infant faith is quite sufficient to have destroyed an untrue

religion, born of earth or human device, to have scattered and eradicated

its professors, it was precisely what would favour the real advance of a

faith rooted upon a suffering God, and in which suffering with Him was

made the means of union with Him.

And here we halt at the accession of Marcus Aurelius, as a middle point

between the day of Pentecost and the time of Constantine.