Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria (quoted in Euseb. _H. E._ vii. 10),

writing of the favourable disposition of the Emperor Valerian towards

Christians in the earlier part of his reign, A.D. 253, says:

“All his house (court) was filled with pious persons; it was indeed a

congregation of the Lord.”

In the first part of Diocletian’s reign, A.D. 284-96, the

court of Nicomedia was in great measure composed of Christians; the

wife and daughter of the Emperor were believers.

From this chain of references to the presence of Christians in the

imperial court from the days of S. Paul to the latter years of the

third century, we are compelled to conclude that large allowances

on the part of the Emperor were not unfrequently made to the sect,

and even that not a few concessions outwardly to take part in the

ceremonies of official paganism must have been allowed to the Christian

courtier all through the period when Christianity was an unlawful and

forbidden religion.

In the army a similar spirit of mutual allowance and concession must

have been often shown. It is clear that from the very first there were

not a few Christian soldiers in the Legions. There must have been

many cases in which the superior officers connived at the scruples of

Christian soldiers; while, on the other hand, the Christian Legionary

must have consented generally to share in the more public and official

ceremonies in which the old worship of the gods was inextricably mixed

up. Nowhere were the difficulties, however, for believers more acute

than in the army, and the slightest ill-will or pagan bigotry on the

part of the superior officer made the position of a Christian soldier

absolutely untenable even when the soldier belonged to what we have

termed the gentler and more accommodating school of Christian teaching.

Martyrs in the army, it has been noticed, were relatively more numerous

than in the civil callings.[81]

The civil service contained undoubtedly many Christians in the early

centuries of the era; see Aristides (_Apol._ xv.), who, writing of

Christians, says: “Where they are judges they judge righteously.”

Tertullian refers to the presence of Christians in all ranks, and

states how “they could be found in the palace, in the Senate, and

in the Forum” (_Ad. Nat._ i. 1 and _Apol._ i.). Cyprian, Ep. lxxx.

1, and other early authorities could be quoted here. Eus. _H. E._

viii. 1, specially mentions how provinces were occasionally ruled by

Christian governors, and calls attention to a Phrygian city whose whole

population including officials were Christians. He was writing of the

last years of the third century. Such Christian officials must have

had great allowances made to them, and they must have often availed

themselves of the licence permitted to believers on the occasion

of purely State ceremonials, which were literally permeated with

references to the old State religion.

Instances and examples from the Old Testament books were adduced by

the teachers of the gentler school of Christian life in support of the

allowances made to believers to retain their court appointments and

civil service offices, and to carry on their professions in spite of

the idolatrous associations connected with these offices and callings.

Great saints such as Daniel--revered patriarchs such as Joseph--had

been ministers of mighty idol-worshipping sovereigns, and must have

been present at and given a certain countenance to official pagan

ceremonies. Naaman, the eminent servant of the King of Syria, after he

had accepted the worship of the God of Israel, even asked the great

prophet Elisha permission to accompany his royal master into the temple

of the god Rimmon, and to pay obeisance to the Syrian idol on State

occasions; and asked that he might be forgiven for this apparent act of

idolatry. In reply, Elisha simply bade him “go in peace” (2 Kings v.

18-19).

But in spite of these kindly allowances, these gentler rules and

directions, the condition of Christians, even for those, and they

certainly were in the majority, who followed the teaching of the more

kindly and lenient school, was very hard and difficult. In the family

life--in public life, the searchings of heart of a true believer must

have been often very acute and distressing, and their position most

precarious; and in those times when a wave of pagan fanaticism swept

over the imperial court, the province, or the city, no maxims of

earthly prudence and caution, however carefully followed out, would

have been able to save them from prosecution; and prosecution was

invariably followed by the breaking up of their homes, by rigorous

imprisonment, confiscation of their property, loss of rank and

position, too often by torture and death.

To turn once more to the sterner and smaller school of “Rigourists,”

for these, after all, were “les âmes d’élite” of the Christians in the

first three centuries; in later times such men and women possibly were

termed fanatics, they have been often branded as wild and unpractical

persons; but it was to these heroic souls after all that in great

measure Christianity owed its final victory.

The wonderful and rapid spread of Christianity noticeable after the

Milan toleration Edict of Constantine, A.D. 313, has often

been commented upon with surprise. From being a persecuted and despised

cult, Christianity became, long before the fourth century had run

its course, _the religion_ of the Empire; it had previously gained

evidently the hearts of the people in well-nigh all the provinces of

the mighty Empire.

Now no imperial edicts--no mere favour and patronage of the Emperor and

his court, could ever have won for Christianity that widespread and

general acceptance among the people so noticeable within fifty years of

the Milan proclamation of Constantine.[82] _Something_ more was needed.

For a little over two hundred years the Christians had been sowing

the seeds of a new and nobler view of life--“it had gradually taught

the supreme sanctity of love--it had presented an ideal destined for

centuries to draw around it all that was greatest as well as all that

was noblest on earth; and one great cause of its success was that it

produced more heroic actions and formed more upright men than any other

creed.... Noble lives crowned by heroic deaths were the best arguments

of the infant Church.”[83]

There is no doubt but that a deep impression had been gradually

made upon the masses (_i.e._ the people generally of the Empire) by

the undaunted behaviour under suffering, of the confessors in the

two centuries which followed the death of Peter and Paul; and this

impression was deepened by the events connected with the last terrible

persecution of Diocletian. The extent of this last onslaught, the awful

severity of its edicts, the fearful thoroughness with which these

edicts were carried out, the numbers, the constancy and brave patience

of the confessors, went home to the hearts of the indifferent; it

affected even the enemies of the Church, and brought about a complete

revulsion of feeling towards the once hated and despised sect.

And it must be remembered that the examples of the marvellous endurance

of suffering, the constancy, the brave patience, the heroic deaths,

were drawn in a vast majority of conspicuous cases from the school of

Rigourists, from that company of men and women of intense, perhaps of

exaggerated earnestness, who listened to and obeyed the burning words

of a Tertullian or an Hippolytus, rather than to the gentler counsels

of a Minucius Felix and the teachers who pointed out to Christians a

way of living in the world which only rarely required such tremendous

sacrifices as home and family, career and profession, even life

itself--things very dear to men.

Surely no just historian would dare to speak slightingly of these

splendid lives of utter sacrifice of self, when he reflects on the

power which such lives have exercised over their fellow-men. The debt

which Christianity owes to this stern school of Rigourists is simply

measureless.

In the last half of the third century there arose a Christian poet--the

first great songman who had appeared since the famous singers of

the Augustan age had passed away. The popularity of Prudentius has

been enduring; for centuries in many lands his striking and original

poems have been read and re-read. Among his poems the most eagerly

sought after have been the hymns descriptive of and in praise of

the martyrs for the “Name’s” sake. These loved poems are known as

“_Peri-Stephanôn_”--the Book of the (Martyrs’) Crowns.

It is the halo of glory surrounding these martyrs or confessors that

especially strikes the historian. We see in these popular poems what a

profound, what a lasting impression the sufferings of the martyrs had

made on the peoples of the Roman Empire. The saint-sufferers, men or

women, became soon an object of something more than reverence.

The heroic personages of Prudentius belong to no one land, to no

solitary nationality. Nowhere was the truth of the well-known saying

that “the blood of the martyr was the seed of the Church” more

conspicuously exemplified than in the songs of Prudentius. It has been

remarked with great force and truth that in the burning lilts of this

great Spanish poet of the later years of the fourth century, we must

perforce recognize something more than the inspiration of a solitary

individual. We seem to hear in his impassioned words the echoes of the

voice of the people.[84]

VIII

WHAT THE RELIGION OF JESUS OFFERED IN RETURN FOR THE HARDSHIPS

CHRISTIANS HAD TO ENDURE IN THE EARLY CENTURIES

Such was the life of a Christian for nearly two hundred and fifty years

after the deaths of Peter and Paul at Rome.

For _all_, as we have urged, even for the majority who were disciples

of the gentler, less exacting school of teaching, but who generally

accepted the yoke and burden of Christ, the life must have been very

hard and difficult, at times even full of danger; while for _some_,

_i.e._, for the disciples of the school of “Rigourists,” so hard--so

austere--so full of nameless perils, that men now can scarcely credit

that any could really have lived so difficult, so painful a life--could

have listened to and striven in real earnest to obey such rules as the

great Rigourist master, Tertullian, laid down for the faithful; as, for

instance:

“Fast--because rigid fasting is a preparation for martyrdom; tortures

will have no material to work on; your dry skins will better resist the

iron claws; your blood, already exhausted, will flow less freely.”[85]

“Women, shun the marriage bond. To what purpose will you bear children,

seeing you are longing to be taken out of this sinful world, and you

are desirous to send your children before you[86] (to glory).”

“Ye women (take heed how you adorn yourselves), for I know not how

the wrist that is accustomed to the (gemmed) bracelet will endure the

roughness of the chain. I know not how the leg that has rejoiced in

the golden anklet will endure the harsh restraint of the iron fetters.

I fear the neck hung round with a chain of pearls and emeralds will

leave scanty room for the sword of the executioner.” “Dear sisters,

let us meditate on hardships, then when they come to us we shall not

feel them; let us give up luxuries and we shall not regret them; for

Christians now, remember, pass their time not in gold, but in iron. At

this moment are the angels weaving for you robes of martyrdom.”[87]

* * * * *

But in return for all this, Christianity offered much--in truth, a

splendid guerdon for the life of sacrifice. In the first place, the

Christian was delivered from the dread spectre which constantly haunted

the life of the pagan--_the fear of death_. Throughout life, sleeping

and waking, to the pagan of all ranks and orders, death was an enemy.

What the men of the pagan Empire in the early Christian centuries felt

in respect of the great universal foe--what they thought of it--is well

shown in the epitaphs on the pagan tombs of the first, second, and

third centuries.[88]

Complete freedom from this ever-present dread was the immediate reward

received by the believer: so far was death from being an enemy, that to

the Christian it appeared as the best and most longed for friend. Again

and again the Church was compelled to restrain rather than to encourage

candidates for martyrdom. From Paul, who wrote how “he desired to

depart and be with Christ, which was far better” (Phil. i. 23); from

Ignatius, whose passionate desire for a martyr’s death appears and

reappears, in his Letter to the Romans, in such words as “it is good

for me to die for Jesus Christ, rather than to reign over the farthest

bounds of the earth”; “Suffer me to receive the pure light when I

come thither, then I shall be a man indeed”; “Let me be an imitator

of the passion of my God” (_To the Romans_, vi.); from the thousand

epitaphs in the catacomb tombs, which we can still read, we gather this

knowledge--the absolute freedom of the Christian from that fear of

death which weighed so heavily upon all pagan society.

The very expressions used by the disciples of the first centuries

when speaking of the dread enemy,[89] bear curious witness to the new

relation of the believer to the ancient foe of man; they spoke of death

as “a passage into life”--as “a sleep.” The spot where the dead were

laid was now termed “a cemetery”--“a place of sleeping”; burial was

called “depositio”--the body laid up as it were in trust.

Cyprian the saintly, the martyr Bishop of Carthage, well voices

the feelings of Christians in the matter of death the friend:[90]

“Let us think what we mean when we speak of the presence of Christ

(after death), of the increasing hosts of our friends, the loved, the

reverenced, the sainted who are there. Cyprian cannot even mourn the

departed--he only misses them as friends gone on a long journey. He is

unable to bear the putting on black garments of mourning, in memory

of those who wear the fadeless white.” “Put the terror of death quite

away--think only of the deathlessness beyond.” “Let us greet the day

which gives to each of us his own country ... which restores us to

paradise. Who that has lived in foreign lands would not hasten to go

back to his own country?... We look on paradise as our country.”

The wondrous joy which came to the Christian in the assemblies we have

been picturing--the fact of the new Brotherhood--the feeling of the

presence of the Master in their midst, watching over them--has been

already dwelt upon at some length.

The blessed consciousness of _the forgiveness of all sin_, the

knowledge that in repentance and in prayer they could ever wash anew

their scarred robes white in the blood of the Lamb, was a source of

perpetual and ever-recurring joy to the earnest Christian. The doctrine

of the atonement ever would give them constant comfort and confidence

in all the difficulties and dangers of common everyday life--“Though

their sins were as scarlet they would become white as snow,” was an

ancient Hebrew saying of Isaiah. It was one of the precious treasures

inherited by the Christian from the Jewish Church. And in the sorely

harassed and tempted life of the world of Rome the words would be

often repeated by the believers, with the new striking Christian

addition--“when washed in the blood of the Lamb,” and the memory of the

beautiful saying would ever supply fresh courage for the conflict.

* * * * *

Perhaps the most powerful and sustaining of all the Christian beliefs,

the one that never for an instant was absent from their thoughts, was

the _hope_--aye, more than hope, the certainty that bliss indescribable

awaited the soul of the happy redeemed _the moment_ it quitted the

body--“To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise”--a wonderful promise,

indeed, of the Redeemer, which must have brought ineffable sweetness

and repose into thousands of storm-tossed hearts,--a promise which must

have made up for many a hard and painful struggle. The life so hard and

difficult--so full of dangers and perplexities--would soon come to an

end, and then _at once_ the beatific vision would be their guerdon, and

rest and peace and joy would be the portion of the redeemed souls for

ever.

Our picture of the inner life of the Christian in the early Christian

centuries would be incomplete were we not to allude to the influence,

perhaps scarcely recognised but ever at work, of portions of the

“Revelation” of S. John. Holding, of course, in the teaching of the

Christian masters a very different position to the Gospels, which, of

course, formed the authoritative basis of all Christian instruction,

the “Revelation” occupied a peculiar and singularly influential place

in the thoughts of the early harassed believers.

Many of the more mystical and obscure sections of that wonderful

composition which was very generally accepted as the work of the

beloved apostle, we may assume were little dwelt upon either in public

teaching or in private meditation; the mystic prophecies of the seer

were, comparatively speaking, but little read, and received then as

now different interpretations; but interspersed with these prophecies,

and not necessarily connected with them, occur passages of surpassing

beauty, in which pictures of the heaven-life are painted by no mortal

hand. It was these which arrested the imagination, and found a home in

many a Christian heart. The passages which contained these pictures

were no doubt repeated again and again by lonely harassed men and women

in the silent watches of the night, in the public worship, in the study

chamber, especially in the hour of danger and trial.

The _hope_ of a glorious eternity was vividly painted in several

remarkable passages of S. John’s great Vision of Heaven and the future

things. The disciples of the sterner school, who were trained so to

speak for martyrdom, felt themselves specially addressed when the Seer

told his vision of the thrones and of those who sat on them,--they

would occupy the place of the souls of those who had been slain for the

witness of Jesus (Rev. xx. 4); and again they would call to mind that

when the Seer asked who were these arrayed in white robes, and whence

came they? he was told that these were they which came out of great

tribulation, and who have washed their robes and made them white in the

blood of the Lamb; and that therefore were they before the throne of

God, and that from their eyes God would wipe away all tears (Rev. vii.

13-17).

To the disciples of the gentler school, too, words of immortal hope

were spoken often in the same Book which spoke as no writing of earth

had ever spoken before of the heaven-life. The Seer heard as it were

the voice of _a great multitude_, and said how blessed they were which

are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb; and the same Seer heard

how there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying; and again

repeated the glorious promise that His servants (_all_ His servants)

should see His face, and that they should reign for ever and ever (Rev.

xix. 6, 9, xxi. 4, xxii. 4, 5).

Moreover, they read and pondered over that most beautiful, most

exhaustive promise made to _all_ His faithful servants,--not only

to the martyr band,--“Blessed are they that wash their robes, that

they may have the right to come to the tree of life, and may enter

in by the gates into the city (of God).” (Rev. xxii. 14, REVISED

VERSION).

* * * * *

These and many other like sunlit sayings of the Book of Life in the

Gospels, Epistles, and Revelation of S. John were ever ringing in

the ears of the Christians of the first days, and telling them of

the _immortal hope_ which was their blessed treasure,--words which

sweetened their hard and too frequently painful lot, which made them

feel that they had made a good exchange when they gave up the fleeting

and often sinful pleasures of earth for the sure hope of the immortal

joys of heaven. They felt how poor and tawdry after all were the things

they had renounced in comparison with what awaited them when the short

and weary period of human life came to an end.

In spite of what the believers renounced for the Name’s sake,

notwithstanding the many daily trials and dangers to which they were

ever exposed, they were strangely happy with a new happiness quite

unknown in the old pagan world, with a joy no man could take from them.

Pagan society, whenever it deigned to notice them, treated them with

a contemptuous pity, which too often shaded into positive hatred. We

see this in the “Acts” of the Martyrs from the questions put to them

by the Roman officials when they were brought before the tribunals,

simply because they were Christians. This was the estimate of the sect

entertained by men like the great Antonine Emperors, Pius and Marcus.

The summary of Fronto the famous rhetorician, Marcus’ tutor and friend,

reproduced in the discourse of Cæcilius in the Dialogue of Minucius

Felix, repeats too clearly the same disparaging view coloured with

contempt and scarcely veiled hatred.

Nowhere is the pagan conception of the misery and wretchedness of the

Christian life more clearly expressed than in the picturesque and

graphic poem of Rutilius Namatianus,[91] a contemporary of Paulinus of

Nola in the first years of the fifth century.

It is a comparatively late pagan criticism of Christianity, but it

admirably expresses the common view of pagan society, and exactly

coincides with the opinion of such eminent Romans as Marcus and his

friend Fronto in the second century.

“Is there any sense,” writes Rutilius, “in living a wretched life for

fear of becoming unhappy? these Christians love to torture themselves:

they are more cruel even than the offended gods. I ask the question,

has not the sect the secret of poisons more deadly than any possessed

by Circe; for Circe only brought about a danger in the body, but these

people change the very soul?”

The life of a Christian in the first two hundred and fifty years of the

era was, however, as we have shown, emphatically no sad and mournful,

no wretched existence. It was a life unspeakably bright and happy,

undreamed of by any poet or philosopher in the many-sided story of

paganism.

BOOK III

THE INNER LIFE OF THE CHURCH

PART I

FROM THE DATE OF THE GREAT FIRE OF ROME IN THE REIGN OF NERO TO

THE DEATH OF MARCUS ANTONINUS

A.D. 64-A.D. 180

INTRODUCTORY

There is really no doubt but that in the period of which we are

writing in this Third Book, roughly stretching over some hundred and

sixteen years, with very short intervals of comparative stillness,

the Christian sect constantly lived under the veiled shadow of

persecution; the penalties exacted for the confession of the Name were

very severe--the confessors were ever exposed to confiscation of their

goods, to harsh imprisonment, to torture, and to death.

This state of things, which existed in the Church in Rome and in all

the communities of Christians, is disclosed to us not merely or even

principally in the Acts of Martyrs, which for this very early period

are comparatively few in number, and, with a few notable exceptions, of

questionable authority, but largely from the fragments of contemporary

Christian writings of undoubted authenticity which have come down to

us.[92]

These fragments, for several of these writings are but fragments,

represent a somewhat considerable literature, and they may be looked

upon as descriptive of much of the life led by Christians during these

hundred and sixteen years,[93] the period when the religion of Jesus

was gradually but rapidly taking root in the world of Rome. With one

notable exception the writings to which we refer issued from the heart

of the New Sect.

We shall give a chain of some of the more striking passages from the

fragments of the works in question, the passages which especially bear

upon the ceaseless persecution which the Christians had to endure

during that period we are dwelling upon in this section--which ended

with the death of Marcus and the accession of his son Commodus in

A.D. 180.

The quotations will be divided into two groups: the first from writings

of apostles and apostolic men; that is, of men who had seen and

conversed with the apostles themselves. The dates of this first group

of witnesses range from the days of Nero to the days of Trajan, roughly

from A.D. 64 to A.D. 107-10. The second group will include writings

dating from the days of Trajan to the accession of Commodus, A.D. 180:

the approximate dates of each writing and a very brief account of the

several authors will be given.

It will be seen that the allusions to a state of persecution grow more

numerous, more detailed and emphatic after A.D. 134-5, the

date of the close of the last terrible Jewish war in the latter years

of the Emperor Hadrian, when the line of separation between the Jew and

the Christian became definitely marked, and the position and attitude

of the Christians was no longer merely contemptuously viewed, but was

misliked and even feared by the State authorities, who then (after

A.D. 135) for the first time clearly saw what a great and

powerful society had grown up in the heart of the Empire.

* * * * *

What a weighty group of words are those we are about to quote! They

were written by men who lived in the heart of that little Society

who with a love stronger than death loved Jesus of Nazareth as their

friend and their God. They are words which are embedded in their

letters--their devotional works--their histories--their pleading

treatises and apologies for the faith, the faith which they esteemed of

greater price than life.

Intensely real, they tell us of the life they and theirs were leading:

reading them we seem to breathe the air they breathed; the simple

unvarnished story tells us what daily, hourly perils were theirs,--what

awful trials, what unspeakable dangers ever surrounded them; they show

how hard it was to be a Christian in those early days in the first

hundred years which followed the “passing” of S. John.

Nothing we can say now--write now--can give us a picture, a living

picture, of the life of these first generations of believers in the

Name, as do these words gathered from the fragments of contemporary

writings which have come down to us across the long ages of storm and

stress and change.

In the first group we will briefly examine the following:--The Epistle

to the Hebrews, _circa_ A.D. 65-6; the First Epistle of S.

Peter, _circa_ A.D. 65-7; the Apocalypse of S. John (the

Revelation), _circa_ A.D. 90; the _1st Epistle_ of S. Clement

of Rome, _circa_ A.D. 95. To this little selection we would

add The _Seven Epistles_ of S. Ignatius, A.D. 107-10, now

generally received as undoubtedly genuine.

I

FIRST GROUP OF QUOTATIONS

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS, _CIRCA_ A.D. 65-6

The first three of the above-mentioned writings possess a peculiar

authority; they have been from very early times recognized as forming

part of the Canon of New Testament Scriptures: of these three the

Epistle to the Hebrews is generally believed to have been composed

about A.D. 65-6. The congregations addressed in it had evidently been

exposed to grave afflictions, and are told that a more awful trial

awaits them in no distant future. For this bitter persecution they must

prepare themselves.

A number of examples of noble and heroic resistances to trial and

temptation are cited (Heb. xi. 32-40, xii. 1-4); the writer of the

Epistle evidently expected that similar experiences will be the lot of

the congregation he was addressing.

FIRST EPISTLE OF S. PETER, _CIRCA_ A.D. 65-7

The second writing, which will be examined at rather greater length,

is of the utmost importance as a witness to the view of the perpetual

persecution to which after A.D. 64 the sect was exposed.

The First Epistle of S. Peter[94] was put out _circa_ 65-7. It was

written manifestly in a time of persecution; the keynote of the Epistle

is consolation and encouragement for the distant congregations

addressed. The persecution was evidently raging in Rome, whence the

letter was written, but it was rapidly spreading also in the provinces

of the Empire. The language used shows it was no isolated capricious

onslaught, but a systematic and legalized attack on the religion of

Jesus. To quote a few passages:

“Now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness by reason of

manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being more precious

than of gold which perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might

be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus

Christ” (i. 6, 7).

“If ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye; and be not afraid

of their terror, neither be troubled.... It is better, if the will of

God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing” (iii.

14-17).

“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to

try you, as though some strange thing happened to you” (iv. 12).

“If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the

spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.... If any man suffer as

a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this

behalf” (iv. 14-16).

“Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions

are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world” (v. 9).

REVELATION OF S. JOHN, _CIRCA_ A.D. 90

The Apocalypse of S. John is now generally dated _circa_ A.D.

90; the _keynote_ of this strange and in many parts beautiful

writing--so unlike, save in certain sections, the other acknowledged

books of the New Testament Canon--is _the suffering of the Church_:

just a quarter of a century had elapsed since Nero and his advisers

resolved upon the persecution of the congregations of the believers in

Jesus.

No one can read this striking “Revelation” of S. John, with its

wonderful visions, its exhortations, its words of warning, its messages

of encouragement and comfort, without being keenly sensible that the

Church therein portrayed had been exposed--was then exposed to a

bitter, relentless persecution; that the sufferers were witnesses to

the Name; and that their sufferings were not owing to any deeds of

wrong or treason to the State, but purely _because of the Name which

they confessed_. They had been condemned simply because they were

Christians.

It is true that comparatively little is said directly about these

persecutions. Other subjects clearly are far more important to the

writer; but a number of incidental allusions to the sufferings endured

in the course of persecution occur--allusions which cannot be mistaken.

We will quote a few of these. Many of them imply that the Church was

exposed to a long continued harrying to the death:

“I saw under the altar the souls of those that were slain for the

word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried

with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou

not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And

white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto

them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their

fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they

were, should be fulfilled” (vi. 9-11).

“These are they that came out of great tribulation ... therefore are

they before the throne of God” (vii. 14-17).

“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of

their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death” (xii.

11).

“They have shed the blood of saints and prophets” (xvi. 6).

“And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of

Jesus, and for the word of God ... and they lived and reigned with

Christ a thousand years.” (xx. 4).

The victims of these persecutions, we are markedly told, are witnesses

to the “Name” or the “Faith”: so in the letter to the Church in

Pergamos we read:

“Thou holdest fast My name, and hast not denied My Faith” (ii. 13).

“And I saw the woman[95] drunken with the blood of the saints, and with

the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (xvii. 6).

The persecution had been of long standing:

“I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is:

and thou holdest fast My name ... even in those days wherein Antipas

was My faithful martyr, who was slain among you” (ii. 13).

And the persecution is to continue:

“Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer ... be thou faithful

unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (ii. 10).

Specially interesting from an historical point of view in this

connexion of the testimony of the “Apocalypse” of S. John with the

sleepless persecution to which the sect was subjected, is Professor

Ramsay’s exegesis of the words, “And all that dwell upon the earth

shall worship him (the beast) whose names are not written in the Book

of Life of the Lamb” (xiii. 8), and “as many as would not worship the

image of the beast should be killed” (xiii. 15).

“It is here implied that the persecutor is worshipped as a God by

all people[96] except the Christians, and that the martyrs are slain

because they do not worship ‘the beast’--_i.e._ the Roman Emperor.

Hence their refusal to worship ‘the beast’ and their witness to their

own God, are united in one act; and this implies that the worship of

‘the beast’ (the Emperor) formed a test, the refusal of which was

equivalent to a confession and witness....

“The importance attached during this persecution to the worship of the

Emperor, and the hatred of this special form of idolatry as the special

enemy, have dictated the phrase addressed to the Church of Pergamos,

‘Thou dwellest where the throne of Satan, _i.e._ the temple of Rome

and Augustus, is’” (ii. 13).

The peculiar partiality of the Emperor Domitian for this especial form

of idolatry, in which he personally was adored as a god, has been

already alluded to.

S. CLEMENT OF ROME, FIRST EPISTLE, _CIRCA_ A.D. 95-6

About the year of grace 95-6, Clement, bishop of Rome, wrote his letter

to the Christian congregation of Corinth--generally known as his _1st

Epistle_. From the days of Irenæus downwards this letter has ever been

considered a work of the highest importance, and its genuineness as

a writing of Clement of Rome has never been disputed. Its importance

consists in its record of the traditional interpretation of the

apostolic teaching which was held in the great congregation of the

metropolis from the first days. The immediate reasons of the Bishop

of Rome writing to the Church of Corinth were the disastrous internal

dissensions which were harassing the Corinthian congregation, disputes

which not only marred its influence at home, but were productive of

grave scandal abroad, and which, unless checked, would seriously affect

the work of the Church in cities far distant from Corinth.

It was a gentle loving letter of remonstrance; but its value to the

Church at large in all times consists in its being an authoritative

declaration of the doctrine taught in the great Church in Rome in the

closing years of the first century, somewhat more than a quarter of a

century after the deaths of SS. Peter and Paul.

Clement in his Epistle to the Church of Corinth had no intention of

writing a history of his Church. The object of his writing was a very

different one. There are, however, a few notices scattered here and

there in the course of his long letter, which bear upon the subject

now under discussion, _i.e._, the continuous nature of the persecution

under which the Christian folk lived from the year 64 onward.

Clement begins by explaining the reason of his delay in taking up the

questions which vexed the Corinthian congregation. “By reason of the

sudden and repeated calamities which are befalling us, we consider,

brethren, we have been somewhat tardy in giving heed to the matters of

dispute that have arisen among you, dearly beloved” (_1 Ep._ 1).

The next allusion is a very striking one. “But to pass from the

examples of ancient days” (Clement had been quoting from the Old

Testament), “let us come to those champions who lived very near to

our time. Let us set before us the examples which belong to our

generation ... the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church

were persecuted and contended even unto death. There was Peter who

... endured not one nor two but many labours, and then having borne

his testimony went to his appointed place of glory.... Paul by his

example pointed out the prize of patient endurance ... he departed from

the world, and went unto the holy place.... Unto these men of holy

lives was gathered a vast multitude, who through many indignities and

tortures ... set a brave example among ourselves.

“These things, dearly beloved, we write not only as admonishing you,

but also as putting ourselves in remembrance; for we are in the same

lists, and the same contest awaiteth us” (_1 Ep._ 5-7).

Clement’s words here, which occur in the middle of his argument,

indisputably imply that after the martyr-death of the two great

Christian teachers Peter and Paul, a continuous persecution harried

the congregation (he is speaking especially of Rome) all through his

own generation. “A vast multitude of the elect,” he tells us, in their

turn suffered martyrdom, and were joined to the eminent leaders who had

gone before them. When Domitian perished we know there was a temporary

lull in the storm of persecution. Dion relates how the Emperor Nerva

dismissed those who were awaiting their trial on the charge of

sacrilege. It was no doubt in this very brief period of comparative

quiet that Clement had leisure to attend to the troubled affairs at the

Church of Corinth, and to write the important letter just quoted from.

But the Roman bishop was aware that “the lull” was quite a temporary

one, and was due only to the reaction which set in after the murder of

Domitian during the short reign of the Emperor Nerva; for he goes on

to speak (in chap. vi.) of his condition and of the condition of his

co-religionists at Rome: “We are in the same lists (with those who have

been slain), and the same contest awaits us.”

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH, BISHOP AND MARTYR, _CIRCA_ A.D. 107-10

Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, who suffered martyrdom in the days of

Trajan, _circa_ A.D. 107-10,--some twelve or fifteen years

after Clement of Rome wrote his memorable letter to the Church of

Corinth,--is the next witness we propose to call in support of

the contention advanced in the preceding pages, namely, that the

persecution began by Nero in the year 64 was never really allowed

again to slumber, but that with more or less vehemence it continued to

harass the Christian sect all through the reigns of the Emperors of the

Flavian dynasty and onward.

The Letters of Ignatius were written, it is true, a few years after the

extinction of the Flavian House. But the martyr-bishop of Antioch was

born about the year of grace 40, and he therefore was about twenty-four

years old when the persecution of Nero began; and all through the

reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian without doubt he occupied a

high position, probably in the Christian congregation at Antioch; he

therefore may well be cited as a responsible witness of the relations

which existed between the Christians and the government of the Empire

during the last thirty-five years of the first century.

In the course of his journey from Syria to Rome, where he was

condemned to be exposed to the wild beasts in the magnificent Flavian

amphitheatre (the Colosseum), Ignatius wrote seven letters which have

been preserved to us; six of these were addressed to special Churches,

and one to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna.

Round these letters a long controversial war has raged respecting their

authenticity. In our own day and time, thanks to the almost lifelong

labours of the eminent scholar-bishop of Durham (Dr. Lightfoot), the

controversy has virtually been closed. Serious European scholars,

with rare exceptions, now accept the seven Epistles (the middle

recension,[97] as Lightfoot calls it) of the Ignatian correspondence,

as absolutely genuine.

Ramsay well and briefly sums up the purport of the allusions to the

conditions under which the Christian sect had been and still was living

during the long period of Ignatius’ own personal experience, which

included the whole duration of the sovereignty of the Flavian family,

_i.e._ during the reign of the Emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian.

These allusions all occur in the martyr’s four letters written in the

course of his journey to Rome, during his halt at Smyrna, _i.e._ in the

Epistles to the Churches of Ephesus, Tralles, Magnesia and Rome.

He says, “These abound in delicate phrases, the most explicit of which

may be quoted--The life of a Christian is a life of suffering; the

climax of his life, and the crowning honour of which he gradually

hopes to make himself worthy, is martyrdom; but Ignatius is far from

confident that he is worthy of it (_Tralles_, 4). Suffering and

persecution are the education of the Christian, and through them he

becomes a true disciple (_Eph._ iii. _Magn._ viii. 9). The teacher,

then, is the person or Church which has gone through most suffering,

and thus shown true discipleship, and Ignatius distinguished Ephesus

and Rome as his teachers. Ignatius is still in danger, not having as

yet completely proved his steadfastness, whereas Ephesus has been

proved and is firmly fixed, the implication being that it has been

specially distinguished by the number of its martyrs; and, moreover,

Ephesus has been the highway of martyrs, the chief city of the province

where many, even from other parts, appeared before the proconsul for

trial, and was, at the same time, the port whence they were sent to

Rome. We read in the Letter to Ephesus the somewhat curious expression,

‘Ye are a high road of them which are on their way to die unto God’

(_Eph._ xii.).”

“A detailed comparison is made in the Letter to the Magnesians, viii.

9, between the prophets and the Christians of the age. The prophets

were persecuted, and the Christians endure persecution patiently

in order to become true disciples.... Such is the principle of the

Christian life; that suffering is the best training.... The impression

which had been produced by persecution on the feelings of the

Christians towards the Empire is very strongly marked in the Letters

of Ignatius. Outside of the Apocalypse, the irreconcilable opposition

between the State and Christianity is nowhere more strongly expressed

than in them, and there runs throughout both groups of writings the

same identification of the State with the world. The same magnificent

audacity towards the State, the same refusal to accept what seemed to

men to be the plain facts of the situation, the same perfect assurance

of victory, characterize both.”[98]

With the exception, however, of passages in the _Epistle to the

Romans_, Ignatius’ letters contain no _direct_ reference to

persecution; they are exclusively devoted to the affairs and prospects

of the Churches to which he was writing, but the whole spirit of the

little collection indicates that persecution and suffering were the

common lot of the Christian sect in the days of the Flavian Emperors

and their immediate successors.

The letter to the Roman Church is, however, quite different in its

contents from the other six. It is entirely taken up with one single

topic--the coming martyrdom of the writer. For the Christian, indeed,

in earnest, “martyrdom is the new birth, the true life, the pure

light, the complete discipleship; the martyr’s crown is better than

all the kingdoms of the earth; only then, when the martyr sets to the

world, will he rise to God. Crowned by martyrdom, his life becomes an

utterance of God.”

This fervid, passionate--if somewhat exaggerated--picture of martyrdom

would convey little meaning to the Roman congregations had not such

scenes as that depicted by Ignatius been of common occurrence in

Rome. Its reception, however, shows how well it was understood by

those to whom the burning words of the martyr-bishop were addressed.

His letters were most highly prized in very early days, but this

special Epistle to the Roman Church from the beginning enjoyed a wider

popularity than the others. Its details and teaching were absolutely

unique. It appears to have been circulated apart from the other six,

sometimes alone, sometimes attached to the story of the martyrdom for

which Ignatius so longed.

Two or three references in this letter deserve to be noted as bearing

especially on the question of the sleepless nature of the persecution

endured by the sect.

_Epistle to Romans_, 3. Bishop Lightfoot well paraphrases this passage,

thus:

“Do not,” writes Ignatius, urging the Roman Church not to take any

step which might hinder his anticipated death in the arena, “depart

from your true character; you have hitherto sped the martyrs forward

to victory; do not now interpose and rob me of my crown.” Rome had

hitherto been the chief arena of martyrdom; the Roman brethren had

cheered on many a dying Christian hero in his glorious contest.

In the _Epistle to Romans_, 5, we come upon the following curious

statement concerning the arena wild beasts to which he was condemned:

“May I have joy of the beasts that have been prepared for me; and I

pray that I may find them ready, nay, I will entice them that they may

devour me quickly, not as they have done to some, refusing to touch

them through fear; yea, though of themselves they should not be willing

while I am ready, I myself will force them to it.”

This refusal of the wild beasts to touch their intended victims is by

no means an uncommon incident in early martyrology. The capricious

conduct of beasts suddenly released from confinement and darkness,

and brought into the bright light of the amphitheatre, with the dense

crowds of spectators all around shouting applause or execration, is

quite natural. It is by no means necessary to impart the miraculous

into all these stories, many of them absolutely authentic. Still that

the Most High did at times close the mouths of the “wild” is quite

credible. The strange, mysterious power often exercised by saintly men

and women over furred and feathered untamed creatures is a well-known

fact, and has been more than once the subject of discussion.[99] Such

an allusion, however, to the occasional conduct of the wild creatures

in the arena occurring in the midst of the writer’s arguments, plainly

shows that the spectacle of terrible massacres of Christian folk in the

arena, where they were exposed to wild beasts, was no uncommon feature

in Roman life.

The grim catalogue of tortures which the heroic martyr enumerates in

the same chapter of the Roman Epistle, completed the awful picture of

the sufferings of brave Christian confessors, sufferings which the

Roman citizens had no doubt for many past years often gazed at.

II

SECOND GROUP OF QUOTATIONS

LETTER OF PLINY TO TRAJAN, _CIRCA_ A.D. 112

In the second group of quotations from ancient authorities must be

placed the very important notice of the persecution in the days of

Trajan, contained in the well-known correspondence of Pliny and the

Emperor. This has been already discussed at some length.

It will be sufficient[100] here briefly to refer to the treatment of

Christians whom Pliny found in his province of Bithynia not only in the

towns but in the country villages, and to the influence which these

Christians evidently exercised on the life of the province.

These Christians, with the exception of those who claimed to be

citizens of Rome--who were sent to the capital for trial--were after

the third examination, if they still continued contumacious, condemned

and put to death on the authority of the governor (“perseverantes duci

(ad mortem) jussi”).

This is the only heathen authority[101] quoted here, but its extreme

importance in this inquiry into the condition of Christians in the

Roman Empire in the days of Trajan and earlier will justify its

insertion.

LETTER TO DIOGNETUS, _CIRCA_ A.D. 117

The author of this very early Christian writing is unknown, and of the

Diognetus to whom the letter is addressed we have no knowledge. But

the short writing in question is interesting and even eloquent, and its

date can be ascertained with fair certainty from expressions contained

in the letter. Christianity, when the writing was put out, was _a new

thing in the world_--this is several times noticed in the letter.[102]

The following notable references to persecution occur: “Christians

love all men, and are persecuted by all; they are unknown and (yet)

condemned; they are put to death ... they are in want of all things,

and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very

dishonour they are glorified; they are evil spoken of, and yet are

justified; they are reviled and bless; they are insulted and yet repay

the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers;

when punished they rejoice” (_Letter to Diognetus_, chap. v.).

“Do you not see them (the Christians) exposed to wild beasts, that they

may be persuaded to deny the Lord, and yet not overcome? Do you not see

that the more of them that are punished, the greater become the numbers

of the rest” (_Letter to Diognetus_, chap. vii.).

“Then shalt thou both love and admire those that suffer punishment

because they will not deny God.”

* * * * *

“Then shalt thou admire those who for righteousness’ sake endure the

fire which is but for a moment, and shalt count them happy, when thou

shalt know (the nature of) that fire” (_Letter to Diognetus_, chap. x.).

THE _SHEPHERD_ OF HERMAS, _CIRCA_ A.D. 140

Hermas, the author or compiler of the once famous _Shepherd_ (the

Pastor) in a very ancient tradition was identified with the Hermas

mentioned by S. Paul (Rom. xvi. 14). This identification was suggested

by Origen in the middle of the third century. The Muratorian Canon

gives as the approximate date of its composition _circa_ A.D.

140, and suggests another author. Modern scholarship, however,

considers that the work in question passed through several redactions,

the first belonging to a yet earlier date. If this, as is probable, be

the case, then certainly considerable portions of the little volume

of the “Shepherd” belong to the reign of Trajan, and possibly to the

period of the episcopate of Clement of Rome.[103]

But whether we adopt for the composition of the writing the year

140, or thereabouts, or with Duchesne and Harnack the earlier date

of portions of the writing (the last years of the first century),

there is no doubt whatever that the work containing the “Visions,”

“Commandments,” and “Parables” of Hermas (generally known as the

_Shepherd_) was accepted by the Christians of the second century

as a treatise of very high authority. It was publicly read in

the congregations along with the canonical (to use a later term)

Scriptures, without, however, being put on a level with these sacred

writings.

Gradually though we find its authority diminishing, sterner spirits,

like Tertullian, misliking its gentle and compassionate directions in

the case of the reconciliation of sinners, theologians too, who in

the first years were less positive, less precise in their dogmatical

definitions, soon began to see how speculative and even wild were

some of the statements and definitions of the Persons in the Godhead.

Thus the work became less and less an important piece in the arsenal

of Christian theology. S. Jerome, for instance, openly flouts it

when he writes of the _Shepherd_ as “Liber ille apocryphus stultitiæ

condemnandus.” Others, however, of the highest authority in the Church

in the third and fourth centuries, such as Clement of Alexandria,

Origen, and Athanasius, seem to have ever held the _Shepherd_ in great

veneration.

The high place it held in the early Church is shown by its appearing

in that most ancient MS. of the Holy Scriptures the Codex Sinaiticus,

where it is honoured by being placed at the end of the canonical

writings.

But it is as an historical piece of evidence respecting the continued

persecutions which vexed the early Church, without any period of

cessation, that the work is quoted here. The _Shepherd_ is full of

references to this state of things. Renan (_L’Église Chrétienne_)

describes this book in his picturesque vivid imagery as “issuing from

a bath of blood.” Lightfoot speaks of it as “haunted in large parts by

this ghastly spectre of persecution.” The writer specially alludes to

this harrying of the Christian sect in the past, and says that it was

likely to continue in the future.

Hermas, in his unique and interesting work, says nothing about the

Jewish foes of the Church, and his allusions to the pagans around him

are very few. The work may be said to deal exclusively with the inner

life of the Roman congregations. On the whole he pictures the life led

by the followers of Jesus as fairly satisfactory and good, harassed

though it was, but there were many things constantly appearing and

reappearing in that life which needed amendment. He dwells with more

or less detail on differences, quarrels, bitterness, which arose among

themselves, and which too often disfigured and marred the beautiful

Christian ideals.

But after all, in Hermas’ evidently faithful and accurate pictures of

the Christian congregations in Rome, the point he dwells on with the

greatest emphasis is their behaviour in those ever-recurring trials

of their faith to which they were constantly exposed through the

sleepless, restless ill-will of the Government. Whether the writing

dates from _circa_ 140, when Hadrian was reigning, or in part from the

last years of the first century in the days of Trajan, it is evident

that the position of the Christian community was ever most precarious.

The rescripts of Trajan and Hadrian somewhat softened the stern

measures, but before and even after these humane and statesmanlike

regulations the position of the Christian was indeed a trying and

painful one. For even after the issuing of the rescripts in question

the sword ever hung over their heads, and the slender thread upon which

it hung was often snapped.

Perpetually were the Christians haled before the magistrate. They had

stern searching questions to answer; easily was the capital crime of

professing the unlawful cult daily brought home to them. They were

asked: Were they willing to renounce it, and in place of it adore the

gods of the pagans? Would they throw a few grains of incense, as a

token of their recantation, on the altars of Rome and Augustus? If

they would do this very little thing, as it seemed, at once they were

released; but if they refused, then death, in some form or other, was

their speedy and inevitable doom.

Hermas tells us a good deal of what was happening in the Roman

congregations in the matter of persecution for the Name’s sake. The

harrying of Christians, when the author of the _Shepherd_ was writing,

must have been continuous, for he sadly speaks of those who were

frequently yielding to pressure. Apostasy in the Christian ranks was,

alas! not an unknown scandal. Some, he tells us, simply renounced their

faith; others, terrified, went further and publicly blasphemed the

Name. Some were positively base enough to betray and denounce their

brethren in the Faith.

But, on the other hand, Hermas tells us how the Church numbered many

martyrs. All, he says, were not on a level even here, for some trembled

at first and flinched, and only witnessed a good confession at the

last, probably when about to cense the idol altar. There were some

though, said our writer, whose heart never for an instant failed them.

Yet, on the whole, this stern though kindly censor of the Christian

Church was not dissatisfied with the life generally led by the

congregations of believers in Jesus; he seems to recognise to the full

the sorely tempted lives--tempted not only by the imminent danger

which the confession of the Name entailed--though he dwells mostly on

this ever-present peril--but also by the smaller lures with which all

human existence is inextricably bound up: business matters, society

obligations, the old jealousy and envy which ever exist between the

rich and the poor.

“Le livre d’Hermas,” observes Duchesne, “est un vaste examen de

conscience de l’Église Romaine.” The writer spares none in his severe

yet kindly criticism; the priests and deacons of the congregations are

among the classes with whom he finds grave fault. In spite, however,

of his earnest and touching remonstrances with those who, in hours of

trial and persecution, in the many daily temptations of common life,

had left their first love, Hermas acknowledges that in the Church of

Rome the numbers of the just and upright are greater than the numbers

of those who have fallen away. It is true that he sternly rebukes the

unfaithful priests and deacons and other members of the hierarchy,

but he recognizes here, too, men worthy of the highest commendation;

he dwells on their love, their charity, their hospitality, and even

assigns to these faithful ministers of religion a place among the

glorious company of apostles.

The general impression which a careful study of Hermas’ portraiture

of the Christian congregations in Rome leaves on the reader’s mind in

those far-back days, roughly from the days of Nero to the times of

Trajan and even Hadrian, is that that great and sorely tried Church was

far from being composed entirely of saints, but that the righteous and

God-fearing--the men and women who had washed their robes in the blood

of the Lamb, as true disciples of the Master, were after all decidedly

in the majority.

Closely connected with his picture of the sins and errors of the Roman

Christians--sins largely connected with the falling away of many in the

dread hour of persecution--is his assurance that these sins are capable

of pardon here, even if committed _after_ baptism. No sin, no falling

away, in Hermas’ teaching is inexpiable; no truly penitent one is ever

to be excluded from pardon and reconciliation. It was this generous

and broad view of the goodness and the divine pity of God that was so

misliked by the stern and pitiless teachers of the powerful school to

which men like Tertullian belonged, a school which soon arose in the

Church. Of the genuine written remains of the earliest period we have

nothing comparable to the _Shepherd_ of Hermas, when we look for a

picture of the inner life of the Church of Rome in that far-back time

when the echoes of the voices of the disciples who had been with Jesus

were still ringing in men’s ears.

As a dogmatic teacher the writer of the _Shepherd_ is of little or no

value; Hermas emphatically was no theologian, but he was a close and

evidently an accurate observer of men and things. Earnest and devout,

while sadly deploring the weakness in the hour of trial of some, the

failure of others in the ordinary course of things to keep on the

narrow way leading to life--he rejoices with an unfeigned joy over the

many noble men and women who, in all their sore danger and temptation,

kept the Faith untarnished and undimmed.

Hermas of the _Shepherd_ is a witness, to whose voice none can refuse

to listen, of the sore and sleepless persecution which, from the days

of Nero, with rare and brief pauses ever harassed the Christian sect in

Rome.[104]

Composed as this book evidently was directly under the veiled shadow

of persecution--a state of things which colours well-nigh every page

of the writing--it is difficult out of so many testimonies here to

select any special passage telling of this perpetual harrying of the

sect; a very few passages will be quoted where this restless state of

persecution is painted with vivid colouring.

“Happy ye who endure the great tribulation that is coming on, and happy

they who shall not deny their own life” (Hermas, _Vision_, ii. 2).

“The place to the right is for others who have pleased God, and have

suffered for His Name’s sake” (Hermas, _Vision_, iii. 1).

“What have they borne? Listen: Scourges, prisons, great tribulations,

crosses, wild beasts for God’s Name’s sake--to them is assigned the

division of sanctification on the right hand--to every one who shall

suffer for God’s Name” (Hermas, _Vision_, iii. 2).

“But who are the stones that were dragged from the depths and which

were laid in the building, and fitted in with the rest of the stones

before placed in the Tower? These are they who suffered for the Lord’s

sake” (Hermas, _Vision_, iii. 5).

“They without hesitation repented, and practise all virtue and

righteousness, and some of them even suffered, being willingly put to

death,”--“Of all these, therefore, the dwelling shall be in the Tower.”

“All who were brought before the authorities and were examined, and did

not deny, but suffered gladly, these are held in great honour with God”

(Hermas, _Parables_, viii. 10).

“All who once suffered for the name of the Lord are honourable before

God, and of all these the sins were remitted, because they suffer for

the Name of the Son of God” (Hermas, _Parables_, viii. 20).

“And ye who suffer for His Name ought to glorify God, because He deemed

you worthy to bear His Name, that all your sores might be healed”

(Hermas, _Parables_, viii. 28).

JUSTIN MARTYR, _CIRCA_ A.D. 140-A.D. 160

The above dates roughly embrace the period of Justin’s literary

activity. He was, however, born not later than _circa_ A.D.

114, probably several years before. We know little of his early

history. He was a diligent student and a thinker, and his works are

amongst the most important that have come down to us from the first

sixty years of the second century. Three writings of his are extant of

the genuineness of which there is no doubt. Two _Apologies_ and _The

Dialogue with the Jew Trypho_. The first _Apology_ and the _Dialogue_

are works of considerable size. There are besides other writings which

bear his name, but the authenticity of these is doubtful.

Originally a pagan, it seems that he became a Christian owing to the

strong impression made upon him by the fearlessness which the disciples

of the New Sect showed in the presence of death. He was also deeply

persuaded of the grandeur and truth of the old Testament Scriptures. In

the end, while the Emperor Marcus Antoninus was reigning, he received

the Martyr’s crown he had for so many years passionately admired and

coveted. This was about the year 165.

His three authentic writings contain numberless references to the

persecutions endured by the followers of the Name, and countless

allusions to the state of perpetual risk and danger in which his

co-religionists lived and worked.

We will cite a very few of these, in which unmistakable details are

given.

“If any one acknowledges that he is a Christian, you punish him on

account of this confession” (Justin, _Apol._ i. 4).

The condemnation to death for the mere name of Christian is often dwelt

upon by our writer (see such passages as are contained in 1 _Apol._

xi.).

“We may not lie or deceive our (official) interrogators; we willingly

die confessing Christ” (Justin, _Apol._ i. 39).

“Although death is decreed against those who teach, or even confess the

name of Christ, everywhere we confess it and teach it” (Justin, _Apol._

i. 45).

“They that believe that there is nothing after death ... they become

our benefactors when they free us from the sufferings and trials of

this life; ... they kill us, however, not with the view of benefiting

us, but that we may be deprived of life and joy” (Justin, _Apol._ i.

57).

“The Gentiles who know God--the Creator of all things through Jesus

the Crucified ... patiently await every torture and vengeance--even

death--rather than worship idols” (Justin, _Dialogue with Trypho_,

xxxv.).

“ ... Lest you be persecuted by the rulers who ... will not cease

putting to death and persecuting those who confess the Name of

Christ....” (Justin, _Dial._ xxxix.).

“ ... Because we refuse to sacrifice to those to whom in old times we

used to sacrifice to, we suffer the severest penalties, and rejoice in

death, believing that God will raise us up by His Christ, and will make

us incorruptible--safe--immortal” (Justin, _Dial._ xlvi.).

“Now it is plain that no one is able to frighten us or subject us who

have believed in Jesus, ... for it is manifest that though beheaded

and crucified, and cast to wild beasts, and fire, and all other kinds

of torture, we do not give up our confession; but the more such things

happen, the more do others, and in ever-increasing numbers too, become

believers and worshippers of God through the Name of Jesus” (Justin,

_Dial._ cx.).

“And you yourselves ... must acknowledge that we who have been called

by God through the contemned and shameful mystery of the Cross ...

endure all torments rather than deny Christ even by word” (Justin,

_Dial._ cxxxi.).

“For having put some to death on account of the false charges

brought against us, they also dragged to the torture our

servants--children--weak women--and by awful torments drove them to

admit that they were guilty of those very actions which they (the

persecutors) openly perpetrate,--about which, however, we are little

concerned, because none of these actions are really ours. We have the

ineffable God as witness both of our thoughts and deeds” (Justin,

II. _Apol._ xii.).

THE _OCTAVIUS_ OF MINUCIUS FELIX, _CIRCA_ A.D. 160

Jerome tells us that Minucius Felix was, before his conversion to

Christianity, an advocate at Rome. The dialogue, which forms the

substance of the writing--a work of some considerable length, is a

supposed argument between a cultured pagan Cæcilius and the Christian

Octavius--the writer Minucius Felix acting as arbiter between the

disputants. The scene of the dialogue was the seashore of Ostia, it

closes with the conversion of the pagan Cæcilius, who is convinced by

the arguments brought forward by the Christian Octavius.[105]

The resemblances between Minucius Felix and the famous _Apology_ of

Tertullian, which was written _circa_ A.D. 200, are most

striking--and the question which of the two was the plagiarist has

long been before critics. Later scholars, among whom Ebert, Salmon,

Bishop Lightfoot, Renan, and Keim are conspicuous, have conclusively

established the priority of Minucius. The year of grace 160, before the

death of Antoninus Pius, a date based upon the internal evidence of the

writing, is suggested by Lightfoot as the most probable period of the

composition.

Dean Milman’s estimate of the literary excellence of the piece is as

follows: “Perhaps no late work, either pagan or Christian, reminds us

of the golden days of Latin prose so much as the _Octavius_ of Minucius

Felix” (_Hist. of Christianity_, book iv. chap. iii.).

The following striking passages bearing on the subject of the ceaseless

persecution to which the Christians were subjected in the middle years

of the second century are taken from the thirty-seventh chapter of the

_Dialogue_:

“How beautiful before God is the spectacle of a Christian entering into

the lists with pain, when he is matched against threats and punishments

and tortures; when, deriding the noise of death, he treads under foot

the horror of the public executioner; when he raises up his liberty

in opposition to kings and princes, and yields to God alone, whose he

is; when, triumphant and a victor, he tramples upon the very man who

has pronounced sentence against him! For he has conquered who has won

that for which he fights.... But God’s soldier is neither forsaken in

suffering, nor is he brought to an end by death. Thus the Christian

may seem to be miserable, he cannot really be found to be so. You

yourselves extol unfortunate men to the skies. Mucius Scævola, for

instance, who, when he had failed in his attempts against the king,

would have perished ... had he not sacrificed his right hand. And how

many of our people have endured that not only their right hand but that

their whole body should be burned--burned without a cry of pain--though

they had it in their power to be freed!

... “Do I compare Christian men with Mucius or even with Regulus? Yet

boys and young girls mock at crosses and tortures, wild beasts and all

the terrors of punishment--with all the inspired patience of suffering”

(Minucius Felix, cap. xxxvii.).

MELITO, BISHOP OF THE CHURCH IN SARDIS, _CIRCA_ A.D. 170

Very little is known of this Melito; he was evidently a somewhat

voluminous writer, but only few fragments remain of the long list of

his works which Eusebius has given (_H.E._ Book vi. 26). In one of

these fragments of a discourse, addressed to the Emperor Marcus, the

following passage occurs:

“What indeed never before happened, the race of the pious (the

Christians) is now persecuted, driven about in Asia by new and strange

decrees. For the shameless informers are those that covet the goods of

others, and, making use of the edicts of the Emperors, openly commit

robbery, night and day, plundering those (the Christians) who are

guilty of no crime.... And if these things are carried out by your

commands (_i.e._ of the Emperor Marcus), let them at least be done in a

legal form.... We (Christians) indeed bear joyfully the guerdon of such

a death--still, we only urge upon you this petition, that you yourself

would first inquire into the persons of these plotters of mischief, and

judge whether they themselves deserve death and punishment, or safety

and immunity.... We entreat you not to forget us in the midst of this

lawless plunder of the populace” (Melito of Sardis, Fragment quoted by

Eusebius, _H.E._ iv. 26).

ATHENAGORAS, _CIRCA_ A.D. 177

It is singular how little information has come down to us concerning

this Athenian philosopher who had become a Christian. It is believed

he wrote much, but the very names of his works have perished. The only

fragments of Athenagoras that remain are his _Apology_, or _Embassy_,

as he styles it, addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his son

Commodus, and a treatise on _The Resurrection_.

Philip of Side[106] gives one interesting detail respecting this little

known early writer. He tells us he was converted to Christianity by the

Scriptures, which he was studying with the view of controverting them.

The following passage is from the _Apology_ or _Embassy_ of Athenagoras.

He is addressing the Emperors Marcus and Commodus, and then writes:

“Why is the mere name (of Christian) hateful to you? Names (surely)

are not deserving of hatred. It is the wrongful act that calls for

penalty and punishment. But, for us who are called Christians you

have had no care, though we commit no wrong.... You allow us to be

harassed--plundered--persecuted--the people warring with us for our

name alone.... We suffer unjustly contrary to the law.... We beseech

you to have some care for us, that we may cease at length to be

slaughtered at the instigation of false accusers.... When we have

surrendered our goods, they still plot against our very bodies and

souls--levelling against us many charges of crimes of which we are

guiltless even in thought” (chap. i.).

“ ... If indeed any one can convict us of a crime either small or

great, we do not plead to be let off punishment; we are then prepared

to suffer the sharpest and most merciless chastisement, but if the

accusation is merely concerned with our _Name_ ... then, O illustrious

sovereigns, it is your part to free us by law from their evil

treatment.... What therefore is granted as the common right of all, we

too claim for ourselves, that we shall not be hated and punished merely

because we are called Christians” (Athenagoras, chap. ii.).

The above quotations from Athenagoras show very clearly on what

apparently superficial grounds the Christians were bitterly persecuted

and harassed in every conceivable fashion--solely because they were

Christians. The _nomen ipsum_, the bare “name,” was a sufficient ground

of condemnation in the reign of the great and good Emperor Marcus

Aurelius Antoninus.

THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH, _CIRCA_ A.D. 180

Theophilus, according to Eusebius, _H.E._ iv. 20-24, was sixth Bishop

of the Syrian Antioch in succession (so Eusebius). He became bishop

in the year 168, when Marcus was reigning. Nothing is known of his

life save that he was born a pagan. He was the author of several

works--including _Commentaries_ on the Gospels and on the Book of

Proverbs, and of a writing against Marcion, etc. But none of these

have come down to us. All we possess are the three books containing

“the Elements of the Faith,” addressed to his friend Autolycus. The

quoted passage is from the third of these books. His arguments in many

respects are similar to those advanced by Justin Martyr.

“They persecute, and do daily persecute, those who worship Him (the

only God).... Of those (_i.e._ of the Christians) who are zealous in

the pursuit of virtue, and practise a holy life, some they stone, some

they put to death, and up to the present time they subject them to

cruel torture.”

TERTULLIAN, _CIRCA_ A.D. 195-211

To complete the chain of testimony supplied by contemporary writers

to the perpetual state of unrest, an unrest ever passing into active

persecution, which was the lot of the Christian sect from A.D.

64, the date of the first formal harrying of Nero, to A.D.

180, the date of the death of the Emperor Marcus, the period here under

consideration--the important witness of Tertullian is added. The years

of his literary activity stretch roughly from A.D. 195-211.

But although the dates of his works range from some fifteen to twenty

years after the death of Marcus, it is certain that his general view of

the condition of Christians would include at least the latter years of

the period we are specially dwelling on.

His treatises, which especially relate to Christian and church life

and to ecclesiastical discipline, are coloured with references to this

condition of persecution under which the Christian sect evidently

lived. The very numerous references in question are introduced casually

as though the dangerous conditions were a matter of course, were

inescapable, and entered into the ordinary life of the sect.

We cite a very few of these as specimen instances of Tertullian’s

conception of the life so environed with deadly perils.

The whole of the short and interesting address to “Blessed Martyrs

designate” in this connection should be read here.

“We are daily beset by foes, we are daily betrayed, we are oftentimes

surprised in our meetings and congregations” (Tertullian, _Apol._ 7).

“Without ceasing for our Emperors we offer prayer ... we ask for

whatever, as man or Cæsar, an Emperor could wish.... With our hands

thus stretched out and up to God, rend us with your iron claws, hang

us up on crosses, wrap us in flames, take our heads from us with

the sword, let loose the wild beasts on us; the very attitude of a

Christian praying is one of preparation for its punishment. Let this,

good rulers, be your work, wring from us the soul beseeching God on the

Emperor’s behalf. Upon the truth of God, and devotion to His Name, put

the brand of crime” (Tertullian, _Apol._ 30).

“Christians alone are forbidden to say anything in their defence to

help the judge to a righteous decision; all that is cared about is

getting what the public hatred demands--the confession of the Name”

(Tertullian, _Apol._ 2).

Constantly Tertullian refers to the great offence in the Christians

simply lying in “the Name.” “Your sentences, however, are only to this

effect, viz.: that one has confessed himself to be a Christian,” occurs

frequently (Tertullian, _Ad Nationes_, 8).

PART II

THE TRAINING FOR MARTYRDOM

INTRODUCTORY

We read in the pathetic and interesting study _De Laude Martyrii_

(On the Praise of Martyrdom) by an anonymous writer--a study which

usually follows the works of S. Cyprian--how some Roman officials who

were assisting in the torture of a dying Christian saint said one to

another: “This is really marvellous, this power of disregarding pain

and agony! Nothing seems to move him; he has a wife and little ones,

but even the love of these touches him not. What _is_ the secret of his

strange power? It can surely be no imaginary faith which enables him

thus to welcome such suffering--such a death!”

The moral effect of this endurance--of this serene acceptance of

torture and death--both on persecutors and persecuted, was no doubt

very great. It has probably been underrated. What we have just quoted

from the treatise _De Laude Martyrii_, _i.e._ the testimony to what

must have happened many thousand times--viz.: how it struck the

officials who were carrying out the stern law of Rome--was repeated in

our own day and time by one of our most serious historians; one not

likely by any means to have been carried away by religious enthusiasm.

Lecky, in his scrupulously fair but at the same time cold and

passionless chapter on early Christian persecutions, closes his review

of the period with the following remarkable words: “For the love of

their Divine Master, for the cause they believed to be true, men, and

even weak girls, endured these things (he has been detailing some of

the well-known tortures and deaths of the early Christian believers)

without flinching, when one word would have freed them from their

sufferings. No opinion we may form of the proceedings of priests in a

later age should impair the reverence with which we bend before the

martyr’s tomb.”[107]

Now, the more thoughtful of the pagan rulers who dreaded with a

nameless dread the overthrow of the idol-cult, the preservation of

which they believed was indissolubly linked with the maintenance of

the great Roman Empire they loved so well, saw in the constancy of the

martyrs a great danger to which this idol-cult was exposed.

Rulers so different as Nero and Domitian, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius,

and Marcus Antoninus, Severus, Decius, and Diocletian, and their

ministers, felt that the sternest measures of repression of the new

Faith were absolutely necessary if they would stem the fast advancing

and apparently resistless tide of Christianity in the Empire.

In view of the powerful impression which the constancy of the accused

Christian when brought face to face with all the horrors of torture and

of death made upon the pagan population who beheld it or heard of it,

every effort was made by the more far-seeing of the Roman magistrates

to induce the accused Christian to recant and to yield to the will and

wishes of the imperial government.

In countless cases this yielding was made seemingly very easy--just a

few grains of incense thrown upon an idol altar; just an acknowledgment

of the divinity of the reigning Emperor, which could after all be

explained away as a simple official expression of fervid loyalty.

In some cases a recognition of one supreme deity--Jupiter--who would

represent the one Almighty God of the Christians--was suggested as a

“modus vivendi” by the plausible rhetoric of a statesmanlike magistrate

who cared for Rome, but to whom all religions were myths.

The Christian senator, who for the sake of Christ had given up a

beautiful home and an exalted rank, would be reminded by his pagan

colleagues on the judges seat of the inescapable duty which one

in his great position owed to law and order--to his master the

Emperor;--surely he, of all men, should set an example of loyalty and

obedience; was he to degrade his proud order by worshipping an unknown

Crucified offender in defiance of the wishes and commands of the

Emperor and the imperial government?

A yet more moving appeal was very often made to the brave Christians

of both sexes by an eloquent magistrate to show some pity for those

they loved,--for their aged father and mother; for husband or wife

or helpless children. Were they by their fatal obstinacy to bring

bereavement and disgrace, shame and poverty, on these unoffending ones?

Then behind all these specious arguments the Roman judge would show the

pale confessor standing before him the awful tortures--the cruel death

which surely awaited the one who refused, with what seemed a sullen and

inexplicable obstinacy, to obey the laws of an immemorial Empire, when

after all obedience was so easy.

And many did yield--of this there is no doubt. The number of martyrs

who resisted unto death no doubt is very great, much greater than the

cold and passionless critic chooses to acknowledge, but the number of

those who did yield was no doubt considerable.

It was indeed a title to honour for a magistrate of Rome publicly

to win over one or more of these confessors of the New Religion, to

succeed in persuading some well-known Christian to scatter on the altar

of the deified Emperor, or of the popular image of Mars the Avenger,

or of Diana, or of the yet greater Jupiter, a few grains of incense

typifying his return to the ancient pagan cult--or better still, to

extract a few reluctant words in which the adored Christ was renounced

and abandoned.

Such a judicial victory was ever a signal triumph for the Roman pagan

judge. It would speedily bear its fruits and rally to the drooping

standard of paganism a number of men and women pondering, doubting,

hesitating on the threshold of Christianity; a threshold with such an

example of recantation before them, which they would surely never cross!

And these scenes during the long years of active persecution were

acted again and again. The war between the religion of Christ and the

old idol-cult so dear to Rome and her subject millions was indeed a

protracted and deadly combat, and, as far as men could see, the issue

for long years trembled in the balance.

And all this time much--more than men now think--hung on the grave and

solemn question of martyrdom.

It was an outward and visible sign of that new wonderful revelation

which was influencing so many different minds, which was working

restlessly in such varied classes, in Rome, and in the many provinces

of the world of Rome, which from the early days of its appearance in

the great Empire, began at once to work a mighty change in all ranks in

all society where it penetrated, and every year it penetrated deeper.

The New Revelation was taught by an ever-increasing band of teachers,

fervid, impassioned, eloquent--some of them learned and cultivated.

It possessed too a literature which gradually increased in volume and

power--a literature which was founded upon “a Record” which these

teachers affirmed issued from no workshops of this earth.

But all this literature, powerful, soul-stirring though it was, only

touched, comparatively speaking, a very few of the men and women who

made up the mighty world of Rome. The great mass of the peoples of the

Empire neither read the books nor heard the words of the teachers of

the New Religion.

_Something more_ was needed to touch the masses of the

people--_something_ thousands might see and hear of; something they

might see for themselves. That something was supplied by the noble army

of martyrs.

* * * * *

From the first days of the appearance of the new teaching the imperial

government of Rome was determined, if possible, to stamp it out of the

society which Rome controlled.

While the disciples of Him who gave the doctrine and the solemn charge

to His own to teach the strange wonderful story to all men, were still

living and bravely carrying out the command of their Master, began

the relentless persecution of those who received the New Revelation

(men named them Christians after their Master Christ); a persecution

which was now fitful and uncertain, now fierce and relentless in its

action, now languid and halting, but which never slept. During the two

centuries and a half, the period roughly from Nero to Constantine,--to

be a Christian was simply unlawful, and exposed its votary to the

direst penalties, which at times were rigorously exacted. The law of

the State at times was suffered to remain in partial abeyance; but to

use the great African teacher’s nervous words spoken to the Christian

Brotherhood, during all these long years--“Non licet esse vos.”[108]

The more statesmanlike of the Roman rulers, recognising the influence

exercised by the martyrs over the people, as we have remarked, by

all the means in their power encouraged apostasy--because a public

renunciation of the Faith deeply moved the people. Every public act

of apostasy was a heavy blow to the Christian cause; while on the

other hand, each example of splendid endurance of suffering and death

was a wonderful encouragement to the vast crowd of outsiders who were

hesitating on the borderland of Christianity. What must be, thought

these, and they were a great multitude, the secret power of the new

Faith which could nerve strong men, tender women--of all ages and of

different ranks--to endure such awful sufferings, and at the end to

meet death with a smile lighting up the wan pain-wrung faces.

I

The _Story_ they told must be true, otherwise never would it possess

such a mighty power.

Now, the leaders of the sect of the New Revelation were fully conscious

of these two factors in the life of their day and time. Anything like

apostasy or public renunciation of the religion of Christ once adopted

was a calamity to be guarded against with the utmost vigilance. On

the other hand, each example of public endurance to the end was an

enormous aid to the work of propagating the Faith,--so from very early

days a _school_--we can use no other fitting term--was established in

the great Christian centres, _of preparation for Martyrdom_. This most

interesting and far-reaching work in the very early Church--the Church

of the Ages of Persecution--has hitherto generally escaped notice;

only quite lately has it attracted some attention.[109]

It was no haphazard temporary piece of work, this “training for

martyrdom,” but as we shall see a veritable “school,” a protracted

education for an awful, for a not improbable contingency. At the end of

the second and through the third century it was evidently a recognized

and important Christian agency. When once we are aware of its existence

we begin to find unmistakable proofs of it in the writings of important

teachers like Tertullian and Cyprian.

In this once famous but now forgotten school of martyrdom the

well-known simile of S. Paul was the basis of the theory which seems

to have inspired the work--the simile which compared the Christian

combatant in the world-arena to the athlete in the well-known and

popular games of the amphitheatre. There the athlete, before entering

the theatre of combat, was carefully educated to endure hardness: a

long and careful training before such an one could hope to win the palm

and the crown was absolutely necessary. He must go through many long,

laborious, and painful exercises, abstinence, watchings, fastings,

before his body was fit to endure the perils and sufferings of a

trained combatant in the public arena.

In like manner must the Christian athlete who looked forward to a

possible martyr’s trial train himself. S. Cyprian, in the middle of

the third century, thus definitely writes of what clearly had been

the practice of the Church: “Ad agonem sæcularem, exercentur homines

et parantur.... Armari et præparari nos beatus Apostolus docet.”[110]

(“For the combat with the world are men trained and prepared.... The

blessed apostle teaches us to be all armed and ready.”)

The prize of martyrdom was very great. The visions and dreams of the

blessed sufferers were constantly read aloud in the congregation.

At the moment after death angels would bear them into Paradise--the

garden of God. They would be welcomed there with words of triumph

and even admiration. The Master would Himself receive His redeemed

servants who had fought the good fight and won. His kiss of welcome,

the touch of His hand, would at once fill their souls with a joy

indescribable. The “Vision of Perpetua,” _circa_ A.D. 200, or

a little earlier, one of the early Passions of Martyrs, the absolute

authenticity of which is undisputed,--for it has never been added to

or re-edited,--is a good example of the “Visions” seen by the martyrs

before their supreme trial.

But far more than the public recital of these well-loved acts and

passions was required for the training and preparation work, so a

number of short treatises or tracts were specially composed and put

out for the instruction of the earnest and devoted men and women as

“Manuals,” so to speak, of preparation for the great trial. Most of

these have disappeared; they were composed by fervid teachers for a

special season, for the years when the Church was exposed to bitter

trial; and when the trial time was over they were no longer required,

and as a rule were not preserved. A very few remain to us, such as

the “Exhortatio ad Martyrium” of Origen, such tractates of Tertullian

as “ad Martyres” and the “Scorpiace”; the letter “Ad Thibaritanos” of

S. Cyprian, and the anonymous work quoted at the beginning of this

chapter, _De Laude Martyrii_. These are fair specimens of what was

once a considerable literature. In very many of the “Passions of the

Martyrs” which have been preserved we meet with an oft-repeated answer

made by the Christian to the judge when asked about his rank in life,

country, family, and the like. “_I am a Christian_” was the almost

invariable answer to these questions; often nothing more. This seems to

have been the “formula” taught in the schools of martyrdom,--very few

traces, however, of this “formula” appear in the treatises which have

come down to us; it must, however, have been constantly repeated in the

“lost” treatises or tracts placed in the hands of those under training,

lost treatises to which reference has been made. The Epistle of S.

Ignatius to the Romans was no doubt used as one of these treatises or

manuals.

The words too of a famous teacher like Cyprian, who himself in the

end suffered martyrdom, were treasured up. Some of them are contained

in the Vision of S. Flavian before he suffered: “I saw in a dream the

martyr Bishop of Carthage, and I said to him: ‘Cyprian, is the death

stroke very agonizing?’ He replied: ‘When the soul is in a state of

heavenly rapture the suffering flesh is no longer ours; the body is

quite insensible to pain when the spirit is with God.”

This conception of the insensibility to pain on the part of the martyr

was a very general one. Tertullian repeats it almost in identical

words. S. Felicitas, quoted in the Passion of S. Perpetua above

referred to, said: “When I am in the amphitheatre the Lord will be

there and will suffer for me.”

S. Perpetua in the same well-known “Passion,” after having been tossed

and gored by a wild and maddened beast, woke up from the ecstacy into

which she had been plunged and asked the official standing near her

when she was to be exposed to the infuriated animal. S. Blandina in

another cruel scene of martyrdom was equally insensible to pain--her

soul was far away speaking with or praying to the Lord.

But of all the various “Manuals of Martyrdom” which were put into

the hands of those who desired to receive a special training against

the day of trial, none seemed to have been efficacious, easy of

comprehension, persuasive--like the words of S. Matthew’s Gospel. These

were evidently committed to memory and murmured again and again in the

sore hour of trial.

Such sayings as these--they were the Lord’s own words, the sufferer

knew: “Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake;

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” “How[111] strait is the gate and

narrow is the way which leadeth unto life.” “Fear not them which kill

the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which

is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

“Whosoever, therefore, shall confess ME before men, him will I confess

(acknowledge) before My Father which is in heaven.” “But whosoever

shall deny ME before men, him will I also deny before My Father which

is in heaven.”

“He that loveth father and mother more than ME is not worthy of ME.”

“And he that loveth son or daughter more than ME is not worthy of ME.”

“If any man will come after ME, let him deny himself and take up his

cross and follow ME.”

“And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren or sisters, or

father or mother, or wife or children, or lands for My Name’s sake,

shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life.”

But the “training for martyrdom” to which a number of Christians in

the first, second, and third centuries voluntarily gave themselves

was by no means confined to the mastering of the contents of a small

collection of carefully prepared treatises, or to the listening to

eloquent and burning exhortations of devoted teachers, or even to the

constant dwelling on the words of the Divine Master. This training

included a prolonged and carefully balanced practice in austerities

which would accustom the body to self-denial and to suffering, so that

when the agony of the trial really began, the body, thoroughly enured

to endurance, would be able to meet pain without flinching.

In this training for the mortal combat in which victory was so

all-important to the cause, no efforts were spared--painful and

laborious exercises, long fasting, watching and prayer, which would

render the body insensible to fatigue, capable of bearing any suffering

however poignant, were constantly practised. This training sometimes

went on for a long while before a fitting opportunity presented itself

of a public trial.

It was the want of this--the absence of this long and careful training

alluded to in the beautiful and evangelical letter describing the Lyons

and Vienne martyrdoms, which was the cause of many of the earlier

failures, and shrinking from the agony of martyrdom, of some of the

Lyons sufferers.

II

That great and severe master Tertullian, writing about A.D.

200, gives us some details of the austerities practised by those in

training for a martyr’s death. We will quote a very few of his burning

words here.

“Blessed martyrs designate, think,” he wrote, “how in peace soldiers

(he was speaking of the training of the unconquered legions of Rome)

inure themselves to war by toils, marching in heavy armour, running

over the exercise yard, working at the ditches, framing the heavy

‘testudo,’ engaging in numberless arduous labours, so that when the day

of battle comes, the body and mind may not shrink as it passes from the

robe of peace to the coat of mail, from silence to clamour, from quiet

to tumult. In like manner, oh blessed ones! count whatever is hard in

this lot of yours which you have taken up, as a discipline of mind

and body. You are about to pass through a noble struggle in which the

living God is the President, the Holy Ghost is the trainer, in which

the prize is an eternal crown of angelic life.... Therefore your Master

Jesus Christ has seen good before the day of conflict ... to impose on

you a hard training that your strength may be greater” ... “the harder

the labours in the training of preparation, the stronger is the hope of

victory, ... for valour is built up by hardship.”[112]

In other places Tertullian quotes S. Paul in such passages as: “We

glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience,

and patience experience, and experience hope” (Rom. v. 3, 4); and

again: “Therefore I take pleasure” (2 Cor. xii. 10) “in infirmities, in

reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s

sake” ... “always bearing about in our body the dying of the Lord

Jesus” (2 Cor. iv. 10); and again (2 Cor. iv. 16, 17, 18), “Though our

outward man perisheth yet the inward man is renewed day by day.... For

our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far

more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the

things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.”[113]

In his treatise on “Idolatry” Tertullian enters even more into detail

on this question of “training for martyrdom.” He enjoined that every

kind of austerity should be practised,--for instance, that hunger and

thirst should be endured as an habitual observance.

This fervid exhortation closes with the singular words: “An over-fed

Christian will be more necessary to bears and lions, perchance, than to

God; to encounter wild beasts it will surely be his duty to train for

emaciation.”

All this and much more in this curious “Study” of Tertullian partake

of exaggeration, but it throws considerable light on the manner on

which martyrdom was positively trained for, and the body prepared for

the endurance of terrible suffering, a suffering invariably closed

by death. Every example of such a bravely patient endurance--every

“resistance unto blood”--the Christian guides and leaders of the first

250 years felt was of inestimable value for the propagation of their

cause. Every public defeat and recantation, on the other hand, would

be a grave injury to their work; so the pagan government strained,

as we have remarked, every nerve to make recantation easy; while the

Christian masters, on the contrary, did everything which ingenuity

could invent or fervid devotion suggest to train up athletes who in the

supreme public trial might win the prize of martyrdom.

They were successful--in spite of many defeats. These schools of

martyrdom produced in Rome and in the provinces a countless succession

of brave men and women of all ranks, of all ages--who, to the amazement

of the pagan world, through pain and agony again and again won the

martyr’s blood-stained glorious crown. It was quite a novel experience

in the world, and the effect which it had worked on the rank and file

of men and women was only clearly seen after the Peace of the Church.

The people of Rome, from what they had seen, were persuaded with an

intense persuasion, no one doubting that a Faith which could produce

such heroes was surely based on _something_ which was true and real.

Some eighty or at most ninety years before Tertullian lived and wrote,

Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, on his way to Rome, where he was doomed

to be exposed to the wild beasts in the great amphitheatre, wrote his

famous letter to the Roman Church.

The date of the letter is about A.D. 107-10. The little writing was

highly esteemed in the early Church. It may be fairly styled a _vade

mecum_ of martyrs in the age of persecution. It accurately embodies the

thoughts and aspirations which the “School of Martyrs” we have been

picturing taught its pupils. We will give some of these thoughts as a

fitting conclusion to this little study on “Preparation for Martyrdom”

as practised during the first two hundred and fifty years.

This Letter of Ignatius breathes in its nervous and impassioned words

a complete fearlessness, though the awful trial lay immediately before

him; it tells of an intense and impassioned desire on the part of the

writer to be allowed to bear his witness to the love of Christ--to be

permitted “to resist unto blood” (Heb. xii. 4). The whole of the short

letter is, in fact, a passionate cry for martyrdom.

Ignatius wrote somewhat as follows:

“DEAR ROMAN CONGREGATION,--Do nothing which may hinder

me from finishing my course. If _you_ keep silence, God will

speak through me.” (He evidently feared that, through the

intercession of powerful friends whom the great teacher knew he

possessed in the capital, the death sentence might be postponed,

possibly annulled.)

“Pray”--he wrote--“that I may have strength to do as well as to

say. If only you will keep silence and leave me alone,--I am a

word of God; but if you desire my life--then shall I be again a

mere cry. It is good to get from the world unto God that I may

rise unto Him.

“I would that all men should know that of my own free will, I

die for God.... Let me be given to the wild beasts, that I may

be found pure bread of God (or of Christ). Bear with me....

Now am I beginning to be a disciple.... Come fire and cross

and grapplings with wild beasts, wrenching of bones, hacking

of limbs, crushings of my whole body. Come cruel tortures of

the devil to assail me. Only be it mine to attain unto Jesus

Christ!... Him I seek who died on our behalf. Him I desire who

rose again for our sake.... Suffer me to receive the pure light:

when I am come thither, then I shall be a man. Let me be an

imitator of the Passion of my God....”

“I write unto you in the midst of life, yet lusting after

death. My desire (or my love of life) has been crucified, there

is (now) no fire of earthly longing in me but only water,

living and speaking in me and saying within me, ‘Come to the

Father.’ I have no delight in the food of corruption or in the

delights of life. I desire the bread of God which is the flesh

of Christ, ... and for drink I desire His blood, which is love

incorruptible.”

* * * * *

This was the new marvellous spirit in which the early Christian martyrs

met and welcomed with a strange intense gladness, torture, ignominy,

death. This was the spirit which the great pagan statesmen who sat

at the helm of the Empire in Rome dreaded with a nameless dread, and

longed to crush and to destroy, the new spirit which the wisest and

most far-seeing among them felt was ever ringing the death-knell of

the pagan cult, the cult they connected with the genesis, the power,

and the very life of the Roman system, the cult which deified Rome and

worshipped the genius of Rome’s Emperor.

PART III

THE GREAT NUMBER OF MARTYRS IN THE FIRST TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS

INTRODUCTORY

Considerable stress has been laid in the preceding pages on the

question of the duration of the periods of persecution and the

consequent number of martyrs who suffered in these periods. It has

commonly been assumed that after the death of Nero a lengthened period

of quiet was enjoyed by the Church of Rome as in the provinces, and

that the sect of Christians was generally left unmolested during the

reigns of Vespasian and Titus, and indeed of Domitian, until quite the

last years of his life.

It has been shown that this was by no means the case, and that the

Christians were harassed more or less all through this period of

supposed quiet.

And after, through the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, the rapidly

growing Christian community was perpetually persecuted by an unfriendly

and suspicious government, often at the instigation of a jealous

and hostile populace. Again and again these attacks, probably at

first mostly local and partial, flamed out into a general and bitter

persecution.

In the days of Antoninus Pius the harrying of Christians even grew more

and more general and cruel, and when Marcus Antoninus became Emperor,

the sufferings of the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth became decidedly

more acute and pronounced, and a terrible period of persecution set in

and became the lot of the Christian subjects of Rome.

We have awful examples of this bitter “Antonine” persecution in the

sad records, undoubtedly genuine, of the martyrs of Vienne and Lyons,

of the Scillitan martyrs in North Africa, of the heroic Mauritanian

victims, in the striking and pathetic acts of Perpetua and her

companions.[114]

Again it has been not unfrequently urged, and very largely believed,

that the Christian traditions exaggerated the number of martyrs who

suffered during the long though occasionally interrupted periods of

persecution. As regards this early period, the first two centuries, the

age we are now especially dwelling on, this supposition, very generally

more or less accepted, is absolutely baseless. Indeed, the exact

contrary is the case.

So far from exaggerating the numbers of confessors of “the Name,”

or painting in too vivid colours the story of their martyrdom, the

earlier Christian writers dwell very little either on the number of

the confessors or on their sufferings. It does not appear that any

mention of martyrs or confessors of the second century appears in the

oldest extant Church calendars; no allusion in these lists is recorded

of martyrs until after the middle of the third century. Only in the

case of some celebrated martyrs and confessors is an exception made. As

a rule, save in very special cases, no anniversary of second-century

martyrs appears to have been kept. It is only from the general tone

of the earliest Christian writings[115] that we gather that the

community was exposed to an ever-present danger, and that the shadow of

persecution was ever brooding over the heads of the followers of “the

Name.”

By far the most definite account of the great numbers of Christians,

the way in which they were looked upon by the imperial government, and

the severe measures taken against them, are to be found in the notices

of great pagan historians such as Tacitus and Suetonius, and more

accurately and precisely in the Letter of Pliny to Trajan and in the

Emperor’s reply, on which we have already dwelt with some detail.

On the important and interesting question respecting the “number”

of martyrs generally, one very weighty piece of evidence has been

curiously neglected and ignored.

This evidence comes from the Catacombs, which have been in later years

the subject of so much careful and painstaking research, a research

that is still proceeding. In these investigations perhaps nothing has

assisted the great scholars who have devoted themselves to the work, so

much as the so-called “Itineraries” or “Pilgrim Guides” to this great

network of subterranean cemeteries beneath the suburbs of Rome. In the

fifth, sixth, and two following centuries we know that vast numbers of

Pilgrims, not only from Italy but from distant countries, visited Rome,

especially with the view of reverently visiting and praying at the

shrines of the brave confessors of the Faith who suffered in the days

of persecution, from the time of Nero to the accession of Constantine

the Great to power.

To assist these pilgrim crowds, a certain number of “Itineraries”

were composed. Some few of them have come down to us; these curious

and interesting Pilgrim “Hand-Books” have been usually unearthed (in

comparatively speaking modern times) in certain of the greater monastic

libraries.[116]

They date from the last years of the fifth century onwards, and

were written--the copies we possess--mostly in the sixth, seventh,

and eighth centuries. No doubt these “Itineraries” were copied from

still older documents, and it is likely that more will be discovered.

But these that we possess have been of incalculable service to the

researches of men like Marchi, De Rossi, Marucchi, and their companions.

The information contained in these Pilgrim Guide-Books has been found

to be in most cases singularly accurate, and the details set forth

have been found most strikingly to correspond with what has been

discovered. Not only have the more famous shrines alluded to been

identified, but even the general details have been proved to have

been largely correct. One detail, however, in these ancient “Pilgrim

Itineraries” has not received the attention it deserved, and which in a

most striking way confirms the point urged above, that the numbers of

martyrs in Rome (for we are dwelling here especially on Rome) has been

greatly underrated by most historians.

I

We will briefly glance through the testimony of the “Itineraries” on

this point, touching upon each of the principal Catacombs in order.

As a rule the “Pilgrim Itineraries” class the different groups of

cemeteries (Catacombs) under the different heading of the Roman road in

the immediate vicinity of which they were excavated. Thus cemeteries

are classed together which are situated on the “Via Aurelia,” the

“Via Portuensis,” the “Via Appia,” the “Via Salaria Nova,” etc. This

topographical arrangement was drawn up evidently for the convenience

of these pilgrim travellers, who were thus guided in turn round the

principal shrines.

ON THE RIGHT BANK OF THE TIBER IN THE TRASTEVERE QUARTER

THE VIA VATICANA. (_The Vatican Cemetery._)

The allusion referred to here is to the crypts existing beneath

the great basilica of S. Peter.--“No man knows what the number

is of the holy martyrs who rest in this Church” (Etenim nullus

hominum scit numerum sanctorum Martyrum qui in eadem ecclesia

pausant).--_Itinerary of William of Malmesbury._

This “Guide” was probably published for the use of the

Crusaders. It was evidently made from a much older document, for

many of the shrines alluded to in it belonged to Catacombs which

in William of Malmesbury’s time had been long forgotten.

THE VIA AURELIA. (_The road leading to Civita Vecchia._)

After speaking of the shrines of certain celebrated confessors

buried in a cemetery hard by this road, we read how “these

lie buried with many (other martyrs)” (cum multis sepulti

jacent).--_De Locis SS. Martyrum._

Of this “Itinerary,” the full title of which is “De Locis SS.

Martyrum quæ sunt foris civitatem Romæ,”--the MS. was found in

the Salzburg Library.

THE VIA PORTUENSIS. (_The road leading to Portus, the ancient

port of Rome, constructed by Claudius._)

Certain famous shrines are particularised, after which follow

the words: “Then you go down into a cave (or crypt), and you

will find there an innumerable multitude of martyrs” (invenies

ibi innumerabilem multitudinem martyrum); and again, alluding to

another spot, “that cave (or crypt) is filled with the bones of

martyrs.”

The cemeteries on the Via Portuensis include the cemeteries of

Pontianus and S. Felix.--_Salzburg Itinerary._

CEMETERIES (CATACOMBS) ON LEFT BANK OF THE TIBER (ROME PROPER)

THE VIA OSTIENSIS. (_The road leading to Ostia._)

After alluding to the sepulchre of S. Paul and other shrines,

such as S. Adauctus, mention is made of a martyr Nomeseus, with

many others (cum plurimis aliis).

THE VIA ARDEATINA. (_A road on the right or west of the

Via Appia._)

The “Guide” speaks of various shrines and proceeds to say: “Not

far off lie S. Petronilla and Nereus and Achilles and many other

martyrs.”--_Itinerary of William of Malmesbury._

THE VIA APPIA. (_The “Queen of Roads” leads through

Albano on to Capua._)

(1) After enumerating various notable shrines, such as that of

S. Cecilia, we read: “There we come upon a countless multitude

of martyrs” (Ibi innumerabilis multitudo martyrum).

(2) Further on, mention is made of “80 nameless martyrs who rest

here.”--_Salzburg Itinerary._

(1) In another “Itinerary” describing the cemeteries of the

Appian Way we read of “800 martyrs who are stated to rest in the

great Callistus group of Catacombs.”

(2) And here again the expression is used, “with many

martyrs.”--_De Locis SS. Martyrum._

THE VIA LATINA (_leads out of the ancient Porta Capena

to the left of the Appian Way_).

The “Itinerary” here referred to speaks of some three groups of

cemeteries, in two of which, it states, after particularising

some famous shrines, that “many martyrs rest there.”--_De Locis

SS. Martyrum._

THE VIA LABICANA (_leads out of the ancient Esquiline Gate_).

The “Pilgrim Guide” here referred to mentions that, in the group

of cemeteries situate on this road, “many martyrs rest.” In

another place it alludes to “many other martyrs”; in another,

“30 martyrs.”--_Itinerary of Salzburg._

Another “Pilgrim Guide” tells us of “a countless multitude of

martyrs” buried in this group of Catacombs.--_De Locis SS.

Martyrum._

Another “Itinerary,” after specifying some famous names,

mentions that here were “other martyrs unnumbered.”--_Itinerary

of Einsiedeln._

THE VIA TIBURTINA. (_The road which through the

Tiburtina Gate, now the Porta S. Lorenzo, leads to Tivoli._)

The “Guide” speaks of the Church of S. Laurence and the two

basilicas in the cemetery adjacent. It says: “Many martyrs

rest there”; and again, in the cemetery hard by, mentions “a

multitude of saints” buried there.--_Itinerary of Salzburg._

Another “Itinerary,” describing these cemeteries, records

that “with S. Cyriaca and S. Symphorosa are buried many

martyrs.”--_De Locis SS. Martyrum._

THE VIA NOMENTANA (_leads out of the old Porta Collina

to the town of Nomentum (Mentana). The modern Porta Pia is close

to the old gate_).

After describing the group of cemeteries lying round the

Basilica of S. Agnes, and mentioning some of the better-known

saints, the “Itinerary” says: “Many others sleep there.”--_De

Locis SS. Martyrum._

THE VIA SALARIA NOVA (_leads in a northerly direction out of the

old Porta Collina (Porta Pia now). The great Cemetery (Catacomb)

of Priscilla is a little way out of the city on this road_).

The “Itinerary” is speaking of the old Basilica of S. Sylvester;

its ruins are in the Priscilla Catacomb. There, it says, “a

multitude of saints rest”; and further on, still speaking

of the same Basilica of S. Sylvester, says that “under the

altar with certain famous confessors there are a multitude of

saints.”--_Itinerary of Salzburg._

Another “Guide,” writing of the great ones who rest in the

“Priscilla” Cemetery, adds how they sleep there “with many

saints.” Hard by, the same “Guide” tells us how one of the

confessor-sons of S. Felicitas in the same spot rests “with

many saints”; and again alludes to “the many martyrs buried

there.” And once more, speaking of the shrine of S. Sylvester,

relates that “very many more saints and martyrs lie hard by.” In

one grave, the “Guide” adds, “373 are buried.”--_De Locis SS.

Martyrum._

_William of Malmesbury_, copying--as we said--from a much

older “Pilgrim Guide,” after enumerating the names of the more

prominent martyrs, adds, “and there are innumerable other saints

buried there” (alii innumerabiles).--_William of Malmesbury._

THE VIA SALARIA VETUS. (_This road was in the immediate

neighbourhood of the last mentioned, the “Via Salaria Nova.”_)

The “Itinerary,” describing the group of cemeteries on this

road, writes, after mentioning the better-known names of saints:

“These are buried with many martyrs”; and further on relates how

“230 martyrs are interred here.”--_De Locis SS. Martyrum._

_William of Malmesbury_, writing of the same group, relates

that “in the one grave 260 martyrs rest,” and “in another

30.”--_William of Malmesbury, Itinerary._

THE VIA FLAMINIA. (_This ancient road leads out of the

modern Porta del Popolo, is a direct continuation of the modern

Corso. It is the great road communicating with North Italy._)

There is only one Cemetery or Catacomb on this road, that of S.

Valentinus. The “Guide” relates how the martyr S. Valentinus

rests there together “with other martyrs unnamed.”--_Itinerary

of Salzburg._

Another “Guide” says: “Many saints are buried here.”--_De Locis

SS. Martyrum._

II

Of somewhat less weight than the testimony of the “Itineraries” or

“Pilgrim Guide” books, but still of great importance as throwing a

strong sidelight upon the evidence we have massed together on the

subject of the large numbers of the martyrs and confessors of Rome

interred in the Catacombs, are the Monza “Catalogue” and “Labels” once

attached to the little phials of oil brought to Theodelinda from the

sacred shrines of Rome.

We have elsewhere briefly described this curious and absolutely

authentic relic.[117] Theodelinda asked for relics from the shrines

of the Cemeteries (Catacombs) of Rome; Pope Gregory the Great in the

last years of the sixth century sent to her a little of the oil from

the lamps which in his days were ever kept burning before each of the

shrines in question.

The original “Catalogue” (Notitia) of these oils, and the “Labels”

(Pittacia) once attached to the phials which held the oils, are

preserved in the Cathedral of Monza.

The “Catalogue” (or Notitia) is preceded by the following words:

“Nōt. de olea scōrum (sanctorum) martyrum qui Romæ in corpore

requiescunt--id est,” etc. Here follows the List of Martyrs from whose

shrines a little of the oil (contained in the lamps always burning

before them) was taken.

In several instances, notably after such names as S. Agnes, S.

Cecilia, SS. Felix and Philippus and S. Cornelius, occur the following

expressions:--

“Et aliaram multarum Martyrum”--“et multa millia scorum”--(sanctorum)

“et alii Sci (Sancti), id est CCLXII.” ... “in unum locum et alii

CXXII. et alii Sci XLVI.”--“et aliorum multi scor” (sanctorum).

In other words, the “Catalogue” and the “Labels” on the phials relate

how the sacred oil was taken from lamps burning before the graves (the

shrines) of S. Agnes and of “many other martyrs buried close by”; of S.

Cornelius and “of many thousands of saints” resting in the immediate

neighbourhood of his tomb; of S. Philippus and of “many other saints

sleeping near his shrine,” etc.

In three instances the exact numbers of the nameless martyrs are given,

viz.: 262, 122, and 46. The expression “many thousands” which occurs in

this venerable memorial of the reverent feeling of Christians of the

sixth century towards the noble and devoted confessors of the Faith,

is of course an exaggerated one; it may even be termed a rhetorical

expression; but it bears its undoubted testimony to the deeply rooted

belief of Christians who lived in the centuries which immediately

followed the Peace of the Church, that in this sacred City of the Roman

dead an enormous number of martyrs was buried, besides those whose

names and stories were, as it were, household words in every land where

Jesus Christ was adored.

III

There is a celebrated inscription of Pope Damasus (A.D. 366-84)

preserved in one of the collections of the epitaphs he placed in the

Catacombs (the Sylloge Palestina), an inscription originally placed in

the Papal Crypt of the “Callistus” Cemetery, which speaks especially

of “a number of martyrs buried together” near that sacred spot. The

epitaph commences as follows:

“Hic congesta jacet quæris si turba piorum

Corpora sanctorum retinent veneranda sepulchra

Sublimes animas rapuit sibi Regia cœli.”[118]

Prudentius (_Perist._ i. 73) (end of fourth century) beautifully

alludes to the veil of oblivion which has fallen over the hidden graves

of these numberless nameless martyrs:

“O vetustatis silentis obsoleta oblivio

Invidentur ista nobis, fama et ipsa extinguitur.”

And again (_Perist._ ii.):

“Vix Fama nota est, abditis

Quam plena sanctis Roma sit,

Quam dives urbanum solum

Sacri sepulchris floreat.”

The martyrs traditionally interred in the various Catacombs of Rome,

and whose graves were reverently and persistently visited by crowds

of pilgrims to Rome from foreign lands after the Peace of the Church

during the fourth, fifth, and following centuries, represent the

victims of the various periods of persecution during the first three

centuries.

It is by no means intended to press the traditional statements

contained in the Pilgrim Itineraries quoted in this chapter respecting

the vast number of martyrs interred in the Catacombs of Rome.

These statements are probably somewhat exaggerated, but the undisputed

fact remains that a _very great number_ of these victims of the various

persecutions were certainly interred in this hallowed city of the dead;

and the unvarying tradition of the number of martyrs so interred must

be taken into account, and gravely reckoned with, wherever the question

of the number of Christian victims is considered.

BOOK IV

THE ROMAN CATACOMBS

[Illustration: THE “COME AND DINE” OF THE LAST CHAPTER OF ST. JOHN’S

GOSPEL--THE MYSTIC REPAST OF THE SEVEN DISCIPLES

CEMETERY OF CALLISTUS--II CENTURY. (A FAVOURITE PICTURE IN THE

CATACOMBS)]

THE ROMAN CATACOMBS

INTRODUCTORY

An absolutely reliable source of information respecting the secret of

the inner life of the Church in the early Christian centuries is the

faithful record of the thoughts, the hopes, the aspirations of the

congregations of the Church of the metropolis of the Empire, carved

and painted on the countless graves of the subterranean corridors and

chambers of the Catacombs of Rome.

“The popular, the actual belief of a generation or society of men

cannot always be ascertained from the contemporary writers, who

belong for the most part to another stratum. The belief of a people

is something separate from the books or the watchwords of parties. It

is in the air. It is in their intimate conversation. We must hear,

especially in the case of the simple and unlearned, what they talk of

to each other. We must sit by their bedsides, get at what gives them

most consolation, what most occupies their last moments. This, whatever

it be, is the belief of the people, right or wrong; this and this

only, is their real religion.... Now, is it possible to ascertain this

concerning the early Christians?

* * * * *

“The books of that period are few and far between, and those books are

for the most part the works of learned scholars rather than of popular

writers. Can we, apart from these books, discover what was their most

real and constant representation of their dearest hopes here and

hereafter? Strange to say, after all this lapse of time (getting on

for some two thousand years) it is possible; the answer, at any rate,

for that large mass of Christians from all parts of the Empire that

was collected in the capital, the answer is to be found in the Roman

Catacombs,”[119]--that great city of the dead which lies beneath the

soil of the immediate suburbs of imperial Rome. This city of the dead

certainly contains several hundred miles of streets of tombs, and the

tombs at least contain three or more millions of silent dwellers!

In this resting-place of the dead the community of Rome, by far the

greatest of the Christian churches who professed the faith of Jesus,

for some two centuries and a half reverently laid their dear ones as

they passed from the stir of busy restless Roman life into the unseen

world. There in these Catacombs they used to pray often, very often

in the years of persecution; there they used to hear the teaching of

Duty, of Hope and Faith from the lips of some chosen master, and it

is from the words written or graven upon the innumerable tombs in

the Catacombs that we gather what was the real belief of these early

congregations--what their sure hopes and aspirations. In these silent

streets, on the walls of the countless sepulchral chambers, they loved

to paint pictures and to grave short epitaphs telling of these same

cherished hopes. Some of these pictures and epitaphs, often dim and

discoloured, often mutilated, are with us still. Not a few of the

artists who worked there were evidently men of no mean power in their

noble craft.

Ruined, desecrated, spoiled though it now is, with only comparatively

small portions accessible at all--what a treasure-house for the scholar

is this silent group of cemeteries!

A careful study of the more recent discoveries in the Catacombs throws

much light on the opinions and thoughts of the Christians of the first

and second centuries, showing us that the current of early Christian

thought not unfrequently ran in a somewhat different channel to the

stream of thoughts presented to us by the contemporary writers of that

very early period. It must, however, be insisted on that the cardinal

doctrines of the Faith taught by the weightiest of the first Christian

writers were absolutely identical with the belief of the Christians of

the Roman Catacombs. If anything, the supreme divinity of the Son of

God--His love for, His care for men, is emphasised more emphatically,

if it be possible, in the silent teaching than in the fervid dogmatism

of the great Catholic writers.

To enable the reader fairly to grasp something of the vast extent,

the nature, and importance of these Catacombs of Rome, whose silent

witness to the “Inner Life” of the early Church is invoked, this

Fourth Book will give: (1) a brief description of the way in which the

investigations into this wonderful “City of the Dead” in later years

has been carried out by careful scholars and experts; (2) a general

and somewhat detailed account of the situation and features of the

several Catacombs, dwelling especially on the more important of these

cemeteries; (3) the teaching contained in the inscriptions, carvings,

and paintings on the graves in the Catacomb corridors.

PART I

I

Since the date of what may be termed the rediscovery of the Catacombs

in the vineyard on the Via Salaria in 1578[120] the work of excavation

and research in the streets of the City of the Dead which lies beneath

the suburbs of Rome has been slowly and somewhat fitfully carried on,

exciting generally but little public interest, and until the last fifty

years, roughly speaking, has been most mischievous and destructive.

It is probable that more destruction and havoc have been wrought

by the well-meaning but ill-directed efforts of the explorer than

were occasioned by the raids of the barbarians in the sixth and two

following centuries and by the slow wear and sap of time.

Among these, Bosio, A.D. 1593-1629, the pioneer of the Catacomb

explorers, occupies one of the few honourable places; his method of

working was in many respects scientific. He was no mere explorer,

working haphazard, but he guided his labours by carefully sifting

all the information he could procure of the past history of the

vast subterranean necropolis. But, after all, the materials of this

history which he could get together were scanty when compared with the

materials possessed by scholars of our day and time, and in consequence

many of the conclusions to which this pioneer of Catacomb research came

to were erroneous.

But in his manner of working Bosio had no successors. As a rule, since

that really illustrious scholar and searcher has passed away, alas!

a very different method has been with rare exceptions followed by

explorers of the Catacombs, and owing to the careless and ill-regulated

excavations which have been fitfully carried on during some 200 and

more years, irreparable damage has been done, and the losses to

this deeply important branch of early Christian history are simply

incalculable.

The general results of this unfortunate exploration work in the past

have been summarised as follows:

During this long period--roughly from A.D. 1629 to about the

middle of the nineteenth century, some 220 years--_the chief object and

aim of Catacomb exploration were to procure relics_; when these were

once carried away, no heed was paid to the crypts, or to the streets

of graves. The records of the excavations kept were scanty and utterly

insignificant, and each Catacomb from which the relics were taken was

left in a state of utter ruin and deplorable confusion. The result of

these searchings of 220 years has been that few discoveries were made

of any real importance to early Christian history or archæology. At

last De Rossi, in the middle years of the nineteenth century, took

in hand seriously the study and scientific exploration of the vast

Christian necropolis of Rome.