There were Christian martyrs in later years. It is very difficult
to discover the precise grounds on which they were condemned; but I
venture to think that none of them were put to death on religious
grounds under the earlier emperors. All religions were tolerated,
and there is no reason to suppose that the Romans would seek out and
persecute certain obscure men, with a peculiar cult, at a time when
they permitted all other religions.
Titus, Trajan, the Antonines, and Decius were not barbarians. How
can we suppose that they deprived the Christians alone of a liberty
which the whole empire enjoyed? How could they venture to charge the
Christians with their secret mysteries when the mysteries of Isis,
Mithra, and the Syrian goddess, all alien to the Roman cult, were
freely permitted? There must have been other reasons for persecution.
Possibly certain special animosities, supported by reasons of State,
led to the shedding of Christian blood.
For instance, when St. Lawrence refused to give to the Roman prefect,
Cornelius Secularis, the money of the Christians which he held, the
prefect and emperor would naturally be irritated. They did not know
that St. Lawrence had distributed the money to the poor, and done a
charitable and holy act. They regarded him as rebellious, and had him
put to death.[17]
Consider the martyrdom of St. Polyeuctes. Was he condemned on the
ground of religion alone? He enters the temple, in which thanks are
being given to the gods for the victory of the Emperor Decius. He
insults the sacrificing priests, and overturns and breaks the altars
and statues. In what country in the world would such an outrage be
overlooked? The Christian who in public tore down the edict of the
Emperor Diocletian, and drew the great persecution upon his brethren
in the last two years of the reign of that emperor, had more zeal
than discretion, and, unhappily, brought a great disaster on the body
to which he belonged. This unthinking zeal, which often broke out,
and was condemned even by some of the fathers of the Church, was
probably the cause of all the persecutions.
I do not, of course, compare the early Protestants with the early
Christians; one cannot put error by the side of truth. But it is a
fact that Forel, the predecessor of Calvin, did at Arles the same
thing that St. Polyeuctes had done in Armenia. The statue of St.
Antony the Hermit was being carried in procession, and Forel and
some of his companions fell on the monks who carried it, beat and
scattered them, and threw St. Antony in the river. He deserved
the death which he managed to evade by flight.[18] If he had been
content to call out to the monks that he did not believe that a crow
brought half a loaf to St. Antony the Hermit, or that St. Antony
conversed with centaurs and satyrs, he would merely have merited a
stern rebuke for disturbing public order; and if, the evening after
the procession, he had calmly studied the story of the crow, the
centaurs, and the satyrs, they would have had no reproach to make him.
You think that the Romans would have suffered the infamous
Antinous[19] to be raised to the rank of the secondary gods, and
would have rent and given to the beasts those whose only reproach
was to have quietly worshipped one just God! You imagine that they
would have recognised a supreme and sovereign God, master of all the
secondary gods, as we see in their formula, _Deus optimus maximus_,
yet persecuted those who worshipped one sole God!
It is incredible that there was any inquisition against the
Christians--that men were sent among them to interrogate them on
their beliefs--under the emperors. On that point they never troubled
either Jew, Syrian, Egyptian, Druid, or philosopher. The martyrs
were men who made an outcry against what they called false gods. It
was a very wise and pious thing to refuse to believe in them; but,
after all, if, not content with worshipping God in spirit and in
truth, they broke out violently against the established cult, however
absurd it was, we are compelled to admit that they were themselves
intolerant.[20]
Tertullian admits in his _Apology_ (ch. xxxix.) that the Christians
were regarded as seditious. The charge was unjust, but it shows that
it was not merely their religion which stimulated the zeal of the
magistrates. He admits that the Christians refused to decorate their
doors with laurel branches in the public rejoicings for the victories
of the emperors; such an affectation might easily be turned into the
crime of treason.
The first period of juridical severity against the Christians was
under Domitian, but it was generally restricted to a banishment that
did not last a year. “Facile coeptum repressit, restitutis quos
ipse relegaverat,” says Tertullian [“He quickly repressed the work,
restoring those whom he had banished”]. Lactantius, whose style is so
vehement, agrees that the Church was peaceful and flourishing from
Domitian to Decius [96-250 A.D.].[21] This long peace, he says, was
broken when “that execrable animal Decius began to vex the Church.”
We need not discuss here the opinion of the learned Dodwell that
the martyrs were few in number; but if the Romans persecuted the
Christian religion, if the Senate had put to death so many innocent
men with unusual tortures--plunging Christians in boiling oil and
exposing girls naked to the beasts in the circus--how is it that they
left untouched all the earlier bishops of Rome? St. Irenæus can count
among them only one martyr, Telesphorus, in the year 139 A.D.; and we
have no proof that Telesphorus was put to death. Zepherinus governed
the flock at Rome for twenty-eight years, and died peacefully in
219. It is true that nearly all the popes are inscribed in the early
martyrologies, but the word “martyr” was then taken in its literal
sense, as “witness,” not as one put to death.
It is difficult to reconcile this persecuting fury with the freedom
which the Christians had to hold the fifty-six Councils which
ecclesiastical writers count in the first three centuries.
There were persecutions; but if they were as violent as we are told,
it is probable that Tertullian, who wrote so vigorously against the
established cult, would not have died in his bed. We know, of course,
that the emperors would not read his _Apology_--an obscure work,
composed in Africa, would hardly reach those who were ruling the
world. But it must have been known to those who were in touch with
the proconsul of Africa, and ought to have brought a good deal of
ill-feeling on its author. He did not, however, suffer martyrdom.
Origen taught publicly at Alexandria, and was not put to death.
This same Origen, who spoke so freely to both pagans and
Christians--announcing Jesus to the former and denying a God in three
persons to the latter--says expressly, in the third book of his
_Contra Celsum_, that “there have been few martyrs, and those at long
intervals”; although, he says, “the Christians do all in their power
to make everybody embrace their religion, running about the towns and
villages.”
It is clear that a seditious complexion might be put by the hostile
priests on all this running about, yet the missions were tolerated,
in spite of the constant and cowardly disorders of the Egyptian
people, who killed a Roman for slaying a cat, and were always
contemptible.[22]
Who did more to bring upon him the priests and the government than
St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, a pupil of Origen? Gregory saw, during
the night, an old man, sent by God, and a woman shining with light;
the woman was the Virgin, and the man St. John the Evangelist. John
dictated to him a creed, which Gregory went out to preach. In going
to Neocæsarea he passed by a temple in which oracles were given, and
the rain compelled him to spend the night in it, after making many
signs of the cross. The following day the sacrificing priest was
astonished to find that the demons who were wont to answer him would
do so no longer. When he called, they said that they would come no
more, and could not live in the temple, because Gregory had spent the
night in it and made the sign of the cross in it.
The priest had Gregory seized, and Gregory said: “I can expel the
demons from wherever I like, and drive them into wherever I like.”
“Send them back into my temple, then,” said the priest. So Gregory
tore off a piece from a book he had in his hand and wrote on it:
“Gregory to Satan: I order thee to return to this temple.” The
message was placed on the altar, and the demons obeyed, and gave the
oracles as before.
St. Gregory of Nyssa tells us these facts in his _Life of St. Gregory
Thaumaturgus_. The priests in charge of the idols must have been
incensed against Gregory, and wished, in their blindness, to denounce
him to the magistrates. But their greatest enemy never suffered
persecution.
It is said that St. Cyprian was the first bishop of Carthage to be
condemned to death, in the year 258. During a very long period,
therefore, no bishop of Carthage suffered for his religion. History
does not tell us what charges were made against St. Cyprian, what
enemies he had, and why the proconsul of Africa was angry with him.
St. Cyprian writes to Cornelius, bishop of Rome: “There was, a short
time ago, some popular disturbance at Carthage, and the cry was twice
raised that I ought to be cast to the lions.” It is very probable
that the excitement of the passionate populace of Carthage was the
cause of the death of Cyprian; it is, at all events, certain that the
Emperor Gallus did not condemn him on the ground of religion from
distant Rome, since he left untouched Cornelius, who lived under his
eyes.
So many hidden causes are associated at times with the apparent
cause, so many unknown springs may be at work in the persecution of
a man, that it is impossible, centuries afterwards, to discover the
hidden source of the misfortunes even of distinguished men; it is
still more difficult to explain the persecution of an individual who
must have been known only to those of his own party.
Observe that St. Gregory Thaumaturgus and St. Denis, bishop of
Alexandria, who were not put to death, lived at the same time as
St. Cyprian. How is it that they were left in peace, since they
were, at least, as well known as the bishop of Carthage? And why was
Cyprian put to death? Does it not seem as if the latter fell a victim
to personal and powerful enemies, under the pretext of calumny or
reasons of State, which are so often associated with religion, and
that the former were fortunate enough to escape the malice of men?
It is impossible that the mere charge of being a Christian led to
the death of St. Ignatius under the clement and just Trajan, since
the Christians were allowed to accompany and console him during his
voyage to Rome. Seditions were common at Antioch, always a turbulent
city, where Ignatius was secret bishop of the Christians. Possibly
these seditions were imputed to the Christians, and brought the
authorities upon them.
St. Simeon, for instance, was charged before Sapor with being a Roman
spy. The story of his martyrdom tells that King Sapor ordered him to
worship the sun, but we know that the Persians did not worship the
sun; they regarded it as an emblem of the good principle Ormuzd, the
god whom they recognised.
However tolerant we may be, we cannot help being indignant with the
rhetoricians who accuse Diocletian of persecuting the Christians as
soon as he ascended the throne. Let us consult Eusebius of Cæsarea,
the favourite and panegyrist of Constantine, the violent enemy of
preceding emperors. He says (_Ecclesiastical History_, Bk. VIII.):
“The emperors for a long time gave the Christians proof of their
goodwill. They entrusted provinces to them; several Christians lived
in the palace; they even married Christians. Diocletian married
Prisca, whose daughter was the wife of Maximianus Galerius.”
We may well suspect that the persecution set afoot by Galerius, after
a clement and benevolent reign of twenty-nine years, was due to some
intrigue that is unknown to us.[23]
The story of the massacre of the Theban Legion on religious grounds
is absurd. It is ridiculous to say that the legion came from Asia
by the great St. Bernard Pass; it is impossible that it should be
brought from Asia at all to quell a sedition in Gaul--a year after
the sedition broke out, moreover; it is not less incredible that
six thousand infantry and seven hundred cavalry could be slain in a
pass in which two hundred men could hold at bay a whole army. The
account of this supposed butchery begins with an evident imposture:
“When the earth groaned under the tyranny of Diocletian, heaven was
peopled with saints.” Now, this episode is supposed to have taken
place in 286, a time when Diocletian favoured the Christians, and the
empire flourished.[24] Finally--a point which might dispense us from
discussion altogether--there never was a Theban Legion. The Romans
had too much pride and common-sense to make up a legion of Egyptians,
who served only as slaves at Rome; one might as well talk of a Jewish
Legion. We have the names of the thirty-two legions which represented
the chief strength of the Roman Empire, and there is no Theban
Legion among them. We must relegate the fable to the same category
as the acrostic verses of the Sibyls, which foretold the miracles of
Christ, and so many other forgeries with which a false zeal duped the
credulous.