FATE OF THE PERSECUTORS--TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY.
It remains only to trace briefly the fate of the unfortunate Empress
Valeria--less happy than her lowly namesake, the martyr of the
Catacombs--and the doom of the persecuting tyrants. In the violent and
bloody deaths, often more terrible than those which they inflicted on
the Christians, which overtook, with scarce an exception, these enemies
of the Church of God, the early believers recognized a divine
retribution no less inexorable than the avenging Nemesis of the Pagan
mythology.[56]
Diocletian, smitten by a mental malady, abandoned the throne of the
world for the solitude of his palace on the Illyrian shores of the
Adriatic, where tradition avers that he died by his own hand.
A still more dreadful doom befell the fierce persecutor, Galerius.
Consumed by the same loathsome and incurable disease which is recorded
to have smitten his great rivals in bloodshed, Herod the Great and
Philip II., from his dying couch he implored the prayers of the
Christians, and, stung by remorse for his cruelties, commanded the
surcease of their long and bitter persecution.
The Empress Valeria, his widow, by her beauty had the ill fortune to
attract the regards of his successor in persecution, the Emperor
Maximin. Spurning his suit with the scorn becoming a pure and
high-souled woman, at once the daughter and widow of an Emperor, she
encountered his deadly hate. Her estates were confiscated, her trusted
servants tortured, and her dearest friends put to death.
"The Empress herself," says Gibbon, "together with her mother, Prisca,
was condemned to exile; and as they were ignominiously hurried from
place to place, before they were confined to a sequestered village in
the deserts of Syria, they exposed their shame and distress to the
provinces of the East, which during thirty years, had respected their
august dignity." On the death of Maximin, Valeria escaped from exile and
repaired in disguise to the court of his successor, Licinius, hoping for
more humane treatment. But these hopes, to use again the language of
Gibbon, "were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment, and the bloody
execution which stained the palace of Nicomedia sufficiently convinced
her that the throne of Maximin was filled by a tyrant more inhuman than
himself. Valeria consulted her safety by hasty flight, and, still
accompanied by her mother Prisca, they wandered above fifteen months
through the provinces in the disguise of plebeian habits. They were at
length discovered at Thessalonica; and as the sentence of their death
was already pronounced, they were immediately beheaded and their bodies
thrown into the sea. The people gazed on the melancholy spectacle; but
their grief and indignation were suppressed by the terrors of a military
guard. Such was the unworthy fate of the wife and daughter of
Diocletian. We lament their misfortunes, we cannot discover their
crimes."[58]
At length, on the triumph of the British-born Emperor, Constantine, over
his rivals for the throne of the world, like the trump of Jubilee, the
edict of the toleration of Christianity, pealed through the land. It
penetrated the gloomy dungeon, the darksome mine, the Catacombs' dim
labyrinth, and from their sombre depths, vast processions of "noble
wrestlers for religion," thronged to the long-forsaken churches, with
grateful songs of praise to God.
Christianity, after long repression, became at length triumphant. It
emerged from the concealment of the Catacombs to the sunshine of
imperial favour. Constantine, himself, proclaimed to eager thousands the
New Evangel--the most august lay preacher the Church has ever known. The
legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus strikingly illustrates the
wondrous transformation of society. These Christian brothers, taking
shelter in a cave during the Decian persecution, awoke, according to the
legend, after a slumber of over a century, to find Christianity
everywhere dominant, and a Christian Emperor on the throne of the
Cæsars.[59] The doctrines of Christ, like the rays of the sun, quickly
irradiated the world. With choirs and hymns, in cities and villages, in
the highways and markets, the praises of the Almighty were sung. The
enemies of God were as though they had not been.[60] The Lord brought up
the vine of Christianity from a far country, and cast out the heathen,
and planted and watered it, till it twined round the sceptre of the
Cæsars, wreathed the columns of the Capitol, and filled the whole land.
The heathen fanes were deserted, the gods discrowned, and the pagan
flamen no longer offered sacrifice to the Capitoline Jove, Rome, which
had dragged so many conquered deities in triumph at its chariot wheels,
at length yielded to a mightier than all the gods of Olympus. The old
faiths faded from the firmament of human thought as the stars of
midnight at the dawn of day. The banished deities forsook their ancient
seats. They walked no longer in the vale of Tempe nor in the grove of
Daphne. The naiads bathed not in Scamander's stream nor Simois, nor the
nereids in the waters of the bright Ægean Sea. The nymphs and dryads
ceased to haunt the sylvan solitudes. The oriads walked no more in light
on Ida's lofty top.
O ye vain false gods of Hellas!
Ye are vanished evermore!
Long before the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the
empire, its influence had been felt permeating the entire community.
Amid the disintegration of society it was the sole conservative
element--the salt which preserved it from corruption. In the midst of
anarchy and confusion a community was being organized on a principle
previously unknown in the heathen world, ruling not by terror but by
love; by moral power, not by physical force; inspired by lofty faith
amid a world of unbelief, and cultivating moral purity amid the reeking
abominations of a sensual age.
We should do scant justice to the blameless character, simple dignity,
and moral purity of the primitive Christians, if we forgot the
thoroughly effete and corrupt society by which they were surrounded. It
would seem almost impossible for the Christian graces to grow in such a
foetid atmosphere. Like the snow-white lily springing in virgin purity
from the muddy ooze, they are more lovely by contrast with the
surrounding pollutions. Like flowers that deck a sepulchre, breathing
their fragrance amid scenes of corruption and death, are these holy
characters, fragrant with the breath of heaven amid the social
rottenness and moral death of their foul environment.
It is difficult to imagine, and impossible to portray, the abominable
pollutions of the times. "Society," says Gibbon, "was a rotten, aimless
chaos of sensuality." It was a boiling Acheron of seething passions,
unhallowed lusts, and tiger thirst for blood, such as never provoked
the wrath of Heaven since God drowned the world with water, or destroyed
the Cities of the Plain by fire. Only those who have visited the secret
museum of Naples, or that house which no woman may enter at Pompeii, and
whose paintings no pen may describe; or, who are familiar with the
scathing denunciations of popular vices by the Roman satirists and
moralists and by the Christian Fathers, can conceive the appalling
depravity of the age and nation. St. Paul, in his epistle to the Church
among this very people, hints at some features of their exceeding
wickedness. It was to shame even to speak of the things which were done
by them, but which gifted poets employed their wit to celebrate. A
brutalized monster was deified as God, received divine homage,[61] and
beheld all the world at his feet, and the nations trembled at his nod,
while the multitude wallowed in a sty of sensuality.
Christianity was to be the new Hercules to cleanse this worse than
Augean pollution. The pure morals and holy lives of the believers were a
perpetual testimony against abounding iniquity, and a living proof of
the regenerating power and transforming grace of God. For they
themselves, as one of their apologists asserts, "had been reclaimed
from ten thousand vices;" and the Apostle, describing some of the vilest
characters, exclaims, "such were some of you, but ye are washed, ye are
sanctified." They recoiled with the utmost abhorrence from the
pollutions of the age, and became indeed "the salt of the earth," the
sole moral antiseptic to prevent the total disintegration of society.
Thus amid idolatrous usages and unspeakable moral degradation the
Christians lived, a holy nation, a peculiar people. "We alone are
without crime," says Tertullian; "no Christian suffers but for his
religion." "Your prisons are full," says Minutius Felix, "but they
contain not one Christian." And these holy lives were an argument which
even the heathen could not gainsay. The ethics of paganism were the
speculations of the cultivated few who aspired to the character of
philosophers. The ethics of Christianity were a system of practical duty
affecting the daily life of the most lowly and unlettered. "Philosophy,"
says Lecky, "may dignify, but is impotent to regenerate man; it may
cultivate virtue, but cannot restrain vice." But Christianity introduced
a new sense of sin and of holiness, of everlasting reward and of endless
condemnation. It planted a sublime, impassioned love of Christ in the
heart, inflaming all its affections. It transformed the character from
icy stoicism or epicurean selfishness to a boundless and uncalculating
self-abnegation and devotion.
This divine principle developed a new instinct of philanthropy in the
soul. A feeling of common brotherhood knit the hearts of the believers
together. To love a slave! to love an enemy! was accounted the
impossible among the heathen; yet this incredible virtue they beheld
every day among the Christians. "This surprised them beyond measure,"
says Tertullian, "that one man should die for another." Hence, in the
Christian inscriptions no word of bitterness, even toward their
persecutors, is to be found. Sweet peace, the peace of God that passeth
all understanding, breathes on every side.
One of the most striking results of the new spirit of philanthropy which
Christianity introduced is seen in the copious charity of the primitive
Church. Amid the ruins of ancient palaces and temples, theatres and
baths, there are none of any house of mercy. Charity among the pagans,
was at best, a fitful and capricious fancy. Among the Christians it was
a vast and vigorous organization and was cultivated with noble
enthusiasm. And the great and wicked city of Rome, with its fierce
oppressions and inhuman wrongs, afforded amplest opportunity for the
Christ-like ministrations of love and pity. There were Christian slaves
to succour, exposed to unutterable indignities and cruel punishment,
even unto crucifixion for conscience' sake. There were often martyrs'
pangs to assuage, the aching wounds inflicted by the rack or by the
nameless tortures of the heathen to bind up, and their bruised and
broken hearts to cheer with heavenly consolation. There were outcast
babes to pluck from death. There were a thousand forms of suffering and
sorrow to relieve; and the ever-present thought of Him who came, not to
be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for
many, was an inspiration to heroic sacrifice and self-denial. And
doubtless the religion of mercy won its way to many a stony pagan heart
by the winsome spell of the saintly charities and heavenly benedictions
of the persecuted Christians. This sublime principle has since covered
the earth with its institutions of mercy, and with a passionate zeal has
sought out the woes of raan in every land, in order to their relief.
In the primitive Church voluntary collections[62] were regularly made
for the poor, the aged, the sick, the brethren in bonds, and for the
burial of the dead. All fraud and deceit was abhorred, and all usury
forbidden. Many gave all their goods to feed the poor. "Our charity
dispenses more in the streets," says Tertullian to the heathen, "than
your religion in your temples." He upbraids them for offering to the
gods only the worn-out and useless, such as is given to dogs. "How
monstrous is it," exclaims the Alexandrian Clement, "to live in luxury
while so many are in want." "As you would receive, show mercy," says
Chrysostom; "make God your debtor that you may receive again with
usury." The Church at Antioch, he tells us, maintained three thousand
widows and virgins, besides the sick and the poor. Under the persecuting
Decius the widows and the infirm under the care of the Church at Rome
were fifteen hundred. "Behold the treasures of the Church," said St.
Lawrence pointing to the aged and poor, when the heathen prefect came to
confiscate its wealth. The Church in Carthage sent a sum equal to four
thousand dollars to ransom Christian captives in Numidia. St. Ambrose
sold the sacred vessels of the Church of Milan to rescue prisoners from
the Goths, esteeming it their truest consecration to the service of
God. "Better clothe the Christ," says living temples of Jerome, "than
adorn the temples of stone." "God has no need of plates and dishes,"
said Acacius, Bishop of Amida, and he ransomed therewith a number of
poor captives. For a similar purpose Paulinus of Nola sold the treasures
of his beautiful church, and, it is said, even sold himself into African
slavery. The Christian traveller was hospitably entertained by the
faithful; and before the close of the fourth century asylums were
provided for the sick, aged, and infirm. During the Decian persecution,
when the streets of Carthage were strewn with the dying and the dead,
the Christians, with the scars of recent torture and imprisonment upon
them, exhibited the nobility of a gospel revenge in their care for their
fever-smitten persecutors, and seemed to seek the martyrdom of Christian
charity, even more glorious than that they had escaped. In the plague of
Alexandria, six hundred _parabolani_ periled their lives to succour the
dying and bury the dead. Julian urged the pagan priests to imitate the
virtues of the lowly Christians.
Christianity also gave a new sanctity to human life. The exposure of
infants was a fearfully prevalent pagan practice, which even Plato and
Aristotle permitted. We have had evidences of the tender charity of the
Christians in rescuing these foundlings from death, or from a fate more
dreadful still--a life of infamy. Christianity also emphatically
affirmed the Almighty's "canon 'gainst self-slaughter," which crime the
pagans had even exalted into a virtue. It taught that a patient
endurance of suffering, like Job's, exhibited a loftier courage than
Cato's renunciation of life.
We have thus seen from the testimony of the Catacombs, the immense
superiority, in all the elements of true dignity and excellence, of
primitive Christianity to the corrupt civilization by which it was
surrounded. It ennobled the character and purified the morals of
mankind. It raised society from the ineffable slough into which it had
fallen, imparted tenderness and fidelity to the domestic relations of
life, and enshrined marriage in a sanctity before unknown.
Notwithstanding the corruptions by which it became infected in the days
of its power and pride, even the worst form of Christianity was
infinitely preferable to the abominations of paganism. It gave a
sacredness before unconceived to human life. It averted the sword from
the throat of the gladiator, and, plucking helpless infancy from
exposure to untimely death, nourished it in Christian homes. It threw
the ægis of its protection over the slave and the oppressed, raising
them from the condition of beasts to the dignity of men and the
fellowship of saints. With an unwearied and passionate charity it
yearned over the suffering and the sorrowing everywhere, and created a
vast and comprehensive organization for their relief, of which the world
had before no example and had formed no conception. It was a holy
Vestal, ministering at the altar of humanity, witnessing ever of the
Divine, and keeping the sacred fire burning, not for Rome, but for the
world. Its winsome gladness and purity, in an era of unspeakable
pollution and sadness, revived the sinking heart of mankind, and made
possible a Golden Age in the future transcending far that which poets
pictured in the past. It blotted out cruel laws, like those of Draco,
written in blood, and led back Justice, long banished, to the judgment
seat. It ameliorated the rigours of the penal code, and, as experience
has shown, lessened the amount of crime. It created an art purer and
loftier than that of paganism; and a literature rivaling in elegance of
form, and surpassing in nobleness of spirit, the sublimest productions
of the classic muse. Instead of the sensual conceptions of heathenism,
polluting the soul, it supplied images of purity, tenderness, and
pathos, which fascinated the imagination and hallowed the heart. It
taught the sanctity of suffering and of weakness, and the supreme
majesty of gentleness and truth.
NOTE.--The entire subject of Christian evidences from the
Catacombs, which has been so cursorily glanced at in the
foregoing pages, is treated with great fullness of detail and
copious pictorial illustration in a work by the writer, "The
Catacombs of Rome, and their Testimony Relative to Primitive
Christianity." Cr. 8vo, 560 pp., 136 engravings. New York:
Phillips & Hunt. Price $2.50. It discusses at length the
structure, origin, and history of the Catacombs; their art and
symbolism; their epigraphy as illustrative of the theology,
ministry, rites, and institutions of the primitive Church, and
Christian Life and Character in the early ages. The gradual
corruption of doctrine and practice and introduction of Romanist
errors, as the _cultus_ of Mary, the primacy of Peter, prayers
of the dead, the invocation of saints, the notion of purgatory,
the celibacy of the clergy rite of monastic orders, and other
allied subjects are fully treated.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] See Lactantius, _De Mortibus Persecutorum, Passim_; Eusebius _Hist.
Ecclec._ viii, 17; ix. 9, 10; Tertullian _ad Scap._, c. 3.
[58] Valeria quoque per varias provincias quindecim mensibus plebeio
cultu pervagata.... Ita illis pudicitia et conditio exitio fuit.
Lactantius _De Mart. Persec._ Cap. 51.
[59] Even the sanguine imagination of Tertullian cannot conceive the
possibility of this event "Sed et Cæsares credidissent super Christo,"
he exclaims, "si aut Cæsares non essent seculo necessario, aut si et
Christiani potuissent esse Cæsares." _Apol._, c. 21.
[60] Literally, "They are no more because they never were." Eusebius
applies, the promises of Scripture concerning the restoration of the
exiled Jews from Babylon (Psa. lxxx; xcviii;) to the condition of
Christianity in his day. The above citations are given in his very
words.
[61] While yet alive, Domitian was called, "our Lord and God"--_Dominus
et Deus noster._
[62] Nemo compellitur, sed sponte confert _Tertul Apol._ c. 39.
THE END.