THE FOUR GREAT PERSECUTIONS.
Obscurity and Insignificance of Early Reformers their
best Protection--Christians the Great Levellers--Nero’s
Persecution--The Blood of the Martyrs the Seed of the
Church--Persecution of Domitian--Martyrdoms under Trajan--Tortures
under Antoninus.
We have seen, in the preceding chapter, why Christianity must, upon its
first introduction, have been universally and virulently opposed by the
established powers of the world; and how, but for the lowliness and
obscurity of its first propagators, it must, by attracting the notice
of the wealthy and powerful, have been crushed at once, instead of
making the amazing progress it did, before its persecutions began.
When the interests of wealth and power adjudged it necessary to
crucify the Founder, their comparative insignificance could alone be
a protection for his disciples and followers. And the supposed cause
of their being spared so long is the fact of their appearing to the
Roman governors only as a sect of Jews who had seceded from their
brethren on account of some non-important item of worship or doctrine,
not worth inquiring into. It was a part of Roman policy, as we have
seen, to tolerate all religions, and even to incorporate the gods of
their subjects or allies along with their own. The Jews, like all other
people subject to the empire, enjoyed this toleration; and so long as
the Christians appeared to be only a sect of this singular people, they
participated with them in the imperial protection. We have a remarkable
proof of this in the case of St. Paul. When he returned to Jerusalem
from his third apostolic mission, the favour with which he was received
by his Christian brethren there, and the joy they manifested at the
great success of his mission in Macedonia, Achaia, &c., roused the
ire of his countrymen. It is related that some Jews of Asia (who had
probably witnessed the fruits of his zeal and ability amongst the
Gentiles in their own country), seeing him one day in the temple, gave
instant vent to their bigoted or conservative rage, by pointing him
out as the man who was aiming to destroy all distinction between Jew
and Gentile. They charged him with teaching things contrary to the
law of Moses, and with polluting the holy temple by bringing into it
uncircumcised heathen. The effect of this was to enrage the multitude
against St. Paul. They seized him, dragged him out of the temple,
brutally maltreated him, and were on the point of putting him to death,
when he was rescued out of their hands by Lysias, a Roman military
tribune, and the then principal army-officers at Jerusalem. This
conduct of Lysias towards the great apostle, taken in juxtaposition
with the previous well-known efforts of Pontius Pilate to save Christ
himself from the hands of his Jewish enemies, shows clearly enough
that the early Christians had little to fear from the Romans, so long
as they were deemed to be only a religious sect of the Jews, and to be
aiming at a kingdom which “is not of this world.”
It became otherwise, however, as soon as the pagan priesthood and
pagan magistracy began to discover that Christ’s kingdom would very
materially affect this world, as well as the next. The priests,
trembling for their revenues and estates, the magistrates and rulers
for their power, and the rich generally for their wealth and station,
became _very_ Jews from the moment that discovery was made. A religion
which proclaimed _spiritual_ equality was, to the priest and rulers,
undistinguishable from one that, if it did not proclaim, would very
speedily lead to _temporal_ equality as well; and the principle of
_community of goods_, which so notoriously prevailed in some of the
early churches, was point blank evidence of the levelling tendencies of
the sect. Indeed, examining it philosophically, the religion could not
be otherwise than _social_ in its effect. For, as its main doctrines
went to condemn riches (“lay not up for yourselves treasures,” &c.),
to make power a _trust_ for the governed, and not a profitable
_monopoly_ for governors (“let him who would be foremost amongst you
be the servant of the rest,” &c.), and to exhibit this life as a mere
probationary state for another and eternal one, in which the poor of
this world were likely to fare better than the rich (“it is easier
for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man
to enter the kingdom of heaven”),--as these and the like were amongst
the vital doctrines of the new religion, it is impossible that such
as embraced it with a firm belief in its ordinances, and promises of
future rewards and punishment, could dare to rob and enslave their
fellow-creatures, or peril their eternal salvation in another world
for the sake of enjoying the mammon of unrighteousness in this for
the brief space of a few years. These conclusions being but strictly
logical deductions from Christian premisses, it is no wonder that
a people, whom one of their own historians (Sallust) represents as
valuing riches, honour, and empire as the greatest goods the immortal
gods could vouchsafe to man, should regard with an evil eye a religion
which threatened them with the loss of all, by bringing them into
contempt, and making the possession of them a peril to salvation.
At all events, such was the impression made upon the pagan mind. Had
they regarded Christ’s kingdom as pertaining only to another world,
they would have cheerfully made his followers a present of it, on
condition that they did not meddle with this. But in the face of such
levelling doctrines, and in presence of a faith so lively and ardent,
which made hosts of men renounce their temporal possessions in order
to render themselves worthy of the new dispensation, the higher and
wealthier orders of the empire soon became convinced that they would
lose their kingdoms in this world if they allowed any further scope to
that new and strange religion which promised so much in the next.
Hence originated that series of persecutions so well known in the
history of the Christian church, and which lasted upwards of three
hundred years. According to the best accounts, it began about A.D.
64, in the reign of Nero. Although the mummeries and monstrosities of
polytheism were openly derided by St. Paul and others from the first
starting of their missions, yet it does not appear that any public acts
of legislation or administration were directed against Christianity
till this period, when it had acquired such extension and stability
as to make it truly formidable. It was then the Roman authorities
began to blame themselves for their toleration, and to wonder that
the Jews had found it so difficult to infuse into the breasts of
Roman magistrates that rancour and virulence so conspicuous in the
Jews themselves. Moreover, the open attacks upon paganism continually
made by the Christians rendered them extremely obnoxious to the
populace, who considered their understandings as well as their gods
insulted by every sermon directed against them. They retorted upon the
Christians by stigmatising them as _atheists_, and at the instigation
of their priests, secretly backed by the rich, called loudly upon the
civil magistrates to suppress them by force, as a body of seditious
conspirators whose object was to destroy the politico-religious
constitution of the empire. As happens in the suppression of all
popular movements, lies and inventions the most horrid, imputing to
them all manner of abominations, were circulated all over the empire,
and, by these and like circumstances, the minds of all classes of
pagans were prepared to regard with pleasure or indifference any amount
of cruelty and wrong that interested vengeance might wreak upon them.
In short, the sort of feeling that was got up against the Socialists
and Red Republicans of France, before and after the June insurrection,
will convey the best idea of the public opinion which was manufactured
in Nero’s time to prepare men’s minds for the terrible proscriptions
that followed. Indeed, many of the designations of horror applied to
modern Socialists are little else than translations of the Latin terms
so copiously lavished upon the poor Christians.
Besides the private persecution which never ceased (and which is always
more galling and unbearable than the public), there were at least ten
great imperial crusades directed against Christianity. When we say
directed against Christianity, we wish to be distinctly understood as
meaning against _liberty_ and _equality_. About the _spiritualism_ of
Christianity the pagan rulers cared not a straw, more than they did
about their own gods. Religion was a mere pretence in the matter, as
it is in all such matters. It served their purposes with the multitude
(who alone are sincere on such occasions); and that is all they
cared for. It is by viewing persecution in this light--the only true
light--that modern reformers can profit by our remarks on this head.
The first great persecution (which took place under Nero, about A.D.
64) is noticed by Tacitus in his “Annals.” From the language used by
that historian, it is manifest that the wealthier classes of Rome
regarded the Christians of that period as a most dangerous combination
against not only the government, but (to use a _doctrinaire_ phrase)
against “society” itself. Tacitus--himself an aristocrat--regarded
the aristocratic orders of his day as constituting _society_; and
finding these orders to be no favourites with the Christians, he
roundly accuses the latter of “hatred towards the human race,” and
describes them as followers of _one_ Christ, who was the founder of
a “deplorable and destructive superstition”! In the same way, the
Bonapartes, the Thiers, and the Guizots of the present day represent
their own plundering class as _society_, and describe such men as Ledru
Rollin, Mazzini, Louis Blanc, Proudhon, &c., as enemies of all law
and order--as enemies of family, property, and religion,--in short,
as warring against “the very existence of society itself” (their own
words), because they preferred the rights and happiness of the great
majority to the usurpations of a criminal and contemptible minority.
It is now an established fact--a fact as well attested as any in
history--that the insurrection and bloody carnage in June, 1848, was
preconcerted and with great pains elaborated by the friends of “law and
order,” in order to purge “society” of Red Republicanism and Socialism,
or (to use their own phrase) _pour en finir_--_i.e._ to make a finish
of the democratic and social republic by drowning it in the blood of
its authors and most heroic defenders.
It is not so well known how the great fire originated in Rome, which
Nero and his myrmidons charged upon the Christians. History had no
historians for the poor of those days. There is but too much reason,
however, to believe that the burning of Rome in Nero’s time was as
much the work of the friends of “law and order,” and for a similar
purpose, as the June insurrection was notoriously the work of the
same description of gentry in Paris. Times and circumstances change,
but not human nature; it is always the same, and will ever develop
itself in the like way under like circumstances. Nero is said to have
fiddled when Rome burned. The friends of “law and order,” the defenders
of “society,” were never in brighter ecstacies than when Cavaignac
announced the demolition, by shells and cannon, of the houses of the
insurgents, and the massacre of their brave defenders. If setting fire
to Rome, and reducing three-fourths of it to ashes, could have been
made available for the destruction of the Christians, the aristocracy
of that day would no more have scrupled at it than did Rostochin the
burning of Moscow, Cavaignac the demolitions in Paris, or General
Oudinot the bombardment of Rome. Aristocrats have never been aught but
robbers since the birth of their order; and all history proves that
they invariably become murderers, burners, devastators, and hirers of
assassins the moment the people attempt to recover their own. It was
so, most likely, in the burning of Rome. To this day, Nero himself is
suspected of the deed, though we think it far more likely to have been
the work of his aristocracy, with whom he was no favourite, because he
made himself too familiar with the common people.
But whether the atrocity was Nero’s work, or that of the aristocratic
enemies of Christianity, it is certain the unfortunate Christians were
made to bear the odium and penalties of it. Without any evidence on
the matter, the best and bravest of the Christian party--those publicly
known as such--were openly seized and accused of the act. Through
these, others were discovered and laid hold of, till the imperial
net was full of victims. They were condemned to a variety of cruel
deaths, and they perished in the midst of all manner of insults and
execrations. Some were sewed up in the skins of wild beasts, and then
thrown to hungry dogs, to be torn in pieces and devoured. Some were
nailed to crosses, like their Divine Master. Others were burnt alive,
in a manner which ought to cause aristocracy and vulgar intolerance to
be abhorred till the crack of doom. The victims were first sewed up in
pitched clothes or coverings; these were then set on fire, and, being
lighted up at night, they served as torches to illuminate Nero’s own
gardens, which were given for the purpose.
These barbarities were followed by edicts published against the
Christians, which enjoined upon the authorities to repress them
by every means placed at their disposal by the law. Of course,
many martyrs suffered, especially in Italy. St. Peter and St. Paul
are generally supposed to have been of the number. The former was
crucified, it is said, with his head downwards, at his own request.
St. Paul was beheaded. Such, at least, is the tradition preserved by
the early Fathers, who are all unanimous that their martyrdom was a
consequence of this persecution; though it is not precisely known
whether it was the burning of Rome that was made the pretence of
killing them, or a revolt of the Jews from the Romans, which took place
a year or two later, through a successful insurrection in Jerusalem.
The former is the more likely and accredited, though the latter is not
improbable, seeing the Christians gave the Romans some trouble at the
time in Judea, where their garrison in Jerusalem was put to the sword,
and one of their generals, who came to besiege it, was ignominiously
repulsed and defeated in his retreat. Such events would naturally
exasperate the Romans against both Jews and Christians; and as the
populace hated both sects alike, the martyrdom of Peter and Paul might
be easily enough accounted for under the circumstances.
It is needless to say, Nero’s persecution was unsuccessful. It
only made the Christians more cautious. Their numbers and zeal but
multiplied in despite of it. And if, to men of their principles, it
could be any satisfaction to hear of their enemy’s death, they had
abundant occasion for it when it became known that Nero fell by his
own hand--thus atoning for his injustice to them by at last doing
justice to himself. If we mistake not, the Red Republicans and Social
Reformers of the Continent will have cause to rejoice at many such acts
of self-retribution on the part of their oppressors before many years
elapse.
The second general persecution of the Christians took place in the
reign of Domitian, towards the close of the first century. In this
persecution many Christian teachers of great eminence suffered, but
with no better success to the cause of paganism than the first. It
appears to have ceased at the death of Domitian.
The third great persecution commenced in the third year of the Emperor
Trajan, A.D. 100. Without going into the causes alleged by divines
and churchmen for this persecution (which they would have us think
was a purely spiritual affair), let us at once say that every feature
of it known to us in these days shows clearly enough that it was the
_temporal_ and not the _spiritual_ tendencies of Christianity the
Emperor Trajan directed his force against. Indeed, the charges recorded
against them are precisely the same as those made against Chartists
in England, Red Republicans in France, or democrats anywhere in the
present day. One churchman, treating of it, says, “Under the plausible
pretence of their holding illegal meetings and societies, they were
severely persecuted by the governors of provinces and other officers,
in which persecutions great numbers fell by the rage of popular tumult,
as well as by laws and processes.” Is it not under a similar “plausible
pretence of holding illegal meetings and societies” that most
persecutions take place against the political and social reformers of
the present day? And wherein are the doctrines professed by the latter
different from those recorded of the Christians in Trajan’s time?
In no one essential particular. What a pity that our modern divines
and churchmen cannot be got to see the persecutions of Chartists and
Socialists, now-a-days, with the same eyes with which they look upon
those of our predecessors, in religion and politics, who suffered under
Nero, Domitian, and Trajan! The Trajan persecution continued several
years, and made an immense number of martyrs; amongst others the famous
Clement, Bishop of Rome. But as Trajan was an emperor famed for his
liberality, justice, and moderation, some of our modern parsons are at
a loss to account for his severity to the Christians. Unless it be the
chastening hand of Providence, they know not what to see in it. Sweet
innocents! Did they ever hear of any _liberal_ persecutors in England,
or of any _moderate_ mitrailleurs in France? Know they not that the
authors of all the late massacres, transportations and dungeonings
in France call themselves _moderate_ reformers and liberals, and
declare they will have only _la république des honnêtes gens_--the
republic of honest men? Know they not, too, that the really honest men
who are their victims get the very identical names, in France, that
Trajan’s judges gave the victims of his persecution--viz., brigands,
malefactors, and traitors? Yes, let modern churchmen and parsons
pretend what they may, the authorities they now uphold are the exact
counterpart of the Trajans and Domitians of old; and the political
victims of the present day are as exactly the counterpart of those
early Christians whose martyrdom they so affect to deplore, and which
(to blind their flocks) they would have us believe was purely the
consequence of their opinions touching a future state.
In this persecution under Trajan, and in another which ensued under
his successor Adrian, it is as well known as anything in history that
the great bulk of the martyrs suffered for the _political_ and not the
_spiritual_ dogmas they upheld, and that in the eye of public opinion
they passed not so much for blasphemers and atheists (names given to
them to please the superstitious rabble), but as seditious disturbers
of the peace, enemies of the emperor, malefactors towards society, and
traitors to the imperial government.
The fourth great persecution took place under Antoninus the
Philosopher, and, with different degrees of severity in different
places, continued throughout the whole of his reign. In this
persecution perished the famous Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, said
to have been the friend and companion of St. John. Thus the poor
Christians fared no better under a philosophic emperor than under
the “moderate” and “virtuous” Trajan. Indeed, we have at this moment
shoals of “philosophers” in France and England who, for absurdity
and hard-heartedness, throw churchmen entirely into the shade.
Parson Malthus’s divinity may have been bad enough; we aver it was
not worse than his philosophy. Many of the unfortunate sufferers in
this philosopher’s reign were devoured by wild beasts; others were
tortured to death in an iron chair, made red-hot for the purpose.
Even women were not spared. The names of two are preserved--Biblia
and Blandina--whose sufferings and heroic courage contrast nobly with
the cowardly cruelty of the philosophic scoundrel-emperor who gave
his sanction to their death. Singularly enough, France, the “eldest
daughter of the church,” was the scene of the worse persecutions
which took place in this reign, when false philosophy _versus_ real
Christianity was the order of the day; and, singularly enough,
France is now the country where, _par excellence_, real Christianity
is taking the field in right earnest against both philosophism
and false Christianity. What France failed to do in the first and
second centuries, and failed again to do in the eighteenth, she is
now labouring to accomplish for all the world in the middle of the
nineteenth.
[Illustration: Decoration]