If Marcus Aurelius could not save the world, who shall save
it?--RENAN.
To whoever knows anything of human intelligence it is evident that a
revolution of consciences is outside and above the duties and the power
of a government. In their quality of high priest, the Cæsars desired
two contradictory things--to maintain the national cult, and to make
Rome the city of the gods, or a kind of universal pantheon. This was the
only reform and the only religious unity of which they could conceive.
Thus, little by little, all the gods of the conquered nations came to be
honoured at the Capitol. In spite of their distrust of Asiatic cults,
which were always connected with confraternities that gave them offence,
the Cæsars had their hands forced by popular superstitions, and all the
divinities of Asia and of Egypt took their places side by side with the
Greek and Roman gods.
This was certainly the unity the genius of Rome sought in everything;
but it was a coarse, factitious, material unity, whose least defect was
that all the polytheistic religions were disfigured and neutralised by
one another, without satisfying the religious sentiment of the people or
the intellect of the higher classes from henceforth too enlightened to
accept a too evident polytheism. Where was the faith, the sincerity of
adoration, and the life of the soul in this patched-up religion? And did
this, the worst kind of unity that Roman policy voluntarily admitted, put
an end to the fatal separation between philosophers and people, between
the head and the heart of society? Strange blindness of those who give
all to politics! The emperors, without knowing it and without wishing
it, ended by discrediting the ancient national belief by this confusion
of all religions, and yet what efforts did they not make to animate and
purify it?
We hardly believe in the faith of the cæsars; but we can understand that
they wished to preserve the ancient worship as a part of public order.
Thus we see Augustus (although he amused himself, in the most scandalous
orgies, by making a mock of the twelve great gods) devoutly rebuilding
the temples, celebrating religion and piety by the agency of Horace the
epicurean, honouring the vestals and the priests, burning thousands of
apocryphal sibylline books, and severely repressing the usurpations
of the Judaic and Egyptian worships, which were forbidden the city of
Rome. Tiberius amused the senate during long sittings by the examination
and consecration of the privileges of the ancient sanctuaries. Claudius
complained bitterly that the arts of Etruria had fallen into disuse
owing to the indifference of the patricians, and endeavoured to
revive superannuated studies for which he had a historian’s and an
archæologist’s passion. Domitian complied with the cruel requirements of
the old faith by burying unfortunate vestals alive. All showed themselves
zealous defenders of the gods and the empire, and there was reason to be
thankful when, recalling the words of Tiberius, that it is for the gods
alone to avenge their injuries, they refrained from sacrificing those
they feared to the sacrosanct majesty of their deified predecessors; or
abstained from making themselves persecutors of the new faith, which
embodied the principle of the moral and religious unity they vainly
sought for.
But their conduct did not show either sincere faith, or hypocrisy, or
weakness and infirmity of mind; it was purely political. They were
convinced that the people needed a religion. Then, what religion was
preferable to the one of which the senate had so cleverly availed itself,
and which had presided over the birth and growth of the Eternal City?
But, as if the gods were not yet sufficiently discredited, they were
obliged to share their sacred honours with the vilest and most execrable
of mortals. The apotheosis of the cæsars was the last insult inflicted
on the masters of Olympus. In truth it deceived neither the servile
worshippers nor those destined to be worshipped. Seneca and Juvenal were
doubtless not the only ones to laugh at men like Claudius, whom some poor
wretch had degraded to the rank of the gods, and we may suppose that the
other emperors would have had the good sense to admit, with Tiberius,
that they were but mortal men, not at all anxious to enjoy their false
divinity the other side of the grave.
But these scandalous consecrations had the drawback of confirming the
impious belief of the votaries of Evemerus, who, as it appears, were
very numerous at Rome, even from the time of the first of the Scipios.
On seeing, as Lucan says, the civil wars giving peers to the inhabitants
of heaven, and Rome tricking out shades with thunderbolts and shooting
stars and swearing by the shadows in the temples of the god, what could
men think, but that Jupiter and his fellows had the same title to our
adoration as Caligula and Tiberius? Claudius, the learned but imbecile
pupil of Titus Livius, was perhaps the only Roman who was devoted to
the gods of the empire. Politics saw in religion nothing but fraudulous
inventions to deceive and coerce the people; the philosophers either
professed atheism or, having formed higher and purer beliefs for
themselves, turned the ancient superstitions into ridicule; the ignorant
took refuge with the charlatans and foreign divinities.
STOICISM AND THE EMPIRE
Stoicism, according to its doctrines, was rather favourable than hostile
to the revolution represented by the empire, but the proud and free
sentiments it developed in the soul were necessarily contrary to tyranny,
which the worst cæsars confounded with the rights of power; to that
exaggeration of obedience, to that servility to which their subjects were
too much inclined and of which they were only too eager to make a false
duty or an infamous merit. The philosophers were therefore odious to all
that surrounded and was subservient to the early cæsars.
Their accusers flung vehement eloquence against them and persecuted in
them what they called the mimics of Brutus and Cato. The centurions
delighted in turning their wisdom to ridicule, whilst waiting to cut
their throats by order of their masters. Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian
did them the honour of driving them from Rome and from Italy. Agrippinus,
Rusticus, Thraseas, Helvidius Priscus, Seneca, Dion, Epictetus, and many
others expiated by exile or by death the glorious crime of not consenting
to slavery, and of displeasing imbecile tyrants, who aimed at stifling
even the conscience of the human species.
[Illustration: ROMAN CHAIR OF STATE]
Stoicism flourished in this struggle between intellect and brute force.
It became an ardent and vigorous faith, a kind of religion of great souls
with its followers and martyrs. This transformation is noticeable even in
the provinces, where there was less cause to murmur against the savage
tyranny of the emperors than to rejoice at the benefits of the empire and
of the Roman peace. It was because there also the people felt that they
were dependent, that these honours, these dignities, these appearances
of liberty, given to the conquered by policy as a consolation for their
servitude, were but a vain show made to amuse fools, and that an archon
or other native magistrate was of very little importance beside the
Roman procurator or even his centurion. Thrown back upon themselves,
by violence or the lack of interests, the souls of mankind studied the
inner life more earnestly, and the essential qualities of its virtue and
greatness.
Hence the new characteristics of stoicism--the preaching tone which took
the place of philosophical discussion, a science of life unknown until
then, and a peculiar art of disentangling the most obscure sophisms
of vice and weakness, but above all a stern tenderness for humanity.
The philosopher is no longer a logician who makes dissertations, nor a
fine speaker aiming at applause. He is a master who teaches, a public
censor charged with the care of consciences; God’s witness, who owes
men nothing but truth, or, if you prefer, a physician whose duty is to
touch boldly the sick or healthy parts of the soul, in order to cure or
to strengthen it. Deep and subtle arguments must not be expected from
these philosophers, but affectionate or severe counsels, remonstrances,
exhortations, and earnest entreaties for conversion to virtue and the
law of God. Listen to Epictetus[f] and judge whether it is a philosopher
or a believer and director of consciences who speaks: “My friend, you
would become a philosopher? Begin with exercising yourself at home and
in silence, spend time in observing your inclinations and your faults.
To begin with, give your whole care to remaining unknown. Philosophise
for a period only for yourself and not for others. Fruit ripens little by
little; you are also a divine plant. If you blossom before your time, the
winter will wither you. If you believe yourself somebody, you will only
be a madman amongst madmen. You will be killed by the cold, or rather you
are already dead even to the roots. Let yourself then ripen little by
little, according to nature. Why hasten? You cannot yet endure the air.
Give the root time to develop and the buds time to open one after the
other; then your nature will bear fruit of itself.”
“Labour then,” he says in another place, “to cure, to change yourself;
do not delay until to-morrow. If you say, to-morrow I will pay heed
to myself, know it is as if you should say, to-day I will be base,
shameless, cowardly, angry, cruel, and envious. Observe the evil you
allow yourself by this guilty indulgence. But if it is a good thing for
you to be converted and to watch attentively over your actions and your
will, how much more so it is to start to-day! If it is useful to-morrow,
to-day it is far more so. For by starting to-day, to-morrow you will
already be stronger, and will not be tempted to put off to a third day.”
This is the general tone of the philosophy of this period. Penetrating
and familiar in Epictetus, it is more pompous and vague in the
ex-rhetorician Dion Chrysostom,[g] more incisive, vehement, and varied in
Seneca,[h] more elevated and touching in Marcus Aurelius. But with all of
these we encounter pressing exhortations or lively remonstrances, and as
might be expected the remonstrance prevails. They believed, in fact, that
we are never, whatever our virtue, beyond the state of convalescence, and
that those who wish to be healthy and well, as Musonius Rufus said, must
live and behave toward themselves as if they were continually striving
to be cured. They also wished that men should quit their school sad and
discontented with themselves.
While the philosopher addresses these reprimands and exhortations to
others in order to convert them, he continually makes reference to
himself, and his words have often a familiarity and passion resembling
feeling and confession. Horace, Seneca, Epictetus, Euphrates,
habitually practised a genuine examination of their conscience, and
the _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius[i] are simply a monologue, in
which the wise emperor has set down his hopes and discouragements; he
continually speaks to console, to exhort, to rouse, to reproach, or to
approve himself. But as if the stoic who had imagined an ideal too great
and sublime had the bitter feeling that he could not attain it, without
ceasing he complains of himself and of his want of heart. “O my soul!”
he cries, “when wilt thou be good and simple, and always the same? When
wilt thou have tender good will to all men? When wilt thou be rich enough
of thyself to want for nothing? When, resigned to thy condition, wilt
thou take pleasure in all that is, persuaded that thou hast in thyself
all that thou needest, that all is well with thee, that there is nothing
that does not come to thee from the gods and that all that it has pleased
them to ordain or that they shall ordain can be but good for thee and in
general for the preservation of the world? When wilt thou have prepared
thyself to live with the gods and with man in such a manner that thou
mayst never complain of them and that they may no longer have anything to
blame in thine actions?”
Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius have a rough and familiar vividness in
their speech which shows with what energy of conviction and of faith
their souls were filled. Seneca, for whom stoicism was more a matter for
imagination and for wit, appears to have a less persuasive eloquence,
because he is himself less persuaded; but he has an incontestable
superiority in the censure of manners as well as in the extent and
variety of his experience. There is no vice, weakness, or eccentricity
that he has not found out, and even amongst our great French moralists I
know of no shrewder or more profound observer of the human heart.
But the severe reproof of vice is not everything; the philosopher is only
in truth “the messenger of God” to men when he knows how to console,
encourage, and support them in times of depression and of faltering, and
by generous and sympathetic pity to reawaken in their hearts the nearly
extinguished sense of their own dignity and strength. “Oh!” exclaims
Seneca, “this is not the time to amuse one’s self with many words.
Philosopher, those who summon you to go to them are the helpless and the
miserable. You should carry help to the shipwrecked, the captives, the
beggars, and the sick, to those whose heads are already on the block. You
have promised this. To all the fine speeches you can utter, the afflicted
and distressed answer but one thing: Help us! All stretch out their hands
towards you; it is from you that they implore help for their life lost
or on the verge of being lost. All their hope and resource is in you.
They implore you to rescue them from the abyss towards which they are
struggling and to throw the salutary light of truth before their erring
footsteps.” Suffering and tears had in fact instructed these masters
in human life, and the sad lessons of experience, without lessening
the pride of their courage, inspired them with that compassion for the
misery of others which had perhaps at first been wanting to the stoic
philanthropy:
“Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco.”
Stoicism did not stop at the theory of universal justice or the equality
of men and of the unity of our kind; it added to it that of universal
charity. I shall not say that the stoics of the empire made innovations
on this point, nor that they introduced into the doctrine new ideas
or even simply original developments, which transformed philosophy by
extending it. I do not believe it, and I have found nothing in Seneca or
in Epictetus, either in the principles or in the results, that I have
not already found in the early stoicism. But it is probable that ideas
took a more practical form, that theories gave place to precepts and to
rules for conduct; that, whilst getting free from the severe and logical
machinery of discussion and taking the more effective form of eloquence,
the morality became more popular and efficacious; and finally by force
of constant repetition in the schools of the philosophers, in the
_basilicas_ of the orators, in the libraries where literary meetings were
held, in the gymnasia where the sophists made their displays, and even
in the public places of the large towns, where the cynics delivered the
finest maxims in the midst of their coarse but often striking invectives,
it ended by storming men’s intellects and taking entire possession of
them.
And it should be noticed that this morality is not at the struggling,
reasoning stage, like a truth which is feeling its way and is not sure of
itself, nor does it hover on the surface like those borrowed ideas that
come from no one knows where and which are welcomed from time to time
with curiosity, but which always remain strangers or passing novelties;
it dominates and takes hold of the intellect with that firm, full,
constant, insensible, and unquestionable possession which characterises
the inveterate supremacy of habit. Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,
and Plutarch could not think or speak otherwise than as they did because
the philanthropic ideas of stoicism have become an integral and essential
part of their nature, or, to use an expression belonging to Marcus
Aurelius, because these ideas are from henceforth for every intellect the
air they are accustomed to breathe and which nourishes them.
According to the constant doctrine of the Stoa, it is impossible not to
perceive that the author of all things made us for one another and put
into our hearts the instinct of humanity. This principle had passed from
the discussions of the philosophers into the declamations of the orators,
into the verses of the poets, into the spirit of all the writers. “Is
there a better sentiment than compassion,” says Quintilian, “a sentiment
which has a deeper origin in the venerable and sacred principles of
nature? God, the author of mortal beings, wishes us to help one another
mutually, and in helping one another we are guaranteed against the
fickleness of fortune. It is not love nor charity, it is a foreseeing
and, I venture to say, a religious fear of the misfortunes which may
overtake us. In the want and hunger of others it is himself that each of
us pities. To help the unfortunate is to deserve well of things human.
What! if I had fed a stranger for the sake of this universal fraternity
which unites all mortals under the common father of nature, would it not
have been a good action to have saved a soul about to perish, had pity
on humanity, and thrown, as it were, a propitiatory offering to fortune
while adoring the divinity in the thought of our common lot? Humanity has
been in all ages and amongst all nations the greatest and most sacred
mystery.” Juvenal expresses the same thing in a more vivid and more
touching manner. “Nature, by giving us tears, avows that she has bestowed
feeling hearts on men; tears are the best part of our conscience.
“Nature makes us weep over the misfortunes of an afflicted friend, at
the sad countenance of an accused prisoner, at the dangers of a ward who
is the victim of a guardian’s frauds. It is by her ordinance that we
lament when we meet the coffin of a virgin carried off in the flower of
her youth, in seeing a little child shut in under the sod of the grave.
Where is the good man, the religious man, who sees the ills of others as
if they were strangers to him? This is what separates us from the herd
of speechless animals; thus we possess a saintly nature and we alone are
capable of divine things, having received from heaven conscience denied
to the brutes whose faces are turned earthward. At the origin of the
world, the common author of all beings gave to animals only life, whilst
we were given a reasonable soul, in order that mutual affection should
teach us to give and to expect from others assistance and help.”
To all appearance we are far indeed from Chrysippus and Zeno, but on
the contrary entirely imbued with stoicism. I shall continue to repeat
with Seneca and Montesquieu that there never existed a doctrine which,
beneath the most rigid austerity, was more benevolent and more humane.
It banished, I know, the weaknesses and the vain convulsions of pity,
but never did a stoic deny that those sympathetic instincts by which we
suffer for the woes of others and which move us to relieve them are good
and natural; it was never forbidden to follow reasonably these first
instincts of our nature and to practise all the deeds and even all the
refinements of compassion and of humanity.
If we knew how to despise false blessings, said stoicism, we should not
be continually at odds with one another, and aversion, unjust contempt,
slander, calumny, anger, hatred, vengeance would no longer have a place
in our hearts. The blessings we covet, being small and poor, cannot be
acquired by one save at the expense of another. But real blessings can
belong to one and all at the same time, and the more we divide them with
our fellows the more fully and securely do we possess them. Then our
real nature which is sociability can develop without any obstacle, and
instead of the ferocious passions which divide us, tolerance, indulgence,
and love, which reconcile and unite us with one another, are seen to
appear.[b]
Such were the doctrines that held sway when the new faith from the Old
Orient invaded the Roman world. Some aspects of that new faith in its
relations to the Roman environment must now claim our attention.
CHRISTIANS AND THE EMPIRE
[Illustration: THE PANTHEON]
If we seriously consider the purity of the Christian religion, the
sanctity of its moral precepts, and the innocent, as well as austere,
lives of the greater number of those who, during the first ages, embraced
the faith of the gospel, we should naturally suppose that so benevolent
a doctrine would have been received with due reverence, even by the
unbelieving world; that the learned and the polite, however they might
deride the miracles, would have esteemed the virtues of the new sect;
and that the magistrates, instead of persecuting, would have protected
an order of men who yielded the most passive obedience to the laws,
though they declined the active cares of war and government. If, on the
other hand, we recollect the universal toleration of polytheism, as it
was invariably maintained by the faith of the people, the incredulity of
philosophers, and the policy of the Roman senate and emperors, we are at
a loss to discover what new offence the Christians had committed, what
new provocation could exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity, and
what new motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without concern
a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their gentle sway,
to inflict a severe punishment on any part of their subjects, who had
chosen for themselves a singular but an inoffensive mode of faith and
worship.
The religious policy of the ancient world seems to have assumed a more
stern and intolerant character, to oppose the progress of Christianity.
About fourscore years after the death of Christ, his innocent disciples
were punished with death by the sentence of a proconsul of the most
amiable and philosophic character, and according to the laws of
an emperor distinguished by the wisdom and justice of his general
administration. The apologies which were repeatedly addressed to the
successors of Trajan are filled with the most pathetic complaints that
the Christians, who obeyed the dictates and solicited the liberty of
conscience, were alone among all the subjects of the Roman Empire
excluded from the common benefits of their auspicious government. The
deaths of a few eminent martyrs have been recorded with care; and
from the time that Christianity was invested with the supreme power,
the governors of the Church have been no less diligently employed in
displaying the cruelty than in imitating the conduct of their pagan
adversaries.
The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear, animated with
resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a proper
temper of mind calmly to investigate or candidly to appreciate the
motives of their enemies, which often escape the impartial and discerning
view even of those who are placed at a secure distance from the flames
of persecution.[34] A reason has been assigned for the conduct of the
emperors towards the primitive Christians, which may appear the more
specious and probable as it is drawn from the acknowledged genius of
polytheism. It has already been observed that the religious concord of
the world was principally supported by the implicit assent and reverence
which the nations of antiquity expressed for their respective traditions
and ceremonies. It might, therefore, be expected that they would unite
with indignation against any sect of people which should separate itself
from the communion of mankind, and, claiming the exclusive possession of
divine knowledge, should disdain every form of worship except its own
as impious and idolatrous. The rights of toleration were held by mutual
indulgence; they were justly forfeited by a refusal of the accustomed
tribute. As the payment of this tribute was inflexibly refused by the
Jews, and by them alone, the consideration of the treatment which they
experienced from the Roman magistrates will serve to explain how far
these speculations are justified by facts; and will lead us to discover
the true causes of the persecution of Christianity.
Without repeating what has been already mentioned of the reverence of
the Roman princes and governors for the temple of Jerusalem, we shall
only observe that the destruction of the temple and city was accompanied
and followed by every circumstance that could exasperate the minds of
the conquerors, and authorise religious persecution by the most specious
arguments of political justice and the public safety. From the reign of
Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a fierce impatience
of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious
massacres and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of
the horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of
Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with
the unsuspecting natives;[35] and we are tempted to applaud the severe
retaliation which was exercised by the arms of the legions against a race
of fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render them
the implacable enemies, not only of the Roman government, but of human
kind. The enthusiasm of the Jews was supported by the opinion that it
was unlawful for them to pay taxes to an idolatrous master; and by the
flattering promise which they derived from their ancient oracles that a
conquering Messiah would soon arise, destined to break their fetters and
to invest the favourites of heaven with the empire of the earth. It was
by announcing himself as their long-expected deliverer, and by calling
on all the descendants of Abraham to assert the hope of Israel, that the
famous Bar Kosiba collected a formidable army, with which he resisted
during two years the power of the emperor Hadrian.
Notwithstanding these repeated provocations, the resentment of the
Roman princes expired after the victory; nor were their apprehensions
continued beyond the period of war and danger. By the general indulgence
of polytheism, and by the mild temper of Antoninus Pius, the Jews
were restored to their ancient privileges, and once more obtained the
permission to circumcise their children, with the easy restraint that
they should never confer on any foreign proselyte that distinguishing
mark of the Hebrew race. The numerous remains of that people, though
they were still excluded from the precincts of Jerusalem, were permitted
to form and to maintain considerable establishments, both in Italy and
in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of Rome, to enjoy municipal
honours, and to obtain at the same time an exemption from the burdensome
and expensive offices of society. The moderation or the contempt of the
Romans gave a legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police which
was instituted by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, who had fixed his
residence at Tiberias, was empowered to appoint his subordinate ministers
and apostles, to exercise a domestic jurisdiction, and to receive from
his dispersed brethren an annual contribution. New synagogues were
frequently erected in the principal cities of the empire; and the
sabbaths, the fasts, and the festivals, which were either commanded
by the Mosaic law or enjoined by the traditions of the rabbis, were
celebrated in the most solemn and public manner. Such gentle treatment
insensibly assuaged the stern temper of the Jews. Awakened from their
dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed the behaviour of peaceable
and industrious subjects. Their irreconcilable hatred of mankind,
instead of flaming out in acts of blood and violence, evaporated in
less dangerous gratifications. They embraced every opportunity of
over-reaching the idolaters in trade; and they pronounced secret and
ambiguous imprecations against the haughty kingdom of Edom.
THE CHRISTIAN AND THE JEW
Since the Jews, who rejected with abhorrence the deities adored by their
sovereign and by their fellow subjects, enjoyed however the free exercise
of their unsocial religion, there must have existed some other cause
which exposed the disciples of Christ to those severities from which the
posterity of Abraham was exempt. The difference between them is simple
and obvious; but, according to the sentiments of antiquity, it was of
the highest importance. The Jews were a nation; the Christians were a
sect; and, if it was natural for every community to respect the sacred
institutions of their neighbours, it was incumbent on them to persevere
in those of their ancestors. The voice of oracles, the precepts of
philosophers, and the authority of the laws, unanimously enforced this
national obligation. By their lofty claim of superior sanctity, the Jews
might provoke the polytheists to consider them as an odious and impure
race. By disdaining the intercourse of other nations, they might deserve
their contempt. The laws of Moses might be for the most part frivolous
or absurd; yet, since they had been received during many ages by a large
society, his followers were justified by the example of mankind; and it
was universally acknowledged that they had a right to practise what it
would have been criminal in them to neglect. But this principle, which
protected the Jewish synagogue, afforded not any favour or security
to the primitive Church. By embracing the faith of the gospel, the
Christians incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable
offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education, violated
the religious institutions of their country, and presumptuously despised
whatever their fathers had believed as true or had reverenced as sacred.
Nor was this apostasy (if we may use the expression) merely of a partial
or local kind; since the pious deserter who withdrew himself from the
temples of Egypt or Syria would equally disdain to seek an asylum in
those of Athens or Carthage. Every Christian rejected with contempt the
superstitions of his family, his city, and his province. The whole body
of Christians unanimously refused to hold any communion with the gods of
Rome, of the empire, and of mankind. It was in vain that the oppressed
believer asserted the inalienable rights of conscience and private
judgment. Though his situation might excite the pity, his arguments
could never reach the understanding, either of the philosophic or of the
believing part of the pagan world. To their apprehensions, it was no
less a matter of surprise that any individuals should entertain scruples
against complying with the established mode of worship than if they had
conceived a sudden abhorrence to the manners, the dress, or the language
of their native country.
[Illustration: BOWL USED IN RELIGIOUS SERVICES]
The surprise of the pagans was soon succeeded by resentment; and the most
pious of men were exposed to the unjust but dangerous imputations of
impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred in representing the Christians as
a society of atheists, who, by the most daring attack on the religious
constitution of the empire, had merited the severest animadversion of
the civil magistrate. They had separated themselves (they gloried in
the confession) from every mode of superstition which was received in
any part of the globe by the various temper of polytheism; but it was
not altogether so evident what deity, or what form of worship, they
had substituted for the gods and temples of antiquity. The pure and
sublime idea which they entertained of the Supreme Being escaped the
gross conception of the pagan multitude, who were at a loss to discover
a spiritual and solitary God, that was neither represented under any
corporeal figure or visible symbol, nor was adored with the accustomed
pomp of libations and festivals, of altars and sacrifices. The sages of
Greece and Rome, who had elevated their minds to the contemplation of
the existence and attributes of the First Cause, were induced by reason
or by vanity to reserve for themselves and their chosen disciples the
privilege of this philosophical devotion. They were far from admitting
the prejudices of mankind as the standard of truth, but they considered
them as flowing from the original disposition of human nature; and they
supposed that any popular mode of faith and worship which presumed to
disclaim the assistance of the senses would, in proportion as it receded
from superstition, find itself incapable of restraining the wanderings
of the fancy and the visions of fanaticism. The glance which men of wit
and learning condescended to cast on the Christian revelation served only
to confirm their hasty opinion, and to persuade them that the principle,
which they might have revered, of the divine unity, was defaced by the
wild enthusiasm and annihilated by the airy speculations of the new
sectaries. The author of a celebrated dialogue which has been attributed
to Lucian, whilst he affects to treat the mysterious subject of the
Trinity in a style of ridicule and contempt, betrays his own ignorance of
the weakness of human reason and of the inscrutable nature of the divine
perfections.
It might appear less surprising that the founder of Christianity should
not only be revered by his disciples as a sage and a prophet, but that
he should be adored as a god. The polytheists were disposed to adopt
every article of faith which seemed to offer any resemblance, however
distant or imperfect, with the popular mythology; and the legends of
Bacchus, of Hercules, and of Æsculapius, had, in some measure, prepared
their imagination for the appearance of the son of God under a human
form. But they were astonished that the Christians should abandon the
temples of those ancient heroes who, in the infancy of the world, had
invented arts, instituted laws, and vanquished the tyrants or monsters
who infested the earth, in order to choose for the exclusive object of
their religious worship an obscure teacher, who, in a recent age, and
among a barbarous people, had fallen a sacrifice either to the malice
of his own countrymen or to the jealousy of the Roman government. The
pagan multitude, reserving their gratitude for temporal benefits alone,
rejected the inestimable present of life and immortality which was
offered to mankind by Jesus of Nazareth. His mild constancy in the midst
of cruel and voluntary sufferings, his universal benevolence, and the
sublime simplicity of his actions and character, were insufficient, in
the opinion of those carnal men, to compensate for the want of fame,
of empire, and of success; and, whilst they refused to acknowledge his
stupendous triumph over the powers of darkness and of the grave, they
misrepresented, or they insulted, the equivocal birth, wandering life,
and ignominious death, of the divine author of Christianity.
RELIGIOUS ASSEMBLIES OF THE CHRISTIANS
The personal guilt which every Christian had contracted in thus
preferring his private sentiment to the national religion, was aggravated
in a very high degree by the number and union of the criminals. It is
well known, and has been already observed, that Roman policy viewed with
the utmost jealousy and distrust any association among its subjects; and
that the privileges of private corporations, though formed for the most
harmless or beneficial purposes, were bestowed with a very sparing hand.
The religious assemblies of the Christians who had separated themselves
from the public worship appeared of a much less innocent nature: they
were illegal in their principle, and in their consequences might become
dangerous; nor were the emperors conscious that they violated the laws of
justice when, for the peace of society, they prohibited those secret and
sometimes nocturnal meetings. The pious disobedience of the Christians
made their conduct, or perhaps their designs, appear in a much more
serious and criminal light; and the Roman princes, who might perhaps have
suffered themselves to be disarmed by a ready submission, deeming their
honour concerned in the execution of their commands, sometimes attempted,
by rigorous punishments, to subdue this independent spirit, which boldly
acknowledged an authority superior to that of the magistrate. The extent
and duration of this spiritual conspiracy seemed to render it every
day more deserving of his animadversion. We have already seen that the
active and successful zeal of the Christians had insensibly diffused them
through every province, and almost every city, of the empire. The new
converts seemed to renounce their family and country, that they might
connect themselves in an indissoluble band of union with a peculiar
society which everywhere assumed a different character from the rest
of mankind. Their gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the
common business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of
impending calamities, inspired the pagans with the apprehension of some
danger which would arise from the new sect, the more alarming as it was
the more obscure. Whatever (says Pliny[j]) may be the principle of their
conduct, their inflexible obstinacy appeared deserving of punishment.
The precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed the offices
of religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity; but they were
continued from choice. By imitating the awful secrecy which reigned
in the Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians had flattered themselves
that they should render their sacred institutions more respectable
in the eyes of the pagan world. But the event, as it often happens
to the operations of subtle policy, deceived their wishes and their
expectations. It was concluded that they only concealed what they would
have blushed to disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded an opportunity
for malice to invent and for suspicious credulity to believe the horrid
tales which described the Christians as the most wicked of human kind,
who practised in their dark recesses every abomination that a depraved
fancy could suggest, and who solicited the favour of their unknown god
by the sacrifice of every moral virtue. There were many who pretended
to confess or to relate the ceremonies of this abhorred society. It was
asserted that a new-born infant, entirely covered over with flour, was
presented, like some mystic symbol of initiation, to the knife of the
proselyte, who unknowingly inflicted many a secret and mortal wound on
the innocent victim of his error; that as soon as the cruel deed was
perpetrated, the sectaries drank up the blood, greedily tore asunder
the quivering members, and pledged themselves to eternal secrecy by
a mutual consciousness of guilt. It was as confidently affirmed that
this inhuman sacrifice was succeeded by a suitable entertainment, in
which intemperance served as a provocative to brutal lust; till, at
the appointed moment, the lights were suddenly extinguished, shame was
banished, nature was forgotten; and, as accident might direct, the
darkness of the night was polluted by the incestuous commerce of sisters
and brothers, of sons and of mothers.
CHRISTIANITY AND THE LAW
But the perusal of the ancient apologies was sufficient to remove
even the slightest suspicion from the mind of a candid adversary. The
Christians, with the intrepid security of innocence, appeal from the
voice of rumour to the equity of the magistrates. They acknowledge that
if any proof can be produced of the crimes which calumny has imputed to
them, they are worthy of the most severe punishment. They provoke the
punishment, and they challenge the proof. At the same time they urge,
with equal truth and propriety, that the charge is not less devoid of
probability than it is destitute of evidence; they ask whether anyone
can seriously believe that the pure and holy precepts of the gospel,
which so frequently restrained the use of the most lawful enjoyments,
should inculcate the practice of the most abominable crimes; that a
large society should resolve to dishonour itself in the eyes of its own
members; and that a great number of persons of either sex, and every age
and character, insensible to the fear of death or infamy, should consent
to violate those principles which nature and education had imprinted most
deeply in their minds. Nothing, it should seem, could weaken the force
or destroy the effect of so unanswerable a justification, unless it were
the injudicious conduct of the apologists themselves, who betrayed the
common cause of religion to gratify their devout hatred to the domestic
enemies of the Church. It was sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes
boldly asserted, that the same bloody sacrifices and the same incestuous
festivals, which were so falsely ascribed to the orthodox believers,
were in reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and
by several other sects of the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they might
deviate into the paths of heresy, were still actuated by the sentiments
of men and still governed by the precepts of Christianity. Accusations
of a similar kind were retorted upon the Church by the schismatics who
had departed from its communion; and it was confessed on all sides
that the most scandalous licentiousness of manners prevailed among
great numbers of those who affected the name of Christians. A pagan
magistrate, who possessed neither leisure nor abilities to discern the
almost imperceptible line which divides the orthodox faith from heretical
depravity, might easily have imagined that their mutual animosity had
extorted the discovery of their common guilt.
It was fortunate for the repose, or at least for the reputation, of the
first Christians, that the magistrates sometimes proceeded with more
temper and moderation than is usually consistent with religious zeal; and
that they reported, as the impartial result of their judicial inquiry,
that the sectaries, who had deserted the established worship, appeared
to them sincere in their professions, and blameless in their manners;
however they might incur, by their absurd and excessive superstition, the
censure of the laws.
History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past for the
instruction of future ages, would ill deserve the honourable office, if
she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, or to justify the maxims
of persecution. It must, however, be acknowledged that the conduct of the
emperors who appeared the least favourable to the primitive church is by
no means so criminal as that of modern sovereigns, who have employed the
arm of violence and terror against the religious opinions of any part of
their subjects. From their reflections, or even from their own feelings,
a Charles V or a Louis XIV might have acquired a just knowledge of the
rights of conscience, of the obligation of faith, and of the innocence of
error. But the princes and magistrates of ancient Rome were strangers to
those principles which inspired and authorised the inflexible obstinacy
of the Christians in the cause of truth; nor could they themselves
discover in their own breasts any motive which would have prompted them
to refuse a legal, and as it were a natural, submission to the sacred
institutions of their country. The same reason which contributes to
alleviate the guilt, must have tended to abate the rigour of their
persecutions. As they were actuated, not by the furious zeal of bigots
but by the temperate policy of legislators, contempt must often have
relaxed and humanity must frequently have suspended the execution of
those laws which they enacted against the humble and obscure followers of
Christ. From the general view of their character and motives, we might
naturally conclude: (1) that a considerable time elapsed before they
considered the new sectaries as an object deserving of the attention
of government; (2) that in the conviction of any of their subjects who
were accused of so very singular a crime, they proceeded with caution
and reluctance; (3) that they were moderate in the use of punishments;
and (4) that the afflicted church enjoyed many intervals of peace and
tranquillity. Notwithstanding the careless indifference which the most
copious and the most minute of pagan writers have shown to the affairs
of the Christians, it may still be in our power to confirm each of these
probable suppositions by the evidence of authentic facts.
THE INFANCY OF THE CHURCH
By the wise dispensation of providence, a mysterious veil was cast over
the infancy of the church, which, till the faith of the Christians was
matured and their numbers were multiplied, served to protect them not
from the malice, but even from the knowledge, of the pagan world. The
slow and gradual abolition of the Mosaic ceremonies afforded a safe
and innocent disguise to the more early proselytes of the gospel. As
they were by far the greater part of the race of Abraham, they were
distinguished by the peculiar mark of circumcision, offered up their
devotions in the temple of Jerusalem till its final destruction, and
received both the law and the prophets as the genuine inspirations
of the Deity. The Gentile converts, who by a spiritual adoption had
been associated to the hope of Israel, were likewise confounded under
the garb and appearance of the Jews; and as the polytheists paid less
regard to articles of faith than to the external worship, the new sect,
which carefully concealed or faintly announced its future greatness and
ambition, was permitted to shelter itself under the general toleration
which was granted to an ancient and celebrated people in the Roman
Empire. It was not long, perhaps, before the Jews themselves, animated
with a fiercer zeal and a more jealous faith, perceived the gradual
separation of their Nazarene brethren from the doctrine of the synagogue;
and they would gladly have extinguished the dangerous heresy in the
blood of its adherents. But the decrees of heaven had already disarmed
their malice; and though they might sometimes exert the licentious
privilege of sedition, they no longer possessed the administration of
criminal justice; nor did they find it easy to infuse into the calm
breast of a Roman magistrate the rancour of their own zeal and prejudice.
The provincial governors declared themselves ready to listen to any
accusation that might affect the public safety; but as soon as they were
informed that it was a question not of facts but of words, a dispute
relating only to the interpretation of the Jewish laws and prophecies,
they deemed it unworthy of the majesty of Rome seriously to discuss the
obscure differences which might arise among a barbarous and superstitious
people. The innocence of the first Christians was protected by ignorance
and contempt; and the tribunal of the pagan magistrate often proved their
most assured refuge against the fury of the synagogue. If, indeed, we
were disposed to adopt the traditions of a too credulous antiquity, we
might relate the distant peregrination, the wonderful achievements, and
the various deaths, of the twelve Apostles; but a more accurate inquiry
will induce us to doubt whether any of those persons who had been
witnesses to the miracles of Christ were permitted, beyond the limits of
Palestine, to seal with their blood the truth of their testimony. From
the ordinary term of human life, it may very naturally be presumed that
most of them were deceased before the discontent of the Jews broke out
into that furious war, which was terminated only by the ruin of Jerusalem.
PERSECUTIONS UNDER NERO
During a long period, from the death of Christ to that memorable Jewish
rebellion, we cannot discover any traces of Roman intolerance, unless
they are to be found in the sudden, the transient, but the cruel
persecution which was exercised by Nero against the Christians of the
capital, thirty-five years after the former and only two years before the
latter of those great events. The character of the philosophic historian,
to whom we are principally indebted for the knowledge of this singular
transaction, would alone be sufficient to recommend it to our most
attentive consideration.
[Illustration: ROMAN SARCOPHAGUS]
We have seen that in the tenth year of the reign of Nero, Rome was
afflicted by a fire which raged beyond the memory or example of former
ages. The monuments of Grecian art and of Roman virtue, the trophies of
the Punic and Gallic wars, the most holy temples and the most splendid
palaces were involved in one common destruction. Of the fourteen
regions or quarters into which Rome was divided, four only subsisted
entire, three were levelled with the ground, and the remaining seven,
which had experienced the fury of the flames, displayed a melancholy
prospect of ruin and desolation. The vigilance of government appears
not to have neglected any of the precautions which might alleviate
the sense of so dreadful a calamity. The imperial gardens were thrown
open to the distressed multitude, temporary buildings were erected for
their accommodation, and a plentiful supply of corn and provisions was
distributed at a very moderate price. The most generous policy seemed to
have dictated the edicts which regulated the disposition of the streets
and the construction of private houses; and as usually happens in an age
of prosperity, the conflagration of Rome, in the course of a few years,
produced a new city, more regular and more beautiful than the former.
But all the prudence and humanity affected by Nero on this occasion were
insufficient to preserve him from the popular suspicion. Every crime
might be imputed to the assassin of his wife and mother; nor could the
prince who prostituted his person and dignity in the theatre be deemed
incapable of the most extravagant folly. The voice of rumour accused the
emperor as the incendiary of his own capital; and as the most incredible
stories are the best adapted to the genius of an enraged people, it was
gravely reported, and firmly believed, that Nero, enjoying the calamity
which he had occasioned, amused himself with singing to his lyre the
destruction of ancient Troy. To divert a suspicion which the power of
despotism was unable to suppress, the emperor resolved to substitute in
his own place some fictitious criminals.
“With this view,” continues Tacitus,[k] “he inflicted the most exquisite
tortures on those men who, under the vulgar appellation of Christians,
were already branded with deserved infamy. They derived their name and
origin from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death
by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate. For a while this dire
superstition was checked; but it again burst forth, and not only spread
itself over Judea, the first seat of this mischievous sect, but was even
introduced into Rome, the common asylum which receives and protects
whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious. The confessions of those who
were seized discovered a great multitude of their accomplices, and they
were all convicted, not so much for the crime of setting fire to the
city, as for their hatred of human kind. They died in torments, and their
torments were imbittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed on
crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts and exposed to the
fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were
used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of
Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied
with a horse race, and honoured with the presence of the emperor, who
mingled with the populace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The
guilt of the Christians deserved indeed the most exemplary punishment;
but the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration, from the
opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed not so much to the
public welfare as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant.”
Those who survey with a curious eye the revolutions of mankind may
observe that the gardens and circus of Nero on the Vatican, which were
polluted with the blood of the first Christians, have been rendered still
more famous by the triumph and by the abuse of the persecuted religion.
On the same spot a temple, which far surpasses the ancient glories of the
Capitol, has been since erected by the Christian pontiffs; who, deriving
their claim of universal dominion from a humble fisherman of Galilee,
have succeeded to the throne of the cæsars, given laws to the barbarian
conquerors of Rome, and extended their spiritual jurisdiction from the
coast of the Baltic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
But it would be improper to dismiss this account of Nero’s persecution,
till we have made some observations that may serve to remove the
difficulties with which it is perplexed, and to throw some light on the
subsequent history of the church.
(1) The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of
this extraordinary fact and the integrity of this celebrated passage of
Tacitus. The former is confirmed by the diligent and accurate Suetonius,
who mentions the punishment which Nero inflicted on the Christians, a
sect of men who had embraced a new and criminal superstition. The latter
may be proved by the consent of the most ancient manuscripts; by the
inimitable character of the style of Tacitus; by his reputation, which
guarded his text from the interpolations of pious fraud; and by the
purport of his narration, which accused the first Christians of the most
atrocious crimes, without insinuating that they possessed any miraculous
or even magical powers above the rest of mankind.
(2) Notwithstanding it is probable that Tacitus was born some years
before the fire of Rome, he could derive only from reading and
conversation the knowledge of an event which happened during his infancy.
Before he gave himself to the public, he calmly waited till his genius
had attained its full maturity; and he was more than forty years of age
when a grateful regard for the memory of the virtuous Agricola extorted
from him the most early of those historical compositions which will
delight and instruct the most distant posterity. After making a trial of
his strength in the life of Agricola and the description of Germany, he
conceived, and at length executed, a most arduous work--the history of
Rome, in thirty books, from the fall of Nero to the accession of Nerva.
The administration of Nerva introduced an age of justice and prosperity,
which Tacitus had destined for the occupation of his old age; but when
he took a nearer view of his subject, judging, perhaps, that it was a
more honourable or a less invidious office to record the vices of past
tyrants than to celebrate the virtues of a reigning monarch, he chose
rather to relate, under the form of annals, the actions of the four
immediate successors of Augustus. To collect, to dispose, and to adorn a
series of fourscore years in an immortal work, every sentence of which
is pregnant with the deepest observations and the most lively images,
was an undertaking sufficient to exercise the genius of Tacitus himself
during the greater part of his life. In the last years of the reign of
Trajan, whilst the victorious monarch extended the power of Rome beyond
its ancient limits, the historian was describing, in the second and
fourth books of his annals, the tyranny of Tiberius; and the emperor
Hadrian must have succeeded to the throne before Tacitus, in the regular
prosecution of his work, could relate the fire of the capital and the
cruelty of Nero towards the unfortunate Christians. At the distance of
sixty years, it was the duty of the annalist to adopt the narratives of
contemporaries; but it was natural for the philosopher to indulge himself
in the description of the origin, the progress, and the character of the
new sect, not so much according to the knowledge or prejudices of the age
of Nero, as according to those of the time of Hadrian.
(3) Tacitus very frequently trusts to the curiosity or reflection of
his readers to supply those intermediate circumstances and ideas which,
in his extreme conciseness, he has thought proper to suppress. We may,
therefore, presume to imagine some probable cause which could direct
the cruelty of Nero against the Christians of Rome, whose obscurity,
as well as innocence, should have shielded them from his indignation,
and even from his notice. The Jews, who were numerous in the capital,
and oppressed in their own country, were a much fitter object for the
suspicions of the emperor and of the people; nor did it seem unlikely
that a vanquished nation, who already discovered their abhorrence of
the Roman yoke, might have recourse to the most atrocious means of
gratifying their implacable revenge. But the Jews possessed very powerful
advocates in the palace, and even in the heart of the tyrant--his wife
and mistress, the beautiful Poppæa, and a favourite player of the race
of Abraham, who had already employed their intercession in behalf of the
obnoxious people. In their room it was necessary to offer some other
victims; and it might easily be suggested that, although the genuine
followers of Moses were innocent of the fire of Rome, there had arisen
among them a new and pernicious sect of Galilæans, which was capable
of the most horrid crimes. Under the appellation of Galilæans, two
distinctions of men were confounded, the most opposite to each other in
their manners and principles; the disciples who had embraced the faith
of Jesus of Nazareth, and the zealots who had followed the standard of
Judas the Gaulonite. The former were the friends, the latter were the
enemies, of human kind; and the only resemblance between them consisted
in the same inflexible constancy which, in the defence of their cause,
rendered them insensible of death and tortures. The followers of Judas,
who impelled their countrymen into rebellion, were soon buried under the
ruins of Jerusalem; whilst those of Jesus, known by the more celebrated
name of Christians, diffused themselves over the Roman Empire. How
natural was it for Tacitus, in the time of Hadrian, to appropriate to the
Christians the guilt and the sufferings which he might, with far greater
truth and justice, have attributed to a sect whose odious memory was
almost extinguished!
(4) Whatever opinion may be entertained of this conjecture (for it is
no more than a conjecture), it is evident that the effect, as well as
the cause, of Nero’s persecution was confined to the walls of Rome; that
the religious tenets of the Galilæans, or Christians, were never made a
subject of punishment, or even of inquiry; and that, as the idea of their
sufferings was for a long time connected with the idea of cruelty and
injustice, the moderation of succeeding princes inclined them to spare a
sect oppressed by a tyrant whose rage had been usually directed against
virtue and innocence.[c]
Thus the massacre of the year 64 is not, strictly speaking, a religious
persecution, although, in the opinion of the pagans, there remained
a stain on the Christians. Their name came out of the darkness in an
inauspicious manner. It remained linked with a great public disaster,
and perhaps with a terrible crime in which authority pretended to trace
their influence. The second traditional persecution took place in the
last year of the reign of Domitian. We have seen to what it has been
reduced. There is no trace of any edict, no explicit evidence in profane
or ecclesiastical literature, until the middle of the second century.
Several passages must be subtly combined to draw the inference of
actions brought against many of the Christians, and we are reduced to
suppositions to decide the cause. The accusation of impiety appears, but
it cannot be said whether this charge is of a religious character; and it
seems doubtful.
PERSECUTION UNDER TRAJAN AND THE ANTONINES
It is under the reign of Trajan that the persecution of Christianity is
really inaugurated. A thick cloud hovers over this new crime, however,
and over the proceedings which are to follow. Pliny does not know where
to find the proof of the crime. Trajan, in his reply, points to the
statute law. The Christians, from this time, are beyond the reach of the
law. However, if there are no complaints and no accusers come forward,
the authorities will leave them in peace. If they are impeached in the
court of justice they will be condemned unless they forswear themselves.
This equivocal law regulated the position of the Christians under the
rule of the first three successors of Trajan. Neither Hadrian, Antoninus
Pius, nor Marcus Aurelius softened or aggravated it.
Under the rule of these princes, the best, most just, and most humane the
empire ever knew, the condemnations of the Christians are more frequent.
It is because the Christians are more numerous, and here and there
bolder, doubtless, and more imprudent; it is also because there is a new
actor on the stage, an anonymous actor, passionate, capricious, easily
irritated, and formidable in anger--the crowd, whose injunctions and
whose cries for death sometimes take the place of that accuser required
by the edict of Trajan. Or in public calamities it is on the Christians
that the wrath of the crowd falls. A terrible fate overtakes their
conventicles and sacred rites. They hide themselves and avoid all feasts,
they smile when others weep, and seem sad in times of prosperity.
Neither their altars, the name, nor the symbol of their god is known.
Blood is shed at their nocturnal meetings. Children are sacrificed,
devoured by the initiated, and there are scenes of unspeakable
debauchery. This is what is said, and in certain circumstances the least
spark is sufficient to kindle the fury of the multitude assembled in
the amphitheatres or the circus. Will the magistrates contend with the
rioters? Will they take up the cause of men legally outside the common
law? The voice of the public speaks, and they obey. This, together with
certain enmities and private grudges, is, doubtless, the explanation of
the sentences pronounced in Rome, and especially in the provinces, under
the Antonines. This is what would seem to have taken place in Smyrna in
the year 155, and at Lyons in 177. The crowd is the accuser. It is the
crowd that singles out the Christians and sentences them to death, and
it is only occasionally that the sentence which it has pronounced is not
fulfilled.
[Illustration: ROMAN DOOR KEYS, IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM]
Three rescripts have been drawn up which Hadrian, Antoninus, and
Marcus Aurelius successively are said to have made out in favour of
the Christians, and from one to the other of these edicts there is, as
it were, a _crescendo_ of kindness and toleration. The first of these
princes forbids the legates to condemn the Christians to satisfy the
clamouring of the people. The last, Marcus Aurelius, testifies to the
power of the Christians, whose kindness he has experienced and whom
he fears to see turned against him, and grants them full liberty of
worship. In our opinion these edicts are manifestly apocryphal, although
it is perhaps true that the emperors, supreme guardians of the law,
saw with displeasure the violent caprices of popular brutality take
the place of legal measures, and violate, as it were, the majesty of
Roman justice; and they may have written in this sense to their agents.
Hadrian especially, the most vigilant guardian of order in the provincial
administration, may have done this.
But the sentences pronounced against the Christians under the rule of
the Antonines, and the numerous defences in which the apologists, even
at this moment, make an appeal to the justice of the emperors, claiming
common law for the Christians, prove clearly that the law which condemned
them on account of their profession of faith had not been repealed.
The Antonines invariably made kind and humane princes, lovers of justice,
sparing of the lives of their subjects. Marcus Aurelius, in particular,
went too far in his complaisance and goodness of heart. The principle
of the stoical philosophy he had embraced, and which he was proud to
follow, taught the inviolability of liberty in private life, and far from
advising the persecution of opinions, it must rather have taught respect
for them.
On the other hand, in spite of a visible tendency on the part of the
authorities at this time to restore or to strengthen the old Roman
discipline, in spite of the alliance entered upon between philosophy and
the popular religion, multifarious worships flourished freely throughout
the empire. The emperors, whose official devoutness has nothing
exclusive, are admitted, like Hadrian, into the alien churches; or, like
Marcus Aurelius, do not fear to make an appeal in urgent cases to all
known religions. Amongst the philosophers, some, regarding such matters
with contempt, state that the diversity matters but little provided that
the heavenly sentiment is in the soul; others, incredulous and sceptical
like Lucian, scoff with impunity at all the gods and religious symbols,
sparing none. There is nothing in the empire resembling a state religion;
it would even be difficult to say precisely which is the religion of the
majority of the citizens.
Polytheism means diversity and confusion. There is no common formulary,
or catechism, nothing resembling the doctrinal teaching of a fixed and
definite theology. All the gods are accounted good, and the newest seem
to possess extraordinary virtues. Whence comes it that Christianity alone
is excluded from universal toleration and is legally without the rights
of the law? Whilst striving to answer this question, there is the risk
of defining and exaggerating ideas which hovered vaguely in the minds
of the princes and statesmen of that time, and of reducing dim notions
to too fixed formulas. The Christians in the second century are usually
taxed with atheism and impiety. It is certain that the apologists have
fair play in replying to this imputation, and answer it triumphantly. The
fact however remains that Christianity was the absolute negation of all
the symbols of pagan naturalism, that it condemned and repudiated without
exception all the gods and all worships, and aspired to destroy and
replace them. Lucian, it is true, was not more respectful to the various
prevailing superstitions, but Lucian’s invectives were an individual
piece of wit. He did not attempt to raise altar against altar, he did not
do the work of destruction in view of propaganda. He did not work against
the institutions in the name of a new community. He remained faithful to
the old philosophical tradition. His burst of laughter was as the last
hostile note uttered by philosophy, before disarming and offering a hand
to the popular religion.
The Christian objectors, also bitter, were far more in earnest and more
formidable. Their attacks amounted to a general assault, and cloaked
a manifestly subversive design. They did not scoff for the mere sake
of scoffing, but to overthrow and to make a distinct place for their
own community, establishing it on new foundations. Authority respects
the individual conscience, and grants it the greatest license, but the
general conscience is what is called conspiracy.
There is here no room for doubt. Impiety and atheism are in fact not
purely religious names, in the modern sense, but political imputations.
Religions in the empire are matters of state, or rather religion and
the state form only one commonwealth, of which the emperor is the head.
Lucian was free to be impious or atheistical. No inference is to be drawn
from this, however, though he may here and there have either imitators or
disciples.
But the Christian is not an individual unit, his name is legion; he
is a member of an association, a party which cannot be confounded
with a philosophical school. He belongs to an organised body which
has its members everywhere; which possesses a distinctive language,
rallying signs, a hierarchy, and a common purse maintained by voluntary
contributions; which holds clandestine meetings, celebrates nocturnal
rites of which popular imagination is afraid, and possesses certain means
of operation at a distance by means of delegates or circulars. And what
an organisation it is! Its members in Gaul have communication with Rome,
and with the cities of Asia and Phrygia. It covers the entire empire with
an invisible network. Philosophy, the daughter of curiosity and the work
of the brain, divides; Christian belief unites.
Do not these associates, these _collegiati_ of a new species, whose
secret designs and whose nearest hopes are unknown, but are in any case
manifestly in accordance with hatred of the morals, the customs, and
the institutions of the empire, form the beginning of a state within a
state? Are they not a menace to the public class, that which at all times
is reported inseparable from the preservation of existing institutions?
These are enemies; the more so that community of faith, hatred of the
state, and the bond of a common fear in the presence of danger and of
proscription holds them together.
Pertinax, on attaining to the imperial dignity, gave this for the first
watchword: “Let us fight”--a virile watchword, and one suited also to the
reign of Marcus Aurelius. In fact, on the frontiers the barbarians are
hastening to arm. Of the thirty legions of which he has the disposal,
the emperor is forced to muster twenty with numerous auxiliaries to
drive them beyond the Danube, and hold them in awe. During this time,
other peaceful barbarians, as they are called, profess contempt for
their country, enervate their minds by an unnerving mysticism, detaching
themselves from masculine duties and the rough obligations of civil and
military life, and by their attacks and their counsels noiselessly lay
the mine which will engulf the fortunes of Rome.
They respect, they say, the established powers, and offer up prayers
to their gods on behalf of the emperor; but they are heard to say that
marriage is a corruption, and a Christian slave dares to reply to the
judge that Christ has freed him, and amongst the foundations on which the
state and society, decency, family ties, and religion rest, there is not
one institution which finds favour in their sight.
The state has need of the devotion of all. It is a critical moment.
A war, which all good citizens must consider as a holy war, is added
to the scourge which devastates the empire. The stake is, perhaps,
civilisation itself. The Christians are reluctant to serve the country
at home or abroad. They wish to be neither soldiers nor magistrates.
They glory in being citizens of heaven. They wrap themselves up in
meditation, controversy, and the exercises of their piety. The community
is threatened. In every town they have made for themselves a city of
their own choosing, a society separate and apart, of which, they say, God
himself is the founder, which they call their church, and to which they
dedicate all their attention and their zeal. The service of their church
is the sole thing which moves them. The duties it imposes are, in their
eyes, the only essential and necessary duties.
The prince, their country, the public good, civilisation, Roman
splendour, are to them merely resounding names or vain idols. The church
is their country, their city, and their camp. This doubtless is the
meaning of the accusation, “enemies of the public,” which is applied to
the Christians. Doubtless neither the princes nor the magistrates saw it
in precisely that light. The Christian prophets foretold the end of the
world in the year 195. They did not foresee Constantine and Theodosius,
the old religion persecuted in its turn, and forced to hide from the
revenge of the Christians, the apologists returned, Libanius imploring
in the name of art that the temples and statues of the gods might be
spared, and Simmachus in the name of Roman splendour asking mercy for the
threatened altar of victory.
The danger was neither so urgent nor so clear in the second century.
Melito of Sardis was wont to say with the gravity of conviction that
the power and splendour of the empire had augmented with Christianity.
Others, with equal sincerity, protested that the Christians did not think
of agitating the state, that they had never been found amongst those who
stirred up seditious and military revolutions; that, on the contrary,
they kept themselves aloof from all parties, and rendered unto Cæsar that
which was his due--neither adoration nor incense, but civil submission
and obedience. Several times since the destruction of their temple in the
year 70, the Jews had risen in arms to shake off the Roman despotism, to
save or avenge their independence. The Christians could not be reproached
with any revolt; it is true that, sprung from every race, and for the
greater part from pagan families, they had no nationality to vindicate
or re-establish. None of them, moreover, had asserted a mission to
revolutionise society.
Saving the spiritual jurisdiction, they freely abandoned all other
matters, or held them of small account. During the first two centuries
despised, maltreated, spat upon, under the ban of opinion and of the
law, and often put to death, they were everywhere seen to be patient
and resigned, speaking less of the world than of heaven, and full of
confidence in a master who does no wrong and who can repair injustice.
Thus no precise explanation can be advanced to account for their being
styled public enemies. They were the seeds of a new society; one of their
doctors stated that their presence deferred the terrestrial judgment and
preserved the empire from ruin and corruption.
The true and philosophical significance of the persecutions is thus the
defence of the empire and its institutions, threatened by a new and
incomprehensible spirit. The emperors during the second century did not
see this public danger clearly; they felt it instinctively, and on its
account they strove to fortify or to awaken religion and patriotism.[d]
FOOTNOTES
[34] The history of Christianity, in its earliest stage, is only to
be found in the _Acts of the Apostles_; from no other source can we
learn the first persecutions inflicted on the Christians. Limited to
a few individuals and a narrow space, these persecutions interested
none but those who were exposed to them, and have had no other
chroniclers.--GUIZOT.
[35] In Cyrene they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus, 240,000; in
Egypt, a very great multitude. Many of these unhappy victims were sawed
asunder, according to a precedent to which David had given the sanction
of his example. The victorious Jews devoured the flesh, licked up the
blood, and twisted the entrails, like a girdle, round their bodies.[e]
[Illustration: ROMAN METAL WORKER]