Constantine.--Part III.
The answer of Trajan, to which the Christians of the succeeding age have
frequently appealed, discovers as much regard for justice and humanity
as could be reconciled with his mistaken notions of religious policy.
Instead of displaying the implacable zeal of an inquisitor, anxious to
discover the most minute particles of heresy, and exulting in the number
of his victims, the emperor expresses much more solicitude to protect
the security of the innocent, than to prevent the escape of the guilty.
He acknowledged the difficulty of fixing any general plan; but he lays
down two salutary rules, which often afforded relief and support to the
distressed Christians. Though he directs the magistrates to punish such
persons as are legally convicted, he prohibits them, with a very
humane inconsistency, from making any inquiries concerning the supposed
criminals. Nor was the magistrate allowed to proceed on every kind of
information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, as too repugnant
to the equity of his government; and he strictly requires, for the
conviction of those to whom the guilt of Christianity is imputed, the
positive evidence of a fair and open accuser. It is likewise probable,
that the persons who assumed so invidiuous an office, were obliged to
declare the grounds of their suspicions, to specify (both in respect to
time and place) the secret assemblies, which their Christian adversary
had frequented, and to disclose a great number of circumstances, which
were concealed with the most vigilant jealousy from the eye of the
profane. If they succeeded in their prosecution, they were exposed to
the resentment of a considerable and active party, to the censure of the
more liberal portion of mankind, and to the ignominy which, in every
age and country, has attended the character of an informer. If, on the
contrary, they failed in their proofs, they incurred the severe and
perhaps capital penalty, which, according to a law published by the
emperor Hadrian, was inflicted on those who falsely attributed to their
fellow-citizens the crime of Christianity. The violence of personal or
superstitious animosity might sometimes prevail over the most natural
apprehensions of disgrace and danger but it cannot surely be imagined,
that accusations of so unpromising an appearance were either lightly or
frequently undertaken by the Pagan subjects of the Roman empire. *
The expedient which was employed to elude the prudence of the laws,
affords a sufficient proof how effectually they disappointed the
mischievous designs of private malice or superstitious zeal. In a large
and tumultuous assembly, the restraints of fear and shame, so forcible
on the minds of individuals, are deprived of the greatest part of their
influence. The pious Christian, as he was desirous to obtain, or to
escape, the glory of martyrdom, expected, either with impatience or with
terror, the stated returns of the public games and festivals. On
those occasions the inhabitants of the great cities of the empire were
collected in the circus or the theatre, where every circumstance of the
place, as well as of the ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion,
and to extinguish their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators,
crowned with garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood
of victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their tutelar
deities, resigned themselves to the enjoyment of pleasures, which
they considered as an essential part of their religious worship, they
recollected, that the Christians alone abhorred the gods of mankind,
and by their absence and melancholy on these solemn festivals, seemed
to insult or to lament the public felicity. If the empire had been
afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an
unsuccessful war; if the Tyber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond
its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the
seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced
that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared
by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the
divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated populace,
that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed; it was not in an
amphitheatre, stained with the blood of wild beasts and gladiators, that
the voice of compassion could be heard. The impatient clamors of the
multitude denounced the Christians as the enemies of gods and men,
doomed them to the severest tortures, and venturing to accuse by name
some of the most distinguished of the new sectaries, required with
irresistible vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended and
cast to the lions. The provincial governors and magistrates who
presided in the public spectacles were usually inclined to gratify the
inclinations, and to appease the rage, of the people, by the sacrifice
of a few obnoxious victims. But the wisdom of the emperors protected
the church from the danger of these tumultuous clamors and irregular
accusations, which they justly censured as repugnant both to the
firmness and to the equity of their administration. The edicts of
Hadrian and of Antoninus Pius expressly declared, that the voice of the
multitude should never be admitted as legal evidence to convict or to
punish those unfortunate persons who had embraced the enthusiasm of the
Christians.
III. Punishment was not the inevitable consequence of conviction, and
the Christians, whose guilt was the most clearly proved by the testimony
of witnesses, or even by their voluntary confession, still retained in
their own power the alternative of life or death. It was not so much the
past offence, as the actual resistance, which excited the indignation
of the magistrate. He was persuaded that he offered them an easy pardon,
since, if they consented to cast a few grains of incense upon the altar,
they were dismissed from the tribunal in safety and with applause. It
was esteemed the duty of a humane judge to endeavor to reclaim, rather
than to punish, those deluded enthusiasts. Varying his tone according
to the age, the sex, or the situation of the prisoners, he frequently
condescended to set before their eyes every circumstance which could
render life more pleasing, or death more terrible; and to solicit, nay,
to entreat, them, that they would show some compassion to themselves, to
their families, and to their friends. If threats and persuasions proved
ineffectual, he had often recourse to violence; the scourge and the rack
were called in to supply the deficiency of argument, and every art of
cruelty was employed to subdue such inflexible, and, as it appeared
to the Pagans, such criminal, obstinacy. The ancient apologists of
Christianity have censured, with equal truth and severity, the irregular
conduct of their persecutors who, contrary to every principle of
judicial proceeding, admitted the use of torture, in order to obtain,
not a confession, but a denial, of the crime which was the object of
their inquiry. The monks of succeeding ages, who, in their peaceful
solitudes, entertained themselves with diversifying the deaths and
sufferings of the primitive martyrs, have frequently invented torments
of a much more refined and ingenious nature. In particular, it has
pleased them to suppose, that the zeal of the Roman magistrates,
disdaining every consideration of moral virtue or public decency,
endeavored to seduce those whom they were unable to vanquish, and that
by their orders the most brutal violence was offered to those whom they
found it impossible to seduce. It is related, that females, who were
prepared to despise death, were sometimes condemned to a more severe
trial, and called upon to determine whether they set a higher value
on their religion or on their chastity. The youths to whose licentious
embraces they were abandoned, received a solemn exhortation from the
judge, to exert their most strenuous efforts to maintain the honor of
Venus against the impious virgin who refused to burn incense on her
altars. Their violence, however, was commonly disappointed, and the
seasonable interposition of some miraculous power preserved the chaste
spouses of Christ from the dishonor even of an involuntary defeat. We
should not indeed neglect to remark, that the more ancient as well
as authentic memorials of the church are seldom polluted with these
extravagant and indecent fictions.
The total disregard of truth and probability in the representation of
these primitive martyrdoms was occasioned by a very natural mistake. The
ecclesiastical writers of the fourth or fifth centuries ascribed to the
magistrates of Rome the same degree of implacable and unrelenting zeal
which filled their own breasts against the heretics or the idolaters
of their own times. It is not improbable that some of those persons
who were raised to the dignities of the empire, might have imbibed the
prejudices of the populace, and that the cruel disposition of others
might occasionally be stimulated by motives of avarice or of personal
resentment. But it is certain, and we may appeal to the grateful
confessions of the first Christians, that the greatest part of those
magistrates who exercised in the provinces the authority of the emperor,
or of the senate, and to whose hands alone the jurisdiction of life and
death was intrusted, behaved like men of polished manners and liberal
education, who respected the rules of justice, and who were conversant
with the precepts of philosophy. They frequently declined the odious
task of persecution, dismissed the charge with contempt, or suggested
to the accused Christian some legal evasion, by which he might elude the
severity of the laws. Whenever they were invested with a discretionary
power, they used it much less for the oppression, than for the relief
and benefit of the afflicted church. They were far from condemning all
the Christians who were accused before their tribunal, and very far
from punishing with death all those who were convicted of an obstinate
adherence to the new superstition. Contenting themselves, for the most
part, with the milder chastisements of imprisonment, exile, or slavery
in the mines, they left the unhappy victims of their justice some reason
to hope, that a prosperous event, the accession, the marriage, or the
triumph of an emperor, might speedily restore them, by a general pardon,
to their former state. The martyrs, devoted to immediate execution
by the Roman magistrates, appear to have been selected from the most
opposite extremes. They were either bishops and presbyters, the persons
the most distinguished among the Christians by their rank and influence,
and whose example might strike terror into the whole sect; or else they
were the meanest and most abject among them, particularly those of the
servile condition, whose lives were esteemed of little value, and
whose sufferings were viewed by the ancients with too careless an
indifference. The learned Origen, who, from his experience as well as
reading, was intimately acquainted with the history of the Christians,
declares, in the most express terms, that the number of martyrs was very
inconsiderable. His authority would alone be sufficient to annihilate
that formidable army of martyrs, whose relics, drawn for the most part
from the catacombs of Rome, have replenished so many churches, and whose
marvellous achievements have been the subject of so many volumes of
Holy Romance. But the general assertion of Origen may be explained and
confirmed by the particular testimony of his friend Dionysius, who, in
the immense city of Alexandria, and under the rigorous persecution
of Decius, reckons only ten men and seven women who suffered for the
profession of the Christian name.
During the same period of persecution, the zealous, the eloquent, the
ambitious Cyprian governed the church, not only of Carthage, but even of
Africa. He possessed every quality which could engage the reverence
of the faithful, or provoke the suspicions and resentment of the Pagan
magistrates. His character as well as his station seemed to mark out
that holy prelate as the most distinguished object of envy and danger.
The experience, however, of the life of Cyprian, is sufficient to prove
that our fancy has exaggerated the perilous situation of a Christian
bishop; and the dangers to which he was exposed were less imminent than
those which temporal ambition is always prepared to encounter in the
pursuit of honors. Four Roman emperors, with their families, their
favorites, and their adherents, perished by the sword in the space of
ten years, during which the bishop of Carthage guided by his authority
and eloquence the councils of the African church. It was only in the
third year of his administration, that he had reason, during a few
months, to apprehend the severe edicts of Decius, the vigilance of the
magistrate and the clamors of the multitude, who loudly demanded, that
Cyprian, the leader of the Christians, should be thrown to the lions.
Prudence suggested the necessity of a temporary retreat, and the voice
of prudence was obeyed. He withdrew himself into an obscure solitude,
from whence he could maintain a constant correspondence with the clergy
and people of Carthage; and, concealing himself till the tempest was
past, he preserved his life, without relinquishing either his power or
his reputation. His extreme caution did not, however, escape the censure
of the more rigid Christians, who lamented, or the reproaches of his
personal enemies, who insulted, a conduct which they considered as
a pusillanimous and criminal desertion of the most sacred duty. The
propriety of reserving himself for the future exigencies of the church,
the example of several holy bishops, and the divine admonitions, which,
as he declares himself, he frequently received in visions and ecstacies,
were the reasons alleged in his justification. But his best apology
may be found in the cheerful resolution, with which, about eight years
afterwards, he suffered death in the cause of religion. The authentic
history of his martyrdom has been recorded with unusual candor and
impartiality. A short abstract, therefore, of its most important
circumstances, will convey the clearest information of the spirit, and
of the forms, of the Roman persecutions.