THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH
Unfortunately for the fame of Diocletian there is one indelible blot
upon the record of his reign. He attached his name to the edicts whereby
was let loose upon the Christian Church the last and—in certain
provinces—the fiercest of the persecutions. Inasmuch as the affairs of
the Christian Church will demand so large a share of our attention in
dealing with the religious policy of Constantine, it will be well here
to describe, as briefly as possible, its condition in the reign of
Diocletian. It has been computed that towards the end of the third
century the population of the Roman Empire numbered about a hundred
millions. What proportion were Christians? No one can say with
certainty, but they were far more numerous in the East than in the West,
among the Greek-speaking peoples of Asia than among the Latin-speaking
peoples of Europe. Perhaps if we reckon them at a twelfth of the whole
we shall rather underestimate than overestimate their number, while in
certain portions of Asia and Syria they were probably at least one in
five. Christianity had spread with amazing rapidity since the days of
Domitian. There had been spasmodic outbreaks of fierce persecution under
Decius,—“that execrable beast,” as Lactantius calls him,—under Valerian,
and under Aurelian. But Aurelian’s reign was short and he had been too
busy fighting to spare much time for religious persecution. The tempest
quickly blew over. For fully half a century, with brief interludes of
terror, the Church had been gathering strength and boldness.
The policy of the State towards it was one of indifference. Gallienus,
indeed, the worthless son of Valerian, had issued edicts of toleration,
which might be considered cancelled by the later edicts of Aurelian or
might not. If the State wished to be savage, it could invoke the one
set; if to be mild, it could invoke the other. There was, therefore, no
absolute security for the Church, but the general feeling was one of
confidence. The army contained a large number of Christians, of all
ranks and conditions, officers, centurions, and private soldiers. Many
of the officials of the civil service were Christians. The court and the
palace were full of them. Diocletian’s wife, Prisca, was a Christian; so
was Valeria, his daughter. So, too, were many of his chamberlains,
secretaries, and eunuchs. If Christianity had been a proscribed
religion, if the Christians had anticipated another storm, is it
conceivable that they would have dared to erect at Nicomedia, within
full view of the palace windows, a large church situated upon an
eminence in the centre of the city, and evidently one of its most
conspicuous structures? No, Christianity in the East felt tolerably safe
and was advancing from strength to strength, conscious of its increasing
powers and of the benevolent neutrality of Diocletian. Christians who
took office were relieved from the necessity of offering incense or
presiding at the games. The State looked the other way; the Church was
inclined to let them off with the infliction of some nominal penance.
Nor was there much difficulty about service in the army. Probably few
enlisted in the legions after they had become Christians; against this
the Church set her face. But she permitted the converted soldier to
remain true to his military oath, for she did not wish to become
embroiled with the State. In a word, there was deep religious peace, at
any rate in Diocletian’s special sphere of influence, Asia, Egypt, and
Syria.
It is to be remembered, however, that there were four rulers, men of
very different characters and each, therefore, certain to regard
Christianity from a different standpoint. Thus there might be religious
peace in Asia and persecution in the West, as, indeed, there was—partial
and spasmodic, but still persecution. Maximian was cruel and ambitious,
an able soldier of the hard Roman type, no respecter of persons, and
careless of human life. Very few modern historians have accepted the
story of the massacre of the Theban Legion at Agauna, near Lake Leman,
for refusal to offer sacrifice and take the oath to the Emperor.
According to the legend, the legion was twice decimated and then cut to
pieces. But it is impossible to believe that there could have been a
legion or even a company of troops from Thebes in Egypt, wholly composed
of Christians, and, even supposing the facts to have been as stated,
their refusal to march in obedience to the Emperor’s orders and rejoin
the main army at a moment when an active campaign was in progress,
simply invited the stroke of doom. Maximian was not the man to tolerate
mutiny in the face of the enemy.
But still there were many Christian victims of Maximian wherever he took
up his quarters—at Rome, Aquileia, Marseilles—mostly soldiers whose
refusal to sacrifice brought down upon them the arm of the law. Maximian
is described in the “Passion of St. Victor” as “a great dragon,” but the
story, even as told by the hagiologist, scarcely justifies the epithet.
Just as the military præfects, before whom Victor was first taken,
begged him to reconsider his position, so Maximian, after ordering a
priest to bring an altar of Jupiter, turned to Victor and said[8]: “Just
offer a few grains of incense; placate Jupiter and be our friend.”
Victor’s answer was to dash the altar to the ground from the hands of
the priest and place his foot triumphantly upon it. We may admire the
fortitude of the martyr, but the martyrdom was self-inflicted, and the
anger of the Emperor not wholly unwarranted. “Be our friend,” he had
said, and his overtures were spurned with contempt.
-----
Footnote 8:
_Pone thura: placa Jovem et noster amicus esto._
-----
We may suspect, indeed, that this partial persecution was due rather to
the insistence of the martyrs themselves than to deliberate policy on
the part of Maximian. When enthusiastic Christians thrust their
Christianity upon the official notice of the authorities, insulted the
Emperor or the gods, and refused to take the oath or sacrifice on
ceremonial occasions, then martyrdom was the result, and little notice
was taken, for life was cheap. Diocletian, as we have seen, rather
patronised than persecuted Christianity. Maximian’s inclinations towards
cruelty were kept in check by the known wishes of his senior colleague.
Constantius, the Cæsar of Gaul, was one of those refined characters,
tolerant and sympathetic by nature, to whom the idea of persecution for
the sake of religion was intensely repugnant; and Galerius, the Cæsar of
Pannonia, the most fanatical pagan of the group, was not likely, at any
rate during the first few years after his elevation, to run counter to
the wishes of his patron.
What was it, then, that wrought the fatal change in the mind of
Diocletian and turned him from benevolent neutrality to fierce
antagonism? Lactantius attributes it solely to the baleful influence of
Galerius, whom he paints in the very blackest colours. He was a wild
beast, a savage barbarian of alien blood, tall in stature, a mountain of
flesh, abnormally bloated, terrifying to look at, and with a voice that
made men shiver.[9] Behind this monster stood his mother, a barbarian
woman from beyond the Danube, priestess of some wild deity of the
mountains, imbued with a fanatical hatred of the Christians, which she
was for ever instilling into her son. When we have stripped away the
obvious exaggeration of this onslaught we may still accept the main
statement and admit that Galerius was the most active and unsparing
enemy of the Christians in the Imperial circle. This rough soldier,
trained in the school of two such martinets as Aurelian and Probus, who
enforced military discipline by the most pitiless methods, would not
stay to reason with a soldier’s religious prejudices. Unhesitating
obedience or death—that was the only choice he gave to those who served
under him, and when, after his great victory over the Parthians, his
position and prestige in the East were beyond challenge, we find
Christian martyrdoms in the track of his armies, in the Anti-Taurus, in
Cœle-Syria, in Samosata.
-----
Footnote 9:
_De Mort. Persec._, c. 9.
-----
Galerius began to purge his army of Christians. Unless they would
sacrifice, officers were to lose their rank and private soldiers to be
dismissed ignominiously without the privileges of long service. Several
were put to death in Moesia, where a certain Maximus was Governor. Among
them was a veteran named Julius, who had served in the legion for
twenty-six years, and fought in seven campaigns, without a single black
mark having been entered against his name for any military offence.
Maximus did his best to get him off. “Julius,” he said, “I see that you
are a man of sense and wisdom. Suffer yourself to be persuaded and
sacrifice to the gods.” “I will not,” was the reply, “do what you ask. I
will not incur by an act of sin eternal punishment.” “But,” said the
Governor, “I take the sin upon myself. I will use compulsion so that you
may not seem to act voluntarily. Then you will be able to return in
peace to your house. You will receive the bounty of ten denarii and no
one will molest you.” Evidently, Maximus was heartily sorry that such a
fine old soldier should take up a position which seemed to him so
grotesquely indefensible. But what was Julius’s reply? “Neither this
Devil’s money nor your specious words shall cause me to lose eternal
God. I cannot deny Him. Condemn me as a Christian.” After the
interrogation had gone on for some time, Maximus said: “I pity you, and
I beg you to sacrifice, so that you may live with us.” “To live with you
would be death for me,” rejoined Julius, “but if I die, I shall live.”
“Listen to me and sacrifice; if not, I shall have to keep my word and
order you to death.” “I have often prayed that I might merit such an
end.” “Then you have chosen to die?” “I have chosen a temporary death,
but an eternal life.” Maximus then passed sentence, and the law took its
course.
On another occasion the Governor said to two Christians, named Nicander
and Marcian, who had proved themselves equally resolute, “It is not I
whom you resist; it is not I who persecute you. My hands are unstained
by your blood. If you know that you will fare well on your journey, I
congratulate you.[10] Let your desire be accomplished.” “Peace be with
you, merciful judge,” cried both the martyrs as the sentence was
pronounced.
-----
Footnote 10:
_Si autem scitis vos bene ituros, gratulor vobis._
-----
The movement seems gradually to have spread from the provinces of
Galerius to those of Maximian. At Tangiers, Marcellus, a centurion of
the Legion of Trajan, threw down his centurion’s staff and belt and
refused to serve any longer. He did so in the face of the whole army
assembled to sacrifice in honour of Maximian’s birthday. A similar scene
took place in Spain at Calahorra, near Tarraco, where two soldiers cast
off their arms exclaiming, “We are called to serve in the shining
company of angels. There Christ commands His cohorts, clothed in white,
and from His lofty throne condemns your infamous gods, and you, who are
the creatures of these gods, or, we should say, these ridiculous
monsters.” Death followed as a matter of course. Looking at the evidence
with absolute impartiality, one begins to suspect that the process of
clearing the Christians out of the army was due quite as much to the
fanaticism of certain Christian soldiers eager for martyrdom, as to any
lust for blood on the part even of Galerius and Maximian.
But what we have to account for is the rise of a fierce anti-Christian
spirit which induced Diocletian—for even Lactantius admits that he was
not easily persuaded—to take active measures against the Christians. It
is certainly noteworthy that about this time the only school of
philosophy which was alive, active, and at all original, was definitely
anti-Christian. We refer, of course, to the Neo-Platonists of
Alexandria. Their principal exponent was the philosopher Porphyry, who
carried on a violent anti-Christian propaganda, though he seems to have
borrowed from Christianity, and more especially from the rigorously
ascetic form which Christianity had assumed in Egypt, many of his
leading tenets. The morality which Porphyry inculcated was elevated and
pure; his religion was mystical to such a degree that none but an expert
philosopher could follow him into the refinements of his abstractions;
but he had for the Christian Church a “theological hatred” of
extraordinary bitterness. The treatise—in fifteen books—in which he
assailed the Divinity of Christ apparently set a fashion in
anti-Christian literature. We hear, for example, of another unnamed
philosopher who “vomited three books against the Christian religion,”
and the violence with which Lactantius denounces him as “an accomplished
hypocrite” makes one suspect that his work had a considerable success.
Still better known was Hierocles, Governor at one time of Palmyra, and
then transferred to the royal province of Bithynia, who wrote a book to
which he gave the name of _The Friend of Truth_, and addressed it, “To
the Christians.” Its interest lies chiefly in the fact that its author
compares with the miracles wrought by Christ those attributed to
Apollonius of Tyana, and denies divinity to both. Lactantius tells us
that this Hierocles was “author and counsellor of the persecution,”[11]
and we may judge, therefore, that there existed among the pagans a
powerful party bitterly opposed to Christianity, carrying on a vigorous
campaign against it, and urging upon the Emperors the advisability of a
sharp repressive policy.
-----
Footnote 11:
_De Mort. Persec._, c. 16.
-----
They would have no difficulty in making out a case against the
Christians which on the face of it seemed plausible and overwhelming.
They would point to the fanatical spirit manifested, as we have seen, by
a large number of Christian soldiers in the army, which led them to
throw down their arms, blaspheme the gods, and deny the Emperors. They
would point to the anti-social movement, which was especially marked in
Egypt, where the example of St. Antony was drawing crowds of men and
women away into the desert to live out their lives, either in solitary
cells as hermits, or as members of religious communities equally
ascetic, and almost equally solitary. They would point to the aloofness
even of the ordinary Christian in city or in town from its common life,
and to his avoidance of office and public duties. They would point to
the extraordinary closeness of the ties which bound Christians together,
to their elaborate organisation, to the implicit and ready obedience
they paid to their bishops, and would ask whether so powerful a secret
society, with ramifications everywhere throughout the Empire, was not
inevitably a menace to the established authorities. The Christians were
peaceable enough. To accuse them of plotting rebellion was hardly
possible, though the most outrageous calumnies against them and their
rites were sedulously fostered in order to inflame the minds of the
rabble, just as they were against the Jews in the Middle Ages, and are,
even at the present day, in certain parts of the Continent of Europe.
But, at bottom, the real strength of the case against the Christians lay
in the fact that the more enlightened pagans saw that Christianity was
the solvent which was bound to loosen all that held pagan society
together. They instinctively felt what was coming, and were sensible of
approaching doom. Christianity was the enemy, the proclaimed enemy, of
their religion, of their point of view of this life as well as of the
next, of their customs, of their pleasures, of their arts. Paganism was
fighting for existence. What wonder that it snatched at any weapon
wherewith to strike?
[Illustration: BUST OF DIOCLETIAN.]
The personal attitude of Diocletian towards religion in general is best
seen in the edict which he issued against the Manichæans. The date is
somewhat uncertain, but it undoubtedly preceded the anti-Christian
edicts. Manichæanism took its rise in Persia, its principal
characteristic being the practice of thaumaturgy, and it spread fast
throughout the East. Diocletian ordered the chiefs of the sect to be
burned to death; their followers were to have their goods confiscated
and to suffer capital punishment unless they recanted; while persons of
rank who had disgraced themselves by joining such a shameful and
infamous set of men were to lose their patrimony and be sent to the
mines. These were savage enactments, and it is important to see how the
Emperor justified them. Fortunately his language is most explicit. “The
gods,” he says, “have determined what is just and true; the wisest of
mankind, by counsel and by deed, have proved and firmly established
their principles. It is not, therefore, lawful to oppose their divine
and human wisdom, or to pretend that a new religion can correct the old
one. To wish to change the institutions of our ancestors is the greatest
of crimes.” Nothing could be clearer. It is the old official defence of
the State religion, that men are not wiser than their fathers, and that
innovation in worship is likely to bring down the wrath of the gods.
Moreover, as the edict points out, this Manichæanism came from Persia,
the traditional enemy of Rome, and threatened to corrupt the “modest and
tranquil Roman people” with the detestable manners and infamous laws of
the Orient. “Modest and tranquil” are not the epithets which posterity
has chosen to apply to the Roman people of the Empire, but Diocletian’s
point is obvious. Manichæanism was a device of the enemy; it must be
poison, therefore, to the good Roman. Such an argument was born of
prejudice rather than of reason; we shall see it applied yet again to
the Christians, and applied even by the Christian Church to its own
schismatics and heretics.
It was during the winter of 302 that the question was carefully debated
by Diocletian and Galerius—the latter was staying with the senior
Augustus at Nicomedia—whether it was advisable to take repressive
measures against the Christians. According to Lactantius, Galerius
clamoured for blood, while Diocletian represented how mischievous it
would be to throw the whole world into a ferment, and how the Christians
were wont to welcome martyrdom. He argued, therefore, that it would be
quite enough if they purged the court and the army. Then, as neither
would give way, a Council was called, which sided with Galerius rather
than with Diocletian, and it was decided to consult the oracle of Apollo
at Miletus. Apollo returned the strange answer that there were just men
on the earth who prevented him from speaking the truth, and gave that as
the reason why the oracles which proceeded from his tripods were false.
The “just men” were, of course, the Christians. Diocletian yielded, only
stipulating that there should be no bloodshed, while Galerius was for
burning all Christians alive. Such is Lactantius’s story, and it does
credit to Diocletian, inasmuch as it shews his profound reluctance to
disturb the internal peace which his own wise policy had established. As
a propitious day, the Festival of the Terminalia, February 23, 303, was
chosen for the inauguration of the anti-Christian campaign. The church
at Nicomedia was levelled to the ground by the Imperial troops and, on
the following day, an edict was issued depriving Christians of their
privileges as full Roman citizens. They were to be deprived of all their
honours and distinctions, whatever their rank; they were to be liable to
torture; they were to be penalised in the courts by not being allowed to
prosecute for assault, adultery, and theft. Lactantius well says[12]
that they were to lose their liberty and their right of speech. The
penalties extended even to slaves. If a Christian slave refused to
renounce his religion he was never to receive his freedom. The churches,
moreover, were to be destroyed and Christians were forbidden to meet
together. No bloodshed was threatened, as Diocletian had stipulated, but
the Christian was reduced to the condition of a pariah. The edict was no
sooner posted up than, with a bitter jibe at the Emperors, some bold,
indignant Christian tore it down. He was immediately arrested, tortured,
racked, and burnt at the stake. Diocletian had been right. The
Christians made willing martyrs.
-----
Footnote 12:
_Libertatem denique ac vocem non haberent_ (_De Mort. Persec._, c.
13).
-----
Soon afterwards there was an outbreak of fire at the palace. Lactantius
accuses Galerius of having contrived it himself so that he might throw
the odium upon the Christians, and he adds that Galerius so worked upon
the fears of Diocletian that he gave leave to every official in the
palace to use the rack in the hope of getting at the truth. Nothing was
discovered, but fifteen days later there was another mysterious
outbreak. Galerius, protesting that he would stay no longer to be burnt
alive, quitted the palace at once, though it was bad weather for
travelling. Then, says Lactantius, Diocletian allowed his blind terrors
to get the better of him, and the persecution began in earnest. He
forced his wife and daughter to recant; he purged the palace, and put to
death some of his most powerful eunuchs, while the Bishop of Nicomedia
was beheaded, and crowds of less distinguished victims were thrown into
prison. Whether there was incendiarism or not, no one can say. Eusebius,
indeed, tells us that Constantine, who was living in the palace at the
time, declared years afterwards to the bishops at the Council of Nicæa
that he had seen with his own eyes the lightning descend and set fire to
the abode of the godless Emperor. But neither Constantine nor Eusebius
was to be believed implicitly when it was a question of some
supernatural occurrence between earth and heaven. The double
conflagration is certainly suspicious, but tyrants do not, as a rule,
set fire to their own palaces when they themselves are in residence,
however strong may be their animus against some obnoxious party in the
State.
A few months passed and Diocletian published a second edict ordering the
arrest of all bishops and clergy who refused to surrender their “holy
books” to the civil officers. Then, in the following year, came a third,
offering freedom to all in prison if they consented to sacrifice, and
instructing magistrates to use every possible means to compel the
obstinate to abandon their faith. These edicts provoked a frenzy of
persecution, and Gaul and Britain alone enjoyed comparative immunity.
Constantius could not, indeed, entirely disregard an order which bore
the joint names of the two Augusti, but he took care that there was no
over-zealousness, and, according to a well-known passage of Lactantius,
he allowed the meeting-places of the Christians, the buildings of wood
and stone which could easily be restored, to be torn down, but preserved
in safety the true temple of God, viz., the bodies of His
worshippers.[13] Elsewhere the persecution may be traced from province
to province and from city to city in the mournful and poignant documents
known as the _Passions of the Martyrs_. Naturally it varied in intensity
according to local conditions and according to the personal
predilections of the magistrates. Where the populace was fiercely
anti-Christian or where the pagan priests were zealous, there the
Christians suffered severely. Their churches would be razed to the
ground and the prisons would be full. Some of the weaker brethren would
recant; others would hide themselves or quit the district; others again
would suffer martyrdom. In more fortunate districts, where public
opinion was with the Christians, the churches might not be destroyed,
though they stood empty and silent.
-----
Footnote 13:
_Verum autem Dei templum, quod est in hominibus, incolume servavit._
(_De Mort. Persec._, c. 15).
-----
The fiercest persecution seems to have taken place in Asia Minor. There
had been a partial revolt of the troops at Antioch, easily suppressed by
the Antiochenes themselves, but Diocletian apparently connected it in
some way with the Christians and let his hand fall heavily upon them.
Just at this time, moreover, in the neighbouring kingdom of Armenia,
Saint Gregory the Illuminator was preaching the gospel with marvellous
success, and the Christians of Cappadocia, just over the border, paid
the penalty for the uneasiness which this ferment caused to their
rulers. We hear, for example, in Phrygia of a whole Christian community
being extirpated. Magistrates, senators, and people—Christians all—had
taken refuge in their principal church, to which the troops set fire.
Eusebius, in his _History of the Church_, paints a lamentable picture of
the persecution which he himself witnessed in Palestine and Syria, and,
in his _Life of Constantine_, he says[14] that even the barbarians
across the frontier were so touched by the sufferings of the Christian
fugitives that they gave them shelter. Athanasius, too, declares that he
often heard survivors of the persecution say that many pagans risked the
loss of their goods and the chance of imprisonment in order to hide
Christians from the officers of the law. There is no question of
exaggeration. The most horrible tortures were invented; the most
barbarous and degrading punishments were devised. The victim who was
simply ordered to be decapitated or drowned was highly favoured. In a
very large number of cases death was delayed as long as possible. The
sufferer, after being tortured on the rack, or having eyes or tongue
torn out, or foot or hand struck off, was taken back to prison to
recover for a second examination.
Footnote 14:
_Vita Const._, ii., 53.
-----
Even when the victim was dead the law frequently pursued the corpse with
its futile vengeance. It was no uncommon thing for a body to be thrown
to the dogs, or to be chopped into fragments and cast into the sea, or
to be burnt and the ashes flung upon running water. He was counted a
merciful judge who allowed the friends of the martyr to bear away the
body to decent burial and lay it in the grave. At Augsburg, when the
magistrate heard that the mother and three servants of a converted
courtesan, named Afra, had placed her body in a tomb, he ordered all
four to be enclosed in one grave with the corpse and burnt alive.
It is, of course, quite impossible to compute the number of the victims,
but it was unquestionably very large. We do not, perhaps, hear of as
many bishops and priests being put to death as might have been expected,
but if the extreme rigour of the law had been enforced the Empire would
have been turned into a shambles. The fact is, as we have said, that
very much depended upon the personal character of the Governors and the
local magistrates. In some places altars were put up in the law courts
and no one was allowed either to bring or defend a suit without offering
sacrifice. In other towns they were erected in the market squares and by
the side of the public fountains, so that one could neither buy nor
sell, nor even draw water, without being challenged to do homage to the
gods. Some Governors, such as Datianus in Spain, Theotecnus in Galatia,
Urbanus of Palestine, and Hierocles of Bithynia and Egypt, were noted
for the ferocity with which they carried out the edicts; others—and,
when the evidence is carefully examined, the humane judges seem to have
formed the majority—presided with reluctance at these lamentable trials.
Many exhausted every means in their power to convert the prisoners back
to the old religion, partly from motives of humanity, and partly, no
doubt, because their success in this respect gained them the notice and
favour of their superiors.
We hear of magistrates who ordered the attendants of the court to place
by force a few grains of incense in the hands of the prisoner and make
him sprinkle it upon the altar, or to thrust into his mouth a portion of
the sacrificial meat. The victim would protest against his involuntary
defilement, but the magistrate would declare that the offering had been
made. Often, the judge sought to bribe the accused into apostasy. “If
you obey the Governor,” St. Victor of Galatia was told, “you shall have
the title of ‘Friend of Cæsar’ and a post in the palace.” Theotecnus
promised Theodotus of Ancyra “the favour of the Emperors, the highest
municipal dignities, and the priesthood of Apollo.” The bribe was great,
but it was withstood. The steadfast confessor gloried in replying to
every fresh taunt, entreaty, or bribe, “I am a Christian.” It was to him
the only, as well as the highest argument.
Sometimes the kindest-hearted judges were driven to exasperation by
their total inability to make the slightest impression upon the
Christians. “Do abandon your foolish boasting,” said Maximus, the
Governor of Cilicia, to Andronicus, “and listen to me as you would
listen to your father. Those who have played the madman before you have
gained nothing by it. Pay honour to our Princes and our fathers and
submit yourself to the gods.” “You do well,” came the reply, “to call
them your fathers, for you are the sons of Satan, the sons of the Devil,
whose works you perform.” A few more remarks passed between judge and
prisoner and then Maximus lost his temper. “I will make you die by
inches,” he exclaimed. “I despise,” retorted Andronicus, “your threats
and your menaces.” While an old man of sixty-five was being led to the
torture, a friendly centurion said to him, “Have pity on yourself and
sacrifice.” “Get thee from me, minister of Satan,” was the reply. The
main feeling uppermost in the mind of the confessor was one of
exultation that he had been found worthy to suffer. Such a spirit could
neither be bent nor broken.
Of active disloyalty to the Emperor there is absolutely no trace. Many
Christian soldiers boasted of their long and honourable service in the
army; civilians were willing to pay unto Cæsar the things that were
Cæsar’s. But Christ was their King. “There is but one God,” cried
Alphæus and Zachæus at Cæsarea, “and only one King and Lord, who is
Jesus Christ.” To the pagan judge this was not merely blasphemy against
the gods, but treason against the Emperor. Sometimes, but not often, the
martyr’s feelings got the better of him and he cursed the Emperor. “May
you be punished,” cried the dauntless Andronicus to Maximus, when the
officers of the court had thrust between his lips the bread and meat of
sacrifice, “may you be punished, bloody tyrant, you and they who have
given you the power to defile me with your impious sacrifices. One day
you will know what you have done to the servants of God.” “Accursed
scoundrel,” said the judge, “dare you curse the Emperors who have given
the world such long and profound peace?” “I have cursed them and I will
curse them,” replied Andronicus, “these public scourges, these drinkers
of blood, who have turned the world upside down. May the immortal hand
of God tolerate them no longer and punish their cruel amusements, that
they may learn and know the evil they have done to God’s servants.” No
doubt, most Christians agreed with the sentiments expressed by
Andronicus, but they rarely gave expression to them. “I have obeyed the
Emperors all the years of my life,” said Bishop Philippus of Heraclea,
“and, when their commands are just, I hasten to obey. For the Holy
Scripture has ordered me to render to God what is due to God and to
Cæsar what is due to Cæsar. I have kept this commandment without flaw
down to the present time, and it only remains for me to give preference
to the things of heaven over the attractions of this world. Remember
what I have already said several times, that I am a Christian and that I
refuse to sacrifice to your gods.” Nothing could be more dignified or
explicit. It is the Emperor-God and his fellow deities of Olympus, not
the Emperor, to whom the Christian refuses homage. During a trial at
Catania in Sicily the judge, Calvisianus, said to a Christian, “Unhappy
man, adore the gods, render homage to Mars, Apollo, and Æsculapius.” The
answer came without a second’s hesitation: “I adore the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost—the Holy Trinity—beyond whom there is no God. Perish the gods
who have not made heaven and earth and all that they contain. I am a
Christian.” From first to last, in Spain as in Africa, in Italy as in
Sicily, this is the alpha and the omega of the Christian position,
“_Christianus sum_.”
To what extent was the martyrdom self-inflicted? How far did the
Christians pile with their own hands the faggots round the stakes to
which they were tied? It is significant that some churches found it
necessary to condemn the extraordinary exaltation of spirit which drove
men and women to force themselves upon the notice of the authorities and
led them to regard flight from danger as culpable weakness. They not
only did not encourage but strictly forbade the overthrowing of pagan
statues or altars by zealous Christians anxious to testify to their
faith. They did not wish, that is to say, to provoke certain reprisals.
Yet, in spite of all their efforts, martyrdom was constantly courted by
rash and excitable natures in the frenzy of religious fanaticism, like
that which impelled Theodorus of Amasia in Pontus to set fire to a
temple of Cybele in the middle of the city and then boast openly of the
deed. Often, however, such martyrs were mere children. Such was Eulalia
of Merida, a girl of twelve, whose parents, suspecting her intention,
had taken her into the country to be out of harm’s way. She escaped
their vigilance, returned to the city, and, standing before the tribunal
of the judge, proclaimed herself a Christian.
”_Mane superba tribunal adit,
Fascibus adstat et in mediis._“
The judge, instead of bidding the officials remove the child, began to
argue with her, and the argument ended in Eulalia spitting in his face
and overturning the statue which had been brought for her to worship.
Then came torture and the stake, a martyred saint, and in later
centuries a stately church, flower festivals, and a charming poem from
the Christian poet, Prudentius. But even his graceful verses do not
reconcile us to the pitiful futility of such child-martyrdom as that of
Eulalia of Merida or Agnes of Rome.
Or take, again, the pathetic inscription found at Testur, in Northern
Africa;
“_Sanctæ Tres;
Maxima,
Donatilla
Et Secunda,
Bona Puella._”
These were three martyrs of Thuburbo. Two of them, Maxima and Donatilla,
had been denounced to the judge by another woman. Secunda, a child of
twelve, saw her friends from a window in her father’s house, as they
were being dragged off to prison. “Do not abandon me, my sisters,” she
cried. They tried to wave her back. She insisted. They warned her of the
cruel fate which was certain to await her; Secunda declared her
confidence in Him who comforts and consoles the little ones. In the end
they let her accompany them. All three were sentenced to be torn by the
wild beasts of the amphitheatre, but when they stood up to face that
cruel death, a wild bear came and lay at their feet. The judge,
Anulinus, then ordered them to be decapitated. Such is the story that
lies behind those simple and touching words, “_Secunda, Bona Puella_.”
Nor were young men backward in their zeal for the martyr’s crown.
Eusebius tells us of a band of eight Christian youths at Cæsarea, who
confronted the Governor, Urbanus, in a body shouting, “We are
Christians,” and of another youth named Aphianus, who, while reading the
Scriptures, heard the voice of the heralds summoning the people to
sacrifice. He at once made his way to the Governor’s house, and, just as
Urbanus was in the act of offering libation, Aphianus caught his arm and
upbraided him for his idolatry. He simply flung his life away.
In this connection may be mentioned the five martyred statuary workers
belonging to a Pannonian marble quarry. They had been converted by the
exhortations of Bishop Cyril, of Antioch, who had been condemned to
labour in their quarry, and, once having become Christians, their
calling gave them great searching of heart. Did not the Scriptures
forbid them to make idols or graven images of false gods? When,
therefore, they refused to undertake a statue of Æsculapius, they were
challenged as Christians, and sentenced to death. Yet they had not
thought it wrong to carve figures of Victory and Cupid, and they seem to
have executed without scruple a marble group showing the sun in a
chariot, doubtless satisfying themselves that these were merely
decorative pieces, which did not necessarily involve the idea of
worship. But they preferred to die rather than make a god for a temple,
even though that god were the gentle Æsculapius, the Healer.
We might dwell at much greater length upon this absorbing subject of the
persecution of Diocletian, and draw upon the _Passions of the Saints_
for further examples of the marvellous fortitude with which so many of
the Christians endured the most fiendish tortures for the sake of their
faith. “I only ask one favour,” said the intrepid Asterius: “it is that
you will not leave unlacerated a single part of my body.” In the
presence of such splendid fidelity and such unswerving faith, which made
even the weakest strong and able to endure, one sees why the eventual
triumph of the Church was certain and assured. One can also understand
why the memory and the relics of the martyrs were preserved with such
passionate devotion; why their graves were considered holy and credited
with powers of healing; and why, too, the names of their persecutors
were remembered with such furious hatred. It may be too much to expect
the early chroniclers of the Church to be fair to those who framed and
those who put into execution the edicts of persecution, but we, at
least, after so many centuries, and after so many persecutions framed
and directed by the Churches themselves, must try to look at the
question from both sides and take note of the absolute refusal of the
Christian Church to consent to the slightest compromise in its attitude
of hostility to the religious system which it had already dangerously
undermined.
It is not easy from a study of the _Passions of the Saints_ to draw any
sweeping generalisations as to what the public at large thought of the
torture and execution of Christians. We get a glimpse, indeed, of the
ferocity of the populace at Rome when Maximian went thither to celebrate
the Ludi Cereales in 304. The “Passion of St. Savinus” shews an excited
crowd gathered in the Circus Maximus, roaring for blood and repeating
twelve times over the savage cry, “Away with the Christians and our
happiness is complete. By the head of Augustus let not a Christian
survive.”[15] Then, when they caught sight of Hermogenianus, the city
præfect, they called ten times over to the Emperor, “May you conquer,
Augustus! Ask the præfect what it is we are shouting.” Such a scene was
natural enough in the Circus of Rome; was it typical of the Empire?
Doubtless in all the great cities, such as Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus,
Carthage, the “baser sort” would be quite ready to shout, “Away with the
Christians.” But it is to be remembered that we find no trace anywhere
in this persecution of a massacre on the scale of that of St.
Bartholomew or the Sicilian Vespers. On the contrary, we see that though
the prisons were full, the relations of the Christians were usually
allowed to visit them, take them food, and listen to their exhortations.
Pamphilus of Cæsarea, who was in jail for two years, not only received
his friends during that period, but was able to go on making copies of
the Scriptures!
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Footnote 15:
_Christiani tollantur et voluptas constat; Per caput Augusti
Christiani non sint._
-----
We rarely hear of the courts being packed with anti-Christian crowds, or
of the judges being incited by popular clamour to pass the death
sentence. The reports of the trials shew us silent, orderly courts, with
the judges anxious not so much to condemn to death as to make a convert.
If Diocletian had wanted blood he could have had it in rivers, not in
streams. But he did not. He wished to eradicate what he believed to be
an impious, mischievous, and, from the point of view of the State’s
security, a dangerous superstition. There was no talk of persecuting for
the sake of saving the souls of heretics; that lamentable theory was
reserved for a later day. Diocletian persecuted for what he considered
to be the good of the State. He lived to witness the full extent of his
failure, and to realise the appalling crime which he had committed
against humanity, amid the general overthrow of the political system
which he had so laboriously set up.
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