The Formation of Christendom, Volume II

To which the emperor replies: “You have pursued the right course, my dear Secundus, in examining the causes of those delated to you as Christians. For no universal rule can be laid down in a certain formula. They are not to be searched after; but if brought before you and convicted, they must be punished. Yet with this condition, that whoever denies himself to be a Christian, and makes it plain in fact, that is, by supplicating our gods, though he has been in past time suspected, shall obtain pardon for his repentance. But anonymous delations must not be admitted for any accusation. This is at once the very worst precedent, and unworthy of our time.”

A great difficulty in tracing the progress of the Christian Faith in these three centuries is that we possess nothing like a consecutive secular or religious history of them. We only catch glimpses of what passes at intervals. Incidents are recorded which, like a flash of lightning, suddenly reveal the landscape and the actors. Such an incident is this letter of Pliny to Trajan, and his reply. We have here the governor of a province before whom Christians are brought as criminals. We find that if they acknowledge their faith and persist in professing it, he sentences them to death. But embarrassed by their numbers, and perplexed also by the fact, that, save the profession of their faith, there appeared nothing criminal in their conduct, he refers the matter to the emperor. The emperor, no Nero or Domitian, but one renowned for his justice and moderation, praises what the governor has done; pronounces that Christians as such are guilty of a capital crime, and that Pliny was right in so interpreting the existing law; that, however, it is not desirable to seek them out; that even when brought before justice they are to be released if they deny their faith, but that if they persist in it, they are to be punished with death.

Here, then, is the law – an original law of Rome before the Christian Faith began – under which the martyrs suffered at different times, throughout every province and city, without anything which could be called a general persecution on the part of the emperor directed to the destruction of the whole religion. This perpetual liability to punishment might be called into action anywhere in the empire for various causes. The first in time, and one of the most constant, was the enmity of the Jews; then the dislike of the heathens to Christians and their ways, which was further sharpened by local calamities or distress irritating the mind of the population, or by the jealousy of the heathen priests and worshippers at the desertion of their temples. Then, again, there was the ascription to Christian godlessness, as it was called, that is their refusal to acknowledge the Roman gods, of famines, pestilences, and whatever troubled the popular mind. To these we must add a copious harvest of private grudges, and a host of calumnies, which seem now almost grotesque, but then found wide belief. But it was the existence of such a law as this, acted on by Pliny before he referred to the emperor, and confirmed by Trajan, that gave force and effect to all these causes of persecution. And it would appear that when Christians were brought before the magistrates, as guilty of the Christian Faith, it was not in the magistrates' power to decline hearing the case, any more than any other accusation of sacrilege or treason, for it had been determined that Christians were not a mere Jewish sect, and therefore could not in security worship one God, as the Jews did. It was a ruled point that their worship was unauthorised.

The practice of Trajan himself was in accordance with his answer to Pliny.

The very ancient and genuine acts of the martyrdom of S. Ignatius state that having struggled with difficulty through the persecution of Domitian, he had carefully governed his church of Antioch, grieving only that he had not yet reached the rank of a perfect disciple by the sacrifice of his life, for he considered that the confession which is made by martyrdom brings into closer union with the Lord. Trajan then having come to the East, full of exultation at the victories which he had gained, and considering that the subjugation of the Christians was all that was wanting to the perfect obedience of his empire, began to threaten them with the alternative of sacrifice or death. Then Ignatius fearing for his church caused himself to be brought before the emperor, and being in the presence was thus addressed by him. “Who are you, evil spirit, who are zealous to transgress our commands, besides persuading others to come to an evil end?” Ignatius replied, “No one calls the bearer of God an evil spirit, for the demons fly away from the servants of God. But if you mean that I am a trouble to these, and so call me evil to them, I admit it, for having Christ my Heavenly King, I continually dissolve their plots.” Trajan said, “Who is a bearer of God?” Ignatius replied, “He who has Christ in his breast.” Trajan said, “We then appear to you not to have gods in our minds, whom we use to help us against our enemies.” Ignatius answered, “You in your error call gods the demons of the nations, for there is one God who made the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and all that is in them; and one Christ Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, of whose friendship may I partake.” Trajan said, “You mean him who was crucified under Pontius Pilate?” Ignatius answered, “Him who crucifies my sin, with its inventor, and condemns all the error and the malice of the demons under the feet of those who carry him in their heart.” Trajan said, “You then carry the Crucified in your heart?” Ignatius replied, “Yes; for it is written, I will dwell in them, and walk in them.” Trajan gave sentence: “It is our command that Ignatius, who says that he carries the crucified one about in him, be taken in chains by soldiers to the great Rome to become the food of wild beasts, for the pleasure of the people.” The holy martyr, when he heard this sentence, cried out with joy, “I thank Thee, O Lord, who hast thought me worthy to be honoured with perfect charity towards Thee, and to be bound in iron chains together with Thy Apostle Paul.”171

So, with great eagerness and joy, through desire of his passion, having commended his church to God, he set out on that long journey, “fighting, as he says, with wild beasts all the way from Syria to Rome, over land and sea, by day and by night,” a captive under sentence of death, in the hands of soldiers, but receiving at each city a deputation from the bishop and people, who came forth to honour him as their champion. And he has but one anxiety, expressed again and again in that fervent letter to the Roman Christians, that they should not by their prayers intercept his martyrdom. “I entreat you not to be untimely kind to me. Suffer me to be the food of the beasts, since by them I may enjoy God. I am God's grain: let me be ground by their teeth, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ:”172 and then, presently, “I do not command you, as Peter and Paul;” thus giving an incidental but most powerful witness of the special relation which those Apostles bore to the Roman Church.

And it may be remarked that while he has words of honour, praise, and affection for the other five churches which he addresses, yet in speaking of Rome his heart overflows with emotion. Upon this church he pours out epithet upon epithet, as “the beloved and enlightened in the will of Him who has willed all things which are according to the charity of Jesus Christ our God,” whose people are “united to every command of His in flesh and spirit, filled undividedly with the grace of God, and thoroughly cleansed from every spot of foreign doctrine.” She is not only the Church “which presides in the fortress of Roman power,” but likewise, “worthy of God, and of all honour and blessing and praise, worthy to receive that which she wishes, chaste, bearing the name of Christ and the name of the Father, and presiding over charity.” What is the meaning of this last phrase? As she presides in the fortress of Roman power, so she presides over charity. May we thus interpret the mind of the martyr? God in His Triune Being is Charity; the Holy Spirit, the ineffable embrace of the Father and His Image, their Love, or Delight, or Joy, or Blessedness, or whatever human name we may dare to give to what is most divine, is charity: by charity God became man; charity is the individual Christian's state; charity makes men one in the Body of the God-man; charity is the condition of angels and men in the great kingdom to come, the God-formed kingdom. Thus charity is the distinctive mark of the Christian religion, that from which it springs, that which it is, that which it points to, and in which it will be consummated. When, then, S. Ignatius said of the Roman Church, using the same word in one sentence,173 that as she presided over the country of the Romans, so she presided over charity, does he not with equal delicacy and emphasis indicate her primacy? she presides over that in which the Unity of the Church consists, in which its truth, its grace, and its holiness coinhere.

The desire of the martyr was accomplished: he reached Rome on the last day of the great games, and was thrown in the Colosseum before the beasts, which, according to his repeated prayers, so entirely devoured him that only the greater bones remained. These, says the contemporary account, “a priceless treasure,” were carried back to Antioch. Somewhat less than three hundred years afterwards S. Chrysostom, preaching on his day in his city, thus speaks of him: “It was a divine benefaction to bring him back again to us, and to distribute the martyr to the cities: – Rome received his dripping blood, but you are honoured with his relics. – From that time he enriches your city, and like a perpetual treasure, drawn upon every day and never failing, gives his bounty to all. So this happy Ignatius, blessing all that come to him, sends them home full of confidence, bold resolution, and fortitude. Not, then, to-day only but every day go to him, reaping spiritual fruits from him. For, indeed, he who comes hither with faith may reap great goods. Not the bodies only, but the very coffins of the saints are full of spiritual grace. For if in the case of Eliseus this happened, and the dead man who touched his bier broke through the bonds of death, how much more now, when grace is more abundant, and the energy of the Spirit fuller? – So, I beseech you, if any one be in despondency, in sickness, in the depth of sin, in any circumstance of life, to come here with faith, and he will put off all these.”174

Before S. Ignatius reached that completion of his faith to which he aspired, he was cheered with the account that his sacrifice had produced its effect, and peace had been restored to his church, with the completeness of its body.175

Now in all this – in Pliny's conduct as governor, in his reference to Trajan, in the emperor's reply, in his treatment of S. Ignatius, and in the restoration of peace afterwards – there is, we conceive, a very exact sample of what the position of Christians was in Trajan's time. His answer ruled the question of Roman law for the following two hundred years. It declared the profession of Christianity to be illicit and a capital offence; but to call this law into action, or to leave it suspended as a threat over the heads of Christians, was a matter of expedience. When the latter took place, the churches were said to be at peace; when the former, a persecution was said to rage; but at any time and place an individual might suffer; while on the other hand a persecution directed to root out the whole Christian name was not yet thought of.

And this state of things seems to continue through Hadrian's principate. In his first year, Alexander, fifth successor of S. Peter at Rome, having been imprisoned under Trajan, suffers martyrdom; It would seem as if the same hand had struck down about the same time the heads of the two great churches of Rome and Antioch, the first and the third in rank, and perhaps ordered the execution of the bishop of Antioch at Rome, with that of the Roman bishop, in order to give greater force to the example.176 Many other martyrs at Rome and in the north of Italy are found at this time. It is not at all necessary to suppose the personal action of Hadrian in these.

After this he was engaged during fifteen years in those splendid progresses, in which he examined personally every part of his vast empire, from its northern frontier between Carlisle and Newcastle to the Euphrates. While he was so engaged, the governors of the various provinces would apply the existing law in the cases brought before them. He would have had to interfere, and that with the whole weight of the imperial arm, if he wished to check the course of the law. We have, however, recorded the most interesting fact that when he was at Athens in the year 126, Christians for the first time approached a Roman emperor with a public defence of their doctrines, and a persecution is said to have been stopped by the apologies which Quadratus and Aristides presented to him. Perhaps the rescript to Minucius Fundanus, proconsul of the province of Asia, which Justin has preserved, was a result of this. It runs thus: “I have received the letter written to me by your predecessor, the noble Serenius Granianus. And indeed it seems to me that that affair should not be passed by without a diligent examination, in order that Christians may not be disturbed, nor an occasion of false accusation be opened to informers. If, then, the provincials can present themselves openly with their petitions against Christians, so as to answer before the tribunal, let them do that, and not betake themselves to mere requests and outcries. It would be much more just that you should take cognisance of the matter, if any one be willing to accuse. If, then, any one denounce them, and prove that they are doing anything illegal, sentence them according to the gravity of the crime. But, by Hercules, if it be a mere false accusation, punish the informer according to its importance.”

Here would seem to be a considerable modification of Trajan's rescript. The profession of Christianity is not taken by itself as a capital offence. Proof must be given that something illegal has been committed. So far it approaches to an act of toleration. It plainly discourages anonymous and malicious attacks. But on the other hand it was not difficult to show that Christians did commit something illegal. Any real accuser bringing them before the tribunal could prove by their own testimony that they declared the gods worshipped by the Romans to be demons, while they refused to swear by the emperor's genius. Thus, favourable as this decree was to them, it fell far short of declaring their religion to be allowable.

And the same emperor who could thus write, whose curiosity made him acquainted with all the religious sects of his empire, whose temper, as an exceedingly accomplished man, having the widest experience of men and things, and ruling an empire of the most diverse races with the most various religions, led him to an eclectic indifference, and so far toleration of all, yet showed by his personal conduct at a later period of his life how he would treat the profession of the Christian Faith if it thwarted a ruling desire. When, after fifteen years of incessant travel, study, and observation, he returned to Rome, and had enclosed at Tivoli a space of eight miles in circumference, adorned with copies of the most beautiful temples in his wide dominion, he offered sacrifices and consulted the gods as to the duration of his work; but he received for answer that the gods who inhabited their images were tormented by the prayers which the widow Symphorosa and her seven sons offered daily to their God.177 If she and her children would sacrifice, they promised to grant all his demands. Upon this Hadrian ordered Symphorosa and her seven sons to be brought before him, and endeavoured by kind words to bring them to sacrifice. She replied, “It was for not consenting to what you ask that my husband Gætulius and his brother Amantius, both tribunes in your army, suffered various tortures, and, like generous champions, overcame your demons by a glorious death. If their death was shameful before men, it was honourable in the sight of the angels, and now they are crowned with immortal light. They live in heaven, and follow everywhere the King who reigns there, covered with glory by the trophies they have gained in dying for Him.” Hadrian, stung by this reply, could not contain himself, but said: “Either sacrifice this instant to the immortal gods, or I will myself sacrifice you with your children to these gods whom you despise.” “And how should I be so happy,” said Symphorosa, “as to be worthy with my children to be sacrificed to my God?” “I tell you,” said Hadrian, “I will have you sacrificed to my gods.” “Your gods,” replied she, “cannot receive me in sacrifice. I am not a victim for them; but if you order me to be burnt for the name of Christ my God, know that the fire which consumes me will only increase their punishment.” “Choose, I tell you,” said the emperor; “sacrifice or die.” “You think, doubtless, to frighten me,” rejoined Symphorosa; “but I desire to be at rest with my husband, whom you put to death for the name of Christ.” Then the emperor ordered her to be taken before the temple of Hercules, to be struck in the face, and hung up by her hair. But finding that these torments only served to strengthen her in the faith, he had her thrown into the Anio. Her brother Eugenius, being one of the chief men at Tibur, drew her body from the water, and buried her in the suburbs of the town.

The next day Hadrian ordered the seven sons of Symphorosa to be brought before him. And, seeing that neither his threats nor his promises, nor the exhibition of the most fearful punishments, could shake their constancy, nor induce them to sacrifice to idols, he caused seven poles to be planted round the temple of Hercules, on which they were raised by pulleys. Then Crescentius, the eldest, had his throat cut; Julian, the second, was run through the breast; Nemesius was struck in the heart; Primitivus in the stomach; Justin in the back; Stactæus in the side; while the youngest, Eugenius, was cleft to the middle.

The day following the death of these brethren Hadrian came to the temple and ordered their bodies to be removed, and to be cast into a deep hole. The priests and sacrificers of the temple called this spot the place of the Seven Executed. Their blood stopped the persecution, which was only rekindled eighteen months afterwards.178

As the rescript to Minucius Fundanus did not prevent the emperor from thus acting, neither was it an obstacle to such an incident as this occurring in any part of the empire.

That it was so likewise in the principate of his successor, of all down to this period the most tranquil and the least persecuting, we have strong and clear evidence in the earliest of the extant apologies, that of Justin Martyr, presented to the emperor Antoninus Pius about the year 150. He who would breathe the atmosphere in which the early Christians lived will find it in this work of a distinguished convert from heathen philosophy, which is the more interesting as being composed at a moment when the empire seems to have reached its highest point, and the ruler of it was its most moderate spirit. We may cite a few passages bearing on the condition of Christians.

“To the Emperor Titus Ælius Adrianus Antoninus Pius Augustus Cæsar, and to his son Verissimus the Philosopher, and to Lucius the Philosopher, son of Cæsar by birth, and of Pius by adoption, the lover of learning, and to the sacred Senate, and to all the Roman people, in behalf of those out of every race of men who are unjustly hated and persecuted, I, that am one of such myself, Justin, son of Priscus, and grandson of Baccheius, natives of Flavia Neapolis, of Palestine, in Syria, offer this address and supplication.

“Reason dictates that those who are really pious and philosophers should love and honour truth alone, declining to follow the opinions of the ancients if they be corrupt. For right reason not only forbids us to assent to those who are unjust either in practice or in principle, but commands the lover of truth to choose that which is just in word and deed in every way, even before his own life, and with death threatening him. Now you hear yourselves called on all sides Pious, Philosophers, Guardians of Justice, and Lovers of Learning; but, whether you be such in truth, the event will show. For we have come before you, not to flatter you in this address, nor to gain your favour, but to demand of you to pass judgment according to strict and well-weighed reason, not influenced by prejudice, nor by the desire of pleasing superstitious men, nor by inconsiderate passion, nor by the long prevalence of an evil report, in giving a sentence which would turn against yourselves. For, as to us, we are fully persuaded that we can suffer no injury from anyone, unless we be found guilty of some wickedness, or proved to be bad men; and, as to you, kill us you may, but hurt us you cannot.179

“We ask, then, that the actions of those who are accused before you may be examined, that he who is convicted may be punished as an evildoer, but not as a Christian. And, if anyone appears to be innocent, that he may be dismissed as a Christian who has done no evil. For we do not require you to punish our accusers: they are sufficiently recompensed by their own malice, and their ignorance of what is good. Moreover, bear in mind that it is for your sakes that we thus speak, since it is in our power to deny when we are questioned. But we choose not to live by falsehood.180

“And you, when you hear that we are expecting a kingdom, rashly conceive that we mean a human one, whereas we speak of that with God, as is evident even from those who are under examination by you confessing that they are Christians, whilst they know that death is the penalty of the confession. For if we expected a human kingdom, we should deny in order to obtain our expectations; but, since our hopes are not of the present, we do not regard those who kill us, knowing that death is an inevitable debt to all.181

“We adore God only, but in all other matters joyfully serve you, confessing that you are kings and rulers, and praying that you may be found to possess, together with your royal power, a sound and discerning mind. If, however, notwithstanding that we thus pray and openly lay everything before you, you treat us with contempt, we shall receive no injury; believing, or rather, being convinced, that every one, if his deeds shall so deserve, shall receive the punishment of eternal fire, and that an account will be required of him in proportion to the powers which he has received from God, as Christ has declared in those words, ‘To whomsoever God has given much, of him shall be much required.’182

“Though death be the penalty to those who teach or even who confess the name of Christ, we everywhere accept it, and teach it. And if you as enemies meet these words, you can do no more, as we have already said, than kill us, which brings no hurt to us, but to you, and to all who hate unjustly, and do not repent, the chastisement of eternal fire.”183

And his concluding words are: “If now what we have said appears to be reasonable and true, honour it accordingly; but if folly, despise it as foolish; yet pass not sentence of death against those as enemies, who have done no evil. For we tell you beforehand that you will not escape the future judgment of God, if you continue in injustice, and we shall cry, Let the will of God be done.”184

Such then is the testimony of a Christian as to the way in which the confessors of his religion were treated; and it is corroborated by that of the heathen philosopher Celsus, who writes his books against Christianity about this time, and imputes the secrecy practised by Christians in their teaching and their actions to their attempts to escape the punishment of death hanging over their heads.185 And again having put into the mouth of Christians the remark, that if they blaspheme or strike a statue of Jupiter or Apollo, these gods cannot defend themselves, he subjoins: “Do you not, then, see that your own demon is not merely blasphemed but expelled from every land and sea, while you, his consecrated image,186 are chained, and led away to prison, and crucified; and the demon, or as you call him, the Son of God, gives you no protection.” And in another place, comparing Christians with Jews, to whom God had made so many promises: “See,” he says, “what good has He done to them and to you? To them, instead of being lords of all the earth, not a clod of soil or a hearth remains;187 while of you, if any one still wanders about in hiding, yet justice pursues him with the doom of death.”