The Formation of Christendom, Volume II

4. And the action of heresy, which was so effective in bringing out the function of the teaching church, was not without force in extending and corroborating the function of the ruling church. The first synods of which we have mention are those assembled in Asia Minor towards the end of the second century against the diffusion of Montanism.253 But what through the loss of records has been mentioned only in this one case must have taken place generally, since it is obvious that as soon as erroneous doctrines spread from one diocese to another, they would call forth joint action against them. Since then heresies have been the frequent, almost the exclusive, cause of councils. The parallel is fruitful in thought, which is suggested between the action of error in eliciting the more precise expression of the truth which it abhors, and its action in strengthening the governing power of the body which it assaults. In the one case and in the other the result is that which it least desires and intends; heresy, disbelieving and disobeying, is made to perfect the faith and build up the hierarchy.

Now to sum up our sketch of the internal history of the Christian Faith in the seventy-four years which elapse from the accession of Marcus Aurelius to the death of Alexander Severus. At the first-named date we find that it had spread beyond the confines of the Roman empire, and taken incipient possession of all the great centres of human intercourse by founding its hierarchy in them. At the second date it has subdued the powerful and widespread family of heresies which threatened to distort and corrupt its doctrines, and has done this by the vigour of its teaching office, which combined in one expression the yet fresh apostolic tradition stored up in its churches, and the doctrine of its sacred scriptures; while it has well-nigh determined the number and genuineness of these, severing them off from all other writings. The episcopate in which its teaching office resides appears not as a number of bishops, each independent and severed, and merely governing his diocese upon a similar rule, but with a bond recognised among them, the superior principate of the Roman See. That is, as the teaching office itself is in them all the voice of living teachers, so its highest expression is the voice of the living Peter in his see. And this bond as discerned and recognised by the Asiatic disciple of S. Polycarp, the bishop of the chief city of Gaul, is so strong that he uses for it rather the term denoting physical necessity than moral fitness:254 as if he would say: As Christ has made the Church, it must agree from one end to the other in doctrine and communion with the doctrine and communion of the Church in which Peter, to whom He has committed His sheep, speaks and rules. And so powerful is the derivation of this authority that he who sits in the place of Mark, whom Peter sent, punishes by degradation a bishop who disregards his sentence in the case of a great writer, the brightest genius of the Church in that day. And when we look at the spiritual state of the world at the commencement of the third century, we find that Christianity, having formed and made its place in human society, is penetrating through it more and more in every direction. It is then that we discern the first beginnings of that great spiritual creation, in which Reason has been applied to Faith under the guidance of Authority, which the Christian Church, alone being in possession of these three constituents, could alone produce, and has carried on from that day to this. Alexandria was at this time the seat of a Jewish religious philosophy; it had just become the seat likewise of a heathen religious philosophy; there was within its church a great catechetical school, in which the Faith as taught by the apostolical and ecclesiastical tradition according to the scriptures was communicated. It was to be expected that its teachers, such men as Pantænus, Clement, and Origen, would be led on from the more elementary work of imparting the rudiments of the Faith to the scientific consideration of its deeper mysteries; and even the sight of what was going on around them among Jews and Greeks would invite them to attempt the construction of a Christian religious philosophy.

Moreover Gnosticism, of which Alexandria was the chief focus, had raised the question of the unity and nature of the Godhead, and professed a false gnosis as the perfection of religion. By this also thoughtful minds were led to consider the true relation of knowledge to faith, and hence to attempt the first rudiments of a Theology, the Science of Faith.

To refute heathenism both as a Philosophy and as a Religion, and to set forth Christianity as the absolute truth, was the very function of such men as Clement and Origen; and the former in his work entitled The Pedagogue exhibits the conduct of life according to the principles and doctrines of Christianity; while his Stromata, or Tapestries, exhibit the building up of science on the foundation of faith.255 We can hardly realise now the difficulties which beset his great pupil Origen, when, carrying on the master's thought, he endeavoured to found a theology. The fact that he was among the first to venture on such a deep, is the best excuse that can be made for those speculative errors into which he fell.

III. And now we turn to the conduct of the empire towards this religion which has grown up in its bosom.

At once with the accession of Marcus Aurelius a temper of greater severity to Christians is shown. The sort of toleration expressed in the rescript of Pius to the province of Asia is withdrawn. No new law about them is enacted, for none is needed, but the old law is let loose. The almost sublime clemency of Marcus towards his revolted general Cassius, his reign of nineteen years unstained with senatorial blood, and the campaigns prolonged from year to year of one who loved his philosophic studies above all things, and yet at the call of imperial duty gave up night and day to the rudest toils of a weary conflict with barbarous tribes on the frontier, have won for him immortal honour: his regard for his subjects in general has sometimes given him in Christian estimation the place of predilection among all princes ancient and modern.256 It is well, then, to consider his bearing towards Christians. Now among his teachers was that Junius Rusticus, grandson of the man who perished for the sake of liberty in Domitian's time, and in his day no doubt a perfect specimen of the Roman gentleman and noble, a blending of all that was best in Cicero, Lælius, and Cato, whom Marcus made Prefect of Rome, and to whom when bearing that office he addressed a rescript containing the words, “to Junius Rusticus, Prefect of the city, our friend.” And what this friend of Marcus thought on the most important subjects we may judge from the sentiments of another friend and fellow-teacher of the emperor, Maximus of Tyre, who has left written, “how God rules a mighty and stable kingdom having for its limits not river or lake or shore or ocean, but the heaven above and the earth beneath, in which He, impassive as law, bestows on those who obey him the security of which He is the fountain: and the gods his children need not images any more than good men statues. But just as our vocal speech requires not in itself any particular characters, yet human weakness has invented the alphabetical signs whereby to give expression to its remembrance, so the nature of the gods needs not images, but man, removed from them as far as heaven from earth, has devised these signs, by which to give them names. There may be those strong enough to do without these helps, but they are rare, and as schoolmasters guide their scholars to write by first pencilling letters for them, so legislators have invented these images as signs of the divine honour, and helps to human memory. But God is the father and framer of all things, older than heaven, superior to time and all fleeting nature, legislator ineffable, unexpressed by voice, unseen by eye; and we who cannot grasp his essence rest upon words and names, and forms of gold, ivory, and silver, in our longing to conceive Him, giving to His nature what is fair among ourselves. But fix Him only in the mind; I care not whether the Greek is kindled into remembrance of Him by the art of Phidias, or the Egyptian by the worship of animals, that fire is his symbol to these, and water to those; only let them understand, let them love, let them remember Him alone.”257

I doubt not that Junius Rusticus was familiar with such thoughts as these, and as a matter of philosophic reflection assented to them. And now let us study the scene which was enacted in his presence and by his command.258

“At a time when the defenders of idolatry had proposed edicts in every city and region to compel Christians to sacrifice, Justin and his companions were seized and brought before the Prefect of Rome, Rusticus. When they stood before his tribunal, the Prefect Rusticus said: Well, be obedient to the gods and the emperor's edicts. Justin answered: No man can ever be blamed or condemned who obeys the precepts of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Then the Prefect Rusticus asked: In what sect's learning or discipline are you versed? Justin replied: I endeavoured to learn every sort of sect, and tried every kind of instruction; but at last I adhered to the Christian discipline, though that is not acceptable to those who are led by the error of a false opinion. Rusticus said: Wretch, is that the sect in which you take delight? Assuredly, said Justin; since together with a right belief I follow the example of Christians. What belief is that, I pray? said the Prefect. Justin replied: The right belief which we as Christians join with piety is this, to hold that there is one God, the Maker and Creator of all things which are seen and which are not seen by the body's eyes, and to confess one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, foretold of old by the prophets, who will also come to judge the human race, and who is the herald of salvation and the teacher of those who learn of Him well. I indeed as a man am feeble, and far too little to say anything great of His infinite Godhead: this I confess to be the office of prophets, who many ages ago by inspiration foretold the advent upon earth of the same whom I have called the Son of God.

“The Prefect inquired where the Christians met. Justin answered: Each where he will and can. Do you suppose that we are accustomed all to meet in the same place? By no means, since the God of the Christians is not circumscribed by place, but being invisible fills heaven and earth, and is everywhere adored, and His glory praised by the faithful. The Prefect said: Come, tell me where you meet and assemble your disciples. Justin answered: For myself I have hitherto lodged near the house of a certain Martin, by the Timiotine bath. It is the second time I have come to Rome, and I know no other place than the one mentioned. And if anyone chose to come to me, I communicated to him the doctrine of truth. You are, then, a Christian, said Rusticus. Assuredly, said Justin, I am.

“Then the Prefect asked Charito: Are you too a Christian? Charito replied: By God's help I am a Christian. The Prefect asked the woman Charitana whether she too followed the Faith of Christ. She replied: I also by the gift of God am a Christian. Then Rusticus said to Evelpistus: And who are you? He replied: I am Cæsar's slave, but a Christian to whom Christ has given liberty, and by His favour and grace made partaker of the same hope with those whom you see. The Prefect then asked Hierax whether he too was a Christian; and he replied: Certainly I am a Christian, since I worship and adore the same God. The Prefect inquired: Was it Justin who made you Christians? I, said Hierax, both was and will be a Christian. Pæon likewise stood before him and said: I too am a Christian. Who taught you? said the Prefect. He replied: I received this good confession from my parents. Then Evelpistus said: I also was accustomed to hear with great delight Justin's discourses, but it was from my parents that I learnt to be a Christian. Then the Prefect: And where are your parents? In Cappadocia, said Evelpistus. The Prefect likewise asked Hierax where his parents were, and Hierax replied: Our true Father is Christ, and our mother the Faith, by which we believe on Him. But my earthly parents are dead. It was, however, from Iconium in Phrygia that I was brought hither. The Prefect asked Liberianus whether he too was a Christian and without piety towards the gods. He said: I also am a Christian, for I worship and adore the only true God.

“Then the Prefect turned to Justin and said: You fellow, who are said to be eloquent, and think you hold the true discipline. If you are beaten from head to foot, is it your persuasion that you will go up to heaven? Justin answered: I hope if I suffer what you say, that I shall have what those have who have kept the commands of Christ. For I know that to all who live thus the divine grace is preserved until the whole world have its consummation. The Prefect Rusticus replied: It is, then, your opinion that you will go up to heaven to receive some reward? I do not opine, said Justin, but I know, and am so certain of this that I am incapable of doubt. Rusticus said: Let us come at length to what is before us and urgent. Agree together and with one mind sacrifice to the gods. Justin replied: No one of right mind deserts piety to fall into error and impiety. The Prefect Rusticus said: Unless you be willing to obey our commands, you will suffer torments without mercy. Justin answered: What we most desire is to suffer torments for our Lord Jesus Christ and to be saved: for this will procure for us salvation and confidence before that terrible tribunal of the same our Lord and Saviour, at which by divine command the whole world shall attend. The same likewise said all the other martyrs, adding: What thou wilt do, do quickly; for we are Christians and sacrifice not to idols.

“The Prefect hearing this pronounced the following sentence: Let those who have refused to sacrifice to the gods, and to obey the emperor's edict, be beaten with rods, and led away to capital punishment, as the laws enjoin. And so the holy martyrs praising God were led to the accustomed place, and after being beaten were struck with the axe, and consummated their martyrdom in the confession of the Saviour. After which certain of the faithful took away their bodies, and laid them in a suitable place, by the help of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.”

As the pillars of Trajan and Antonine faithfully record the deeds of those whose names they bear, and stand before posterity as a visible history, so, I conceive, the judgment of Ignatius by Trajan, and that of Justin by Rusticus, under the eye as it were of Marcus Aurelius and in his name, embody to us perfectly the mind and conduct of those great emperors towards Christians. The marble of Phidias could present no more perfect sculpture, the pencil of Apelles no more breathing picture, than the simple transcription of the judicial record given above. In the mind of Marcus the jealousy of the old Roman for his country's worship joined with the philosopher's dislike of Christian principles to move him from that more equable temper which dictated the later moderation of his immediate predecessor. It scarcely needed the spirit which ruled at Rome to kindle passionate outbreaks against Christians in the various cities of the empire. We have just seen the impassive majesty of Roman law declaring at the chief seat of power that to be a Christian is a capital crime. If we go at the same time to Smyrna, there the voices of a furious populace are demanding that an aged man venerable through the whole region for his innocent life and his virtues, be cast to the lions, because he is “the teacher of impiety, the father of the Christians, the destroyer of our gods, who has instructed many not to sacrifice to them or adore them.” No grander scene among all the deeds of men is preserved to us, as described by his own church at the time, than the martyrdom of Polycarp, as after eighty-six years of Christian service he stood bound at the stake before the raging multitude in the theatre, and uttered his last prayer: “I thank thee, O God of angels and powers, and all the generation of the just who live before thee, that thou hast thought me worthy of this day and hour to receive a portion in the number of thy martyrs, in the chalice of thy Christ.” Ten years later, in the great city of Lyons a similar spectacle was offered on a far larger scale. The Bishop Pothinus, more than ninety years old, is carried before the tribunal, “the magistrates of the city following him, and all the multitude pursuing him with cries as if he were Christ.” But the triumph of the bishop is accompanied by that of many among his flock, of whom while all were admirable, yet the slave Blandina, poor and contemptible in appearance, surpassed the rest. “She was exposed to the beasts raised as it were upon a cross, and so praying most contentedly to God, she inspired the utmost ardour in her fellow combatants, who with the eyes of the body saw in this their sister's person Him who had been crucified for them in order to persuade those who should believe in Him that whoever suffers for the glory of Christ shall obtain companionship with the living God.”259 Since the wild beasts refused to touch her, Blandina and the survivors among her fellow-sufferers were remanded to prison, in order that the pleasure of the emperor might be taken, one of them being a Roman citizen. For this persecution had arisen without any command of his, and the punishments were inflicted in virtue of the ordinary law. After an interval, as it would seem, of two months, a rescript was received from Marcus Aurelius which ordered that those who confessed should be punished ignominiously, those who denied, be dismissed. “And so at the time of our great fair, when a vast multitude from the various provinces flock thither, the governor ordered the most blessed martyrs to be brought before his tribunal, exhibiting them to the people as in theatric pomp; and after a last interrogation those who were Roman citizens were beheaded, and the rest given to the wild beasts.”260 But Blandina, after being every day brought to behold the sufferings of her companions, “the last of all, like a noble mother who had kindled her children to the combat, and sent them forward as conquerors to the king, – was eager to follow them, rejoicing and exulting over her departure, as if invited to a nuptial banquet, not cast before wild beasts. At length, after scourging and tearing and burning, she was put in a net and exposed to the bull. Tossed again and again by him, yet feeling now nothing which was done to her, both from the intensity of hope with which she grasped the rewards of faith, and from her intimate intercourse in prayer with Christ, in the end she had her throat cut, as a victim, while the heathen themselves confessed that never had they seen a woman who had borne so much and so long.”261

These three scenes of martyrdom at Rome, at Smyrna, and at Lyons, will give a notion of the grounds upon which Eusebius asserts that in the reign of Marcus Aurelius innumerable martyrs suffered262 throughout the world through popular persecutions. Respecting the following reign of Commodus he says, on the contrary, that the Church enjoyed peace, for while the law which considered Christianity an illicit religion had not been revoked, it was made capital to inform against any one as Christian; and yet if the information took place, and the crime was proved, the punishment of death ensued, as in the case of the senator Apollonius recorded by him.263 This state of things would seem to have lasted about seventeen years, until the year 197, when Severus, some time after his accession, became unfavourable to Christians. And it brings us to Tertullian, whose writings are full of testimonies to the sufferings endured by Christians for their Faith. For some time these sufferings would seem to fall under the same sort of intermittent popular persecution, which we have seen prevailing in the time of Marcus: but in the year 202 Severus published an edict forbidding any to become Jews or Christians. And forthwith a persecution broke out so severe and terrible, that many thought the time of Antichrist was come. It was no longer the mere action of an original law against all unauthorised religions, but an assault led on by the emperor himself, who turned directly the imperial power against Christianity as a whole. It raged especially at Alexandria, where the master of the catechetical school writes: “we have before our eyes every day abundant instances of martyrs, tortured by fire, impaled, beheaded: they are superior to pleasure; they conquer suffering; they overcome the world.”264 Then it was that Origen, a youth of seventeen, desired to share the martyrdom of his father Leonides, and that seven whom he had himself instructed, gained this crown. Then it was that the slave Potamiæna, in the bloom of youth and beauty, not only rejected every blandishment of corruption, but suffered the extremest torture of fire to preserve her innocence and faith, and gained at Alexandria such a name as St. Lawrence afterwards gained at Rome. So at Carthage Perpetua and Felicitas, young mothers, with their companions repeated the example of those whom we have seen suffering at Lyons; in which city a second persecution as vehement as the first breaking out numbered Irenæus with his predecessor Pothinus, his people in this case as in the other accompanying the pastor's sacrifice with their own.

This state of suffering continued during the life of Severus for nine years: and splendid examples of Christian championship were shown in all the churches.265 It is only with the accession of Caracalla that peace is restored, and then ensues a period of comparative repose: that is, while the ordinary law against the Christian Faith as an illicit religion still continues, it is understood that the emperor does not wish it to be put in action. In such intervals that Faith, strengthened by the conflicts it had undergone, and admired by those before whose eyes it had enabled its adherents to brave and endure every sort of suffering, sprung up and shot out with redoubled vigour, and the seed which the blood of the martyrs had shed abroad found time to grow.

The summary of the seventy-four years is this. From 161 to 180 there are nineteen years of irregular but severe persecution, followed by seventeen, from 180 to 197, wherein the denouncing of Christians is forbidden, though if brought to trial, they are punishable with death. Five years succeed, from 197 to 202, in which the favour of Severus seems lost, and the state of intermittent persecution takes effect. Then breaks out a general persecution, set on foot by the emperor himself, and we may judge if he who slaughtered his senate spared Christians. This lasts for nine years until his death in 211, whereon a time of peace returns, which is most complete during the reign of Alexander, but continues more or less from 211 to the end of his reign in 235.

On a review of the whole period it is evident that the Church has passed from its state of concealment into almost full light. The fiery trial which it met at the beginning of the third century from the hand of Severus is the best proof that can be given how greatly it had increased, how it could no longer be ignored or despised; how its organisation which was hidden from Trajan was at least partially revealed to Severus, and how he saw and attempted to meet the danger which the earlier emperor would have tried to stamp out, had he divined it. But it is evident also that in proportion as the Christian Faith had grown, the heathen empire had been shaken in its foundations. Its period of just government was over; its imperial power was to fall henceforth into the hands of adventurers, with whom it would be more and more the symbol of force alone, and not of law: henceforth they would seldom even in blood be Roman, and more seldom still in principles. Marcus was well nigh the last zealot for the Jupiter of the Capitol: within a generation after him Heliogabalus will think of a fusion of all religions in his god the sun, and Alexander Severus of a religious syncretism wherein Orpheus, Abraham, and Christ testify together to the divine unity.266 Nor is this a fancy of the prince alone. All the thinking minds of his time have become ashamed of Olympus and its gods. The cross has wounded them to death. A new philosophy – the last fortress into which retreating heathenism throws itself – while it breaks up Roman life, prepares the way for the Christian Faith which it strenuously combats. The Emperor Severus, fixing the eye of a statesman and a soldier on that Faith, contemplates its grasp upon society, and decrees from the height of the throne a general assault upon it; while his wife encourages a writer267 to draw an ideal heathen portrait as a counterpart to the character of Christ, tacitly subtracting from the gospels an imitation which is to supply the place of the reality. The time was not far distant when Origen would already discern and prophesy the complete triumph of the religion thus assailed; and if Celsus had objected, that were all to do as Christians did, the emperor would be deserted, and his power fall into the hands of the most savage and lawless barbarians, would reply: “If all did as I do, men would honour the emperor as a divine command, and the barbarians drawing nigh to the word of God would become most law-loving and most civilised; their worship would be dissolved, and that of the Christians alone prevail, as one day it will alone prevail, by means of that Word gathering to itself more and more souls.”268