THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE,

FROM A.D. 98 TO A.D. 190

 

1. The Persecution under Trajan and Adrian. The Revolt of Barcochehas.

 

After a transient peace enjoyed under Nerva, the Church entered upon a new period of persecution under Trajan. As in preceding reigns, the persecution was excited by popular tumults. In several cities, the people rose against the Christians, and clamoured for their death. Christianity had made notable progress in the years preceding, especially in the provinces of Asia Minor, where, amid the universal decadence of the old religions, and the eager restlessness of men's minds, a few favouring circumstances sufficed to draw great numbers into the Church. According to the testimony of Pliny, every age and condition of life furnished its contingent to the new converts. The Roman proconsul wrote in alarm: "The superstition has spread from the cities into the country like an infection carried by the wind. The temples are forsaken, and in many places the sacred ceremonies have been interrupted. Victims are no longer brought to be sacrificed to the gods." This last charge, connected with what occurred at Ephesus in the time of St. Paul, explains the hostility of one large section of the population against the Christians. All those who lived by the altar were sure to malign those who so gravely compromised their interests. To such motives may be in great part ascribed the popular tumults raised against the Church, which Eusebius mentions.

The prince who at this time governed the empire, was not one of those weak and passionate tyrants, who are ever ready to flatter the passions of the multitude, and are the terrible instruments of its fury or caprice. He was neither a Nero nor a Domitian. Trajan was a man of elevated mind, an adept in the philanthropic philosophy of his time, the friend of Tacitus and Pliny. He was also an illustrious general and a consummate politician. He allowed himself to be guided by reasons of State; but these, as we have seen, tended to incline him to persecution. He had set himself the task of regenerating Roman society; he was the great protector of paganism; and Pliny, in his Panegyric, praises him for his piety. Better than any other, the philosophic proconsul could estimate the true value of this official piety. The confidant of his master, he knew the scornful scepticism which lurked beneath this seeming devotion; but it was all the more needful, from a political point of view, to encourage the revival of the ancient faiths among the people. Trajan had also another motive for being highly averse to Christianity. He had issued very severe decrees against every species of secret association, commanding his proconsuls to prohibit and punish them. The assemblies of the Christians might well pass for such associations, and thus fall under the ban of the emperor.

Pliny, immediately on his arrival in Bithynia, found himself brought into contact with the Christians. They were speedily denounced to him by eager informers. He was greatly surprised at the number and character of the accused, and asked directions from his master. The letters exchanged on this subject between him and Trajan are of great importance, since they contain the first imperial rescript against Christianity. However moderate in form, this marks a momentous era. Up to this time, the pretext for the persecution of the new religion had been rather the crimes of the Christians than the doctrine itself. After Trajan's reply to Pliny, this ceases to be the case. The accusation no longer rests upon heavy crimes laid to the charge of Christianity. It is well understood between Trajan and Pliny that no such charge can be sustained. The proconsul has used all his skill in examining the accused; he has done more; according to Roman custom, he has put two slaves to the torture. But he has been unable to find anything to lay to the charge of the new religionists, except the practice of their own worship. The sole crime of the Christians is having renounced the religion of their fathers. If then they are still to be punished and proscribed, the punishment and proscription are aimed at Christianity itself. Pliny asks the emperor what course he is under such circumstances to pursue. Must he punish equally all who are implicated in this superstition without respect of age or sex? Must he seek to bring them to repentance, constrain them to apostatise (as already with notable success he had done), or must adherence to the new religion be treated as an inexpiable crime? Does the very name of Christian constitute a man a criminal, when on all other points his innocence is proved unblemished?

Trajan's reply is very clear. He does not desire persecution for persecution's sake, for he is not cruel. He desires, then, that it be avoided as far as possible. Without laying down fixed and positive rules, the emperor wills that information against the Christians should not be encouraged, especially anonymous information; this would be a retrogression to the practices of other times. The Christians are not to be sought out, and the greatest indulgence is to be shown to those who will recant. But to the question, whether Christianity is in itself a crime, Trajan replies without the least ambiguity. Whosoever is convicted of it, and refuses to sacrifice to the gods, is to be put to death. The condemnation of the new religion is thus absolute and positive. The more the emperor is disposed to show leniency to individuals, the more evident is it that Christianity itself is laid under the imperial ban. The Christians were the first to be misled by the mildness of the emperor's words. Comparing the moderation of Trajan with the cruelty of his predecessors, and of some of his successors, the early Church refused to allow him to be called a persecutor. Neither Tertullian nor Meiito place him among the enemies of the Church. The illusion was a strange one; the letter of Trajan, by regulating and legalising persecution, made it a permanent institution. The moderation of the emperor would die with him, while his decree was a terrible weapon of offence perpetually directed against the Church, and which would soon escape the grasp of a Trajan and a Pliny.

The letter of Pliny informs us how these first persecutions were conducted. The Christians brought before the tribunal of the proconsul, whether under denunciation as Christians or for any other cause, were interrogated, and on being convicted of belonging to the sect, were at once condemned to death. They were taken before the statues of the gods; the image of the emperor was brought. They were urged to pay homage to the gods, to burn incense in their honour, and to pour out the sacred libations while pronouncing maledictions on the name of Christ. The inroads made by merely outward and nominal Christianity, as early as the days of St. John, explain how it was that a considerable number of those thus accused fell into apostasy. They did not, however, calumniate the religion they abandoned; on the contrary, constrained by the power of the truth, they bore the highest testimony to its worth. Others remained immoveable, and sealed their fidelity with their blood.

The policy of Trajan towards the Christians was adopted by his successor Adrian. There might have seemed reason to fear that the passionate attachment of this emperor to ancient customs would have led to a general persecution of the Church. There was all the more ground for such an apprehension, because in the countries where Christianity had long taken root, as in Asia. Minor, the enemies of the Christians were many and bitter, and spared neither violence nor perfidy in their attacks upon them, sometimes laying anonymous charges against them, sometimes stirring up tumults, so as to force the magistrates to interfere. The emperor in one of his journeys into Greece, sought initiation into the mysteries of Eleusis, and the Christians saw in this new sanction given to pagan superstitions new peril for themselves.

It was on this occasion that the first apologies of Christianity were written. Quadratus, an elder or bishop in the city of Athens, and Aristides, both sent to Adrian an argumentative defence of their faith. The result of this intervention was very happy for the Church. According to Melito of Sardis—who was almost a contemporary of Quadratus and Aristides, since he lived under Marcus Aurelius—a benignant letter was written by Adrian to Fondanus, the proconsul of Asia Minor. This letter has been preserved; and an attempt has been made to represent it as a sort of revocation of Trajan's rescript, and an implicit authorisation of Christianity, allowing it to take its place among the recognised religions of the empire. An act of such capital importance would, beyond question, have been expressly notified. Adrian simply confirmed the decree of his predecessor. If he prohibits calumny and summary conviction, he nevertheless declares that all that is contrary to law is to be punished. Now, the profession of an unauthorised religion was unlawful in the highest degree; and it would need an unequivocal declaration to raise the new faith—the object of such violent animosities—above the interdict which for so many years had rested upon it.

While Asia Minor was the focus of persecution, the other provinces in which Christianity flourished were not exempt. Simon, the son of Cleophas, who succeeded James in the government of the Church of Jerusalem, suffered martyrdom in Palestine under Trajan. The authors of his death were some fanatical Judeo-Christians attached to the synagogue. They accused him of seditious proceedings, on the ground that he was descended from the royal race of his people. He was crucified.

The time came when the Jews were no longer obliged to use the hand of their adversaries in order to persecute the Christians. Since the year 115, they had never ceased to stir up rebellion in Greece, in Egypt, in Cyprus, and in Mesopotamia. Adrian, in his irritation, desired to annihilate the last remnants of Judaism. He forbade the Jews to practise circumcision, and commanded that an entirely new town should be built upon the ruins of Jerusalem. The emperor encountered an obstinate resistance. The Jews, under the leadership of a false Messiah named Barcochebas, struggled long, and not without success, against the Roman eagles.

The false Messiah would naturally persecute the disciples of the true. Thus the blood of the Christians flowed in torrents. When the insurrection had been subdued, the town of Aelia Capitolina, thus named in honour of the emperor, rose in the place of the Holy City.

Admission to it was prohibited to the Jews. They were even forbidden to look from afar off at the place where once had been Jerusalem. "Adrian," says an ancient historian of the Church, "was resolved to root out this rebel race, and not leave it even a pretext for rebellion, not suffering it to hear the name of the fatherland, so fearful was he that, in its zeal and audacity, it would steal secretly within the walls of the city, there to light with the Romans." These decretals brought down the heaviest blow, not only on Judaism but on Judaeo-Christianity, which had henceforward no alternative but to unite with the Church, or to perpetuate itself in the form of an heretical sect.

 

II. The Church and the Empire under the reign of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Commodus. (a.C. 138-191.)

 

Between the tyranny of the first Caesars and the sanguinary and shameless folly of Commodus and Heliogabalus, a time of respite was given to the world, under the reign of the four philosophical emperors. Under two of these emperors the Church also enjoyed larger immunity from suffering, but it never passed a single day in complete security. We have seen how persecution, formally authorised by the decree of Trajan, slumbered again under Adrian, but it was a slumber lightly broken, and at any moment legal proceedings might be commenced against a proscribed religion. Antoninus Pius (136-161)—the best, perhaps, of all the Roman Emperors, the most simply virtuous, the most careful of human life—maintained the same character in his conduct towards the Church. Marcus Aurelius has given us in his "Meditations" a very beautiful portraiture of his predecessor. He says : ''Gentleness was united in him with stern inflexibility of judgment. He scorned the vain glory which confers false honours. Zeal for the public good ever animated him. So long as he reigned, flattery was compelled to hide its head. He had no superstitious fear of the gods. While always conforming his conduct to the example of our fathers, he did not affect any display of fidelity to the ancient traditions". Capitolinus, his historian, speaks of him thus: "Full of clemency, of a placid tempera- ment, sober, gentle, he did all things with moderation, without boasting. Like Titus, he esteemed it better to spare the life of one man than to kill a thousand enemies". Antoninus took no direct part in the persecutions. If he could not prevent their recurrence in some parts of his empire, it was because, in order entirely to put a stop to them, he must have revoked Trajan's decree, and thus effected a radical revolution in the whole constitution of the State, and he was not the man thus to move in advance of his age. When he was informed that in Greece the people, irritated by some public calamity, were rising and preparing to massacre the Christians, he wrote to the magistrates of the towns where these tumults had broken out, directing them to take no new measures against the Church. It is possible that these favourable letters may have been the result of the first "Apology of Justin Martyr", which was about this time presented to the emperor. That "Apology", the consideration of which in all its relations to doctrinal discussion is beyond our present purpose, is full of a manly courage and simple dignity, which must have appeared very remarkable in an age when respect and servility, firmness and rebellion, were so commonly confounded. Justin's attitude was as far as possible from that of a suppliant, tremblingly craving the favour of an arbitrary power. Deeply convinced of the goodness of his cause, he pleads it with authority, in the name of the eternal law of justice, to which violence was done in the person of the Christians, and he makes it very clear that he believes he is doing a service to his country, in thus denouncing its flagrant iniquities. This will be self-evident from the introduction to the "Apology", which is as follows :

"To the Emperor Titus-Aelius-Adrian-Antoninus-Pius, Caesar Augustus, and to his son the eminent philosopher, and to Lucius, philosopher and friend of science, son of Lucius Caesar by nature, and son of the emperor by adoption, to the reverend Senate, and to the whole Roman people. In the name of these unjustly hated and much-abused men, I, Justin, one of themselves, present to you this discourse and petition. You, who are everywhere proclaimed the Pious, the guardian of justice, the friend of truth, your acts shall show whether you merit these titles. My design is neither to flatter you by this letter nor to obtain any favour. I simply ask you to judge us by the rules of a scrupulous and enlightened equity, and not by a mere presumption, nor in the name of a superstition sanctioned by you in order to please men, nor by an unreflecting impulse, nor at the persuasion of calumny. This would be to give judgment against yourself, for we fear no harm that can be done to us by anyone, if we are not found guilty of any crime. You can kill, you cannot injure us. Our request is neither unreasonable nor audacious. What we ask is simply that a close investigation may be made into the charges brought against us, and that if they be well founded we be severely punished, as is our due. But if they are without proof, does not reason forbid you to do wrong to these calumniated men, or rather to yourselves, who would in such a case be acting not in equity but in passion? For the wise man there is but one sure way of judging, that is, to allow the accused every oppor- tunity to prove their innocence, and not to listen on the throne to the counsels of violence or tyranny, but to those of piety and philosophy. On these terms alone can princes and subjects know true happiness. One of old has said that if governors and governed do not allow themselves to be guided by philosophy, there is no happiness for the State. Our duty, then, is to make our deeds and our doctrines fully known, lest we should be held responsible for crimes committed against us through blindness and ignorance. Your duty to your- selves, as dictated by reason, is to investigate our cause, and to act as good judges. You will then be inexcusable before God if you act not justly when you have once known the truth."

Such words might well surprise the rulers of the world; it was the first time they had heard the firm bold utterance of the right, and the just demand of the Christian conscience.

Justin Martyr goes on to set forth with much power the iniquitousness of the summary modes of trial used in the case of the disciples of the new religion, who were condemned upon the simple declaration that they were Christians. He says : "Men deserve neither praise nor punishment for the name they bear, but for the kind of life they lead". He then deals, with remarkable force, with the accusations brought against the Christians; he repudiates them one by one, and according to the practice of ancient apologists, attacks his adversaries while he defends himself, and turns against them the sword he has snatched from their hands. The leading charges against the Christians are three. They are denounced to the emperor as atheists, rebels, and evil-doers. "True," replies Justin, "we are atheists, if to be otherwise we must needs acknowledge your gods,which are but devils; and this glorious atheism we hold in common with Socrates, who was sacrificed, as we are, for the cause of that great truth derived from the word which he published in Greece. As for us, we have received it from the Word Himself, clothed in a visible form. Therefore are we called atheists. We are such, in reference to your gods; we are no atheists as touching the God of truth, the Father of righteousness, of wisdom, and of all virtue, the most Holy. Him we worship. We honour Him in word and in deed, and we desire freely to impart to all the truth which we have received. We do not place wreaths of flowers on our altars, nor gather round them a crowd of victims; we do not worship the works of men's hands, placed in the temples under the names of some divinity. How can we believe that God would offer Himself in such a manner for our adoration? It is not only an absurd belief, it is an outrage upon God. What! you give to that which perishes and cannot sustain itself, the name of Him whose glory and beauty are from everlasting to everlasting!"

With regard to the second charge, that of rebellion, Justin is not less vigorous in his defence. Not content with establishing that the kingdom founded by Jesus Christ is a purely spiritual kingdom, the progress of which need give no apprehension to the princes of this world, he clearly enunciates the wise principles of the primitive Church as to its relation to constituted authorities. After adducing the words of Christ, spoken on the payment of tribute to Caesar, Justin adds : ''We worship God alone, but with this exception, we joyfully obey you; we acknowledge you as our princes and governors, and we ask for you that to the sovereign power with which you are invested, may be added the wisdom to make a right use of it". Justin Martyr carries his argument yet further, and shows that no doctrine is better adapted than the Christian doctrine to maintain order and tranquillity in the state. Human laws are powerless as a restraint, because men always hope to elude them. But how can they escape from the God who sees all things, and knows not only what we do but even what we think? As to the crimes laid to the charge of the Christians, Justin contents himself with drawing an admirable picture of their life and worship, the pure colours of which we shall often have to borrow to assist our representation of the Christian life and practices of the ancient Church. It aims to show that this Crucified One, whom the Christians are reproached with worshipping, is the Divine Word—incarnate, sovereign wisdom, and living truth. He quotes some of His most beautiful utterances, and asks that they be tried, not by mere vulgar prejudice, but at the bar of the human conscience. Unhappily for his design, Justin in his treatise confounds philosophical discussion with the simple apology required for presentation to the emperor. He enters too minutely into details of doctrine, and into the analogy between the re- ligion of the Incarnate Word, and the ancient religions and philosophies which contained scattered fragments of the same truth. Such dogmatic disquisitions were incongruous with a petition to Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius. The distinction established in his "Apology" between Christianity and heresy of various kinds, which he represents as a counterfeit of the Gospel wrought by Satan, is more to the point; but here also he enters into too great detail. In spite of its defects, his ''Apology" could not but produce a strong impression by its noble frankness as well as by that boldness of speech which we have already remarked, and which never falters. Profoundly convinced that the struggle between the Church and the Empire is pre-eminently a struggle between the powers of heaven and hell, Justin does not hesitate to tell the emperors that they are unwittingly under the influence of evil spirits. "We are persuaded," he says, "that your conduct towards us is inspired by the impure demons who seek sacrifice and homage from those who have abjured the light of reason. Virtuous and wise princes, such as you, would not of themselves act contrary to reason. Take heed that the demons vanquished by us do not lead you away captive. They seek to have you for their slaves and ministers". Elsewhere Justin has the boldness to say to the supreme authority, which for so many years had decreed all the persecutions, "After all, princes who prefer an idle opinion to the truth, use a power only like that of robbers in lonely places". In other words, persecution is cowardly murder.

The close of the "Apology" is as powerful as its exordium. "If this doctrine," says Justin, in conclusion, "appears to you true and founded on reason, pay heed to it. If contrariwise, treat it as a thing of no value, but do not treat as enemies, nor condemn to death, men who have done you no wrong; for we declare to you that you will not escape the judgment of God if you persist in injustice. For ourselves, we have but one cry : The will of God be done."

If Eusebius is to be credited, Justin Martyr was not the principal apologist of this period; by his statement the Church found a very unlooked-for defender in the emperor himself. In truth, according to this historian, Antoninus Pius issued a decree very favourable to the new religion. The emperor is said not to have been satisfied with forbidding persecution (as in his letters to Greece), but to have uttered a magnificent eulogium on the Christians. Unhappily, this decree bears no impress of authenticity. Antoninus Pius cannot be regarded as the Constantine of his age. It would have required more courage for such a prince in the second century to praise a hated sect, than for an emperor in the fourth century to embrace a religion which had then become powerful. This famous decree is, then, a fictitious creation; no contemporary writer makes the slightest allusion to it.

If the Church had passed some tranquil days under Antoninus Pius, it might be hoped that she would enjoy yet greater security when his adopted son succeeded him in the empire. What was there to fear from the virtuous Marcus Aurelius? Did he not raise with himself to the throne, the purest and most severe philosophy of the ancient world? He was the model emperor, and Gibbon does not hesitate to represent his reign as having given to the human race the highest possible sum of happiness. In the eyes of the historian, this was the Millennium of the old world. Though such an estimate is a gross exaggeration, it is nevertheless indisputable that Marcus Aurelius was a great prince. "There was no difference," says Capitolinus, "between his government and that of a free city. He was in all things guided by a wise moderation, whether in warning men from evil, or inciting them to good. He knew how to make the evil good, and the good excellent. His custom was to visit every crime with a lighter penalty than that determined by the laws, though he could show himself inexorable in the case of men guilty of grave and flagrant offences". One cannot but wonder on what grounds Christians were classed by this so wise and virtuous emperor among those hardened offenders, in whose case he departed from his accustomed leniency. Our surprise is redoubled as we read his "Meditations", fragments often rising to sublimity, written or dictated in the rude life of camps, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Seneca, but of a logical Seneca, who carries out his principle even to the imperial purple. The slave Epictetus shows no loftier disdain for the false god which the world worships, than this crowned philosopher, who possesses in profusion all that the world can give, but whose heart sits loose to it all. He has gathered from the culture of his time all that was most elevated and pure; he breathes that spirit of humanity by which Seneca is so distinguished, which relaxes the rough Roman severity, and which, if it is not Christian charity, borrows from it, or is indirectly inspired by it. What cause, then, made Marcus Aurelius a persecutor of the Church, and led him to act towards it with greater cruelty than even a Commodus or Heliogabalus?

We must first of all admit that under his reign the passions of the people, so easily excited, broke out into singular violence against the Christians. Plagues, which the best government was powerless to avert, desolated the empire again and again. Rome was visited with a terrible inundation of the Tiber. Earthquakes and epidemics succeeded each other. War was raging with unwonted fury in the East and West. Marcus Aurelius was kept in constant conflict with the Germanic tribes bordering on the empire, and at one time the threatened danger appeared to him so great, that he enrolled even the gladiators in the army. Such a measure was sure to alarm and irritate the Roman people, as interfering with one of their favourite pastimes.

Gloom and terror oppressed all hearts. There was a vague presentiment that the dominion of Rome would expire on the confines of the German forests. Nothing is more cruel than superstition moved to fear. The excitement produced by alarm, in a people without true religion, turns to the account of fanaticism. Hence the outburst of fierce passions in many of the cities. To refuse the blood of the Christians, it would have been necessary to resist the voice of the multitude—that most imperious of all voices—and to resist it when its demand was legitimate according to the constitution of the empire; for we must never forget that the legal ban laid upon Christianity had not for a single day been removed. Marcus Aurelius found also too many reasons for drifting with the popular current of hatred to the Christians, for him to desire to spread the shield of his protection over a universally accursed sect. His book of "Meditations", in spite of its elevation and philosophic tranquillity, unfolds to us the secret motives of this aversion. His biography accurately epitomises them in these words : "He was of a disposition so absolutely tranquil, that his features never expressed either sadness or joy; he was a perfect votary of the stoical philosophy, which he had received from the best masters and had himself fully embraced". Stoicism and Christianity were necessarily and inevitably antagonistic. Two doctrines, apparently somewhat akin, but in reality profoundly dissimilar, come into more violent collision than those which are in all points opposed. The stoical school, the refuge of souls who mistook pride for greatness, pretended to be the restorer of the ancient world. It encountered in its path a despised sect, which, while enwrapping itself as it seemed in the mantle of stoicism, and uttering maxims no less austere, succeeded where stoicism had failed, and robbed it of its influence. Christianity, from its very first contact with stoicism, overthrew the scaffolding so laboriously reared, and opposed the heroism of holiness to its cold and boastful virtue. Stoicism was after all but Roman Pharisaism. It was, we freely admit, pharisaism free from hypocrisy, austere as that of Saul of Tarsus; but its vital breath at Rome, as at Jerusalem, was an incurable pride, and it was the natural enemy of a religion which had its basis in humility. Pharisaism, whether seated in the chair of the doctor, or on the throne of the empire, acts infallibly the part of the persecutor.

We have no wish to detract at all from the moral greatness of Marcus Aurelius because he persecuted the Church. We recognise the loftiness of his intellect, his conscientious efforts to realise the ideal proposed to himself, and the nobleness of the sentiments he expressed in a style somewhat stiff and pretentious, as was his whole individuality. His ideal, however, had no true analogy with the Christian ideal; it was indeed, in almost every point, diametrically opposed to it. As the basis of his doctrines, Marcus Aurelius had accepted all the commonplaces of the stoical school without modification. He shared the scorn of that school for metaphysics and for all questions which had no practical bearing. He congratulated himself on having early learnt to contemn the higher philosophy. Even from this point of view, the Christian doctrine, which, to the mind of the most simple believer, is full of metaphysical mystery, could not but excite his antipathy. He accepted unreservedly the fatalistic pantheism of the school of the Stoics. "Represent to thyself," he says, " the world as an animal composed of one sole substance, and one single soul. The substance of the universe is obedient, and capable of taking any form. The reason which governs it has no principle leading it to do evil, for it has no malice; it commits no wrong and can receive no hurt. According to the laws of this reason everything goes on in the world". These words are a commentary on Seneca's famous saying : Fata nos ducunt. This fatalistic pantheism led logically to a proud acquiescence in the decrees of destiny. The sage set before him the goal of insensibility or absolute impassibility. "Abandon thyself without resistance to the Parcae," said Marcus Aurelius, "and let them weave into thy life whatsoever they please. Holiness consists in loving that which comes from destiny. Be like a promontory against which the billows break." The zeal of the martyr, marching like a victor to meet death, bore no resemblance to this frigid tranquillity of the Stoic sage. "The soul," said the philosophic emperor, "ought to be ready when the moment comes, either to quit the body, to be extinguished or dissolved, or to remain a while longer with the body. But this readiness must proceed from calm reason, and not from mere obstinacy as among the Christians. It must be arrived at with reflection and dignity, so as to convince others without declamation". Thus the Christians, dying for their faith, were but fanatics in the eyes of Marcus Aurelius. He speaks sometimes of the gods in pious accents, but it is an illogical tribute; for at heart he does not believe in them, and doubts of their existence, and a future life is to him far from a thing of certainty. "Souls," he says,"melt away, absorbed into the generative power of the universe. We must say of all events : This comes of God, this is an effect of the natural sequence of things". The law of nature, natural sequence—this is the sole divinity recognised by him; and when he seems to render homage to less impersonal deities, it is a concession to the established religion, or rather, perhaps, to that inward voice, which will never be wholly stifled. His true belief is expressed in the following words : "Nature! all comes from thee, all is of thee, all returns to thee". It would seem as if, at times, Marcus Aurelius had grasped unwittingly the conception of Christian charity. But it is only the expression of his natural benevolence, and that benevolence carries with it a large admixture of contempt. "How can we be irritated," he says, "with those who know not what is truly good or truly evil?". The pardon of offences is with him only one form of stoical impassiveness. "A man conducts himself ill; what matters it to me? It is his affair; his actions and affections concern himself alone". Marcus Aurelius nobly contradicts himself in these remarkable words: "Men are made for one another; rebuke them, then, in the wrong, or uphold them in the right".

We know well that nothing so bitterly excited the hostility of the wise men of Judea to Christianity, as the idea of salvation, of grace, and the offer of divine pardon. This could not fail also to prejudice the phi- losophic emperor against the new religion. In his view, faith in one's self was the great essential. The wise man is to seek in his own heart the remedy for evil; he is to rely entirely upon himself, to repudiate with disdain all external aid. "It is enough for us," says the author of the Meditations, "to believe in the spirit within us, and to honour it with sincere devotion. The wise man lives in intimate familiarity with Him whose temple is within him. This is the divinity which makes him an athlete for the grandest of combats. The bodily life is as a river running on; in the soul all is a vapour, a vision; life is a warfare, a traveller's sojourn; post-humous fame is oblivion. What is there then which can serve thee as a guide? One thing alone—philosophy; and philosophy consists in preserving the spirit within us from all ignominy. In the midst of this pollution and darkness, in this current which is carrying away matter and time, what is there worthy of such great esteem? I see not. On the other hand, we must console ourselves, and await death without impatience at its delay, on this two-fold consideration: first, that nothing will happen to me which is not in harmony with the nature of all things; second, that it is not in my power to do anything against my God and the spirit that is within me".

We can well understand how absurd, on such a system as this, must have appeared the doctrine of redemption. According to his master, Maximus, Marcus Aurelius said: "Man must present in his person the image of natural rectitude rather than of reparation". It would have been impossible to define more sharply the opposition existing between Christianity and Stoicism. "Consider," said Marcus Aurelius in the same connection, "consider that at every hour of the day thou art bound to show the firmness of character becoming a man and a Roman. Prove thyself, to the divine government which is within thee, a manly being, ripened by years, a Roman, an emperor, a soldier at his post awaiting the trumpet-call".

Thus seeking salvation within himself, Marcus Aurelius believed he had found it. But here, again, he is happily illogical, and allows some expressions of regret to escape him, though even in their modesty there lurks a degree of pride. "O my soul," he exclaims, "will the day ever come when thou wilt be good, simple, always the same? Wilt thou ever taste the blessedness of loving and cherishing men? Wilt thou ever be rich enough in thyself to have no want, no regret?". This conscious- ness of a relative imperfection must not be confounded with repentance. "He who sins," again says the writer of the 'Meditations, "sins against himself." His writings generally evidence an inward satisfaction with his own virtue. "How hast thou comported thyself unto this day?" he asks himself; " consider how complete is the history of thy life, how thou hast fulfilled thine office. Call to mind all the noble actions which have been done by thee, the many pleasures and pains thou hast despised, the honours thou hast neglected, the ingrates thou hast treated with benignity". The familiar prayer: "Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men", rises perpetually to the lips of Marcus Aurelius, in an infinite variety of forms. How must the wise man and the just, who can utter this proud challenge to heaven, be filled with scorn and indignation to hear all around him the broken cries of true penitents, who ask for mercy, and protest by their groans and tears against the proud self-righteousness magnifying itself by their side! If the Pharisee is all-powerful and can crush the Publican with a word, that word will be quickly spoken. Here, then, is the explanation of the persecution of the Church under the wise and virtuous Marcus Aurelius. We may finally remark that perhaps no emperor was ever more fully possessed by the idea of the pagan power of the State, or more proudly trampled on the rights of the individual conscience. He was fortified in this view by his stoical pantheism. "The end of reasonable beings," he said, "is to conform to whatever is imposed by the reason and law of the most ancient and honourable city and government." The same legislation which is supposed to govern the universe, sacrificing the part to the whole, reappears in the State. "Just as thou thyself art a complement of the social system, so each of thy actions serves as a complement to thy social life. Every act of thine, which has no relation, either immediate or indirect, to the common end, brings confusion into thy life, and takes away from its unity. It renders thee factious, just as if thou shouldst break the unity of citi- zens in a nation. That which is not useful to the swarm is not of use to the bee". It is quite evident that the philosophical, views of Marcus Aurelius were closely associated with his maxims of government, and both alike led to depreciation of the individual conscience. The quotations we have made from his works seem to us fully to explain his attitude towards the Church.

We find among the laws of the empire, which are referred to his reign, one which, without distinctly specifying the Christians, is evidently designed for them. It shows the emperor's fixed intention to strengthen the religion of the State. "The divine Marcus decreed," says Modestinus, ''that if anyone, by any superstitious practice whatever, should alarm the susceptible minds of men, he should be banished to some island." According to a very ancient commentary, the penalty of beheadal was substituted for that of banishment. Possibly it is correct to refer, as Neander does, to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the decree mentioned in the "Acts of the Martyrdom of St. Symphorian," according to which, various tortures were to be inflicted on the Christians who refused to sacrifice to the gods, in order to shake their constancy. If such was the mind and will of the emperor, it is easy to conceive to what a height of violence the fury of a fanatical people might rise. Melito of Sardis speaks of vile informers, who, taking advantage, doubtless, of these severe decrees, entered the houses of the Christians by night or day, and gave them up to pillage. The same Father tells us that those who denounced the Christians were promised by the magistrates possession of the goods of their victims, and that they commenced proceedings by anticipating for themselves the reward of information.

The persecution thus aggravated prevailed alike in East and West. The Christians endeavoured anew to present their defence, and to enlighten the minds of their opponents. With the Apologies of Theophilus of Antioch and of Tatian we do not now concern ourselves, because they were essentially doctrinal treatises. Five Apologies were presented to Marcus Aurelius; that of Justin, which is erroneously supposed to have been the first, and those of Miltiades, Athenagoras, Apollinaris, and Melito of Sardis. The last of these, after pointing out the violence of the informers, simply asks if these infamous men are not abusing the name of the emperor. He cannot believe, he says, ''that a decree which would not have been sanctioned for the treatment of barbarous enemies, can have been passed against unoffending citi- zens". Melito then traces back the new religion to its source, showing that though it appeared originally in a foreign land, it received the rights of citizenship at Rome under Augustus. It had been a pledge of good to the emperor so long as it prevailed in the capital of the em- pire. The greatness and glory of the land had increased, and thus the honour of Rome was interested in the progress of Christianity. Persecution dated from the bad emperors—Nero and Domitian; it was not in harmony with the sound traditions of the imperial government; let there be then a return to the wise moderation of Augustus, and the example of Adrian and Antoninus Pius. Melito's argument was not wanting in skill. It justified the Christians from the dangerous charge of drawing down upon the world the scourges by which it was desolated. But it must in all candour be admitted that it exaggerated the favour once enjoyed by Christianity, when it asserted that it had been placed on the same level as other religions. It was at once its glory and its peril that it ever formed an exception to the universal toleration.

We shall not enlarge upon the Apology of Athenagoras, because it is overladen with philosophical argumentation. The introduction is not wanting in ability or dignity. "The subjects of your vast empire, most noble sovereign, differ in customs and laws. No imperial decree, no menace held forth by you, prevents them from freely following the usages of their ancestors, even though those usages be ridiculous. The Egyptians may adore cats, crocodiles, serpents, and dogs. You and the laws pronounce the man impious who acknowledges no god, and you admit that every man ought to worship the god of his choice, in order that he may be deterred from evil by the fear of the divinity. Why then make exception in the sole case of the Christians? Why are they excluded from that universal peace, which the world enjoys under your rule?"

Athenagoras, like Justin, complains that vague report and the mere name of Christian are made sufficient ground for condemnation. He demands a bona fide inquiry, and proceeds, in default of that, to present a refutation of the three main charges of atheism, murder, and infamy, perpetually laid against the Christians. If these crimes are proved, Athenagoras urges that they be visited with severest punishment; but let the cause at least be heard, and let justice weigh in an even balance accusers and accused.

In order to disprove the charge of atheism, Athenagoras enters upon a long philosophical discussion, which exhibits a singular blending of Christianity and Platonism. Upon the second head, his reasoning is more close and conclusive. "I know," he says, "that our justification is already established by what I have previously said. You cannot but believe that men who keep their eye steadily fixed upon God, as the standard of all goodness, that they may themselves become holy and unblameable, will shrink from even the very thought of crime. If we believed only in the present life, we might be suspected of serving flesh and blood, avarice and lust. But we know that by night as well as by day, we have God as the witness of our words and thoughts; we know that our God is light, and that He reads the very secrets of our hearts. We believe that after this earthly life there begins for us either a better life or a miserable existence amidst devouring flames, if we have followed the example of the wicked." Athenagoras eloquently points out the strangeness of the part enacted by the accusers of the Church, who, covered as they themselves are with all infamy, yet dare to call in question the purity of the Christians. Is there not here an application of the old saying: "The harlot accuses the woman of modest life?". The harlot is pagan society with all its impurities; the modest woman is the chaste spouse of Christ. As to those feasts of Thyestes, to which the celebration of the Eucharist was likened, Athenagoras appeals on the one hand to the horror of the Christians at the shedding of blood, which kept them away from the representations in the circus, and on the other hand to their behef in the resurrection of the body, which would be utterly incompatible with any such abomination. This Apology is remarkable, in that the defence of the lives of the Christians is presented from the doctrinal point of view; but we do not find in it the same firmness of language as in that of Justin, and it contains too many pompous eulogies on the emperors.

Of the Apology presented to Marcus Aurelius by Apollinaris, Bishop of Hieropolis, no portion remains. That of Justin we possess entire. It abounds more than the former in philosophical digressions, which would have been more appropriate in an apologetic treatise than in a petition to the emperor. We have already mentioned the circumstance which called it forth. A question had arisen about the condemnation of a Christian woman, who had been brought by her husband before the magistrates, because she was resolved to abandon the impure life which was the rule of pagan society. Justin renews his protestations against the summary judgments passed without sufficient in- formation against the Christians. He instances one of their most treacherous calumniators, the philosopher Crescens, whose base machinations were subsequently to bring about his own death. Against the false dealings of this man, he adduces the noble words of Socrates : "If you respect man, respect truth yet more". It was urged against the Christians that, if they courted death, they had only to commit suicide, and they would all the sooner come to the enjoyment of their God. Justin nobly replies that a voluntary death is an impious death, and an act of rebellion against the law of God. It was for obedience to that law that the Christians were willing to fall a sacrifice. "When questioned, we reply frankly, because conscious of our innocence, and because it is, in our view, the highest impiety not to be in all things faithful to the truth, in order to please God. We thus seek to disabuse you of your erroneous ideas about us."

To the objection drawn from the sufferings of Christians by those to whom all suffering is a mark of the divine anger, Justin replied boldly that if the world was still preserved, it was for the sake of these despised men, the reproach of the empire, and yet, in truth, its safeguard; for they are like the ten righteous men whose presence would have saved Sodom. "Without them, neitherwicked men nor evil angels wouldany longer exist. Without them, it would not be possible for you to do that which you do at the inspiration of demons; the fire of judgment would, but for them, consume all, without distinction". The courageous Christian does not hesitate to summon his persecutors themselves to the bar of this terrible judgment. Then, having established the superiority of the doctrine of Jesus Christ over all other doctrines, he finds one final argument in the objection drawn from the sufferings of the martyrs. "See Socrates," he exclaims; "no one has believed in his words so strongly as to be willing to die for his doctrine; but for Jesus Christ, whom Socrates but dimly discerned, men die every day, and these not only wise men and philosophers, but ignorant men and artisans. These are the athletes and the heroes who should be admired rather than trodden under foot". Justin concludes his "Apology" with a request that the emperor would make it public; he has confidence in the power of truth upon the soul of man. "Is there need to appeal to any other judge than conscience?" he exclaims. This is to the apologist the court of final appeal; at this tribunal, the decrees of Caesar himself may be revoked. His conclusion is as follows : "All that is in our power we have done for the defence of the truth. May all men prove themselves worthy to know it! May your decision, O princes, which after all falls upon yourselves, bear the impress of piety and justice".

This language failed to convince Marcus Aurelius, and persecution went on with unabated cruelty. Some writers of the third and fourth centuries have asserted that in the war between the Marcomanni and the Quadi, in the year 174, the Roman army, afflicted with a terrible drought, was saved by the prayers of a Christian legion, which obtained by miracle an abundant fall of rain, and that this legion, thenceforth known under the name of the Legio fulminatrix, secured the favour of the emperor to the proscribed religion. This story, however, is not confirmed by any testimony worthy of credit, and is full of historical impossibilities. It is certain that the imperial armies did owe their salvation to a violent storm; but while some Christian soldiers doubtless attributed the deliverance to their prayers, it is no less certain that they failed to make the pagans share their conviction, for the same event is, on the testimony of inscriptions that cannot be questioned, ascribed by the emperor to Jupiter and not to Jesus Christ. Nor is there any indication of a change in his policy with regard to the Christians.

In the East, persecution spent its greatest force on the city of Smyrna. It commenced, as usual, in popular uprisings. Polycarp, whose martyrdom we have already described, was the most illustrious victim. In the West, the Church of Rome was exposed to terrible sufferings. The "Acts of the Martyrs" refer to this period the torture of St. Felicitas and her seven sons—an instance of heroism surpassing that of the mother of the Maccabees. It was especially against central Gaul that the fury of the enemies of Christianity spent itself. The letter of the Church of Lyons to that of Asia Minor gives us an incomparable picture of this persecution. The houses of the Christians were broken into by an excited mob, who carried devastation in their track. The Christians were thrown in crowds into dungeons, and subjected to fearful tortures. Some were subdued by the excessive bodily agony, but the greater part endured with unshaken fortitude. "They know that, possessing the love of God, they have nothing to fear, and they count all suffering light when the glory of Christ is concerned". It might seem that they had become insensible to sorrow, so convinced are they that "the sufferings of the present time are not to be compared with the glory to be revealed in them". Calm and intrepid before the bar of their judges, they confess the name of Christ with heroic courage, as often as their voice can rise above the clamour of the crowd. The Christian Sixtus gives repeated and astonishing proofs of steadfastness amid unparalleled agonies. Not content with wreaking on the bodies of the Christians themselves the refined barbarity of Roman torture, the magistrates put the slaves of Christians to the rack to obtain some evidence against them. Indignant at so iniquitous a proceeding, Vettius Epagathus, a distinguished citizen, who had hitherto kept secret his adhesion to the faith of Christ, took up the defence of his accused brethren, and at the inquiry before the proconsul acted as advocate for the Christians, well knowing that by so doing he subjected himself to the sentence of death. When the odious and stupid charge was reiterated, that the Christians renewed the feasts of Thyestes, and sacrificed little children in the celebration of their mysteries, Attalus, one of the accused, whose body had been already lacerated with tortures, flung in the face of his judges this terrible rejoinder: ''It is you who devour human flesh". Both old age and tender youth showed indomitable courage. The Bishop Pothinus, trembling under the weight of ninety years, replied to the magistrate who asked him what god he worshipped : "Thou shalt know Him when thou art worthy". Covered with wounds, he was cast into prison, where in two days he expired. Blandina, the young slave-girl, triumphed in the midst of all tortures, and inspired her brother, of the same tender years, with her own enthusiasm and courage. This child of fifteen, frail and weak by nature as others, displayed extraordinary moral power; neither tortures nor wild beasts could make her falter. The Christians feared for her, but it was she who strengthened their faith. Before the whole circus, full of a howling crowd, in view of the gaping mouth of the lion, she stood calm and smiling; and that calm smile of the poor slave was the boldest challenge ever hurled at the material omnipotence of the pagan empire. This strong defiance, coming from the servile dust in which the slave had been wont to crouch till Christianity proclaimed the rights of conscience, made heathen society learn with a thrill of dread that the humblest believer in Christ is a power not to be ignored. "God shows us in this young slave," we read in the letter of the Christians of Lyons, ''that His choice rests upon that which seems to men most vile, contemptible, and ignoble.

There came a momentary pause in the persecution. The proconsul found himself embarrassed by the number, and sometimes by the quality of the captives, for many were Roman citizens, and the majesty of that name might not be profaned, even when associated with the vile name of Christian, by their condemnation to ignominious punishment. The emperor, when interrogated on this matter, replied that the Roman citizens who persevered in their faith were to be beheaded, apostates released, and all other accused persons subjected to the extreme penalties of the law. This order was rigorously carried out, and floods of Roman blood flowed in the prisons. The accused belonging to the lower classes perished in the arena, amidst the plaudits of the multitudes, and even Blandina, of whom the very wild beasts at first seemed to stand in awe, fell at last a victim. The brief time of respite was used by many Christians (who had proved for a season untrue to their faith) in retracing their apostasy. They astonished the people by this return of courage, which did not again fail in the face of death. The persecution raged with equal violence at Vienna in Gaul, and at Autun, where Symphorian perished for refusing to worship the goddess Cybele. The martyrs of this period were remarkable for their great humility, joined with a lively joy altogether devoid of fanaticism. They refused even to be called martyrs, as not worthy of the name. They did no more, they said, than follow the Lamb whithersoever He went, and first of all to the altar of sacrifice. They were distinguished by a majesty and beauty more than human, and their bonds seemed the jewels of their sanguinary espousals. Their various agonies were to them as the weaving of a wreath of divers flowers to be offered unto God the Father, from whom they looked to receive the crown laid up for the victor in the fight.

The death of Marcus Aurelius, which was a calamity to the empire, was a deliverance to the Church. Cornmodus, the frenzied tyrant who brought back the worst days of the early Caesars, showed himself tolerant towards the Christians. Persecution, if not absolutely suppressed, was greatly modified, and received no fresh impetus from imperial decrees. Marcia, the favourite mistress of Commodus, appears to have been, if not positively attached to the Church, at least well disposed to the new religion. It is probable that before her eleva- tion to her throne of shame, she had been among the proselytes. She remained ever the protector of her former co-religionists, and, according to St. Hippolytus, even succeeded in gaining the recall to Rome of a large number of exiles, who had been banished to work in the mines in Sicily. Irenaeus mentions that there were many Christians at the court of Commodus in the enjoyment of large liberty. The old statutes against their religion had not, however, been repealed, and the Church still numbered several martyrs, among others the Senator Apollonius. Antoninus, a proconsul of Asia Minor, who sought to revive the persecution, was deterred from doing so by the number of Christians who thronged to his tribunal voluntarily to surrender them- selves. He contented himself with apprehending a few, saying to the rest : "Wretches, if you desire to die, you have rocks and ropes at hand".

The Church which was engaged throughout this period in such stern struggles with enemies without, had to maintain an equally severe conflict with foes within. Heresy, of which we have already noted the indications, and of which we shall follow the progress, is no longer in this, as in the first century, a vague and formless thing. Its various characteristics are clearly defined. While the Judaising sects are passing through a crisis, which, separating the moderate from the fanatical party, will finally issue in the development of Ebionitism, Eastern Gnosticism is yet more surely corrupting Christian doctrine by its wild and fantastic speculations—the thin veil cloaking a fatalistic Pantheism. At Alexandria, Basilides (a.C. 125) and Valentine exerted in turn an extraordinary influence; the latter endeavoured to establish his school at Rome about the year 140. The Gnostics of Syria professed a more open dualism than those of Egypt. The Church of Antioch had to resist Saturnin, that of Edessa to oppose Bardesanes and Tatian. The latter, at first a disciple of Justin Martyr, finally became a heretic. Marcion, son of the Bishop of Sinope, was the author of a system superior in many respects to the speculative theories of the other Gnostics, but not less destructive of the foundation truths of positive Christianity. At Rome he encountered Polycarp, who denounced him in a terrible apostrophe as a child of the devil.

In the year 170, a fanatic sect, preaching the most rigid asceticism, arose in Phrygia. It blended with a very sincere piety much of the extravagant superstition of that country. Montanism, founded by the Phrygian Montanus, profoundly agitated the Church of the second century. It made its appearance at Rome towards the end of that period, and there performed an important part. The Church itself was also torn with internal dissensions, apart from heresies. The deter- mination of the Easter festival was a question which divided East and West. The Bishop of Rome excited a lively resistance, when he endeavoured to enforce his own practice on the whole Church. On this.occasion, towards the close of the second century, were held the Synods of Cesarea and of Lyons, which foiled for the time this ambitious project. We shall enter subsequently into details of the internal dissensions in the Church.