1 excited them. "2 disposed towards the Christians, and as dead to the temptations of money, as they were notoriously the contrary, still there was another party to persecution even more difficult to deal with than these, for they were evidently often above the laws, the populace. There were various causes which The sanguinary taste engendered in them by the amphitheatre was gratified. The universal shout from the spectators of "Christianos ad leonem, was not prompted simply by a hatred of the Christians, but by an inveterate love for these scenes of butchery. What a picture do the Fathers give us of the details of the arena! Persons rushing to devour the beasts that had been slaughtered, still reeking with the gore of the gladiator they had despatched before their own lives were forfeited-the boar smeared with the blood of the miserable man he had ripped up, thus seized on for a meal--others again hastening to catch the life blood as it issued from the wound of the dying man as a specific for epilepsy. In the pause from the games at noon, some miscreant dressed up as Mercury, amidst the laughter of the crowd, testing the bodies of the victims by a red-hot caduceus, to see whether they were really dead, death being sometimes assumed; and another in the habit of Pluto, dragging out the corpses of the combatants with his mallet in his hand to pound out of them any remains there might be of life, before he conveyed them to the infernal regions. What an appetite for horrors on the part of the people does all this testify, this mixture of sport and bloodshed, and what food for it were the Christians! 3 6 Then the superstition of the populace inflamed them further. Whatever calamity the state happened to be suffering under, flood, drought, earthquake, famine, or pestilence, was imputed to the Christians; the heathen priests, whose altars were deserted and their gains reduced, fostering the delusion. Then a natural horror was excited amongst them by interested parties of the secret crimes said to be committed in the assemblies of the Christians; their feasts on human flesh, and indulgence in the grossest incest. Then, in many 5 Ad Nationes, I. § 10. 'Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, c. iv. 2 De Polycarpi Martyrio, § xii.; Tertullian, De Resurrec. Carnis, c. xxii.; Cyprian, Ep. lv. § 6. 6 Ibid. 7 8 Apol. c. xl.; Cyprian, Ad Demetrianum, § ii. 8 Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. v. c. 1. LECT. IV.] AND BY HERETICS AND JEWS. 291 instances, the trades of the people suffered by the progress of the Christian cause. Their worldly interests, therefore, stimulated them to exterminate the Christians, if they could. The makers of shrines for Diana of Ephesus were the types of future multitudes in their feelings and in their mode of prosecuting them. Indeed, it is curious to see in how many cases the great disturbing forces, which bear on Christianity on a large scale, as represented in the Fathers of the first three centuries, are found in incipient action in the history of the Acts of the Apostles. Thus the makers of idols, a very numerous class of mechanics amongst the heathens, including workers in metals as well as wood, manufacturers of amulets, charms,' dealers in incense 2; builders employed in the erection and repair of temples, of which the number was enormous; painters, gilders, weavers; all, in short, who found a bread by decorating them when built; the multitude of tradesmen, for whose articles of merchandise the heathen festivals created a demand; the still larger class, perhaps, connected with theatres and amphitheatres; all these parties, and many more, whom it would be tedious to enumerate, would feel themselves interested in suppressing the Christians who were spoiling their several trades, denouncing the use of idols, emptying the temples, seceding from the processions, abstaining from public shows and spectacles. Besides all these, the heretics helped to swell the cry against them; and the Jews yet more, scattered as they were throughout all the nations and cities of the world, the bitterest persecutors of them all-another coincidence with the history of the Acts-none so active, we read, in fetching fuel from the manufactories and baths to burn Polycarp as they, os Oos avтois, says the circular epistle of the Church of Smyrna, which records this martyrdom. So that on the whole, Irenæus, in expounding the 99th Psalm, "the Lord sitteth between the Cherubim, be the earth never so unquiet," may well speak of "the wrath of the people, vented against those who believed in Christ, and the movement of the whole earth against the Church" (motum universæ terræ adversus ecclesiam).' 6 Taking all these circumstances, then, into account, I think we shall be disposed to consider the extent of the persecution of the early Church to have been very wide and wasting, even though it should not appear (which, however, may be doubted, for a great number of Apologies are in one instance nearly coincident in date, those by Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Melito, Apollinarius,' all in the reign of Aurelius) that any simultaneous movement against the Church took place throughout the empire so early as some suppose. 1 Evans, Biography of the Early Church, vol. i. p. 153. LECT. V.] INTENSITY OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 293 LECTURE V. Testimony of the Fathers, 2°. To the intensity of the persecutions, unduly extenuated by Gibbon. Reflections on his account of the Letter of Pliny and of the martyrdom of Cyprian. Early narratives of martyrdom not to be confounded with the fictions of later times. The sources of information as reliable as those from which Gibbon drew his history. Explanation of a passage in Eusebius unfairly used by him. 3°. To the nature of the persecutions. Domestic as well as official ones foretold by Christ. Verification in the effect of Christianity on the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant. Its inconsistency with many trades and occupations. Consequent pecuniary losses to the converts. Their embarrassment in legal and commercial proceedings. I HAVE said that the writings of the early Fathers would convince us, that not the extent only of the persecution suffered by the early Christians had been greatly underrated by Mr. Gibbon; but that the intensity of it had been unduly extenuated, and the nature of it but partially exposed. "1 "The The feeling with which he sat down to write on the subject of persecution may be incidentally discovered by the view he takes of Pliny's famous correspondence with Trajan. learned Mosheim," says he, "expresses himself with the highest approbation of Pliny's moderate and candid temper. Notwithstanding Dr. Lardner's suspicions, I am unable to discover any bigotry in his language or proceedings.' I have already admitted that Pliny's reluctance to execute the laws against the Christians to the uttermost, arose from a natural horror of condemning such multitudes of persons, many of them of a tender age, to death, upon so inadequate a charge. Let that measure of praise be conceded to him. But what can we think of an author who undertakes to give a candid representation of the affairs of these early Christians, and informs us at the outset that he is unable to discover any bigotry in the proceedings of Pliny-of Pliny who actually tells us with great composure that he had considered it necessary to put to the rack two 1 1 Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 417, note. 2 "1 female attendants of the Christians, probably Deaconesses, in order to ascertain the nature of their meetings; "necessarium credidi ex duabus ancillis, quæ ministræ dicebantur, quid esset veri, per tormenta quærere. No wonder, therefore, that writing in this temper he should be found detailing the particulars of Cyprian's martyrdom in the manner he does; choosing that case, it should seem, for reasons which will appear, as a fair specimen of the treatment the martyrs in general received at the hands of their oppressors. "A short abstract of the most important circumstances" (of Cyprian's death), he writes, "will convey the clearest information of the spirit, and of the forms, of the Roman persecutions." Now how does he treat this pattern case? Cyprian was banished; but, says he, it was to "a pleasant situation, a fertile territory" (apricum et competentem locum3). 'He was recalled from banishment," but it was to "his own gardens" near Carthage that he was now confined. "The frailty of nature tempted him to withdraw himself by a secret flight from the danger and the honour of martyrdom," so proceeds Gibbon: but why should Cyprian's own account of the transaction be suppressed, given in his 83rd Epistle, that he fled because agents had been sent to carry him to the Proconsul at Utica, whereas he preferred to die at Carthage, and suffer in the midst of his flock? for on the removal of that magistrate to Carthage, he voluntarily returned to his former quarters, and waited the event. He was summoned to die, but he was conducted by the ministers. of death "not to a prison, but to a private house," and "an elegant supper was provided" for his entertainment; so Gibbon dresses up the phrase in Pontius' narrative, "unâ nocte continuit custodiâ delicatâ." Sentence was passed on him, but it was to be beheaded, "the mildest and least painful ner of execution-only to be beheaded! no "use of torture admitted, to obtain from the Bishop of Carthage either the recantation of his principles, or the discovery of his accomplices; and yet that was the very thing that Gibbon could see no harm in Pliny's having recourse to. "His corpse remained during some hours exposed to the curiosity of the Gentiles;" but then it was removed "in a triumphal pro 95 1 Plinii Epist. lib. X. Ep. xcvii. 2 Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 430. وو man 3 Pontius, De Vitâ Cypriani, c. xii. |