CH. XVI.]

TRAJAN'S ANSWER.

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the civil and criminal jurisprudence, had publicly declared their intentions concerning the new sect; and that whatever proceedings had been carried on against the Christians, there were none of sufficient weight and authority to establish a precedent for the conduct of a Roman magistrate.

*

The answer of Trajan, to which the Christians of the succeeding age have frequently appealed, discovers as much regard for justice and humanity as could be reconciled with his mistaken notions of religious policy. Instead of displaying the implacable zeal of an inquisitor, anxious to discover the most minute particles of heresy, and exulting in the number of his victims, the emperor expresses much more solicitude to protect the security of the innocent, than to prevent the escape of the guilty. He acknowledges the difficulty of fixing any general plan; but he lays down two salutary rules, which often afforded relief and support to the distressed Christians. Though he directs the magistrates to punish such persons as are legally convicted, he prohibits them, with a very humane inconsistency, from making any inquiries concerning the supposed criminals; nor was the magistrate allowed to proceed on every kind of information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, as too repugnant to the equity of his government; and he strictly requires, for the conviction of those to whom the guilt of Christianity is imputed, the positive evidence of a fair and open accuser. It is likewise probable, that the persons who assumed so invidious an office were obliged to declare the grounds of their suspicions, to specify (both in respect to time and place) the secret assemblies which their Christian adversary had frequented, and to disclose a great number of circumstances, which were concealed with the most vigilant jealousy from the eye of the profane. If they succeeded in their prosecution, they were exposed to the resentment of a considerable and active party, to the censure of the more liberal portion of mankind, and to the ignominy which, in every age and country, has attended the character of an informer. If, on the contrary, they failed in their proofs, they incurred the severe and perhaps capital penalty, which, according to a law published by the emperor

Plin. Epist. 10. 98. Tertullian (Apolog. c. 5.) considers this rescript as a relaxation of the ancient penal law, "Quas Trajanus ex parte frustratus est:" and yet Tertullian, in another part of his Aro

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POPULAR PREJUDICES

{CK. XVI. Hadrian, was inflicted on those who falsely attributed to their fellow citizens the crime of Christianity. The violence of personal or superstitious animosity might sometimes prevail over the most natural apprehension of disgrace and danger; but it cannot surely be imagined, that accusations of so unpromising an appearance were either lightly or frequently undertaken by the Pagan subjects of the Roman empire.*

The expedient which was employed to elude the prudence of the laws, affords a sufficient proof how effectually they disappointed the mischievous designs of private malice or superstitious zeal. In a large and tumultuous assembly, the restraints of fear and shame, so forcible on the minds of individuals, are deprived of the greatest part of their influence. The pious Christian, as he was desirous to obtain or to escape the glory of martyrdom, expected, either with impatience or with terror, the stated returns of the public games and festivals. On those occasions, the inhabitants of the great cities of the empire were collected in the circus of the theatre, where every circumstance of the place, as well as of the ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion, and to extinguish their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators, crowned with garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood of victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their tutelar deities, resigned themselves to the enjoyment of pleasures which they considered as an essential part of their religious worship, they recollected that the Christians alone abhorred the gods of mankind, and by their absence and melancholy on these solemn festivals, seemed to insult or to lament the public felicity. If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tiber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were logists, exposes the inconsistency of prohibiting inquiries and enjoining punishments. * Eusebius (Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. 4, c. 9) has preserved the edict of Hadrian. He has likewise (c. 13) given us ona still more favourable, under the name of Antoninus, the authenticity of which is not so universally allowed. The second Apology of Justin contains some curious particulars relative to the accusation of Christians. [Professor Hegelmayer has proved the authenticity of the adică

CH. XVI]

AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS.

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spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated populace, that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed; it was not in an amphitheatre, stained with the blood of wild beasts and gladiators, that the voice of compassion could be heard. The impatient clamours of the multitude denounced the Christians as the enemies of gods and men, doomed them to the severest tortures, and, venturing to accuse by name some of the most distinguished of the new sectaries, required with irresistible vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended and cast to the lions.* The provincial governors and magistrates who presided in the public spectacles were usually inclined to gratify the public inclinations, and to appease the rage, of the people, by the sacrifice of a few obnoxious victims. But the wisdom of the emperors protected the church from the danger of these tumultuous clamours and irregular accusations, which they justly censured as repugnant both to the firmness and to the equity of their administration. The edicts of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius expressly declared, that the voice of the multitude should never be admitted as legal evidence to convict or to punish those unfortunate persons who had embraced the enthusiasm of the Christians.t

of Antoninus in his Comment. Hist. Theol. in edict. Ant. Pi. Tubing. 1777.-GUIZOT.] * See Tertullian. (Apolog. c.40.) The acts of the martyrdom of Polycarp exhibit a lively picture of these tumults, which were usually fomented by the malice of the Jews. [Jews would not have attended festivities in which so much idolatry was mixed up. It is far more likely, that these tumults were excited by the parties referred to in a former note, whose profits or earnings were diminished by the decline of the ancient religion. When the effects of this great social change were beginning to be experienced, and long-protected interests, whose ramifications extended into every part of the empire, foresaw their ruin, we cannot be surprised that intelligent and wellmeaning princes, like Trajan, the Antonines and Decius, should have yielded to the importunities of priests and people, demanding stringent and vindictive measures against the authors of the injury. We naturally feel compassion for the suffering martyr, and indignation against his oppressor. But we must not forget, that there was suffering also on the other side. Yet Gibbon was too lenient to the ruling powers, too forbearing towards the atrocities which they permitted, in an age when no ignorance of the rights of conscience can be allowed to palliate such outrages on the feelings of humanity.-ED.]

These regulations are inserted in the above-mentioned edicts of

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JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS.

[CH. XVI. III. Punishment was not the inevitable consequence of conviction; and the Christians whose guilt was the most clearly proved by the testimony of witnesses, or even by their voluntary confession, still retained in their own power the alternative of life or death. It was not so much the past offence, as the actual resistance, which excited the indignation of the magistrate. He was persuaded that he offered them an easy pardon, since, if they consented to cast a few grains of incense upon the altar, they were dismissed from the tribunal in safety and with applause. It was esteemed the duty of a humane judge to endeavour to reclaim rather than to punish, those deluded enthusiasts. Varying his tone according to the age, the sex, or the situation, of the prisoners, he frequently condescended to set before their eyes every circumstance which could render life more pleasing, or death more terrible; and to solicit, nay, to entreat them, that they would show some compassion to themselves, to their families, and to their friends.* If threats and persuasions proved ineffectual, he had often recourse to violence; the scourge and the rack were called to supply the deficiency of argument; and every art of cruelty was employed to subdue such inflexible, and, as it appeared to the Pagans, such criminal obstinacy. The ancient apologists of Christianity have censured, with equal truth and severity, the irregular conduct of their persecutors, who contrary to every principle of judicial proceeding, admitted the use of torture, in order to obtain, not a confession, but a denial, of the crime which was the object of their inquiry. The monks of the succeeding ages, who, in their peaceful solitudes, enter- tained themselves with diversifying the deaths and sufferings of the primitive martyrs, have frequently invented torments of a much more refined and ingenious nature. In particular, it has pleased them to suppose, that the zeal of the Roman magistrates, disdaining every consideration of moral virtue or public decency, endeavoured to seduce those whom they were unable to vanquish; and that, by their orders, the most brutal violence was offered to those whom they

Hadrian and Pius. See the apology of Melito (apud Euseb. lib. 4, c. 26). * See the rescript of Trajan, and the conduct of Pliny. The most authentic acts of the martyrs abound in these exhortations

In particular, see Tertullian (Apolog. c. 2. 3), and Lactantius, Institut. Divin. 5. 9). Their reasonings are almost the same: but we

CH. XVI.]

FABULOUS LEGENDS.

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found it impossible to seduce. It is related, that pious females, who were prepared to despise death, were sometimes condemned to a more severe trial, and called upon to determine whether they set a higher value on their religion or on their chastity. The youths to whose licentious embraces they were abandoned, received a solemn exhortation from the judge, to exert their most strenuous efforts to maintain the honour of Venus against the impious virgin who refused to burn incense on her altars. Their violence, however, was commonly disappointed, and the seasonable interposition of some miraculous power preserved the chaste spouses of Christ from the dishonour even of an involuntary defeat. We should not, indeed, neglect to remark, that the more ancient as well as authentic memorials of the church are seldom polluted with these extravagant and indecent fictions.*

The total disregard of truth and probability in the representations of these primitive martyrdoms was occasioned by a very natural mistake. The ecclesiastical writers of the fourth or fifth centuries ascribed to the magistrates of Rome the same degree of implacable and unrelenting zeal which filled their own breasts against the heretics or the idolators of their own times. It is not improbable that some of those persons who were raised to the dignities of the empire might have imbibed the prejudices of the populace, and that the cruel disposition of others might occasionally be stimulated by motives of avarice or of personal resentment.+ But it is certain, and we may appeal to the grateful confessions of the first Christians, that the greatest part of those magismay discover, that one of these apologists had been a lawyer, and the other a rhetorician. * See two instances of this kind of torture in the Acta Sincera Martyrum, published by Ruinart, p. 160. 399. Jerome, in his legend of Paul the Hermit, tells a strange story of a young man, who was chained naked on a bed of flowers, and assaulted by a beautiful and wanton courtezan. He quelled the rising temptation by biting off his tongue. [The more ancient as well as authentic memorials of the church do relate many such examples, nor is their testimony elsewhere contradicted. Among others, Tertullian says: "By condemning the Christian female to the lewd (Lenonem) rather than to the lion (leonem), you have confessed that the violation of chastity is held by us to be more atrocious than any punishment, even than death itself." (Apol. cap. ult. p. 40). Eusebius also says: "Other virgins, dragged to places of ill-fame, have sacrificed life rather than pollute virtue. (Hist. Eccl. lib. 8, c. 14.)—GUIZOT.]

+ The conversion of his wife provoked Claudius Herminianus,