CHAPTER XII. PROGRESS OF PROPAGANDA TO THE TENTH PERSECUTION.
Seven Years’ Persecution of Equalitarian Innovators—Seventh Great Persecution—Christians charged with Sorcery in Eighth Persecution—Tortures of Ninth and Tenth Persecutions—Pretended Conversion of Constantine—Lives of Early Christians Exemplars to the Pagan World.
The persecutions under the “moderate” Trajan and the “philosophic” Antoninus had no effect, as we have seen, in stopping the progress of Christianity. On the contrary, they but served to extend it, by causing the multitude to interest themselves more in examining a religion which excited so much alarm amongst those orders of men who, from their power and riches, they could not but regard as their natural oppressors. The discreet conduct and humane character of the early Christians was another, indeed, the chief cause of their success. Those pagans who had relations with them in private life, and who had thereby opportunities of judging them as men and citizens, could not be brought to regard with horror a religion which had produced such characters, nor to sympathise with the atrocious spirit which consigned them to the fate of malefactors. Up to the reign of Severus, then, Christianity went on conquering and to conquer, in despite of edicts and persecutions.
It was in this reign that the fifth great persecution took place. In the early part of it no additions were made to the severe edicts already in force against them; and history preserves but few cases of their suffering from the application of the old. This was partly owing to the greater caution imposed upon them by the laws against illegal meetings and societies passed under Trajan and Antoninus, and partly, it is said, to the interest at court of a celebrated Christian, named Proculus, who, by an extraordinary application of his medical art, had cured the emperor of a dangerous distemper. This precarious lenity, however, did not endure long. After having been partially interrupted by an occasional execution of the old laws in force, it was effectually terminated by an edict of Severus (A.D. 197), which prohibited every subject of the empire, under severe penalties, from embracing the Jewish or Christian faith.
This edict would appear, at first sight, designed only to prevent the further growth of Christianity; but as, in one of its clauses, it urged the magistracy to enforce the law’s of former emperors, still in force, it gave rise to a frightful proscription. For seven years the Christians were exposed to all manner of persecution and prosecution, not only in Rome and Italy, but in Gaul, Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine, Syria, Egypt and the rest of Africa. Amongst the celebrated martyrs in this persecution fell Leonidas, the father of Origen, and Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, in Gaul. It was on this occasion Tertullian composed his well-known “Apologetica,” or apology on behalf of the victims—a work from which a great deal may be learned of what the early Christians had to endure in this persecution, more particularly at Alexandria in Egypt, where the violence of pagan intolerance was most felt.
The sixth persecution, under the Emperor Maximinus, which began about A.D. 235, does not appear to have been so severe as the preceding ones. Maximinus’s predecessor, the Emperor Alexander, was rather favourable to the Christians, he and his family having given shelter and patronage to many of them. This excited the envy and hatred of the party favourable to Maximinus’s interests, and, at their instigation it is supposed, the latter prince rekindled the flames of persecution against the Christians. Celsus was the literary champion of the pagans on this occasion; and Origen, that of the Christians. The latter gained great credit and influence amongst his own party, by the zeal and energy with which he supported the Christians in the fiery ordeal they had to pass through in the trials of this period.
The seventh persecution is considered by many the severest that ever befell the Christian world. It took place during the short reign of Decius, and was ushered in by an imperial edict, couched in the strongest terms, and issued A.D. 249. One of its first effects was the putting to death of Fabianus, Bishop of Rome, with a number of his followers. Immense numbers of the Christians were publicly destroyed in almost every province of the empire. The Bishops of Jerusalem and Antioch died in prison. Tortures the most excruciating were resorted to, to extort confessions of guilt, the betrayal of accomplices, or a renunciation of their faith. These were, for the most part, endured with heroic fortitude; but many sank under the trial, and, to save their lives, consented to burn incense upon the altars of the gods; others purchased safety by bribes, or secured it by flight. The poor, as usual, fared worst. Unable to secure themselves by patronage or bribery, they were seized before they had time for flight, and put to death with every refinement of torture, and in a variety of ways. Some were publicly burnt in the market-places; others were whipped, branded, and then impaled or crucified. Many were thrown to wild beasts to be devoured; and not a few were stoned to death by an enraged populace, whose “wild justice” was too impatient to await magisterial decisions. At Alexandria in particular, they anticipated the emperor’s edict, and in their blind fury put many to death who were not Christians at all, mistaking them for such on account of their connections, real or supposed. Political bias had much to do in embittering this persecution. The leading Christians were known to be attached to the family of the Emperor Philip, who was supposed to be secretly favourable to their sect. This aggravated the rage of the opposite faction, and superadded political passions to fanatic zeal in the proscriptions under Decius. Upon the whole, no other pagan persecution cost the Christians more lives than this, nor entailed upon them a greater variety of sacrifices and sufferings.
The eighth general persecution was not upon so large a scale; but it had its distinguishing barbarities to bear witness to the truth of a celebrated saying of Plutarch, namely, that rage and rancour stifle all sentiments of humanity in the human breast, and that “no beast is more savage than man when he is possessed of power equal to his passions.” We may conceive to what excess these passions were carried under the Emperor Valerian (A.D. 257), when we find that potentate and his aristocracy employing an Egyptian magician (named Macrinus) to give out, as the result of his occult science, that he had discovered that the peace and prosperity of the Roman empire were incompatible with the “wicked spells” and “execrable charms” practised by the Christians. This, of course, was a mere pretence to infuriate the rabble and the distressed of all classes against them. To counteract the pretended “spells” and “charms” of Christianity, Valerian is said, by the advice of Macrinus, to have performed many impious rites and sacrifices, amongst which was the cutting the throats of infants, &c. All this jugglery was intended to disguise from his subjects the true nature of the struggle between Christianity and pagan despotism, namely, the struggle of humanity to vindicate its inherent rights against arbitrary power and the barbarism of superstitious ignorance. At any rate, fresh edicts were promulgated in all places against the Christians; and, with the emperor’s sanction, they were exposed without protection to the common rage. Amongst the noble army of martyrs sacrificed under this brutal emperor, history makes honorary mention of St. Lawrence, Archdeacon of Rome, and of St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, said to have been two of the most learned and distinguished men of their age.
The ninth general persecution took place under the Emperor Aurelian, about the year 274. So little, however, is recorded of this persecution, that we may safely infer it gave but little interruption to the peace of the church. Indeed, by this time the Christians were, in many places, as numerous as the pagans; and many of their body were opulent subjects, possessed of great local and general influence. One more great persecution, and we shall find them upon an equality with their proud oppressors. We shall next find them, in political parlance, “masters of the situation;” we shall find them established in power, and corrupted with riches and luxury. A portion of them, at least, we shall find in that position; and then, agreeably to the laws of human nature, we shall find them no longer Christians, but practising the same vices, and committing the same crimes of tyranny and wrong, they so much condemned in the old pagans. One great persecution more, and lo! Christianity will be enthroned in power; and then farewell to Christian progress and Christian principles! One great persecution more will give to “Christians” the ascendancy; and in that ascendancy will be the death of Christianity itself!
The tenth and last great persecution of the early church took place under the Emperor Diocletian, and broke out in the nineteenth year of his reign (about the year A.D. 303). Diocletian himself does not appear to have been animated by any bigoted zeal or political hatred against the Christians. Galerius, whom he had declared Cæsar, and the mother of Galerius, who was a zealot in the pagan interest, vehemently urged him to promulgate edicts for their suppression. To this end, the philosopher Hierocles prepared public opinion for them by violent writings against the Christians; and the pagan priesthood, as in interest bound, supported Hierocles.
This persecution began in the city of Nicomedia, and thence extended into other cities and provinces, till at last it became general all over the empire. Though, doubtless, the historians of the church have exaggerated this as well as other persecutions, yet there is a sufficiency of well-authenticated facts to show that, however the wealthy and intriguing Christians might have contrived to secure lenity and even impunity for themselves, it was far otherwise with the majority, who were poor, ardent, and enterprising. As in the seventh persecution under Decius, the diabolical ingenuity of man was racked to discover new modes of punishment, new refinements of torture. Some were roasted alive at slow fires till death put an end to their sufferings; others were hung by the feet, with their heads downwards, and suffocated by the smoke of dull fires. Pouring melted lead down the throats of the victims was one variety of torture; another was tearing off the flesh from their quivering limbs with shells. Some of the sufferers had splinters of reeds thrust into the most sensitive parts of their persons—into their eyes, for example, or under their finger-nails and nails of their toes; others were impaled alive. Many had their limbs broken, and in that condition were left to expire in protracted agonies. Such as were not capitally punished were scourged or branded, or else had their limbs mutilated and their features disfigured. Altogether, the victims were as numerous as in the persecution under Decius. Amongst the more noted ones we read of the Bishops of Tyre, Sidon, Emesa, and Nicomedia. Very many matrons and virgins of unblemished character passed through the flames of martyrdom. And as to the plebeian or poorer classes, they perished literally in myriads. At length, upon the accession of the Emperor Constantine the persecution slackened. He declared in favour of the Christians, and soon after, openly embracing the new religion, he published the first law in their favour. The death of Maximian, Emperor of the East, soon after put an end to all their tribulations at the hands of pagans.
It was then that, for the first time, Christianity (or rather a something worse than paganism which usurped its name) took possession of the thrones of princes. The religion of the court, it became the fashionable religion. Aristocrats, military men, the leading professions, men of the world, became converts to it in a twinkling. We speak, of course, only of the name—not of the thing. It was the name only that was established by Constantine: the thing itself he knew and cared nothing about. The religion as taught by Jesus and his disciples is not a religion for courts and courtiers; it flourishes not in presence of emperors and prætorian guards. Constantine’s conversion was but a coup d’état, or political ruse, to destroy Christianity by itself; alias, to make its votaries (all true believers) ashamed of its very name, through seeing it professed by base hypocrites—its natural and irreconcilable enemies. Its immediate effect was to neutralise the force of Christianity as operating against the abuses of government and against social injustice. It became henceforward impossible to know who were Christians and who were not—at least, who were sincere and who were not; the false ones bearing the same name as the true ones, and, in proportion to their hypocrisy, more emphatic and ostentatious in their profession of faith than the true believers. As a matter of course, the rich, the ambitious, the low intriguer, the bustling man of the world, adhered publicly to the name or profession of Christian for the sake of the good things attached thereto in church and state. The honest, the simple-hearted, the oppressed many saw they were foully tricked, but were powerless to right themselves. Between the pagans, who still adhered to the old system, and their hypocritical betrayers in high places, their fate was a deplorable one. After all their struggles and sacrifices for Christianity, they had the mortification to find that, just at the moment they counted upon victory, they found discomfiture and shame; and that what 300 years of pagan torturings, dungeonings, and terrorism had failed to accomplish against their religion, was effected at once by an “organised hypocrisy” of soi-disant Christians supposed to belong to their own church and party.
Most people date the triumph of Christianity from the accession, or rather from the conversion, of Constantine. In our opinion, it is the decline of Christianity, or the reaction against it, that ought to date therefrom. During the first three centuries the progress of Christianity was one continued series of triumphs—purchased, it is true, by the blood of countless martyrs, but not the less real and effective on that account; but from the moment it became a state religion, under Constantine and his successors, it ceased to be the religion of Christ and his apostles, and became a figment of forms and ceremonies worthless as the ceremonialism of the Pharisees. Many, it is true, continued sincerely attached to the real thing—the religion of Jesus; but, discountenanced and discouraged by their own priests and rulers, they soon fell into discredit, and their numbers diminished with every succeeding reign, till at last Christianity (as at first taught) was nowhere to be found.
In this present century, and in this present year 1850, it is reviving again under new names and forms. It is allying itself with a philosophy which has nothing in common with the hollow philosophism of the last century, but much in common with the natural instincts and primitive feelings of man. The Christianity which is being now revived in France, Germany, and elsewhere on the Continent approaches nearer to the Christianity of the first and second centuries than most people are aware of. At bottom it is the same; but in form and garb it must necessarily partake of the science and civilization of the times we are in. Its object, like that of Christ and his disciples, is to banish sin and slavery, crime and misery, from the world, but without pretending to any extraordinary mission, or to any other light than the revelations of Scripture interpreted and explained by reason. The Christianisme and the humanité of Pierre Leroux may be taken as samples of this modern revival of Christianity.
As a general rule, the early Christians exemplified in their lives the charity, the purity, and the disinterestedness enjoined by the Gospel; it was therefore they were so successful with the people. The persecutions of the pagans did not make them retaliate. They were too wise, too discreet, to rebel against laws or governments that could have crushed them at once; and for the unfortunate, deluded populace they had nothing but pity in the midst of their worst excesses. They knew it was ignorance alone that made the populace so furious against them: they knew they were the true friends of this populace; and that this populace would be their friend, if they could but understand each other. Hence the toleration preached and practised with such good effect in the early ages of the church. It is true, there were disputes and occasional intolerance amongst Christians from the first,—we have sundry proofs of it in Paul’s Epistles, the Acts, and in the writings of the early Fathers; but it was not till after the legal establishment of Christianity that the guilt of intolerance or persecution could be charged against Christians as a body. Though corruption had been making way amongst them long before that, and though there were symptoms enough in the Church prognosticative of the dire effect that power and the mammon of unrighteousness might have upon them, yet the main body remained sound. What they suffered from the pagans naturally made them hold together for mutual aid and counsel; it also cemented in them habits of mutual love and tenderness for each other’s feelings: above all, it confirmed them in their aversion to tyranny and intolerance, and enamoured them more and more of that Gospel which everywhere enjoins charity, tenderness, mercy, and self-denial for the sake of others. They remembered Christ’s sermon on the mount, his unbounded compassion for sinners, his forgiveness of all, his love of little children, his humility, his readiness to be the servant of his followers, his teachings, fastings, prayers, and sufferings for all. These were ever present in their minds. They knew and felt that, guided by the spirit and precepts of the Gospel, by the conduct of its Author, and by the preachings and examples of his apostles, true Christians could not be otherwise than tolerant, forgiving, just, and affectionate towards one another.
The general conduct of Christians before the age of Constantine was in conformity with those maxims. They believed what they professed; and they practised what they believed. Upon this head the writings of the early Fathers are all but unanimous. We could cite a volume-full of exemplifications; but the fact, as an historical one, is notorious beyond the necessity for proof.
Up to the time of Constantine the progress of Christianity was one continued series of triumphs over the principles and practices of human slavery—one earnest, uninterrupted protest against those vices and passions in which the subjection of man to his fellow-man has its origin. In the minds of the early Christians, the Gospel dispensation was no other than a divine protestation against the abasement of the human race by tyranny, upon the one hand, and slavery upon the other. Not one of the sublime virtues so beautifully pourtrayed and so authoritatively enjoined by Christ and his disciples could flourish and bear fruit in a world of tyrants and slaves. Either that divine Gospel must, therefore, ever remain a dead letter, or the system of human slavery, with all its violence, vice, and crimes, must be overthrown. Every act, every institute, every martyrdom, of the early Christians goes to show they were impressed with this belief. Hence their marvellous labours, their still more marvellous sufferings (voluntarily incurred and borne), and, most marvellous of all, their extraordinary successes. Everything goes to prove their fixed determination to subvert, from its foundation, that anti-social structure of society which made man the slave of his fellow-man; their every act and discourse tended accordingly to its overthrow. It cannot be overthrown by an outbreak, a coup de main, a surprise, or onslaught of brute force. Its existence being the work of opinion, it can be overthrown only by opinion. The world must therefore be made to believe differently. The minds and hearts that uphold it must be enlightened, softened, refined, exalted, reformed. Behold the mission of the early Christians—the means and end of their godlike labours.
Up to the age of Constantine, we repeat, the Christian revolution gained ground incessantly, if not uninterruptedly. It progressed not only in despite of, but actually by means of every one of the ten great imperial persecutions we have sketched. Like the Antæus of mythology, it gathered fresh strength from every fall.
With its establishment under Constantine ended its triumphant progress! What churchmen call its final victory, its crowning glory, was in reality its first decisive check—the cause and forerunner of its downfall; in other words, it was the beginning of the counter-revolution or reaction which soon afterwards rendered null and void all the martyrdoms and triumphs of three hundred years.
