Outlines of Ecclesiastical History

by B. H. Roberts

16. Under whose reign did the second Roman persecution begin?

17. On what was the persecution based?

SECTION II.

1. Condition of the Church in the Second Century.—During the second century the church had many seasons of immunity from persecution. The Roman emperors for the most part were of a mild and equitable character, and at the beginning of the century there were no laws against the Christians, as those enacted both by Nero and Domitian had been repealed. The first by the senate, the second by his successor, Nerva.^[[15]] Still it must not be supposed that the saints were free from persecution. Their troubles arose, however, rather from the tumults of the rabble at the instigation of the pagan priests than from any desire of the emperors to oppress them.

2. As the Christians had no temples, no altars, no clouds of incense, no smoking victims—in short, as they had none of the pomp and circumstance in their simple religion which attended pagan worship, they were open to the charge of atheism by the great body of the people of the Roman empire; and, in their judgment, deserved the severest tortures and death.

If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, [remarks Gibbon], by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tiber had, or if the Nile had not, risen above 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 impurities of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length, provoked the divine justice.^[[16]]

And however virtuous the emperors were, however mild or equitable in character the governors of the provinces, it is certain they did not hesitate to appease the rage of the people by sacrificing a few obnoxious victims.

3. The Persecution Under Marcus Aurelius.—The strangest fact of all connected with the persecutions of this century is that the saints suffered most under the most virtuous of the emperors—Marcus Aurelius [Mar-cus Au-re-li-us], who allowed the judges to put many of the saints accused of crime to torture. Among those of note who fell in this persecution were Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna (see note 1, end of section.) and Justin Martyr, the philosopher. The persecution was most severe in Gaul (France), the churches of Lyons and Vienne being well nigh utterly destroyed. The unparalleled cruelties practiced upon the saints in those cities are related at length by Eusebius^[[17]] in letters written by those who survived the persecution. (See note 2, end of section.)

4. Edicts of Severus.—Early in the third century a law was enacted by the Emperor, Severus [Se-ver-us,] making it criminal for any reason to abandon the religion of his fathers for that of the Christians or the Jews. The object of the law was to stay the propagation of Christianity which was spreading abroad on every hand; and while it was not intended to increase the hardships of those already Christians, it nevertheless encouraged the governors and judges of some of the provinces—especially those of Egypt and other parts of Africa and Asia—to sorely afflict the saints. Many of the poor were put to death—thousands of them if we may credit Eusebius—and many of the rich intimidated into paying large sums of money to the judges to secure them from torture and death. Still this persecution was not long continued, nor was it general throughout the empire, and after it subsided there was a long period of peace—pity it is that we have to say that it was more hurtful to the church than the periods of the cruelest persecution.