The Early Christians in Rome

by H. D. M. Spence-Jones

It was no haphazard temporary piece of work, this “training for martyrdom,” but as we shall see a veritable “school,” a protracted education for an awful, for a not improbable contingency. At the end of the second and through the third century it was evidently a recognized and important Christian agency. When once we are aware of its existence we begin to find unmistakable proofs of it in the writings of important teachers like Tertullian and Cyprian.

In this once famous but now forgotten school of martyrdom the well-known simile of S. Paul was the basis of the theory which seems to have inspired the work—the simile which compared the Christian combatant in the world-arena to the athlete in the well-known and popular games of the amphitheatre. There the athlete, before entering the theatre of combat, was carefully educated to endure hardness: a long and careful training before such an one could hope to win the palm and the crown was absolutely necessary. He must go through many long, laborious, and painful exercises, abstinence, watchings, fastings, before his body was fit to endure the perils and sufferings of a trained combatant in the public arena.

In like manner must the Christian athlete who looked forward to a possible martyr’s trial train himself. S. Cyprian, in the middle of the third century, thus definitely writes of what clearly had been the practice of the Church: “Ad agonem sæcularem, exercentur homines et parantur.... Armari et præparari nos beatus Apostolus docet.”[110] (“For the combat with the world are men trained and prepared.... The blessed apostle teaches us to be all armed and ready.”)

The prize of martyrdom was very great. The visions and dreams of the blessed sufferers were constantly read aloud in the congregation.

At the moment after death angels would bear them into Paradise—the garden of God. They would be welcomed there with words of triumph and even admiration. The Master would Himself receive His redeemed servants who had fought the good fight and won. His kiss of welcome, the touch of His hand, would at once fill their souls with a joy indescribable. The “Vision of Perpetua,” circa A.D. 200, or a little earlier, one of the early Passions of Martyrs, the absolute authenticity of which is undisputed,—for it has never been added to or re-edited,—is a good example of the “Visions” seen by the martyrs before their supreme trial.

But far more than the public recital of these well-loved acts and passions was required for the training and preparation work, so a number of short treatises or tracts were specially composed and put out for the instruction of the earnest and devoted men and women as “Manuals,” so to speak, of preparation for the great trial. Most of these have disappeared; they were composed by fervid teachers for a special season, for the years when the Church was exposed to bitter trial; and when the trial time was over they were no longer required, and as a rule were not preserved. A very few remain to us, such as the “Exhortatio ad Martyrium” of Origen, such tractates of Tertullian as “ad Martyres” and the “Scorpiace”; the letter “Ad Thibaritanos” of S. Cyprian, and the anonymous work quoted at the beginning of this chapter, De Laude Martyrii. These are fair specimens of what was once a considerable literature. In very many of the “Passions of the Martyrs” which have been preserved we meet with an oft-repeated answer made by the Christian to the judge when asked about his rank in life, country, family, and the like. “I am a Christian” was the almost invariable answer to these questions; often nothing more. This seems to have been the “formula” taught in the schools of martyrdom,—very few traces, however, of this “formula” appear in the treatises which have come down to us; it must, however, have been constantly repeated in the “lost” treatises or tracts placed in the hands of those under training, lost treatises to which reference has been made. The Epistle of S. Ignatius to the Romans was no doubt used as one of these treatises or manuals.

The words too of a famous teacher like Cyprian, who himself in the end suffered martyrdom, were treasured up. Some of them are contained in the Vision of S. Flavian before he suffered: “I saw in a dream the martyr Bishop of Carthage, and I said to him: ‘Cyprian, is the death stroke very agonizing?’ He replied: ‘When the soul is in a state of heavenly rapture the suffering flesh is no longer ours; the body is quite insensible to pain when the spirit is with God.”

This conception of the insensibility to pain on the part of the martyr was a very general one. Tertullian repeats it almost in identical words. S. Felicitas, quoted in the Passion of S. Perpetua above referred to, said: “When I am in the amphitheatre the Lord will be there and will suffer for me.”

S. Perpetua in the same well-known “Passion,” after having been tossed and gored by a wild and maddened beast, woke up from the ecstacy into which she had been plunged and asked the official standing near her when she was to be exposed to the infuriated animal. S. Blandina in another cruel scene of martyrdom was equally insensible to pain—her soul was far away speaking with or praying to the Lord.