It is not, however, of great importance if the profession of Christianity was formally interdicted, or if a persecution was a matter of practical administration, the profession of the faith being considered dangerous to law and order, and deserving of death—as Ramsay supposes. The other conclusion is of far greater moment. It is briefly this:
The first step taken by the imperial government in persecution dates certainly from the reign of Nero, immediately after the scenes in the Vatican games, when a Christian was condemned after evidence had been given that he or she had committed some act of hostility to society—no difficult task to prove. Subsequent to Nero’s reign, a further development in the persecutions had taken place (probably in the time of Vespasian), in which all Christians were assumed to have been guilty of such hostility to society, and might be condemned off-hand on confession of the Name. This was the state of things when Pliny wrote to Trajan for more detailed instructions. The great number of professing Christians alarming that upright and merciful official, he asked the Emperor was he to send them all to death?
The leading feature of the instruction of the Emperor Trajan in reply to Pliny’s question, as we shall presently see, was, although Christians were to be condemned if they confessed the Name, they were not to be sought out. This “instruction” held good until the closing years of the Empire, when a sterner policy was pursued; while it is indisputable that under Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, a yet more hostile practice was adopted towards the Christians.
One great point is clear—that from the days of Nero the Christians were never safe; they lived as their writings plainly show, even under the rule of those Emperors who were, comparatively speaking, well disposed to them, with the vision of martyrdom ever before their eyes; they lived, not a few of them, positively training themselves to endure the great trial as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. During the first and second centuries, comparatively speaking, only a few names of these martyrs and confessors have come down to us: we possess but a few really well-authenticated recitals (Acts and Passions), but these names and stories do not read like exceptional cases;[11] irresistibly the grave truth forces itself upon us, that there were many heroes and heroines whose names have not been preserved—whose stories have not been recorded.
The sword of persecution ever hung over the heads of the members of the Christian flocks—ready to fall at any moment. The stern instructions, modified though they were by the kindly policy of some of the rulers of the State, were never abrogated, never forgotten; they were susceptible, it is true, of a gentler interpretation than the harsh terms in which they were couched at first seemed to warrant, but these interpretations constantly varied according to the policy of the provincial magistrate and the tone for the moment of the reigning Emperor; but we must never think of the spirit of persecution really slumbering even for one short year.
III
SILENCE RESPECTING PERSECUTION
It has been asked, How comes it that for much of the first and second centuries there is a remarkable silence respecting these persecutions which we are persuaded harassed the Christian congregations in the provinces as in the great metropolis? The answer here is not difficult to find.
The pagan writers of these centuries held the Christian sect in deep contempt;[12] they would never think the punishments dealt out to a number of law-breakers and wild fanatics worthy of chronicling; the mere loss of life in that age, so accustomed to wholesale destruction of human beings, would not strike them as a notable incident in any year.