The Early Christians in Rome

by H. D. M. Spence-Jones

The rescripts of Trajan and Hadrian somewhat softened the stern measures, but before and even after these humane and statesmanlike regulations the position of the Christian was indeed a trying and painful one. For even after the issuing of the rescripts in question the sword ever hung over their heads, and the slender thread upon which it hung was often snapped.

Perpetually were the Christians haled before the magistrate. They had stern searching questions to answer; easily was the capital crime of professing the unlawful cult daily brought home to them. They were asked: Were they willing to renounce it, and in place of it adore the gods of the pagans? Would they throw a few grains of incense, as a token of their recantation, on the altars of Rome and Augustus? If they would do this very little thing, as it seemed, at once they were released; but if they refused, then death, in some form or other, was their speedy and inevitable doom.

Hermas tells us a good deal of what was happening in the Roman congregations in the matter of persecution for the Name’s sake. The harrying of Christians, when the author of the Shepherd was writing, must have been continuous, for he sadly speaks of those who were frequently yielding to pressure. Apostasy in the Christian ranks was, alas! not an unknown scandal. Some, he tells us, simply renounced their faith; others, terrified, went further and publicly blasphemed the Name. Some were positively base enough to betray and denounce their brethren in the Faith.

But, on the other hand, Hermas tells us how the Church numbered many martyrs. All, he says, were not on a level even here, for some trembled at first and flinched, and only witnessed a good confession at the last, probably when about to cense the idol altar. There were some though, said our writer, whose heart never for an instant failed them.

Yet, on the whole, this stern though kindly censor of the Christian Church was not dissatisfied with the life generally led by the congregations of believers in Jesus; he seems to recognise to the full the sorely tempted lives—tempted not only by the imminent danger which the confession of the Name entailed—though he dwells mostly on this ever-present peril—but also by the smaller lures with which all human existence is inextricably bound up: business matters, society obligations, the old jealousy and envy which ever exist between the rich and the poor.

“Le livre d’Hermas,” observes Duchesne, “est un vaste examen de conscience de l’Église Romaine.” The writer spares none in his severe yet kindly criticism; the priests and deacons of the congregations are among the classes with whom he finds grave fault. In spite, however, of his earnest and touching remonstrances with those who, in hours of trial and persecution, in the many daily temptations of common life, had left their first love, Hermas acknowledges that in the Church of Rome the numbers of the just and upright are greater than the numbers of those who have fallen away. It is true that he sternly rebukes the unfaithful priests and deacons and other members of the hierarchy, but he recognizes here, too, men worthy of the highest commendation; he dwells on their love, their charity, their hospitality, and even assigns to these faithful ministers of religion a place among the glorious company of apostles.

The general impression which a careful study of Hermas’ portraiture of the Christian congregations in Rome leaves on the reader’s mind in those far-back days, roughly from the days of Nero to the times of Trajan and even Hadrian, is that that great and sorely tried Church was far from being composed entirely of saints, but that the righteous and God-fearing—the men and women who had washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, as true disciples of the Master, were after all decidedly in the majority.

Closely connected with his picture of the sins and errors of the Roman Christians—sins largely connected with the falling away of many in the dread hour of persecution—is his assurance that these sins are capable of pardon here, even if committed after baptism. No sin, no falling away, in Hermas’ teaching is inexpiable; no truly penitent one is ever to be excluded from pardon and reconciliation. It was this generous and broad view of the goodness and the divine pity of God that was so misliked by the stern and pitiless teachers of the powerful school to which men like Tertullian belonged, a school which soon arose in the Church. Of the genuine written remains of the earliest period we have nothing comparable to the Shepherd of Hermas, when we look for a picture of the inner life of the Church of Rome in that far-back time when the echoes of the voices of the disciples who had been with Jesus were still ringing in men’s ears.