The History of Christianity / Consisting of the Life and Teachings of Jesus of Nazareth; the Adventures of Paul and the Apostles; and the Most Interesting Events in the Progress of Christianity, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.

by John S. C. Abbott

Several other Christians perished at the same time, being torn by wild beasts, and devoured by half-famished bears, leopards, and wild boars. Pages might be filled with similar accounts; but this record must be brief.

The Emperor Severus died on an expedition to Britain, in the year of our Lord 211, leaving the crown to his two sons,Caracalla and Geta. They were both thoroughly depraved boys. Caracalla, the elder, invited his brother Geta to meet him in the presence of his mother to confer upon the division of the empire. During the conference, Caracalla drew near his brother, and, taking a dagger from beneath his dress, buried it to the hilt in Geta’s heart. The murdered boy sprang into his mother’s arms, and died, she being deluged with the blood of her son. This was early in the third century, when pagan Rome was at the summit of its wealth, refinement, luxury, and power. The murderer of Geta thus became sole emperor of Rome.

Christianity was beginning to create a public conscience. It was throwing the light of future judgment and final retribution upon such hideous crimes. Both of these young men, depraved though they were, had received some religious instruction. The stings of remorse imbittered every remaining hour of Caracalla’s life. The image of his brother Geta, gasping, shrieking, dying, bathed in blood, in the arms of his terrified mother, pursued the murderer to his grave: but it did not soften his heart; it only hardened him in sin, and inflamed his soul with almost insane jealousy and fear. Every individual who was supposed to be in the interest of Geta was put to death, without regard to age or sex. In the course of a few months, twenty thousand perished by this wholesale proscription.

A wag in one of the schools in Alexandria wrote a burlesque verse upon Caracalla. The tyrant, in consequence, ordered the whole city to be destroyed. Every man, woman, and child was ordered to be put to death. A few only of the young and beautiful were reserved as slaves.

The only way in this world to be happy is to strive to promote the happiness of others. He who makes others wretched is always wretched himself. Caracalla lived the life of a demon, filling the world with woe; but, in all the empire, there was scarcely to be found a greater wretch than he.

One of his generals, Macrinus, who had displeased the emperor, learning that he was doomed to death, engaged a centurion,a man of herculean strength, to assassinate him. A dagger through the back pierced the heart of the tyrant. Thus terminated the diabolical sway of Caracalla, with which God had allowed the world to be cursed for six years.

The army had adored Caracalla; for he had given free rein to the license of the soldiers, and had enriched them by plunder. Macrinus, the assassin, was not illustrious either by birth, wealth, or military exploits. The soldiers reluctantly, and with many murmurs, submitted to the decision of the senate recognizing him as emperor. The army was encamped in winter quarters in Syria. Macrinus, exulting in new-born dignity, was luxuriating in his palace at Antioch. Under these circumstances, a Syrian soldier, by the name of Elagabalus, a reckless, unprincipled man, formed a conspiracy in the camp outside the walls of Antioch. He assumed that he was a son of one of the concubines of Caracalla. The soldiers, eager for the renewal of their former privileges of plunder and outrage, enthusiastically rallied around the banner of the insurgent general. There was one short battle. Macrinus was slain, and the troops with one accord welcomed Elagabalus as emperor. The senate, not daring to present opposition to the army, obsequiously confirmed its vote.

This rude, untamed pagan was a worshipper of the sun. He had been a high priest in one of the idol temples. With his army enlarged by brutal hordes from the East, he marched upon Rome in the double capacity of pagan pontiff and emperor. He was arrayed in sacerdotal robes of damask embroidered with gold. A gorgeous tiara was upon his brow; and he wore bracelets and a necklace incrusted with priceless gems. The city pavements over which he passed were sprinkled with gold-dust. Six milk-white horses, sumptuously caparisoned, drew a chariot containing a black stone, the symbol of the god he worshipped. Elagabalus, as pontiff, held the reins with his back to the horses, that his eyes might not be for a moment turned from the object of his idolatry.

A new temple was reared for this new idol on the Palatine Hill. Its worship was introduced with splendor such as Romehad never yet witnessed. Syrian girls of great beauty danced around the altar. Elagabalus, with his crowd of adorers of the new divinity, rioted in those dissolute rites, which even the pen of a Roman historian shrinks from recording.

The palaces of the Cæsars had been as corrupt as Europe knew how to make them; but Elagabalus transported to them all the additional vices of Asia. Modern civilization will not allow the story of his infamy to be told: the enlightenment of the nineteenth century could not bear the recital. The change which Christianity has introduced into the world is so great, that there is not a court in Europe now, no matter how corrupt, which would endure for a day a Nero or an Elagabalus.