1.BUT notwithstanding the purity of their doctrine, and the unblameableness of their lives, the Christians found what their Lord had told them before, that they should be hated of all men. Because they were not of the world, therefore the world hated them. Therefore was their name cast out as evil: yea, all manner of evil was said of them falsly; and by all ranks of men; both unlearned and learned; people and magistrates being against them. And the prejudice was such, that they were frequently condemned upon the bare name of Christian, without any farther examination. This sufficed to destroy all their good qualities; it being a common saying, “Caius Sejus is a good man; if he were not a Christian.”
2. It’s no wonder, that this universal prejudice, drew many persecutions upon them: a persecution commonly began by some edict forbidding the Christians to meet together. The bishops gave notice of this immediately, and exhorted one another, to redouble their prayers, and to encourage the faithful to run with patience the race set before them. Then many retired, and some even of the pastors, while the rest remained with the people, but carefully concealed, knowing they were the persons, who would be sought for most diligently, as those whose destruction would probably occasion the dispersion of the whole flock. Indeed the rules of the church prohibited any, wilfully to expose themselves to danger, or unnecessarily to provoke the Heathens, and draw persecution upon them.
3. When any Christians were discovered and apprehended, they were brought before the magistrate, who seated on his tribunal, interrogated them, whether they were Christians? If they denied it, they were immediately set at liberty, for they knew a Christian would not save his life by a lie. If they confest they were Christians, all arts were made use of to vanquish their constancy. First, by persuasion and promises, then by threatnings, and last of all by tortures. Sometimes they endeavoured to surprize them into idolatry, and then persuade them that they could not retract. They had always some idol and altar near. On this they offered victims in their presence: of which they would often force them to eat, or to drink of the wine offered to the idol. But this the Christians resisted with all their strength: nay, when incense was laid upon their hands with burning coals, they would not so much as shake off the coals for fear of seeming to offer the incense.
4. The usual methods to force them to deny the faith, were, to stretch them upon the rack, by cords fastened to their hands and feet, and drawn at both ends by pullies: to hang them up by their hands with weights tied to their feet: to beat them with rods or large battoons, with thongs made of raw hides, or with scourges that had balls of lead, or iron points at the end. While they were stretched on the rack, they frequently applied burning coals or torches to their arms or sides: often at the same time tearing off their flesh with pincers or combs of iron. Insomuch that the bones being laid bare, and the intrails lying uncovered, the flame entering into the body put an end to the life of the sufferer.
5. They who survived these tortures, and persisted in professing themselves Christians, were either executed or remanded to prison. Their prisons were only another sort of torture, being commonly dark and loathsome dungeons. Here they put fetters upon their hands and feet. Many had large pieces of wood hung at their necks: many were chained in the most uneasy postures, with weights fastened to their legs or arms. Sometimes they strewed the floor with small pieces of glass, or fragments of earthen vessels, on which they stretched out the prisoner, naked as he was, and wounded all over. There they sometimes left them to die of hunger and thirst and the festering of their wounds. At other times they carefully healed them, but it was, that they might torture them anew. They usually forbid their speaking to any person; as knowing that in this condition, they had converted many Infidels, and often the jailor, or even the soldiers that guarded them. But they permitted them to converse with any, who were like to shake their resolution; a father, a mother, a child, a wife, whose tender words, or silent eloquence, were another sort of temptation, and often more dangerous than the sharpest torments.
6. In the mean time their fellow Christians did not forget them. They prayed for them without ceasing. If they were not permitted to minister to them in prison, at least they attended them to the place of their martyrdom. They exhorted them (often to the loss of their own lives) to endure unto the end. They observed their last words, which were commonly prayers, and fortified themselves by their example. Nor was it to martyrs alone, but to confessors also, that they paid the greatest honour; that is, those who had confest Christ before the magistrate, though they had not yet resisted unto blood.
CHAPTER VIII.
Their care of the poor and sick. Their hospitality. Their patience.
1.THE church took care of all who were unable to help themselves, of whatever age or sex: the blind, the lame, the maimed, the decrepit; and these they esteemed the treasure of the church. They took likewise a particular care of children; not only of the orphan children of Christians, but of those whom their Heathen parents exposed, and indeed of all others they could procure. Their end in all was, by means of temporal, to lead them to spiritual good. Therefore, in like circumstances, they relieved a Christian before a Heathen, and of Christians, the most holy first. For this every church had a common stock, which the deacons distributed according to the orders of the bishop, after giving him an account of the conduct as well as wants of the people committed to his charge.