(4) Whatever opinion may be entertained of this conjecture (for it is no more than a conjecture), it is evident that the effect, as well as the cause, of Nero’s persecution was confined to the walls of Rome; that the religious tenets of the Galilæans, or Christians, were never made a subject of punishment, or even of inquiry; and that, as the idea of their sufferings was for a long time connected with the idea of cruelty and injustice, the moderation of succeeding princes inclined them to spare a sect oppressed by a tyrant whose rage had been usually directed against virtue and innocence.[c]
Thus the massacre of the year 64 is not, strictly speaking, a religious persecution, although, in the opinion of the pagans, there remained a stain on the Christians. Their name came out of the darkness in an inauspicious manner. It remained linked with a great public disaster, and perhaps with a terrible crime in which authority pretended to trace their influence. The second traditional persecution took place in the last year of the reign of Domitian. We have seen to what it has been reduced. There is no trace of any edict, no explicit evidence in profane or ecclesiastical literature, until the middle of the second century. Several passages must be subtly combined to draw the inference of actions brought against many of the Christians, and we are reduced to suppositions to decide the cause. The accusation of impiety appears, but it cannot be said whether this charge is of a religious character; and it seems doubtful.
PERSECUTION UNDER TRAJAN AND THE ANTONINES
It is under the reign of Trajan that the persecution of Christianity is really inaugurated. A thick cloud hovers over this new crime, however, and over the proceedings which are to follow. Pliny does not know where to find the proof of the crime. Trajan, in his reply, points to the statute law. The Christians, from this time, are beyond the reach of the law. However, if there are no complaints and no accusers come forward, the authorities will leave them in peace. If they are impeached in the court of justice they will be condemned unless they forswear themselves. This equivocal law regulated the position of the Christians under the rule of the first three successors of Trajan. Neither Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, nor Marcus Aurelius softened or aggravated it.
Under the rule of these princes, the best, most just, and most humane the empire ever knew, the condemnations of the Christians are more frequent. It is because the Christians are more numerous, and here and there bolder, doubtless, and more imprudent; it is also because there is a new actor on the stage, an anonymous actor, passionate, capricious, easily irritated, and formidable in anger—the crowd, whose injunctions and whose cries for death sometimes take the place of that accuser required by the edict of Trajan. Or in public calamities it is on the Christians that the wrath of the crowd falls. A terrible fate overtakes their conventicles and sacred rites. They hide themselves and avoid all feasts, they smile when others weep, and seem sad in times of prosperity.
Neither their altars, the name, nor the symbol of their god is known. Blood is shed at their nocturnal meetings. Children are sacrificed, devoured by the initiated, and there are scenes of unspeakable debauchery. This is what is said, and in certain circumstances the least spark is sufficient to kindle the fury of the multitude assembled in the amphitheatres or the circus. Will the magistrates contend with the rioters? Will they take up the cause of men legally outside the common law? The voice of the public speaks, and they obey. This, together with certain enmities and private grudges, is, doubtless, the explanation of the sentences pronounced in Rome, and especially in the provinces, under the Antonines. This is what would seem to have taken place in Smyrna in the year 155, and at Lyons in 177. The crowd is the accuser. It is the crowd that singles out the Christians and sentences them to death, and it is only occasionally that the sentence which it has pronounced is not fulfilled.
Roman Door Keys, in the British Museum
Three rescripts have been drawn up which Hadrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius successively are said to have made out in favour of the Christians, and from one to the other of these edicts there is, as it were, a crescendo of kindness and toleration. The first of these princes forbids the legates to condemn the Christians to satisfy the clamouring of the people. The last, Marcus Aurelius, testifies to the power of the Christians, whose kindness he has experienced and whom he fears to see turned against him, and grants them full liberty of worship. In our opinion these edicts are manifestly apocryphal, although it is perhaps true that the emperors, supreme guardians of the law, saw with displeasure the violent caprices of popular brutality take the place of legal measures, and violate, as it were, the majesty of Roman justice; and they may have written in this sense to their agents. Hadrian especially, the most vigilant guardian of order in the provincial administration, may have done this.
But the sentences pronounced against the Christians under the rule of the Antonines, and the numerous defences in which the apologists, even at this moment, make an appeal to the justice of the emperors, claiming common law for the Christians, prove clearly that the law which condemned them on account of their profession of faith had not been repealed.