"Madam," he replied, in answer to a weak remonstrance against the persecution, "was it not enough that our palace at Nicomedia was burned over our heads, that you must apologise for treason in our very household and the menace of our very person. No; the Christian superstition must be stamped out, and the worship of the gods maintained."[37]
Hence throughout the wide empire, in the sober language of history, "Edict followed edict, rising in regular gradations of angry barbarity. The whole clergy were declared enemies of the State; and bishops, presbyters, and deacons were crowded into the prisons intended for the basest malefactors"[38]—"an innumerable company," says the Christian bishop Eusebius, "so that there was no room left for those condemned for crime." "We saw with our own eyes," writes a contemporary historian, "our houses of worship thrown down, the sacred Scriptures committed to the flames, and the shepherds of the people become the sport of their enemies—scourge with rods, tormented with the rack and excruciating scrapings, in which some endured the most terrible death. Then men and women, with a certain divine and inexpressible alacrity rushed into the fire. The persecutors, constantly inventing new tortures, vied with one another as if there were prizes offered to him who should invent the greatest cruelties. The men bore fire, sword, and crucifixions, savage beasts, and the depths of the sea, the maiming of limbs and searing with red hot iron, digging out of the eyes and mutilations of the whole body, also hunger, the mines, and prison. The women also were strengthened by the Divine Word, so that some of them endured the same trials as the men, and bore away the same prize. It would exceed all powers of detail," he goes on, "to give an idea of the sufferings and tortures which the martyrs endured. And these things were done, not for a few days, but for a series of whole years. We ourselves," he adds, "have seen crowds of persons, some beheaded, some burned alive, in a single day, so that the murderous weapons were blunted and broken in pieces, and the executioners, weary with slaughter, were obliged to give over the work of blood."[39] And he goes on to describe deeds of shame and torture of which he was an eye-witness, which our pen refuses to record.
The enthusiasm for martyrdom prevailed at times almost like an epidemic. It was one of the most remarkable features of the ages of persecution. Notwithstanding the terrific tortures to which they were exposed, the zeal of the Christian heroes burned higher and brighter in the fiercest tempest of heathen rage. Age after age summoned the soldiers of the Cross to the conflict whose highest guerdon was death. They bound persecution as a wreath about their brows, and exulted in the "glorious infamy" of suffering for their Lord. The brand of shame became the badge of highest honour. Besides the joys of heaven they won imperishable fame on earth; and the memory of a humble slave was often haloed with a glory surpassing that of a Curtius or Horatius. The meanest hind was ennobled by the accolade of martyrdom to the loftiest peerage of the skies. His consecration of suffering was elevated to a sacrament, and called the baptism of fire or of blood.
Burning to obtain the prize, the impetuous candidates for death often pressed with eager haste to seize the palm of victory and the martyr's crown. They trod with joy the fiery path to glory, and went as gladly to the stake as to a marriage feast. "Their fetters," says Eusebius, "seemed like the golden ornaments of a bride."[40] They desired martyrdom more ardently than men afterward sought a bishopric.[41] They exulted amid their keenest pangs that they were counted worthy to suffer for their divine Master. "Let the ungulæ tear us," exclaims Tertullian;[42] "the crosses bear our weight, the flames envelope us, the sword divide our throats, the wild beasts spring upon us; the very posture of prayer is a preparation for every punishment." "These things," says St. Basil, "so far from being a terror, are rather a pleasure and a recreation to us."[43] "The tyrants were armed;" says St. Chrysostom; "and the martyrs naked; yet they that were naked got the victory, and they that carried arms were vanquished."[44] Strong in the assurance of immortality, they bade defiance to the sword.
Though weak in body they seemed clothed with vicarious strength, and confident that though "counted as sheep for the slaughter," naught could separate them from the love of Christ. Wrapped in their fiery vesture and shroud of flame, they yet exulted in their glorious victory. While the leaden hail fell on the mangled frame, and the eyes filmed with the shadows of death, the spirit was enbraved by the beatific vision of the opening heaven, and above the roar of the mob fell sweetly on the inner sense the assurance of eternal life. "No group, indeed, of Oceanides was there to console the Christian Prometheus; yet to his upturned eye countless angels were visible—their anthem swept solemnly to his ear —and the odours of an opening paradise filled the air. Though the dull ear of sense heard nothing, he could listen to the invisible Coryphæus as he invited him to heaven and promised him an eternal crown."[45] The names of the "great army of martyrs," though forgotten by men, are written in the Book of Life. "The Lord knoweth them that are His."
There is a record, traced on high,
That shall endure eternally;
The angel standing by God's throne
Treasures there each word and groan;
And not the martyr's speech alone,
But every wound is there depicted,
With every circumstance of pain
The crimson stream, the gash inflicted
And not a drop is shed in vain.[46]
This spirit of martyrdom was a new principle in society. It had no classical counterpart.[47] Socrates and Seneca suffered with fortitude, but not with faith. The loftiest pagan philosophy dwindled into insignificance before the sublimity of Christian hope. This looked beyond the shadows of time and the sordid cares of earth to the grandeur of the Infinite and the Eternal. The heroic deaths of the believers exhibited a spiritual power mightier than the primal instincts of nature, the love of wife or child, or even of life itself. Like a solemn voice falling on the dull ear of mankind, these holy examples urged the inquiry, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" And that voice awakened an echo in full many a heart. The martyrs made more converts by their deaths than in their lives. "Kill us, rack us condemn us, grind us to powder," exclaims the intrepid Christian Apologist; "our numbers increase in proportion as you mow us down."[48] The earth was drunk with the blood of the saints, but still they multiplied and grew, gloriously illustrating the perennial truth—Sanguis martyrum semen ecclesiæ.
FOOTNOTES:
[37] These are the very words of the edict quoted in note to [Chapter II.]
[38] Milman, History of Christianity, Book II., Chapter ix.