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254

METHODS OF ESCAPING MARTYRDOM.

CHAP. XVI.

such a delay afforded him the opportunity of preserving his life and honour by flight, of withdrawing himself into some obscure retirement or some distant province, and of patiently expecting the return of peace and security. A measure so consonant to reason was soon authorised by the advice and example of the most holy prelates; and seems to have been censured by few, except by the Montanists, who deviated into heresy by their strict and obstinate adherence to the rigour of ancient discipline.100 II. The provincial governors, whose zeal was less prevalent than their avarice, had countenanced the practice of selling certificates (or libels as they were called), which attested that the persons therein mentioned had complied with the laws, and sacrificed to the Roman deities. By producing these false declarations, the opulent and timid Christians were enabled to silence the malice of an informer, and to reconcile in some measure their safety with their religion. A slight penance atoned for this profane dissimulation. 101 III. In every persecution there were great numbers of unworthy Christians who publicly disowned or renounced the faith which they had professed; and who confirmed the sincerity of their abjuration by the legal acts of burning incense or of offering sacrifices. Some of these apostates had yielded on the first menace or exhortation of the magistrate; whilst the patience of others had been subdued by the length and repetition of tortures. The affrighted countenances of some betrayed their inward remorse, while others advanced with confidence and alacrity to the altars of the gods. 102 But the disguise which fear had imposed subsisted no longer than the present danger. As soon as the severity of the persecution was abated, the doors of the churches were assailed by the returning multitude of penitents, who detested their idolatrous submission, and who solicited with equal ardour, but with various success, their readmission into the society of Christians, 103 b

a

persecution of Decius: and Cyprian (de Lapsis) expressly mentions the "Dies negantibus præstitntus."

100 Tertullian considers flight from persecution as an imperfect, but very criminal, apostasy, as an impious attempt to elude the will of God, &c. &c. He has written a treatise on this subject (see p. 536-544, edit. Rigalt.), which is filled with the wildest fanaticism and the most incoherent declamation. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that Tertullian did not suffer martyrdom himself.

101 The Libellatici, who are chiefly known by the writings of Cyprian, are described with the utmost precision in the copious commentary of Mosheim, p. 483-489. 102 Plin. Epistol. x. 97. Dionysius Alexandrin. ap. Euseb. 1. vi. c. 41. Ad prima statim verba minantis inimici maximus fratrum numerus fidem suam prodidit: nec prostratus est persecutionis impetu, sed voluntario lapsu seipsum prostravit. Cyprian. Opera, p. 89. Among these deserters were many priests and even bishops.

103 It was on this occasion that Cyprian wrote his treatise De Lapsis, and many of

"The penance was not so slight, for it was exactly the same with that of apostates who had sacrificed to idols: it lasted several years. See Fleury, Hist. Ecc. v. ii. p. 171.-G.

b Pliny says that the greater part of the Christians persisted in avowing themselves to be so; the reason for his consulting Trajan was the periclitantium numerus, Eusebius (1. vi. c. 41) does not

CHAP. XVI.

THE TEN PERSECUTIONS.

255

and tolera

IV. Notwithstanding the general rules established for the conviction and punishment of the Christians, the fate of those Alternatives sectaries, in an extensive and arbitrary government, must of severity still, in a great measure, have depended on their own tion. behaviour, the circumstances of the times, and the temper of their supreme as well as subordinate rulers. Zeal might sometimes provoke, and prudence might sometimes avert or assuage, the superstitious fury of the Pagans. A variety of motives might dispose the provincial governors either to enforce or to relax the execution of the laws; and of these motives the most forcible was their regard not only for the public edicts, but for the secret intentions of the emperor, a glance from whose eye was sufficient to kindle or to extinguish the flames of persecution. As often as any occasional severities were exercised in the different parts of the empire, the primitive Christians lamented and perhaps magnified their own sufferings; but the celebrated number of ten persecutions has been determined by The ten the ecclesiastical writers of the fifth century, who possessed persecutions. a more distinct view of the prosperous or adverse fortunes of the church from the age of Nero to that of Diocletian. The ingenious parallels of the ten plagues of Egypt, and of the ten horns of the Apocalypse, first suggested this calculation to their minds; and in their application of the faith of prophecy to the truth of history they were careful to select those reigns which were indeed the most hostile to the Christian cause.104 But these transient persecutions served. only to revive the zeal and to restore the discipline of the faithful; and the moments of extraordinary rigour were compensated by much longer intervals of peace and security. The indifference of some princes and the indulgence of others permitted the Christians to enjoy, though not perhaps a legal, yet an actual and public toleration of their religion.

The Apology of Tertullian contains two very ancient, very singular, but at the same time very suspicious instances of Imperial clemency; the edicts published by Tiberius and by Marcus Antoninus, and

his epistles. The controversy concerning the treatment of penitent apostates does not occur among the Christians of the preceding century. Shall we ascribe this to the superiority of their faith and courage, or to our less intimate knowledge of their history?

104 See Mosheim, p. 97. Sulpicius Severus was the first author of this computation; though he seemed desirous of reserving the tenth and greatest persecution for the coming of the Antichrist.

permit us to doubt that the number of those who renounced their faith was infinitely below the number of those who boldly confessed it. The prefect, he says, and his assessors present at the council, were alarmed at seeing the crowd of Christians; the judges themselves trem

bled. Lastly, St. Cyprian informs us that the greater part of those who had appeared weak brethren in the persecution of Decius, signalised their courage in that of Gallus. Steterunt fortes, et ipso dolore pœnitentiæ facti ad prælium fortiores. Epist. lx. p. 142.-G.

256

edicts of Tiberius

and Marcus

SUPPOSED EDICTS OF TIBERIUS AND M. ANTONINUS.

CHAP. XVI.

designed not only to protect the innocence of the Christians, Supposed but even to proclaim those stupendous miracles which had attested the truth of their doctrine. The first of these exAntoninus. amples is attended with some difficulties which might perplex a sceptical mind.105 We are required to believe that Pontius Pilate informed the emperor of the unjust sentence of death which he had pronounced against an innocent, and, as it appeared, a divine person; and that, without acquiring the merit, he exposed himself to the danger, of martyrdom; that Tiberius, who avowed his contempt for all religion, immediately conceived the design of placing the Jewish Messiah among the gods of Rome; that his servile senate ventured to disobey the commands of their master; that Tiberius, instead of resenting their refusal, contented himself with protecting the Christians from the severity of the laws, many years before such laws were enacted or before the church had assumed any distinct name or existence; and lastly, that the memory of this extraordinary transaction was preserved in the most public and authentic records, which escaped the knowledge of the historians of Greece and Rome, and were only visible to the eyes of an African Christian, who composed his Apology one hundred and sixty years after the death of Tiberius. The edict of Marcus Antoninus is supposed to have been the effect of his devotion and gratitude for the miraculous deliverance which he had obtained in the Marcomannic war. The distress of the legions, the seasonable tempest of rain and hail, of thunder and of lightning, and the dismay and defeat of the barbarians, have been celebrated by the eloquence of several Pagan writers. If there were any Christians in that army, it was natural that they should ascribe some merit to the fervent prayers which, in the moment of danger, they had offered up for their own and the public safety. But we are still assured by monuments of brass and marble, by the Imperial medals, and by the Antonine column, that neither the prince nor the people entertained any sense of this signal obligation, since they unanimously attribute their deliverance to the providence of Jupiter, and to the interposition of Mercury. During the whole course of his reign Marcus despised the Christians as a philosopher, and punished them as a sovereign. 106 a

105 The testimony given by Pontius Pilate is first mentioned by Justin. The successive improvements which the story acquired (as it has passed through the hands of Tertullian, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Orosius, Gregory of Tours, and the authors of the several editions of the Acts of Pilate), are very fairly stated by Dom Calmet, Dissertat. sur l'Ecriture, tom. iii. p. 651, &c.

106 On this miracle, as it is commonly called, of the Thundering Legion, see the admirable criticism of Mr. Moyle, in his Works, vol. ii. p. 81-390.

Gibbon, with this phrase, and that below, which admits the injustice of Marcus, has dexterously glossed over one of

the most remarkable facts in the early Christian history, that the reign of the wisest and most humane of the heathen

CHAP. XVI. STATE OF CHRISTIANS UNDER COMMODUS AND SEVERUS. 257

Christians in

and Severus.

By a singular fatality, the hardships which they had endured under the government of a virtuous prince immediately State of the ceased on the accession of a tyrant; and as none except the reigns of themselves had experienced the injustice of Marcus, so they Commodus alone were protected by the lenity of Commodus. The A.D. 180. celebrated Marcia, the most favoured of his concubines, and who at length contrived the murder of her Imperial lover, entertained a singular affection for the oppressed church; and though it was impossible that she could reconcile the practice of vice with the precepts of the Gospel, she might hope to atone for the frailties of her sex and profession by declaring herself the patroness of the Christians.107 a Under the gracious protection of Marcia they passed in safety the thirteen years of a cruel tyranny; and when the empire was established in the house of Severus, they formed a domestic but more honourable connection with the new court. The emperor was persuaded that, in a dangerous sickness, he had derived some benefit, either spiritual or physical, from the holy oil with which one of his slaves had anointed him. He always treated with peculiar distinction several persons of both sexes who had embraced the new religion. The nurse as well as the preceptor of Caracalla were Christians; and if that young prince ever betrayed a sentiment of humanity, it was occasioned by an incident which, however trifling, bore some relation

107 Dion Cassius, or rather his abbreviator Xiphilin, 1. lxxii. [c. 4] p. 1206. Mr. Moyle (p. 266) has explained the condition of the church under the reign of Commodus.

emperors was the most fatal to the Christians. Most writers have ascribed the persecutions under Marcus to the latent bigotry of his character; Mosheim to the influence of the philosophic party: but the fact is admitted by all. A late writer (Mr. Waddington, Hist. of the Church, p. 47) has not scrupled to assert that "this prinpolluted every year of a long reign with innocent blood;" but the causes, as well as the date, of the persecutions authorized or permitted by Marcus, are equally ur.certain.

Of the Asiatic edict recorded by Melito the date is unknown, nor is it quite clear that it was an Imperial edict.

If it was the act under which Polycarp suffered, his martyrdom is placed by Ruinart in the sixth, by Mosheim in the ninth, year of the reign of Marcus. The martyrs of Vienne and Lyons are assigned by Dodwell to the seventh, by most writers to the seventeenth. In fact, the commencement of the persecutions of the Christians appears to synchronise exactly with the period of the breaking out of the Marcomannic war, which seems to have alarmed

VOL. II.

the whole empire and the emperor himself into a paroxysm of returning piety to their gods, of which the Christians were the victims. See Jul. Capit. Script. Hist. Aug. p. 181, edit. 1661. [M. Anton. Phil. c. 13. It is remarkable that Tertullian (Apologet. c. 5) distinctly asserts that Verus (M. Aurelius) issued no edicts against the Christians, and almost positively exempts him from the charge of persecution.-M.

This remarkable synchronism, which explains the persecutions under M. Aurelius, is shown at length in Milman's History of Christianity, book ii. c. 7.—M. 1845.

a The statement of Dion Cassius only makes Marcia the patroness of the Christians; but we now learn, from the recently discovered work of Hippolytus, who calls her ass, that she had been converted to the Christian faith. See Bunsen, Hippolytus and his Age, vol. i. p. 127.—S.

The Jews and Christians contest the honour of having furnished a nurse to the fratricide son of Severus, Caracalla. Hist. of Jews, iii. 158.- M.

8

258

A.D. 198.

STATE OF THE CHRISTIANS UNDER

CHAP. XVI.

to the cause of Christianity.108 Under the reign of Severus the fury of the populace was checked; the rigour of ancient laws was for some time suspended; and the provincial governors were satisfied with receiving an annual present from the churches within their jurisdiction, as the price, or as the reward, of their moderation. 109 The controversy concerning the precise time of the celebration of Easter armed the bishops of Asia and Italy against each other, and was considered as the most important business of this period of leisure and tranquillity.110 Nor was the peace of the church interrupted till the increasing numbers of proselytes seem at length to have attracted the attention, and to have alienated the mind, of Severus. With the design of restraining the progress of Christianity, he published an edict, which, though it was designed to affect only the new converts, could not be carried into strict execution without exposing to danger and punishment the most zealous of their teachers and missionaries. In this mitigated persecution we may still discover the indulgent spirit of Rome and of Polytheism, which so readily admitted every excuse in favour of those who practised the religious ceremonies of their fathers.111

Of the successors of Severus,

112

But the laws which Severus had enacted soon expired with the authority of that emperor; and the Christians, after this accidental tempest, enjoyed a calm of thirty-eight years. A.D. 211-249. Till this period they had usually held their assemblies in private houses and sequestered places. They were now permitted to erect and consecrate convenient edifices for the purpose of religious worship;113 to purchase lands, even at Rome itself, for the use of the community; and to conduct the elections of their ecclesiastical ministers in so public, but at the same time in so exemplary a manner, as to deserve the respectful attention of the Gentiles. 114

114

108 Compare the Life of Caracalla, in the Augustan History, with the epistle of Tertullian to Scapula. Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 5, &c.) considers the cure of Severus, by the means of holy oil, with a strong desire to convert it into a miracle.

109 Tertullian de Fugâ, c. 13. The present was made during the feast of the Saturnalia; and it is a matter of serious concern to Tertullian that the faithful should be confounded with the most infamous professions which purchased the connivance of the government. 110 Euseb. 1. v. c. 23, 24. Mosheim, p. 435-447.

Judæos fieri sub gravi pœnâ vetuit. Idem etiam de Christianis sanxit. Hist. August. p. 70. [Spart. Sever. c. 17.]

112 Sulpicius Severus, 1. ii. p. 384 [ed. Lugd. Bat. 1647]. This computation (allowing for a single exception) is confirmed by the History of Eusebius and by the writings of Cyprian.

113 The antiquity of Christian churches is discussed by Tillemont (Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. iii. part ii. p. 68-72) and by Mr. Moyle (vol. i. p. 378-398). The former refers the first construction of them to the peace of Alexander Severus; the latter, to the peace of Gallienus.

114 See the Augustan History, p. 130. [Lamprid. Alex. Sever. c. 45.] The emperor Alexander adopted their method of publicly proposing the names of those persons who were candidates for ordination. It is true that the honour of this practice is likewise attributed to the Jews,

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