w>^ ^f:- X.S.S. /-f- ^ PRINCETON, N. J. ^ Presented by Dr. F.LT^l^o-n BR 145 .C92 1883"^ VTa Cyclopedia of religious literature . . OF m \> OYCLOPEDlk FEB 25 iai4 .4 r^V< EELIGIODS LITERATURE. ■VOLTJl5.d:E THIR^EE, CONTAINING: THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY, by F. W ^ , BY F. W. FarrAK. NEW YORK : JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER, 1883. ROBERT BROWNING, Esq.. • AUTHOR OF "a DEATH IN THE DESERT," AND OF MANY OTHER POEMS OF THE DEEPEST INTEREST TO ALL STUDENTS OF SCRIPTURE, THIS VOLUME WITH SINCERE ADMIRATION AND ESTEEM. PREFACE. I COMPLETE in this volume the work which has absorbed such leisure as could be spared from many and onerous duties during the last twelve years. My object has been to furnish English readers with a companion, partly historic and partly expository, to the whole of the New Testament. By attention to the minutest details of the original, by availing myself to the best of my power of the results of modern criticism, by trying to concentrate upon the writ- ings of the Apostles and Evangelists such light as may be derived from Jewish, Pagan, or Christian sources, I have endeavoured to fulfil my ordination vow and to show diligence in such studies as help to the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. The " Life of Christ " was intended mainly as a commentary upon the Gospels. It was written in such a form as should reproduce whatever I had been able to learn from the close examination of every word which they contain, and should at the same time set forth the living real- ity of the scenes recorded. In the " Life of St. Paul" I wished to incorporate the details of the Acts of the Apostles with such biogra- phical incidents as can be derived from the Epistles of St. Paul, and to take the reader through the Epistles themselves in a way which might enable him, with keener interest, to judge of their separate purpose and peculiarities, by grasping the circumstances under which each of them was written. The present volume is an at- tempt to set forth, in their distinctive characteristics, the work and the writings of St. Peter, St. James, St. Jude, St. John, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. If my effort has been in any degree successful, the reader should carry away from these pages vi PREFACE. some conception of the varieties of religious thought which prevailed in the schools of Jerusalem and of Alexandria, and also of those phases of theology which are represented by the writings of the two greatest of the twelve Apostles. In carrying out this design I have gone, almost verse by verse, through the seven Catholic Epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Revelation of St. John — explaining their special difficulties, and developing their general characteristics. Among many Christians there is a singular ignorance of the Books of Scripture as a whole. With a wide knowledge of particular texts, there is a strange lack of familiarity with the bearings of each separate Gospeland Epistle. I have hoped that by considering each book in connection with all that we can learn of its author, and of the circumstances under which it was written, I might perhaps contribute to the intelligent study of Holy Writ. There may be some truth in the old motto, Bonus textuariiis bonus thcologus ; but he whose knowledge is con- fined \o '^ texts," and who has never studied them, first with their context, then as forming fragments of entire books, and lastly in their relation to the whole of Scripture, incurs the risk of turning theology into an erroneous and artificial system. It is thus that the Bible has been misinterpreted by substituting words for things ; by making the dead letter an instrument wherewith to murder the liv- ing spirit ; and by reading into Scripture a multitude of meanings which it was never intended to express. Words, like the chameleon, change their color with their surroundings. The very same word may in different ages involve almost opposite connotations. The vague and differing notions attached to the same term have been the most fruitful sources of theological bitterness, and of the internecine opposition of contending sects. The abuse of sacred phrases has been the cause, in age after age, of incredible misery and mischief. Texts have been perverted to sharpen the sword of the tyrant and to strengthen the rod of the oppressor— to kindle the fagot of the Inquisitor and to rivet the fetters of the slave. The terrible wrongs which have been inflicted unnn mankind in their name have been PREFACE. Vll due exclusively to their isolation and perversion. The remedy foi these deadly evils would have been found in the due study and com- prehension of Scripture as a whole. The Bible does not all lie at a dead level of homogeneity and uniformity. It is a progressive reve- lation. Its many-coloured wisdom was made known '' fragmentarily and multifariously " — in many parts and in many manners. In the endeavour to give a clearer conception of the books here considered I have followed such different methods as each particular passage seemed to require. I have sometimes furnished a very close and literal translation ; sometimes a free paraphrase ; sometimes a rapid abstract ; sometimes a running commentary. Avoiding all parade of learned references, I have thought that the reader would generally prefer the brief expression of a definite opinion to the reit- eration of many bewildering theories. Neither in this, nor in the previous volumes, have I wilfully or consciously avoided a single difficulty. A passing sentence often expresses a conclusion which has only been formed after the study of long and tedious mono- graphs. In the foot-notes especially I have compressed into the smallest possible space what seemed to be most immediately valua- ble for the ilkistration of particular words or allusions. In the choice of readings I have exercised an independent judgment. If my choice coincides in most instances with that of the Revisers of the New Testament, this has only arisen from the fact that I have been guided by the same principles as they were. These volumes, like the '' Life of Christ" and the " Life of St. Paul," were written before the read- ings adopted by the Revisers were known, and without the assist- ance which I should otherwise have derived from their invaluable labours.' The purpose which I have had in view has been, I trust, in itself a worthy one, however much I may have failed in its execution. A living writer of eminence has spoken of his works in terms which, in very humble measure, I would fain apply to my own. " I have * I take this opportunity of thanking the Rev. John de Soyres and Mr. W. R. Brown for the assistance which tliey have rendererl in preparing this book for the press. Viii PREFACE. made," said Cardinal Newman — in a speech delivered in 1879 — *' many mistakes. I have nothing of that high perfection which be- longs to the writings of the saints, namely, that error cannot be found in them. But what, I trust, I may claim throughout all I have written is this — an honest intention ; an absence of personal ends ; a temper of obedience ; a willingness to be corrected ; a dread of error; a desire to serve the Holy Church; and" (though this is perhaps more than I have any right to say) " through the Divine mercy a fair measure of success." F. W. FARRAR. S/. Margaret's Rectory, Westminster, June 7, 1882. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Book I. _ THE WORLD. CHAPTER I. MORAL CONDITION OF THE WORLD. Degradations which accompanied the Decadence of Paganism — The Slaves — The Rich and Noble — The Emperor — Fatal Degeneracy — Greeklings — Literature, Art, the Drama — The Senate — Scepticism and Superstition — Stoic Virtue — The Holy Joy of Christians . CHAPTER n. THE RISE OF THE ANTICHRIST. The Nemesis of Absolutism — Reign of Nero — Christians and the Roman Government — St. Paul and the Empire — Horrors of (^assarism— The Palace of the Anti- christ— Agrippina the Younger — Infancy of Nero — Evil Auguries — Intrigues af Agrippina— Her Marriage with Claudius— Her Career as Empress— Her Plots to Advance her Son— Her Crimes— Her Peril— Murder of Claudius— Accession of Nero 1 1-23 CHAPTER III. THE FEATURES OF THK ANTICHRIST. Successful Guilt— Fresh Crimes— The "Golden Quinquen>ttrttn^'—YoY\es of Nero —Threats of Agrippina— Jealousy of Britannicus— Murder of I'.ritannicus— Nero estranged from Agrippina— Influence of Poppaa- Plot to Murder Agrip- pina—Burrus and Seneca— Murder of Agrippina— A Tormented Conscience — The Depths of Satan 23-33 CHAPTER IV. THE BURNING OF ROME AND THE FIRST PERSECUTION. The Era of Martyrdom— The Fire of Rome— Was Nero Guilty ?— Devastation of the City — Confusion and Agony — The Golden House — Nero Suspected — ^The Christians Accused — Strangeness of this Circumstance — Tacitus — Popular Feeling against the Christians — Secret Jewish Suggestions — Poppasa a Prose- lyte— incendiarism attributed to Christians — ^^sthetic Cruelty— A Huge Mul- titude— Dreadful Forms of Martj'rdom — Martyrs on the Stage — The Antichrist — Retribution — Awful Omens — The Revolt of Vindex — Suicide of Nero — Ex- pectation of his Return 34~52 X CONTENTS. Book II. ST. PETER AND THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. CHAPTER V. WKITINGS OK THE APOSTLES AND EARLY CHRISTIANS. PAGB Annals of the Church— End of the Acts— Obscurity of Details— Little known about tlie Apostles— St. Andrew— St. Bartholomew— St. Matthew— St. Thomas— St. yamcs the Less — St. Simon Zelotes — Judas — Late and Scanty Records — Writ- ings of the Great Apostles— Invaluable as illustrating different Phases of Cliris- tian Thought — They E.xplain the opposite Tendencies of Heretical Develop- ment— The Revelation — The Epistle to the Hebrews — The Seven Catholic Epistles — The Epistle of St. Jude — The Episde of St. James — The Epistles of St. Peter — Catholicity of St. Peter — The 'I'hree Epistles of St. John — Genuine- ness of these Writings — Contrasts between different Apostles — Difference be- tween St. Paul and St. John — Superiority of the New Testament to the Writ- ings of the Apostolic Fathers — The Episde of St. Clemens — Its Theological and Intellectual Weakness — The Epistle of Barnabas — Its exaggerated Pauhnism — Its E.xtravagant E.xegesis — The Christian Church was not ideally Pure— Yet its Chief Glory was in the Holiness of its Standard 53-72 CHAPTER VI. ST. PETER. Outline of his early Life — Events recorded in the Acts — Complete Uncertainty as to his Subsequent Career — Legends — Domine quo vadisl — ^The Legends embel- lished and Doubtful — Legend about Simon Magus — Was Peter Bishop of Rome? — Improbability of the Legend about his Crucifixion head downwards — His Martyrdom — His Visit to Rome 72-79 CHAPTER VII. SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER. Date of the Epistle — Its certain Genuineness— Style of the Episde — A Christian Treatise — Natural Allusions to Events in the Gospels — Vivid Expressions — Re- semblance to the Speeches in the Acts — Allusions to the Law — Resemblances to St. Paul and St. James— Plasticit\' of St. Peter's Nature— Struggle after Unity — Originality— His View of Redemption — His View of Faith^HIs Views upon Regeneration and Baptism — Not Transcendentc^l but Practical — Christ's Descent into Hades— Great Importance of the Doctrine — Attempts to explain It away — Reference to the Epistle to the Galatlans — Addressed to both Jews and Gentiles— Crisis at which It was Composed — A Time of Perse- cution—Keynote of the Letter— Analysis 79-98 CHAPTER VIII. the first epistle of ST. PETER. Title which he Adopts — Address — Provinces of Asia — Thanksgiving — Exhortation to Hope — Special Appeals — Duty of Blameless Living — Duty of Civil Obedience Humble Submission — Address to Servants — To Christian Wives — Exhortation to Love and Unity— Christ Preaching to the Spirits In Prison— Obvious Import of the Passage — Ruthlessncss of Commentators — The approaching End — Ad- dress to Elders— Conclusion 99-113 CHAPTER IX. PECULIARITIES OF THE SECOND EPISTLE. Overpositlveness in the Attack and Defence of its Genuineness- Its Canonlclty — Ex- aggeration of the Ar.;uments urped in its Favour — Extreme Weakness of External Evidence — Tardy Acceptance of the Epistle — Views of St. Jerome, &c. —Cessation of Criticism— The Unity of its Structure- Oudine of the Letter CONTENTS. xi PAGE — Internal Evidence — Resemblances to First Epistle — Difference of Stj'Ie — Peculiarity of its Expressions — Difference in general Form of Thought— Irrele- vant Arguments about the Style — Marked Variations — Dr. Abbott's Proof of the Resemblance to Josephus — Could Josephus have Read it? — Reference to the Second Advent — What may be urged against these Difficulties— Priority of St. Jude — Extraordinary' Relation to St. Jude — Method of Dealing with the Stranger Phenomena of St. Jude's Epistle— Possible Counter-considerations — Allusion to the Transfiguration— Ancientness of the Epistle — Superiority of the Epistle to the Post-Apostolic Writings — The Thoughts may have been Sanc- tioned and Adopted by St. Peter 114-136 CHAPTER X. THE SECOND EPISTLE OF ST. PETER. Reasons for OfTering a Literal Translation of the Epistle— Translation and Notes- Abrupt Conclusion 137-142 CHAPTER XI. THE EPISTLE OF ST. JGDE. Its Authenticity' — Who was the Author? — Jude, the Brotherof James— Not an Apos- tle— One of the Brethren of the Lord— Why he does not use this Title— Why be calls himself "Brother of James" — Story of his (Grandchildren — Circum- stances which may have called forth the Epistle — Corruption of Morals— Who were the Offenders thus Denounced ? — Resemblances to Second Epistle of St, Peter — ^IVanslation and Notes — St^ie of Greek — Simplicity of Structure — Fond- ness for Apocryphal Allusions— Methods of Dealing with these Peculiarities — "■ Verbal Dictation " — Rabbinic Legends — Corrupt, Gnosticising Sects 143-157 Book III. APOLLOS, ALEXANDRIAN CHRISTIANITY, AND THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. CHAPTER XII. JUDAISM, THE SEPTUAGINT, ETC. Unity of Christian Faith — Diversity in LTnity — Necessity and Blessing of the Diver- sity— Individuality of the Sacred Writers — Phases of Christian Truth — Alex- a^tdrian Christianity — The Jews and Greek Philosophy — Hebraism and Hellenism — Glories of Alexandria — Prosperity of the Jews in Alexandria — The Diapleuston — Favour shown the Jews by the Ptolemies— The Septuagint — De- light of the Hellenists — Anger of the Hebraists — Effects on Judaism— Bias of the Translators — Harmless Variations from the Hebrew — Hagadoth— Avoid- ance of Anthropomorphism and Anthropopathy — Deliberate Manipulation of the Original — Aristobulus — The Wisdom of Solomon — Semi-Ethnic Jewish Literature — Philo not wholly Original 158-170 CHAPTER XIII. PHII.O AND THE DOCTRINE OF THE LOGOS. Family of Alexander the Alabarch— Life of Philo — Classification of his Works— Those that bear on the Creation — On Abraham — Allegorising Fancies — The Life of Moses — Arbitrary Exegesis— Meanings of the word Logos — Personification of the Logos — The High Priest — A Cup-bearer — Other Comparisons — Vague Oudines of the Conception — Contrast with St. John 170-178 xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. l'HI1.0NISM— ALLEGORY— THE CATECHETICAL SCHOOL. PAGE Influence of Philo on the Sacred Writers— Sapiential Literature of Alexandria— De- fects of Philonism — ^The School of St. Mark — Motto of the Alexandrian School — Ailcsory applied to the Old Testament — ^The Pardes of the Kabbalists — History of Allegory in the Alexandrian School — Allegory in the Western Church 178-183 CHAPTER XV. AUTHORSHIP AND STYLE OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HKBREWS. Continuity of Scripture — Manifoldness of Wisdom — Ethnic Inspiration — The Epistle Alexandrian — External Evidence — Summary — Superficial Custom — Misuse of Authorities — Later Doubts and Hesitations — Indolent Custom — Phrases com- mon to the Author with St. Paul — Difilerences of Style not explicable — The Episde not a Translation — Fondness of the Writer for Sonorous Amplifica- tions 183-193 CHAPTER XVI. THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. Difference from the Theological Conceptions of St. Paul — ^Three Cardinal Topics — "The People" — Christianity and Judaism — Alexandrianism of the Writer — Prominence of the Jews — Method of treating Scripture — Indebtedness to Philo — Particular Expressions — "The Cutter-Word" — Stern Passages — Melchizedek- Priesthood of Christ— Superiority to Philo — Fundamental Alexandrianism — Judaism not regarded as a Law but as a System of Worship — "The Pattern shewn thee in the Mount" — Effectiveness of the Argument — A Prse-existent Ideal — The World of Ideas — View of Hope — Faith, in this Episde and in St. Paul — RiGHTEousNhss — Chiustology — Redemption — Prominence given to Priesthood and Sacrifice — Peculiar Sentences — The Author could not have been St. Paul 193-212 CHAPTER XVII. WHO wrote the epistle to the HEBREWS. Absence of Greeting — Certainties about the Writer — By some known Friend of St. Paul — Yet not by Aquila — Nor byTiTUS — Nor by Silas — Nor by St. Barna- bas—Nor by St. Clemens of Rome — Nor by St. Mark — Nor by .St. Luke — Strong Probability that the Writer was Apollos — This would not necessarily be known to the Church of Alexandria — Suggested by Luther — Generally and Increasingly Accepted — Date of the Flpistle— Allusion to Timothy — Addressed to Jewish Christians — Not Addressed to the Church of Jerusalem — Nor to Cormth— Nor to Alexandria — May have been Addressed to Rome — Or to Ephesus— " They of Italy "—Apollos 212-222 CHAPTER XVIII. THE epistle to THE HEBREWS. Section \.— TJie Superiority ^/C/z^/j/*.— Comparison between Judaism and Chris- tianity—Outline of the Epistle— Its Keynotes— Striking Opening— Christ Supe- rior to Angels— Peculiar Method of Scriptural Argument— Use of Quotations —\\\ Admitted Method— Partial Change of View— The Style af Argument less important to us 222-230 Sf-CTIOn II.— ^ Solemn /i.rAcr^rt/wM.— Translation and Notes— Christ Superior to Moses— Parallelism of Structure — Appeal 230-236 Section \\\.~The High Priesthood of Christ..— TxzLW^MxowaX Exhortation— Quali- fications of Hii;h Priesthood— Sketch of the great Argument of tlie Episde— Translation and Notes — Explanation of Difficulties respecting the Nature of Christ — Digression— Post- Baptismal Sin — Indefectibility of Grace — Calvinistic View of the Passage— Arminian View— Neither View Tenable— Obvious Limi- tations of die Meaning of the Passage—" Near a Curse"—" For Burning"— A Belter Hope 236-251 CONTENTS. Xm I'AGE Section IV. — TJie Prderof .If ^/c/iizrtfci.— Translation and Notes — All thitis known of Melchi/.edck — Salem — El FJion — Allusion in Psahn ex. — Hagadoth — Plulo — Mystery attached to Melchizedek — Fantastic Hypotheses — Wh.o Meichize- dek was — Only Important as a Type — Semitic Phraseology and Modes of Arguing from the Silence of Scripture — Translation and Notes — Argument of the Passage — Superiority of the Melchizedek to the Levitic Priesthood in Seven Particulars — Summary and Notes 2 51-262 Section V. — The Dayo/Atofiement. — Grandeur of the Day — Tran.slation and Notes — A New Covenant — Its Superior Ordinances of Ministration— Translation and Notes — Symbolism of Service — The Tabernacle, not the Temple — " Vacua omnia" — Contents of the Ark — The Tkumiateriori — Censer f?) — Altar of In- cense— ^Translation and Notes — Meanings of the word Diatheke — An obvious Play on its Second Meaning of " Testament "— IVanslation and Notes — Fam- iliarity with the Hagadoth and the Halacha — Cirandest Phase of Levitic Priest- hood— Feelings Inspired by the Day— Careful Preparation of the High Priest — Legendary Additions to the Ritual — Peril of the Function — Chosen as the Highest Point of Comparison — Superiority of Christian Privileges in every re- spect 262-281 Section VI. — A Frcapitulation. — Translation and Notes — Triumphant Close of the Argument — Summary 281-285 Section VIT. — A Third Solemn IVaming: — Exhortation — Its Solemnity — Trans- lation and Notes 285-288 Skctio-hVIW. — The Glories o/Fnitk.—YM-m—V^hat is Faith ?— Exhibited in its Issues — Beginning of the Illustration — Instances from each Period of Sacred History — Translation and Notes 288-294 Section IX. — Final Exhortations. — Exhortation to Endurance — God's Father- hood— ^Translation and Notes — Faith and Patience — Superior Grandeur of Christianity — Moral Appeal of the last Chapter — Translation and Notes — Modern Controversies — " We have an Altar " — Explanation of the Passage — Exhortation — Obedience — Final Clauses — Their Bearing on the Authorship ot the Epistle 294-305 Sooli IV. JUDAIC CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTER XIX. '"the lord"'s brother." A New Phase of Christianity — The Name " James " — The Author was not James the Son of Zebedee — Untenable Arguments — Nor James the Son of Alphaeus — Untenal)le Arguments— Alphaeus — He is James, Bishop of Jerusalem, and the Lord's Ikother — Is he Identical with the Son of Alphseus ? — " Neither did his Brethren Believe on Him " — Paucity of Jewish Names — Helvidian Theoiy — The Simplest and Fairest Explanation of the Language of the Evangelists — The Language not Absolutely Decisive — Dogma of the Aeiparthenia — The Evangelists give no Hint of it — What the Gospels Say — Utter Baselessness of the Theory of St. Jerome — Entirely Untrue that the Terms "Cousins" and " I'rothers " are Identical — ^I'he Theory an Invention due to a priori Concep- tions— Not a single Argument can be Adduced in its favour — Tendencies which Led to the Dogma of the Aeiparthe?iia — Unscriptural and Manichaean Dis- paragement of the Sanctity of Marriage — The Theory arises from Apollinarian Tendencies — Theorj' of Epiphanius — Derived from the Apoci^yphal Gospels — Their Absurdities and Discrepancies — Conclusion 306-323 CHAPTER XX. life and character of ST. JAMES. Inimitable Truthfulness of Scripture narrative — Childhood and Training of St. James — A Boy's Education — "A Just Man" — Levitic Precision — The Home at Nazareth — Familiarity with Scripture—" Wisdom " — Knowledge of Apocryphal xiv CONTENTS. PAGE Kooks— Curious Phenomenon— A Nazarite— Scrupulous Holiness— A Lifelong Vow— Shadows over the Home at Nazareth— Alienation of Christ's " Brethren " —Their Interferences— His Calm and Gentle Rebukes— Their I.ast Interference —Their Complete Conversion— Due to the Resurrection—" He was Seen of Tames"— Legend in the Gospel of the Hebrews — St. James and St. Paul- Death of the Son of Zebedee— James, J'.ishop of Jerusalem— Deep Reverence for his Character— (V'//.tw— St. James and St. Peter— Bearmg of St. James m the Synod of Jerusalem- Wisdom which he Showed— Importance of the 373-401 CHAPTER XXIII. ST. JAMES AND ST. PAUL ON FAITH AND WORKS. St Paul and St. James Contrasted — Is there a Real Contradiction ? — Views of the Tiibingen .School — Is St James thinking of St. Paul at all ? — ^The Questions often I )i.scussed — Jewish Reliance on the Benefit of Theoretic Monotlieism — On Circumcision — On National Privileges — Ou Externalism Generally — St lames probably Intended to Correct Perversions of Pauline Teaching — St Paul's Views Misrepresented even in his Lifetime, and still often Perverted — No Intention to Refute St. Paul — Is the Language of the Apostles reconcil- able?—They arc using the .same Words in Different Senses — "Faith" in .St. Paul and in St. James— " Works " in St. Paul and in St James— " Justifica- tion" in .St. Paul and in St James — Illustrations drawn from dijiferent Peri- ods in the Life of Abraham— St. Paul was Dealing with the Vanity of Legal- ism, St James with the Vanity of Orthodoxy — Fundamental Agreement between the two Apostles shown by what they say of Faith and of Works in other Passages — No Bitter Controversy between them— 'I'hey used Different J^xprcssions. and looked on Christianity from Different Points of View— What IJoth would have Accepted- Blessing of Truth revealed under Many Lights. 402-415 CONTENTS. XV Book V. THE EARLIER LIFE AND WORKS OF ST. JOHN. CHAPTER XXIV. ST. JOHN. PAGE The- Pillar-Apostles — Individuality of Each — St. Paul Meets them at Jerusalem — The Special Work of St. John — His Growth in Spiritual Enlightenment — Continuity of his "Godliness — His Boyhood — A Disciple of the Baptist — His Natural Gifts — Independence of Galileans — Messianic Hopes — Becomes a Disciple of Jesus — Why St. John lived at Jerusalem — Teaching of the Ijaptist — Was St. John Married? — " Follow Me" — Belonged to the Innermost Group of Apostles — Not Ideally Faultless — He had Much to Unlearn — His Exclu- siveness — His Intolerance at En Gannim— Mixture of Humane Motives with his Zeal — "AsEliasdid" — "Ye know not what Spirit ye are of' — Christ's Last Journey to Jerusalem — Ambition of the Sons of Zebedee — The Cup and the Baptism — Leaning on the Lord's Bosom — Flight at Gethsemane — The Earliest to Rejoin his Lord — In the High Priest's Palace — A Witness of the Trials — A V Witness of the Crucifixion — " Behold thy Mother ! " — " To his own Home" — Blood and Water — At the Tomb — A Witness of the Resurrection — On the Lake of Galilee—" If I Will that he Tarry till I Come "—Mistaken Interpretation of the Words ■ 416-438 CHAPTER XXV. LIFE OF ST. JOHN AFTER THE ASCENSION. In the Upper Room — Healing of the Cripple — Threatened and Scourged — With Peter in Samaria — Years of Contemplation — Once Mentioned by .St. Paul — At the Synod of Jerusalem — A Judaist — Recognised the Mission of St. Paul — Took no Part in the Debate — No further Record.s of him in Scripture — At Pat- mos — Date of this Banishment — Causes which led to his Departure from Jerusalem — Legends of his Banishment to Patmos — The Boiling Oil and the Poison — Was he ever at Rome? — Certainty that he Resided in Asia Minor — "The Nebulous Presbyter" — John the Presbyter was John the Apostle — The Quartodeciman Controversy — Greek of the Apocalypse — Revealing Effect of the Fall of Jerusalem — The Apocalypse Judaic in tone — St. John at Ephesus — Patmos 438-453 CHAPTER XXVI. LEGENDS OF ST. JOHN. Legend of his Meeting Cerinthus at the Thermae — Reasons for believing the ^tory to be a mere Invention — Spirit of Religious Intolerance in which the Story Originated — .Strange Legend aljout the Messianic Grapes — Credulity of Papias — Possible Explanation of the Stoi-y — Error of Irenseus — Vehemence of Poly- carp — Legend of .St. John and the Robber — Legend of St. John and the Tame Partridge — Tenderness to Animals — St. John and the Petaloii — Other Le- gends— St. John's Last Sermons — Legends of the Death of St. John — Legends of his Immortality 453-464 CHAPTER XXVII. GENERAL FEATURES OF THE APOCALYPSE. The Earliest of St. John's Books — What we Lose by our Unchronological Arrange- ment of the Book — The Apocalypse Written before the Fall of Jerusalem — Im- possibility that it should have been Written after the Gospel 464-467 xvi CONTENTS. PAGE Section \.— Date of the Apocalypse. — The Apocalypse could not have been Writ- ten in the Time of Domitian — Possible Causes of the Error of Irensus— Key to the Apocalypse found in the Neronian Persecution — Why the Book has been so grievously Misunderstood — Theological Romances of Commentary — The Neronian Persecution and tlie Jewish War — Lesson of the Apocalypse — Nero the Antichrist — Nero amid the Ashes of Rome — All Apocalypses deal with Events on the Contemporary Horizon — Outbreak of the Jewish War — The Temple still Standing — The Flight of the Christians to Pella — ^The Date of the Apocalypse Implied in Rev. xiii. 3, and xvii. 10, 11 — Written in the Reign of Galba — Or possibly a little Later — ^I'he Woes of the Messiah — The Doom of Rome 467-476 Section II. — The Revolt of Judcea. — Delinquencies of Pilate — Threatening Symp- toms— Hatred of the Jews for the Romans — The Air full of Prodigies — Wick- edness of Gessius Florus — Insolence of the Greeks at Csesarea — Disgraceful Tyranny of Klorus. — The Jews Appeal to Cestius Gallus — Rise of the Zealots — Seizure of the Tower of Antonia — Epidemic of Massacre — March of Cestius Gallus — His Pusillanimity — His Defeat at Bethhoron — Vespasian Despatched to Judsea — Leading Citizens Involved in the Revolt — Josephus in Cialilee — Siege of Jotapata — Massacres — Siege of Gamala — Mount Tabor — Giscala — Atrocities of the Zealots in Jerusalem — The Idumeans Admitted — Horrible Orgies — Advance of Vespasian Marked by fresh Massacres — A River of Blood — Increasing Horrors — Factions in Jerusalem — Dreadful Condition of the City — Aspect of the World — Physically — Morally' — Socially — Politically — Incessant Civil Wars — General Terror — The Era of Mart^'rdoms — St\'le, Metaphors, and Meaning of the Apocalypse — Dislike felt for the Book — Accounted for by the Perversions to which it has been Subjected — Strange Systems of Interpretation — The PrEEterists — I'he Futurists -The Historical Interpreters — Gleams of Tradition as to the True View of the Book — Increasing Conviction that it Dealt with Events mainly Contemporary' — Multitudes of Fantastic Guesses — Their Extreme Diversity — Essential .Sacrednessof the Book— Apocalyptic Literature — Necessity for its Cryptographic Form T. 476- 502 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE APOCALYPSE. St. John " the Theologian " 502 Section \.— The Letters to the Se^'eii Chia-ches.—OwXy -i. Rapid Oudine of the Apocalypse offered — Sections of the Book — The Seven Churches — I'he Letters Normally Sevenfold — ^The Letter to Ephesus, 8:c. — The Heresies alluded to — Theory that they are Aimed at the Followers of St. Paul — Absurdity of the Theory— The Nicolaitans — "'I'he Depths of Satan" — "The False Apostles" — Volkmar — The Tubingen School — Extravagant Opinions 503-509 Section \\.—The Seals.— 'X\\q. Vision— The First Seal— The White Horse : The Messiah— The Second Seal — The Red Horse : Slaughter — The Third Seal — 'J'he Black Horse : Famine — "The Oil and the Wine" — The Fourth Seal — The Livid Horse : Pestilence — The Fifth .Seal — The Cry for Vengeance — The Sixth Seal — Universal Catastrophe — .Apocalyptic Style — ^The Pause — The Seal- ing of the 144,000 — Symbols Iterative and Progressive 509-516 Section \\\.—The Trumpets.— The Censer Hurled to Earth— The First Trumpet— .Storms, Earthquakes. Portents-*-The Second Trumpet — The Burning Moun- tain and the Sea turned into lilood — The Third Trumpet — The Star Absinth — The F«purth Trumpet — The Smiting of .Sun. Moon, and .Stars — The Eagle screaming "Woe I " — The Fifth Trumpet — The Fallen Star — The Scorpion- Locusts — The .Sixth Trumpet — Two Hundred Million Horsemen 516-523 Section IV.— ^J« /t/)/j.— Translation and Notes — Introductory Theme — An Apparent Contradiction— " God is Light" — Meaning of the Phrase— " Walk- ing in Light" — Translation, Notes, Comments — Propitiation — Prevalent Misun- derstandings as to the Style and Manner of St. John — Symmetries of State- ment— Parallels — "Knowing God"— Love — "Abiding in God" — The New and Old Commandment — In what sense "New" and "Old" — The Ideal and the Actual — A Test of Professions— " Litde Children, Fathers, Young Men " — Meaning of the Passage — Warning against Love of the World — What is Meant by ''Antichrist" — Prevalence of Antichrists — The Unction from the Holy Spirit is the Christian's Security— Abiding in the Truth — Eternal Life. .. 608-626 Section W. — The Confidence of Sonship. — (ZoxA.Ac\\cft of Sonship a Sign that we Possess Etemal Life — The "Manifestation" of Christ— "Children of God" — How it will be Tested — Translation and Notes — Awful Conceptions of Sin — Severity of Language — Doing Righteousness — Love to Man the Purpose of Re- velation— Cain — Christ — Perfect Love — Difficult Recapitulation— Self-Condem- nation — God's Judgments — Confidence towards God — Last Discourses of Christ 626-635 Section III. — 77/. ex.; Plin. H. N. ix. 18, 32, x. 51, 72. Petron. 93 ; Juv. X"- 1-55. V. 92-100 ; Macrob. Sat. iii. 12, 13 ; Sen. Ep. lx.\.\ix. 21 ; Mart. Ep. l.\x. 5 ; Lam- pridius, P.lagab, 20 ; Suet. Vitell. 13. On the luxury of the age in general, see Sen. De lirev. yit. 12 ; Ep. xcv. * Sen. /i/*. xcv. 15-29. At Herculaneum many of the rolls discovered were cookery books. * Juv. i. 171 ; Mart. ix. 58, 8. a ^432,000. ^ Pliny, //. A', ix. 35, 56. He also saw Agrippina in a robe of gold libsue, id. xxxiii. 19. " Juv. iv. 153 : Suet. Domit. 17. MORAL CONDITION OF THE WORLD. 5 nacle of autocracy, yet conscious that his life hung upon a thread;' — an Emperor who, in the terrible phrase of Gib- bon, was at once a priest, an atheist, and a god." ilie general condition of society was such as might have been expected from the existence of these elements. The Romans had entered on a stage of fatal degeneracy from the first day of their close intercourse with Greece.^ Greece learnt from Rome her cold-blooded cruelty ; Rome learnt from Greece her voluptuous corruption. Family life among the Romans had once been a sacred thing, and for 5 20 years divorce had been unknown among them." Under the Em- pire marriage had come to be regarded with disfavour and disdain.^ Women, as Seneca says, married in order to be divorced, and were divorced in order to marry ; and noble Roman matrons counted the years not by the Consuls, but by their discarded or discarding husbands. ° To have a family was regarded as a misfortune, because the childless were courted with extraordinary assiduity by crowds of fortune-hunters.' When there were children in a family, their education w^as left to be begun under the tutel- age of those slaves who were otherwise the most decrepit and useless,* and was carried on, with results too fatally obvious, by supple, accomplished, and abandoned Greek- lings.^ But indeed no system of education could have eradicated the influence of the domestic circle. No care '" could have prevented the sons and daughters of a wealthy family from catching the contagion of the vices of which they saw in their parents a constant and unblushing ex- ample.'' Literature and art were infected with the prevalent degra- dation. Poetry sank in great measure into exaggerated ' Tac. Aftn. vi. 6 ; Suet. Claud. 35,. 2 "Coelum decretum," Tac. Ann. i. 73; " Dis aequa potestas Cacsaris," Juv. iv. yr ; P!in. Pajieg. 74-5, " Civitas nihil felicitati suae putat adstrui, posse nisi ut Di Caesarem imitenticr." (Cf. Suet. Jjil. 88 ; Tif'. 13, 58 ; Aug. 59 : Calig.^T, ; Ves/>. 23 ; Domit. 13.) Lucan, vii. 456 ; Philo, Leg. ad Gaiunt passim ; Dion Cass. Ixiii. 5, 20; Martial, /(JJj/w ; Tert. Apol. 33, 34 ; Boissier, La Rel. Romaine, i. 122-208. 3 The degeneracy is specially traceable in their literature from the days of Plautus onwards. < The first Roman recorded to have divorced his wife was Sp, Carvilius Ruga, B.C. 234 (Dionys. ii. 25 ; Aul. Cell. xvii. 21). ^ Hor. Od. iii. 6. 17. ''Raraque in hoc aevo quae velit esse parens," Ov. Kux. i$. Hence the Le.\ Papia Poppaea, the Jus trium liberorum, etc. Suet. Oct. 34 ; Aul. Gell. i. 6. See Champagny, Lcs CSsars. i. 258, si-q. * " Non consulum nuniero sed maritorum annos sues computant," Sen. De Bene/, iii. 16 ; " Repudium jam votum erat, et quasi matrimonii fructus," Tert. AJ>ol. 6 ; " Corruinpere et corrumpi saeculum vocatur," 'Pac. Germ. 19. Comp. Suet. Calig. 34. ■^ Tac. Germ. 20; Ann. xiii. 52 ; Piin. //. N. xiv. J>ro(VMt ; Sen. ad Marc. Consol. 19; Plin. Kpf>. iv. i6 ; Juv. Sat, xii. 114, seq. « Plut. De Lih. Educ. « Juv. vil. 187, 219. ^^ Juv. Sat. xiv. 11 Juv. Sat, xiv. passim; Tac. De Oral. 28, 29 ; Quinct. i. s ; Sen. De Ird, ii. sa ; Jip. 95. 6 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRlSTlAxMTY. satire, hollow declamation, or frivolous epigrams. Art was partly corrupted by the fondness for glare, expensiveness, and size,' and partly sank into miserable triviality, or im- moral prettinesses,'"' such as those which decorated the walls of Pompeii in the first century, and the Pare aux Cerfs in the eighteenth. Greek statues of the days of Phidias were ruthlessly decapitated, that their heads might be replaced by the scowling or imbecile figures of a Gains or a Claudius. Nero, professing to be a connoisseur, thought that he im- proved the Alexander of Lysimachus by gilding it from head to foot. Eloquence, deprived of every legitimate aim, and used almost solely for purposes of insincere display, was tempted to supply the lack of genuine fire by sonorous euphoi;y and theatrical affectation. A training in rhetoric was now understood to be a training in the art of emphasis and verbiage, which was rarely used for any loftier purpose than to make sycophancy plausible, or to embellish sophis- try with speciousness.^ The Drama, even in Horace's days, liad degenerated into a vehicle for the exhibition of scenic splendour or ingenious machinery. Dignity, wit, pathos, were no longer expected on the stage, for the dramatist was eclipsed by the swordsman or the rope-dancer.* The actors who absorbed the greatest part of popular favour were pan- tomimists, whose insolent prosperity was generally in direct proportion to the infamy of their character.^ And while the shamclessness of the theatre corrupted the purity of all classes from the earliest age," the hearts of the multitude were made hard as the nether millstone with brutal insensi- bility, by the fury of the circus, the atrocities of the amphi- theatre, and the cruel orgies of the games.'' Augustus, in > It was tlic age of Colossi (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 7 ; Mart. Ej>. i. 71, viii. 44 ; Stat. Sylv. i. I, etc.). 2 'Poijrovpai^i'a. Cic. Att. xv. 16 ; Plin. xxxv. 37. See Champagny, Les Cisars, iv. 138, who refers to Vitruv. vii. 5 ; Propert. ii. 5 ; Plin. H. N. xiv. 22, and xxxv. 10 (the painter Arellius, etc.). 3Tac. Dial. 36-41 ; Ann. xv. 71 ; Sen. Ef>. cvi. 12 ; Petron. Satyr. \. Dion Cass. li.\. :o. < Tuv. .viv. 250 ; Suet. Nero, 11 ; Galh. 6. » Mncstcr (Tac. Ann. xi. 4, 36) ; Paris (Juv. vi. 87, vii. 88) ; Alituius (Jos. Vit. ^) ; Pylades (Z.-sim. i. 6) ; Kathyllus (Dion Cass. liv. 17 ; Tac. Ann. i. 54^ ^ Isidor. xviii. 39. ' " Mcra humicidia sunt," Sen. Kp. vii. 2 ; "Nihil est nobis . . . cum insania circi, cum impudicitia tlieatri. cum .-itrocitatc arenae, cum vanitate xysti," Tert. Apol. 38. Cicero m- dined to the prohibition of games which imperilled life {De I.eg^g. ii. 15), and Seneca (/. r.) expressed lii-i compassionate disapproval, and exposed the falsehood and sophism of the plea that after ail the suftcrers were only criminals. Yet in the days of Claudius the number of those thus butchered was so great that the statue of Augustus had to be moved that it might not constanily be covered with a veil (r)ion Cass. Ix. 13, who in the same chapter mentions a lion that had hce-n trained to devour men). In Claudius's sham sea-fight we are told that the incredible number of 19,000 men fought each other (lac. Ann. xii. 56). Titus, the "darling of the human racof** in one day brought into the theatre 5,000 wild beasts (Suet. Tit. 7). and butchered thousand* of Jew* in th« games at lierytus. In Trajan's games (Dion Cass, l.wiii. lij ii.oco animals and ic,ooo men had to fight. MORAL CONDITION OF THE WORLD. / the document annexed to his will, mentioned that he had exhibited 8,000 gladiators and 3,510 wild beasts. The old warlike spirit of the Romans was dead among the gilded youth of families in which distinction of any kind was cer- tain to bring down upon its most prominent members the murderous suspicion of irresponsible despots. The spirit which had once led tlie Domitii and the Fabii " to drink deliglit of battle with their peers " on the plains of Gaul and in the forests of Germany, was now satiated by gazing on criminals fighting for dear life with bears and tigers, or upon bands of gladiators who hacked each other to pieces on the encrimsoned sand.* The languid enervation of the delicate and dissolute aristocrat could only be amused by magnifi- cence and stimulated by grossness or by blood.'^ Thus the gracious illusions by which true Art has ever aimed at purg- ing the passions of terror and pity, were extinguished by the realism of tragedies ignobly horrible, and comedies in- tolerably base. Two phrases sum up the characteristics of Roman civilisation in the days of the Empire — heartless cruelty, and unfathomable corruption.^ If there had been a refuge anywhere for the sentiments of outraged virtue and outraged humanity, we might have hoped to find it in the Senate, the members of which were heirs of so many noble and austere traditions. But — even in the days of Tiberius — the Senate, as Tacitus tells us, had rushed headlong into the most servile flattery,* and this would not have been possible if its members had not been tainted by the prevalent deterioration. It was before the once grave and pure-minded Senators of Rome — the great- ness of whose state was founded on the sanctity of family relationships— that the Censor Metellus had declared in A.u.c. 602, Avithout one dissentient murmur, that marriage could only be regarded as an intolerable necessity.^ Before that same Senate, at an earlier period, a leading Consular had not scrupled t© assert that there was scarcely one among them all who had not ordered one or more of his own infant 1 Suit. Claud. 14, 21, 34 ; .Ycr. 12 ; Calig. 35 ; Tac. Ann. xiii. .49 ; Plin. Paneg. 33. '■^ 'rac. Atin. XV. 32. 3 Eph. IV. 19 . 2 Cor. vii. 10. Merivale, vi. 452 ; Champagny. Les CSsars, iv. 161, seg. Seiieca, describing the age in the tragedy of Octavia, says ; — " Saecnlo premimur gravi Quo scelera regnant, saevit impietas furens," etc. —Oct. 379-437- * Tac. Ann. Hi. 65, vi. 2, xiv. 12, 13, etc. ' Cump. lac. A»-i. ii. 37, 38. ill. 34, 35. xv. 19 ; Aiil. Gel!. .V. .-l. i. 6 ; Liv. Ej^it. f^. 8 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. children to be exposed to death/ In the hearing of that same Senate in a.d, 59, not long before St. Paul wrote his letter to Philemon, C. Cassius Longinus had gravely argued that the only security for the life of masters was to put into execution the sanguinary Silanian Law, which enacted that, if a master was murdered, every one of his slaves, hoAvever numerous, however notoriously innocent, should be indis- criminately massacred.^ It was the Senators of Rome who thronged forth to meet with adoring congratulations the miserable youth who came to them with his hands reeking with the blood of matricide.^ They offered thanksgivings to the gods for his worst cruelties,* and obediently voted Divine honours to the dead infant, four months old, of the wife whom he afterwards killed with a brutal kick.^ And what was the religion of a period w^hich needed the sanctions and consolations of religion more deeply than any age since the world began ? It is certain that the old Paganism was — except in country places — practically dead. The very fact that it was necessary to prop it up by the but- tress of political interference shows how hollow and ruinous the structure of classic Polytheism had become.® The de- crees and reforms of Claudius were not likely to reassure the faith of an age which had witnessed in contemptuous silence, or with frantic adulation, the assumption by Gains of the attributes of deity after deity, had tolerated his insults against their sublimest objects of worship, and encouraged his claim to a living apotheosis.' The upper classes were "destitute of faith, yet terrified at scepticism." They had long learned to treat the current mythology as a mass of worthless fables, scarcely amusing enough for even a school- boy's laughter,^ but they were the ready dupes of every wan- dering quack who chose to assume the character of a mathema- ' This abandonment of children was a norvtal practice (Ter. Heaut. iv. i, 37 ; Ovid, Amor. ii. 14; Suet. Calig. 5 ; Oct. 65 ; Juv. Sat. vi. 592 ; Plin. Ep. iv. 15 [comp. ii. 20].; Sen. ad Marciam, 19 ; Controv. x. 6). Augustine [Dc Civ. Dei., iv. 11) tells us that there was a goddess /^^wa«rt, so called "quia levat infantes ; " if the father did not take the new- born child in his arms, it was exposed (Tac. Hist. v. 5 ; Germ. 19 ; Tert. Apol. 9 : Ad Nat t. 15; Minuc. Pel. Octav. xxx. 31 ; .Stobaen's Floril. Ixxv. 15 ; Epictet. i. 23 ; Paulus, Dig;. x.w. 3, etc. .^nd see Denis, Idees morales datis PAntiquiti, ii. 203). 2 rac. Ann. xiv. 43/ 44 ; v. supra, p. 3. 3 Tac. Attn. xiv. 13 : " festo cultii Senatum." * " Qiioticns fugas et caedes jussit princeps, totiens gratis Deis actas," Tac. Ann. xiv. 64. ' Tac. Ann. xvi. 6 ; Suet. Ner. 25 ; Dion Cass. Ixii. 27. 8 Suet. Tib. 36. ^ Suet. Calig. 51. See Mart. Rp. v. 8, where he talks of the "edict of our Lord and God," ?>., of Domitian ; and vii. 60, where he says that he shall pray to Domitian, and not to Jupiter. * " Esse aliquos manes ct subterranea regna . . . Nee pueri credunt niiii qui nonduni acre lavantur." — J\iv. Sat. ii. 149, 152. MORAL CONDlTrON OF THE WORLD. 9 ticus or njnage.^ Their official religion was a decrepit The- ogony ; tiieir real religion was a vague and credulous fatal- ism, which disbelieved in the existence of the gods, or held with Epicurus that they were careless of mankind.^ The mass of the populace either accorded to the old beliefs a nominal adherence which saved them the trouble of giving any thought to the matter,^ and reduced their creed and their morals to a survival of national habits ; or else they plunged with eager curiosity into the crowd of foreign cults* — among which a distorted Judaism took its place^ — such as made the Romans familiar wnth strange names like Sabazius and Anchialus, Agdistis, Isis, and the Syrian god- dess." All men joined in the confession that "the oracles were dumb." It hardly needed the wail of mingled lamen- tations as of departing deities which swept over the aston- ished crew of the vessel off Palodes to assure the world that the reign of the gods of Hellas was over — that ''Great Pan w^as dead." '' Such are the scenes which we must witness, such are the sentiments with which we must become familiar, the moment that we turn away our eyes from the spectacle of the little Christian churches, composed chiefly as yet of slaves and arti- sans, who had been taught to imitate a Divine example of hu- mility and sincerity, of purity and love. There were, indeed, a few among the Heathen w4io lived nobler lives and pro- fessed a purer ideal than the Pagans around them. Here and there in the ranks of the philosophers a Demetrius, a Musonius Rufus, an Epictetus ; here and there among Senators an Plelvidius Priscus, a Paetus Thrasea, a Barea Soranus ; here and there among literary men a Seneca or a Persius — showed that virtue was not yet extinct. But the Stoicism on which they leaned for support amid the terrors and temptations of that awful epoch utterly failed to provide a remedy against the universal degradation. It aimed at cherishing an insensibility which gave no reqj comfort, and Tac. //. i. 22; Aft?t. vi. 20, 21, xii. 68 ; Juv, Sai. xiv. 248, iii. 42, vii. 200, etc.; Suet. 04 ; Ti'i. 14 ; A't-r. 26; Oi/io, 4; Doinit. 15, etc. Lucr. vi. 445-455 ; Juv. Sat. vii. 189-202, x. 129, xiii. 86-89 ; Piin. H.N. ii. 21 ; Quinct. Aug. 04 ; Tib. 14 ; Ner. 26; Otho,_ 4; Doinit. 15, etc 2 Lucr. vi. 445-455 ; Juv. Sat. vii. 189-202, x. 129, xiii. 86-89 ; P Instt. v. 6, § 3 : Tac. H. i. lo-tS, ii. 69-82; A^-ic. 13 ; Germ, 33 ; Ann. vi. 22, etc 3 Juv. Sat. iii. 144, vi. 342, xiii. 75-83. < " Nee turba deorum talis ut est hodie," Juv. Sat xiii. 46 ; " Ignobilem Deorum turbatn quam lon^o aevo longa superstitio congcssit." Sen. P.p. 110. See Boissier, Lis Religions Etrangires [Rel. Ron. i. 374-450) ; Liv. xxxix. 8 ; Tac. Ann. ii. 85 ; Val. Max. I. iii. 2. ^ Juv. Sat. xiv. <>6-io6 ; Jos. Antt. xviii. 3 ; Pers. Sat. v. 180. •> Cic. De Legg. li. 8 ; De Div. ii. 24 ; Ten. ad Natt. i. 10;. Juv. Sat. xiv. 263, xv. 1-52. ^ Plut. De D>'/. Orac, p. 419. Some Christian writers ponnect this remarkable story with the date of the Crucifixion. See Niedner, l.elirbiicJi d. Chr. K. C. p. 64. lO THE EARLY DAVS OF CHRISTIANITV. for which it offered no adequate motive. It aimed at re- pressing the passions by a violence so unnatural that with them it also crushed some of the gentlest and most ele- vating emotions. Its self-satisfaction and exclusiveness re- pelled the gentlest and sweetest natures from its communion. It made a vice of compassion, which Christianity inculcated as a virtue ; it cherished a haughtiness which Christianity discouraged as a sin. It was unfit for the task of ameliorat- ing mankind, because it looked on human nature in its nor- mal aspects with contemptuous disgust. Its marked char- acteristic was a despairing sadness, which became specially prominent in its most sincere adherents. Its favourite theme was the glorification of suicide, wdiich wiser moralists had severely reprobated,^ but which many Stoics belauded as the one sure refuge against oppression and outrage.^ It was a philosophy which was indeed able to lacerate the heart with a righteous indignation against the crimes and follies of mankind, but which vainly strove to resist, and which scarcely even hoped to stem, the ever-swelling tide of vice and misery. For wretchedness it had no pity ; on vice it looked with impotent disdain. Thrasea was regarded as an antique hero for walking out of the Senate-house during the discussion of some decree which involved a servility more than usually revolting.^ He gradually drove his few admirers to the conviction that, even for those who had every advantage of rank and wealth, nothing was possible but a life of crushing sorrow ended by a death of complete de- spair/ St. Paul and St. Peter, on the other hand, were at the very same epoch teaching in the same city, to a few Jewish hucksters and a few Gentile slaves, a doctrine so full of hope and brightness that letters, written in a prison with torture and death in view, read like idylls of serene happi- > Virg. yEn. vi. 450, sf^. ; Tusc. Disf,. i. 74 ; Cic. De Senect. 73 ; De Rep. vi. 15 ; Sontn, Scip. 3 ; Sen. A"/. 70. Comp. F.pict. Euchir. 52. ' Both Zeno and Cleanthes died by suicide. For the frequency of suicide under the Em- pire see lac. An?i. vi. 10, 26, xv. 60 ; Hist. v. 26 ; Suet. Tib. 49 ; Sen. Dc Bene/, ii. 27 ; Kp. 70; Plin. Ep. i. 12, iii. 7, 16, vi. 24. For its glorification, Luc.an, Phars. iv. : — "^fo^s utinam pavidos vitae subducere nolles, Sed virtus te sola daret." " Mortes repentinae, hoc est summa vitae felicitas," Plin. H. N. vii. 53, cf. 51. The practice of suicide became in the days of Trajan almost a " natio.ial usage" (see Merivale, vii. 317, viii. 107). The variety of Latin phrases for suicide shows the frequency of the crime. On the pride of .Stoicism see Tac. Ahji. xiv. 57 ; Juv, xiii. 93. 3 On the motion against the memory of .^grippiiia (Tac. A>,n. .\Iv. 12). He had also op- posed the execution of Antistius {id. xiv. 48). It was further remtMiibered against him that he had not attended the obsequie.s of the deified Poppaea, or offered sacrifice for the preserva- tion of Nero's "divine voice. * .Suet. .\V/. 37. THE RISK OF illF, AN'riCIIRlSr. II ness ?ind paeans of triumphant joy. The graves of these poor sufferers, hid from the public eye in the catacombs, were decorated with an art, rude indeed, yet so triumphant as to make their subterranean squalor radiant with emblems of all that is brightest and most poetic in the happiness of man/ While the glimmering taper of the Stoics was burn- ing pale, as though amid the vapours of a charnel-house, the torch of Life upheld by the hands of the Tarsian tent- maker and the Galilsean fisherman had flashed from Damas- cus to Antioch, from Antioch to Athens, from Athens to Corinth, from Corintli to Ephesus, from Ephesus to Rome. CI-I AFTER 11. THE RISE OF THE ANTICHRIST. "Hie hostis Deiim Hominumque templis expulit superos suis, Civesque patria ; spiritum fratri abslulit Hausit cruorcm matris ; — et lucem videt ! " — Sen. Octav. 239 " Praestare Neronem Securum valet haec aetas." — Jav. Sat. viii. 173. All the vice, all the splendour, all the degradation of Pagan Rome seemed to be gathered up in the person of that Em- peror who first placed himself in a relation of direct antago- nism against Christianity. Long before death ended the astute comedy in which Augustus had so gravely borne his part,^ he had experienced the Nemesis of Absolutism, and foreseen the awful possibilities which it involved. But neither he, nor any one else, could have divined that four such rulers as Tiberius, Gains, Claudius, and Nero — the first a sanguinary tyrant, the second a furious madman, the tliird an uxorious imbecile, the fourth a heartless buffoon — would in succession affiict and horrify the world. Yet these rulers sat upon the breast of Rome with the paralysing spell ^ " There the ever-green leaf protests in sculptured silence that the winter ofthe grave can- not touch the saintly soul ; the blossoming branch speaks of vernal suns heyontl the snows of this chill world ; the good shepherd shows from his benign looks tiiat the mortal way so teiTi- ble to nature had become to those Christians as the meadow-path between the grassy slope* and beside the still waters." (iMartincau, Hours 0/ Thought, p. 155.) - On his death-bed he asked his friends " whether lie had fitly gone through the play of life," and, if so, begged for their applause like aa actor on the point of leaving the stage (Suot« Octal: 99). 12 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. of a nightmare. The concentration of the old prerogatives of many offices in the person of one who was at once Con- sul, Censor, Tribune, Pontifex Maximus, and perpetual Im- perator, fortified their power with the semblance of legality, and that power was rendered terrible by the sword of the Praetorians, and the deadly whisper of the informers. No wonder that Christians saw the true type of the Antichrist in that omnipotence of evil, that apotheosis of self, that dis- dain for humanity, that hatred against all mankind besides, that gigantic aspiration after the impossible, that frantic blasphemy and unlimited indulgence, which marked the despotism of a Gains or a Nero. The very fact that their power was precarious as well as gigantic — that the lord of the world might at any moment be cut off by the indigna- tion of \\\Q canaille of Rome, nay, more, by the revenge of a single tribune, or the dagger-thrust of a single slave' — did but make more striking the resemblance which they dis- played to the gilded monster of Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Their autocracy, like that visionary idol, was an image of gold on feet of clay. Of that colossus many a Christian would doubtless be reminded when he saw the huge statue of Nero, with the radiated head and the attributes of the sun-god, which once towered 120 feet high on the shattered pediment still visible beside the ruins of the Flavian Am- phitheatre.'* The sketch Avhich I am now presenting to the reader is the necessary introduction to the annals of that closing epoch of the first century, which witnessed the early struggle of Christianity with the Pagan power. In the thirteen years of Nero's reign all the worst elements of life which had long mingled with the sap of ancient civilisation seem to have rushed at once into their scarlet flower. To the Christians of that epoch the dominance of such an Emperor presented itself in the aspect of wickedness raised to superhiunan ex- altation, and engaged in an impious struggle against the Lord and against His saints. Till the days of Nero the Christians had never been brought into collision with the Imperial Government We may set aside as a worthless fiction the story that Tiberius had been so much interested in the account of the Cruci- fixion forwarded to him by Pontius Pilate, as to consult the ' Out of 43 persons in Lipsiiis's Strmmn Cnesaruin^ 32 died \ jolent deaths, /./'., nearly 75 per cent. '•' Sucl. .W^-. 31 ; Alart. S/nct. I\J>. 2. Tin: RISE OF THE AN'lICllRIS T. 1 3 Senate on the advisability of admitting Jesus among the gods of the Pantheon. ' It is very unhkely that Tiberius ever heard of the existence of the Christians. In its early days the Faith was too humble to excite any notice out of the limits of Palestine. Gaius, absorbed in his mad attempt to set up in the Holy of Holies ''a desolating abomination," in the form of a huge image of himself, entertained a savage hatred of the Jews, but had not learned to discriminate between them and Christians. Claudius, disturbed by tu- mults in the Ghetto of Jewish freedmen across the Tiber, had been taught to look with alarm and suspicion on the name of Christus distorted into " Chrestus ; " but his decree for the expulsion of the Jews from Rome, which had been a dead letter from the first, only affected Christianity by causing the providential migration of Prisca and Aquila, to become at Corinth and Ephesus the hosts, the partners, and the protectors of St. Paul.^ Nero was destined to enter into far deadlier and closer relations with the nascent Faith, and to fill so vast a space in the horrified imaginations of the early Christians as to become by his cruelties, his blasphe- mies, his enormous crimes, the nearest approach which the world has yet seen to the ''Man of Sin." He was the ideal of depravity and wickedness, standing over against the ideal of all that is sinless and Divine. Against the Christ was now to be ranged the Antichrist, — the man-god of Pagan adulation, in whom was manifested the consummated out- come of Heathen crime and Heathen power. Up to the tenth year of Nero's reign the Christians had many reasons to be grateful to the power of the Roman Empire. St. Paul, when he wrote from Corinth to the Thessalonians, had indeed seen in the fabric of Roman polity, and in Claudius, its reigning representative, the "check" and the "checker" which must be removed before the com- ing of the Lord.^ Yet during his stormy life the Apostle had been shielded by the laws of Rome in more than one provincial tumult. The Roman politarchs of Thessalonica had treated him with humanity. He had been protected » Ps. Clem. Horn. \. 6; Tert. Af>oL 5; Euseb. H. E. ii. 2 ; Jer. Chron. Pasch. i. 430. Braiin (^De Tiber it Christuin in Deoriim 7iu}neruin re/erendi consilio, Bonn, 1834) Vainly tr;ed to support this fable. Tiberius, more than any Emperor, was "circa Deos et religiones negligentior" (Suet. Tib. 69). 2 See Tert. Aj>ol. 3 ; ad Natt. i. 3 ; my Life a?id Work rf St. Paul, i. 559 I cannot accept the view of Herzog [Real-EttcykL, s.v. Claudius) that Chrestus was some seditious Roman Jew. 3 Life and Work of St. Paul, i. 584, fg. 14 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. " from the infuriated Jews in Corinth by the disdainful justice of Gallio. In Jerusalem the prompt interference of Lysias and of Festus had sheltered him from the plots of the San- hedrin. At Csesarea he had appealed to Caesar as his best security from the persistent hatred of Ananias and the Sad- ducees. If we have taken a correct view of the latter part of his career, his appeal had not been in vain, and he owed the last two years of his missionary activity to the impar- tiality of Roman Law\ Hence, apart from the general prin- ciple of submission to recognized authority, he had special reason to urge the Roman Christians "to be subject to the higher powers," and to recognise in them the ordinance of God/ With the private wickedness of rulers the Christians were not directly concerned. Rumours, indeed, they must have heard of the poisoning of Claudius and of Britannicus; of Nero's intrigues with Acte ; of his friendship with the bad Otho ; of the divorce and legal assassination of Octavia ; of the murders of Agrippina and Poppaea, of Burrus and Seneca. Other rumours must have reached them of name- less orgies, of wdiich it was a shame even to speak. But knowing how the whole air of the bad society around them reeked with lies, they may have shown the charity that hopeth all things, and imputeth no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity, by tacitly setting aside these stories as incredi- ble or false. It w^as not till a.d. 64, when Nero had been nearly ten years on the throne, that the slow light of His- tory fully revealed to the Church of Christ what this more than monster was. A dark spirit was walking in the house of the Caesars — a spirit of lust and blood w^iich destroyed every family in succession with which they were allied. The Octavii, the Claudii, the Domitii, the Silani, w^ere all hurled into ruin or disgrace in their attempt to scale, by intermarriage with the deified race of Julius, " the dread summits of Caesarean power." It has been Avell said that no page even of Tacitus has so sombre and tragic an eloquence as the mere Stem ma Caesar um. The great Julius, robbed by death of his two daughters, w^as succeeded by his nephew Augustus," who, in ' Rom. xiii. 1-7. ' It is characteristic of the manners of the v^%Q. that Julius Cacsnr had manned four times, Augustus thrice, Tiberius twice, Gains thrice, Claudius six times, and Nero ihrice. Vet Nero was the last of the Cassars, even of the adoptive line. No descendants had survived of the offspring of so many unions, and, as Merivale says, "a large proportion, which it would be tedious to calculate, were the victims of domestic jealousy and politic assassination" {Nisi, vi. 366). THE RISE OF THE ANTfCHRIST. ]5 ordering the assassination of C^esarion, the natural son of Julius by Cleopatra, extinguished the direct line of the greatest of the Caesars. Augustus by his three marriages was the father of but one daughter, and that daughter disgraced his family and embittered his life. He saw his two elder grandsons die under circumstances of the deepest suspicion ; and being induced to disinherit the third for the asserted stupidity and ferocity of his disposition, was suc- ceeded by Tiberius, who was only his stepson, and had not a drop of the Julian blood in his veins. Tiberius had but one son, who was poisoned by his favourite, Sejanus, before his own death. This son, Drusus, left but one son, who was compelled to commit suicide by his cousin, Gaius ; and one daughter, whose son, Rubellius Plautus, was put to death by order of Nero. The marriage of Germanicus, the nephew of Tiberius, with the elder Agrippina, grand- daughter of Augustus, seemed to open new hopes to the Roman people and the imperial house. Germanicus was a prince of courage, virtue, and ability, and the elder Agrip- pina was one of the purest and noblest women of her day. Of the nine children of this virtuous union six alone sur- vived. On the parents, and the three sons in succession, the hopes of Rome were jfixed. But Germanicus was poisoned by order of Tiberius, and Agrippina was murdered in banishment after the endurance of the most terrible anguish. Their two elder sons, Nero and Drusus, lived only long enough to disgrace themselves, and to be forced to die of starvation.^ The third was the monster Gaius. Of the three daughters, the youngest, Julia Livia was put to death by the orders of Messalina, the wife of her uncle Claudius. Drusilla died -in prosperous infamy, and Agrip- pina the younger, after a life of crime so abnormal and so detestable that it throws into the shade even the monstrous crimes of many of her contemporaries, murdered her hus- band, and was murdered by the orders of the son for whose sake she had waded through seas of blood. That son was Nero ! Truly the Palace of the Caesars must have been haunted by many a restless ghost, and amid its vast and solitary chambers the guilty lords of its splendour must have feared lest they should come upon some spectre weeping tears of blood. In yonder corridor the floor was still stained with the life-blood of the mur- 1 Tac. Ann.w 3, vi. 24. 1 6 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. dered Gaius ; ' in that subterranean prison the miserable Drusus, cursing the name of his great-uncle Tiberius, tried to assuage the pangs of hunger by chewing the stuffing of his mattress f in that gilded saloon Nero had his private interviews with the poison-mixer, Locusta, whom he salaried among '^the instruments of his government;"'* in that splendid hall Britannicus fell into convulsions after tasting his brother's poisoned draught ; that chamber, bright witii the immoral frescoes of Arellius, witnessed the brutal kick which caused the death of the beautiful Poppsea. Fit palace for the Antichrist — fit temple for the wicked human god ! — a temple which reeked with the memory of infamies ■ — a palace which echoed with the ghostly footfall of mur- dered men ! Agrippina the Second, mother of Nero, was the Lady Macbeth of that scene of murder, but a Lady Macbeth with a life of worse stains and a heart of harder steel. Born at Cologne in the fourteeenth year of the reign of Tiberius, she lost her father, Germanicus, by poison when she was three years old, and her mother, Agrippina, first by exile when she was twelve years old, and finally by murder when she was seventeen. She grew up with her wicked sisters and her wicked brother Gaius in the house of her grandmother iVntonia, the widow of the elder Drusus. She was little more than fourteen years old when Tiberius married her to Cnseus Domitius Ahenobarbus. The Domitii were one of the noblest and most ancient families of Rome, but from the time that they first emerged into the light of history they had been badly pre-eminent for the ferocity of their dispositions. They derived the surname of Ahenobar- bus, or brazen-beard, from a legend of their race intended to account for their physical peculiarity.* Six generations earlier, the orator Crassus had said of the Domitius Aheno- barbus of that day, '' that it was no wonder his beard was of brass, since his mouth was of iron and his heart of lead." But though the traditions of cruelty and treachery had been carried on from generation to generation,'^ they seemed to 1 "The Verres of a single province sank before the majesty of the law, and the righteous eloquence of his accuser ; against the Verres of the world there was no defence except in the dagger of the assassin" (Freeman, Essays, ii. 330). 2 Tac. AtiK. vii. 23. 3 Tac Ann. xii. 66, xiii. 5. 4 Suet. Ner. r ; Plut. Aumil. 25. ^ "The grandfather of Nero had been checked by Augustus from the bloodshed of his gladiatorial shows . . . his great-grandfather, ' the best of his race, had changed sides three times, not without disgrace, m the civil wars . . . his great-great-grandfather had rendered himself infamous by cruelty and treachery at Pharsalia, and was also charged with most un- Roman pusillanimity" (see Suet. Ner. 1-5; Merivale, vi. 62, seq.). THE RISl-: OF THE ANTICHRIST. 1/ have culminated in the father of Nero, who added a tinge of meanness and vulgarity to the brutal manners of his race. His loose morals had been shocking even to a loose age, and men told each other in disgust how he had cheated in his prsetorship ; how he had killed one of his freedmen only because he had refused to drink as much as he was bidden; how he had purposely driven over a poor boy on the Appian Road; how^ in a squabble in the Forum he had struck out the eye of a Roman knight ; how he had been finally banished for crimes still more shameful. It was a current anecdote of this man, who was " detestable through every period of his life," that when, nine years after his marriage, the birth of his son Nero was announced to him, he answered the con- gratulations of his friends with the remark, that from him- self and Agrippina nothing could have been born but what was hateful, and for the public ruin. Agrippina was twenty-one when her brother Gaius suc- ceeded to the throne. Towards the close of his reign she was involved in- the conspiracy of Lepidus, and was banished to the dreary island of Pontia. Gaius seized the entire property both of Domitius and of Agrippina. Nero, their little child, then three years old, was handed over as a pen- niless orphan to the charge of his aunt Domitia, the mother of Messalina. This lady entrusted the education of the child to two slaves, whose influence is perhaps traceable for many subsequent years. One of them was a barber, the other a dancer. On the accession of Claudius, Agrippina was restored to her rank and fortune, and once more undertook the manage- ment of her child. He was, as we see from his early busts, a child of exquisite beauty. His beauty made him an ob- ject of special pride to his mother. From this time forward it seems to have been her one desire to elevate the boy to the rank of Emperor. In vain did the astrologers warn her that his elevation involved her murder. To such dark hints of the future she had but one reply — Occidat diun imperet ! " Let him slay me, so he do but reign ! " By her second marriage, with Crispus Passienus, ^ she further increased her already enormous wealth. She bided her time. Claudius w^as under the control of his freedmen, Narcissus and Pallas, and of the Empress Messalina, who had borne him two children, Britannicus and Octavia. The fierce and w^atchful jealousy of Messalina was soon success- ful in securing the banishment and subsequent murder of 1 8 thb: early days of christiaxity. Julia, the younger sister of Agrippina/ and in spite of the retirement in which the latter strove to Avithdraw herself from the furious suspicion of the Empress, she felt that her own life and that of her son were in perpetual danger. A story prevailed that when Britannicus, then about seven vears old, and Nero, who was little more than three years older,"' had ridden side by side in the Trojan equestrian game, the favour of the populace towards the latter had been so openly manifested that Messalina had despatched emissaries to strangle him in bed, and that they had been frightened from doing so by seeing a snake glide from under the pillow.^ Meanwhile, Messalina was diverted from her purpose by the criminal pursuits which were notorious to every Roman w^ith the single exception of her husband. She was falling deeper and deeper into that dementation preceding doom whicli at last enabled her enemy Narcissus to head a palace conspiracy and to strike her to the dust. Agrippina owed her escape from a fate similar to that of her younger sister solely to the infatuated" passion of the rival Avhose name through all succeeding ages has been a byword of guilt and shame. But now that Claudius was a widower, the fact that he was her uncle, and that unions between an uncle and niece were regarded as incestuous, did not prevent Agrippina from plunging into the intrigues by which she hoped to se- cure the Emperor for her third husband. Aided by the freedman Pallas, brother of Felix, the Procurator of Judasn, and by the blandishments which her near relationship to Claudius enabled her to exercise, she succeeded in achieving the second great object of her ambition. The twice-wid- owed matron became the sixth wife of the imbecile Emperor within three months of the execution of her predecessor. She had now but one further design to accomplish, and that was to gain the purple for the son whom she loA^ed with all the tigress affection of her evil nature. She had been the sister and the wife, she wished also to be the mother of an Emperor. The story of her daring schemes, her reckless cruelty, her incessant intrigues, is recorded in the stern pages of Tacitus. During the five years of her married life,* it is ' Suet, Claud. 29. - 'racitus says two years ; but see Merivale, v. 517, vi. 88. ■' Suetonius thinks that the story rose from a snake's skin which his mother gave him as an amulet, and which for some time he wore in a bracelet ( AVr. 6). ' Slic was married in A.i). 40, ami poisoned her husband in October, a.u. 54 . THE RISE OF THE ANTICHRIST. 1 9 probable that no day passed without her thoughts brooding upon the guilty end which she had kept steadily in view during so many vicissitudes. Her first plan was to secure for Nero the hand of Octavia, the only daughter of Claudius. Octavia had long been betrothed to the young and noble Lucius Junius Silanus, a great-great-grandson of Augustus, who might well be dreaded as a strong protector of the rights of his young brother-in-law, Britannicus. As a fa- vourite of the Emperor, and the betrothed of the Emperor's daughter, Silanus had already received splendid honours at the hands of the Senate, but at one blow Agrippina hurled him into the depths of shame and misery. The infamous Vitellius — Vitellius who had once begged as a favour a slipper of Messalina, and carried it in his bosom and kissed it with profound reverence — Vitellius who had placed a gilded image of the freedman Pallas among his household gods — trumped up a false charge against Silanus, and, as Censor, struck his name off the list of the Senate. His betrothal annulled, his przetorship abrogated, the high-spir- ited young man, recognising whose hand it was that had aimed this poisoned arrow at his happiness, waited till Agrippina's w^edding-day, and on that day committed suicide on the altar of his own Penates. The next step of the Em- press was to have her rival Lollia Paulina charged with magic, to secure her banishment, to send a tribune to kill her, and to identify, by personal inspection, her decapitated head. Then Calpurnia w^as driven from Rome because Claudius, with perfect innocence, had praised her beauty. On the other hand, Seneca w^as recalled from his Corsican exile, in order to increase Agrippina's popularity by an act of ostensible mercy, which restored to Rome its favourite w^riter, while it secured a powerful adherent for her cause and an eminent tutor for her son. The next step was t > effect the betrothal of Octavia to Nero, who was twehe years old. A still more difficult and important measure was to secure his adoption. Claudius was attached to his son Britannicus, and, in spite of his extraordinary fatuity, he could hardly fail to see that his son's rights would be injured by the adoption of an elder boy of most noble birth, who reckoned amongst his supporters all those who might have natural cause to dread the vengeance of a son of Messalina. Claudius was an antiquary, and he knew that for 800 years, from the days of-Attus Clausus downwards, there had never been an adoption among the patrician Claudii. In vain did 20 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. Agrippina and her adherents endeavour to poison his mind by whispered insinuations about the parentage of Britanni- cus. But he was at last overborne, rather than convinced, by the persistence with which Agrippina had taken care that the adoption should be pressed upon him in the Senate, by the multitude, and even in the privacy of his own gar- den. Pallas, too, helped to decide his wavering determina- tion by quoting the precedents of the adoption of Tiberius by Augustus, and of Gains by Tiberius. Had he but well weighed the fatal significance of those precedents, he would have hesitated still longer ere he sacrificed to an intriguing alien the birthright, the happiness, and ultimately the lives of the young son and daughter whom he so dearly loved. And now Agrippina's prosperous wickedness was bear- ing her along full sail to the fatal haven of her ambition. She obtained tlie title of Augusta, which even the stately wife of Augustus had never borne during her husband's lifetime. Seated on a lofty throne by her husband's side, she received foreign embassies and senatorial deputations. She gained permission to antedate the majority of her son, and secured for him a promise of the Consulship, admission to various priesthoods, a proconsular iinperhim^ and the title of ''Prince of the Youth." She made these honours the pretext for ob- taining a largess to the soldiery, and Circensian games for the populace, and at these games Nero appeared in the manly toga and triumphal insignia, while Britannicus, ut- terly eclipsed, stood humbly by his side in the boyish //vz.'- ti'xta — the embroidered robe which marked his youth. And while step after step was taken to bring Nero into splendid prominence, Britannicus was kept in such deep seclusion, and watched with such jealous eyes, that the people hardly knew whether he was alive or dead. In vain did Agrippina lavish upon the unhappy lad her false caresses. Being a boy of exceptional intelligence, he saw through her hypoc- risy, and did not try to conceal the contemptuous disgust which her arts inspired. Meanwhile he was a prisoner in all but name : every expedient was invented to keep him at the greatest distance from his fatlier ; every friend who loved him, every freedman avIio was faithful to him, every soldier wlio seemed likely to embrace his cause, was either secretly undermined, or removed under pretext of honourable pro- motion. Tutored as he was by adversity to conceal his feelings, he one day through accident or boyish passion re- turned the salutation of his adoptive brother by the name THE RISE OF THE ANTICHRIST. 21 of Ahenobarbus, instead of calling him by the name Nero, which was the mark of his new rank as the adopted son of Claudius. Thereupon the rage of Agrippina and Nero knew no bounds ; and such insolence— for in this light the momentary act of carelessness or venial outburst of temper was represented to Claudius — made the boy a still more de- fenceless victim to the machinations of his stepmother. Month after month she wove around him the web of her intrigues. The Prsetorians were won over by flattery, gifts, and promises. The double praefecture of Lucius Geta and Rufius Crispinus was superseded by the appointment of Afranius Burrus, an honest soldier, but a partisan of the Empress, to whom he thus owed his promotion to the most coveted position in the Roman army. From the all-power- ful freedmen of Claudius, Agrippina had little to fear. Cal- listus was dead, and she played off against each other the rival influences of Pallas and Narcissus. Pallas was her devoted adherent and paramour ; Narcissus was afraid to move in opposition to her, because the accession of Britan- nicus would have been liis own certain death-warrant, since he had been the chief agent in the overthrow of Messalina. As for the phenomena on which the populace looked with terror — the fact that the skies had seemed to blaze with fire on the day of Nero's adoption, and violent shocks of earthquake had shaken Rome on the day that he assumed the manly toga — Agrippina cared nothing for them. She would recognise no omen which did not promise success to her determination. Nothing could now divert her from her purpose. When Domitia,the aunt under whose roof theyoimg Nero had been trained, began to win his smiles by the contrast between her flatteries and presents and the domineering threats of his mother, Agrippina at once brought against her a charge of magic, and, in spite of the opposition of Narcissus, Domitia was condemned to death. The Empress hesitated at no crime ^\^lich helped to pave the way of her son to power, but at the same time her ambition was so far selfish that she intended to keep that son under her own ex- clusive influence. Many warnings now showed her that the time was ripe for her supreme endeavour. Her quarrel with Narcissus had broken out into threats and recriminations in the very presence of the Emperor. The Senate showed signs of in- dignant recalcitrance against her attacks on those whose power she feared, or whose wealth she envied. Her designs 22 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. were now so transparent, that Narcissus began openly to show his compassion for the hapless and ahnost deserted Britanniciis. But, worst of all, it was clear that Claudius himself was becoming conscious of his perilous mistake, and was growing weary both of her and of her son. He had changed his former wife for a worse. If Messalina had been unfaithful to him, so he began to suspect was Agrippina, and he could not but feel that she had changed her old fawning caresses for a threatening insolence. He was sick of her ambition, of her intrigues, of the hatred she always displayed to his oldest and most faithful servants, of her pushing eagerness for her Nen^, of her treacherous cruelty towards Jiis own children. He was heard to drop ominous expressions. He began to display towards Britannicus a yearning aifection, full of the passionate hope that when he was a little older his wrongs would be avenged. All this Agrippina learnt from her spies. Not a day was to be lost. Narcissus, whose presence was the chief security" for his master's life, had gone to the baths of Sinuessa to find relief from a fit of the gout. There lay at this time in prison, on a charge of poisoning, a woman named Locusta, whose career recalls the Mrs. Turner of the reign of James I., and the Marchioness de Brinvilliers of the court of Louis XIV. To this woman Agrippina repaired with the promise of free- dom and reward, if she would provide a poison which would disturb the brain without too rapidly destroying life. Ha- lotus, the Emperor's praegustator, or taster, and Xenophon, his physician, had been already won over to share in the deed. The poison was infused into a fine and delicious mushroom of a kind of which Claudius was known to be particularly fond, and Agrippina gave this mushroom to her husband with her own hand. After tasting it he became very quiet, and then called for v^ine. He was carried off to bed senseless, but the quantity of wine which he had drunk weakened the effects of the poison, and at a sign from Agrippina the faithless physician finished the murder by tickling the throat of the sufferer with a poisoned feather. Before the morning of Oct. 13, a.d. 54, Claudius was dead. His death was concealed from the public and from his children, whom Agrippina with hypocritical caresses and false tears kept by her side in her own chamber, until every- thing was ready for the proclamation of Nero. At noon, which the Chaldaeans had declared would be the only lucky THE FEATURES OF THE ANTICIH^IST. 23 hour of an unlucky day, the gates of the palace were thrown open, and Nero walked forth with Afranius Burrus by his side. The Praetorian Pracfect informed the guard that Claudius had appointed Nero his successor. A few faithful voices asked, " Where is Britannicus ?" But as no one answered, and the young prince was not forthcoming, they accept- ed what seemed to be an accomplished fact. Nero went to the Praetorian camp, promised a donation of 15,000 sesterces (more than ^130) to each soldier, and was pro- claimed Emperor. The Senate accepted the initiative of the Praetorians, and by sunset Nero was securely seated on the throne of the Roman world. The dream of Agrippina's life was accomplished. She was now the mother, as she had been the sister and the wife of an Emperor ; and that young Emperor, when the tribune came to ask him the watchv/ord for the night, answered in the words — Optiinae Matri! " To the Best of Mothers ! " CHAPTER III. THE FEATURES OF THE ANTICHRIST. *E(rxaTO? AiveaBu)v /atjTpoKToro? riyefiov€v. hntt. vii. \6 ; De Mart. Perstw n. ad fin.; Chr>'Sost. in 2 Thess., Horn. iv. ; Sulp. Sev. Hist. ii. 29; 40, 42; Dial. ii. ad JiJi.; Jcr. in Dan. xi. ; Orac. Sibyll. iv. 135-138, v. 362, viii. i, 153 ; Verses of Commodianus, in Spicils^. of .Solcsmes, Paris, 1852. THE FIRST PERSECUTION. 39 who offered heartfelt prayers on his belialf ' — the Roman Christians. They were the defenceless victims of this horrible charge ; for though they were the most harmless, they were also the most hated and the most slandered of living men.^ Why he should have thought of singling out the Chris- tians, has always been a curious problem, for at this point St. Luke ends the Acts of the Apostles, yjerhaps purposely dropping the curtain, because it would have been perilous and useless to narrate the horrors in which the hitherto neutral or friendly Roman Government began to play so disgraceful a part. Neither Tacitus, nor Suetonius, nor the Apocalypse, help us to solve this particular problem. The Christians had filled no large space in the eye of the world. Until the days of Domitian we do not hear of a single noble or distinguished person who had joined their ranks.' That the Pudens and Claudia of Rom. xvi. were the Pudens and Claudia of Martial's Epigrams seems to me to be a baseless dream.* If the "foreign superstition" with which Pom- ponia Graecina, wife of Aulus Plautius, the conqueror of Britain, was charged, and of which she was acquitted, was indeed, as has been suspected, the Christian religion, at any rate the name of Christianity was not alluded to by the an- cient writers who had mentioned the circumstance.^ Even if Rom. xvi. was addressed to Rome, and not, as I believe, to Ephesus, "they of the household of Narcissus which were in the Tord" were unknown slaves, as also were "they of Caesar's household."^ The slaves and artisans, Jewish and Gentile, who formed the Christian communit)^ at Rome, had never in any way come into collision with the Roman Government. The)^ must have been the victims rather than the exciters of the Messianic tumults — for such they are conjectured to have been — which led to the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by the futile edict of Claudius.'' Nay, so obedient and docile were they required to be by the very principles on which their morality was based — so far were they removed from the fierce independence of the Jewish zealots — that, in writing to them a few years earlier, the greatest of their leaders had urged upon them a payment of tribute and a submission to the higher powers, not only for wrath but also for conscience' sake, because the earthly • Rom. xiii. 1-7 ; Tit. iii. i ; i Pet. ii. 13. See Tert. AJiol. 29-33. - I Pet. iii. 13-17, iv. 12-19. ^ Suet. Dom. 15. '' See Life and IVorkofSt. Pattl^ ii. 569. ^ Tac. Anfi. .\iii. 32, ° Rom. xvi. II ; Phil. iv. 22 ; Life and IVork 0/ St. Paul, ii. 165. ■^ Suet. Ci'iiiid. 25. 40 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. ruler, in his office of repressing evil works, is a minister of God/ That the Christians were entirely innocent of the crime charged against them was well known both at the time and afterwards." But how was it that Nero sought popularity and partly averted the deep rage which was rankling in many hearts against himself, by torturing men and women, on whose agonies he thought that the populace would gaze not only with a stolid indifference, but even with fierce satisfaction ? Gibbon has conjectured that the Christians w^ere con- founded with the Jews, and that the detestation universally felt for the latter fell with double force upon the former. Christians suffered even more than the Jews because of the calumnies so assiduously circulated against them, and from what appeared to the ancients to be the revolting absurdity of their peculiar tenets. " Nero," says Tacitus, ''exposed to accusation, and tortured wdth the most exquisite penalties, a set of men detested for their enormities, whom the common people called '' Christians.' Christus, the founder of this sect, was executed during the reign of Tiberius by the Procurator Pontius Pilate, and the deadly superstition, suppressed for a time, began to burst out once more, not only throughout Ju- daea, w^here the evil had its root, but even in the City, whither from every quarter all things horrible or shameful are drift- ed, and find their votaries." The lordly disdain which pre- vented Tacitus from making any inquiry into the real views and character of the Christians, is shown by the fact that he catches up the most baseless allegations against them. He talks of their doctrines as savage and shameful, when they breathed the very spirit of peace and purity. Fie cliarges them Avith being animated by a hatred of their kind, when their central tenet was an vmiversal charity. The masses, he says, called them " Christians ;" and while he almost apologises for staining his page with so vulgar an ap- pellation," he merely mentions in passing, that, though in- 1 Rom. xiii. 5. 2 It is involved at once in the " subdidit reos " ofTac. Ann. v. 44. 3 Pet. iv. 14 ; James ii. 7. There can be little doubt, as I have shown in the Life and JFork of St. Paul, i. 301, that the name " Christian^'' — so curiously hybrid, yet so richly expressive — was a nickname due to the wit of the Antiochenes, which exercised itself quite fearlessly even on the Roman Emperors. 'Ihey were not afraid to affix nicknames to Cara- calla, and to call Julian Cecrops and Victimarius, with keen satire of his beard (Herodian. iv. 9; Ammian. xxii. 14). It is clear that the sacred writers avoided the name, because it was employed by their enemies, and by them minglctl with terms of the vilest opprobrium (Tac. Anti. XV. 44). It only became familiar when the virtues of Christians had shed lustre upon it, and when alike in its true form, and in the ignorant mispronunciation " Christians," it readily lent itself to valuable allegorical meanings ( Tert. Apol. 3 ; Just. iNIart. Apol. 2 ; Clem. Alex. Strom, ii. 4, § 18 ; Bingham, i. i, § 11). THE FIRST PERSECUTION. 4 1 nocent of the charge of being turbulent incendiaries, on which they were tortured to death, they were yet a set of guilty and infamous sectaries, to be classed with the lowest dregs of Roman criminals.^ But the haughty historian throws no light on one diffi- culty, namely, the circumstances w^hich led to the Christians being thus singled out. The Jews were in no way involved in Nero's persecution. To persecute the Jews at Rome would not have been an easy matter. They were sufficient- ly numerous to be formidable, and had overawed Cicero in the zenith of his fame. Besides this, the Jewish religion Avas recognised, tolerated, licensed. Throughout the lengtli and breadth of the Empire, no man, however much he and his race might be detested and despised, could have been burnt or tortured for the mere fact of being a Jew. We hear of no Jewish martyrdoms or Jewish persecutions till we come to the times of the Jewish war, and then chiefly in Palestine itself. It is clear that a shedding of blood — in fact, some form or other of human sacrifice — was impera- tively demanded by popular feeling as an expiation of the ruinous crime which had plunged so many thousands into the depths of misery. In vain had the Sibylline Books been once more consulted, and in vain had public prayer been offered, in accordance with their directions, to Vulcan and the goddesses of Earth and Hades. In vain had the Roman matrons walked in procession in dark robes, and with their long hair unbound, to propitiate the insulted majesty of Juno, and to sprinkle with sea-water her ancient statue. In vain had largesses been lavished upon the people, and propitia- tory sacrifices offered to the gods. In vain had public ban- quets been celebrated in honour of various deities. A crime had been committed, and Romans had perished unavenged. Blood cried for blood, before the sullen suspicion against Nero could be averted, or the indignation of Heaven ap- peased. Nero had always hated, persecuted, and exiled the philosophers, and no doubt, so far as he knew anythiijg of the Christians — so far as he saw among his own countless slaves any who had embraced this superstition, which the elite of Rome described as not only new, but " execrable " and *' malefic " '^ — he would hate their gravity and purity, and feel for them that raging envy which is the tribute that. 1 See, on the crime of being "a Christian," Clem. Alex. Strotn. iv. ii, § i. 2 Mala, venefica, exitiabilis, execrabilis, prava, siiperstitio (rac. Ami. xv. 44 ; Suet. i^r. 16 ; Plin, EJ,, c,2). 42 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. virtue receives from vice. Moreover, St. Paul, in all prob- ability, had recently stood before his tribunal ; and though lie had been acquitted on the special charges of turbulence and profanation, respecting which he had appealed to Cae- sar, yet during the judicial inquiry Nero could hardly have failed to hear from the emissaries of the Sanhedrin many fierce slanders of a sect which was everywhere spoken against. The Jews were by far the deadliest enemies of the Chris- tians ; and two persons of Jewish proclivities were at this time in close proximity to the person of the Emperor.' One was the pantomimist Aliturus, the other was Poppaea, the harlot Empress." The Jews were in communication with these powerful favourites, and had even promised Nero that if his enemies ever prevailed at Rome he should have the kingdom of Jerusalem.^ It is not even impossible that there may have been a third dark and evil influence at work to undermine the Christians, for about this very time the imscrupulous Pharisee Flavins Josephus had availed himself of the intrigues of the palace to secure the liberation of some Jewish priests.* If, as seems certain, the Jews had it in their power during the reign of Nero more or less to shape the whisper of the throne, does not historical induc- tion drive us to conclude with some confidence that the sug- gestion of the Christians as scapegoats and victims came from them ? St. Clement says in his Epistle that the Chris- tians suffered through jealousy. Whose jealousy ? Who. can tell what dark secrets lie veiled under that suggestive word? Was Acte a Christian, and was Poppaea jealous of her? That suggestion seems at once inadequate and improbable, especially as Acte w^as not hurt. But there was a deadly jealousy at work against the New Religion. To the Pagans, Christianity was but a religious extravagance — contemptible, indeed, but otherwise insignificant. To the Jews, on the other hand, it was an object of hatred, which never stopped ' ir«der previous F.mperors we read of the Jewess Acme, a slave of Livia, and the Sama- ritan Thallus, a freedman of Tiberius (Jos. Aiitt. xvii. 5, § 7 : B. J. i. 33, §§ 6, 7). 2 According to John of Antioch {Excerfta Valesii, p. 808), and the Chronicou PasckaU (i. 459), Nero was originally favourable to the Christians, and put Pilate to death, for which the Jews plotted his murder. Comp. Euseb. H. R. ii. 22, iv. 26 : Keim, Rom unci Christen- thujit, 179. Poppaea"s Judaism is inferred from her refu.sing to be burned, and requesting to lie embalmed (Tac. Atut. xvi. 16); from her adopting the custom of wearing a veil in the streets [id. xiii. 45) ; from the favour which she showed to Aliturus and Josephus (Jos. I'it. 4 ; Autt. XX. 8, § 11} ; and from the term 0eocre/3>j?, which Josephus applies to her. 3 Suet. A/'er. 40. 'J'iberius Alexander, the nephew of Philo, afterwards Procurator of Judjea, was a person of influence at Rome (Jos. B. J. ii. 15. § 1 ; Juv. i. 130) : but he was a renegade, and would not be likely to hate the Christians. It is, however, remarkable that legend attri- buted tSe nngerof Nero to the conversion 0/ his uristress and a favourite slave. * Jos. i'it. 3. THE l-IRST rKRSECUTION. 43 short oi bloodshed when it possessed or could usurp the power/ and which, though long suppressed by circum- stances, displayed itself in all the intensity of its virulence during the brief spasm of the dictatorship of Barcochba. Christianity was hateful to the Jews on every ground. It nullified their Law. It liberated all Gentiles from the heavy yoke of that Law, without thereby putting them on a lower level. It even tended to render those who were born Jews indifferent to the institutions of Mosaism. It was, as it were, a fatal revolt and schism from within, more dangerous than any assault from without. And, worse than all, it was by the Gentiles confounded with the Judaism which was its bitterest antagonist. While it sheltered its existence under the mantle of Judaism, as a 7'eligio licifa, it drew down upon the religion from whose bosom it sprang all the scorn and hatred which w^erc attached by the world to its own especial tenets ;" for however much the Greeks and Romans despised the Jews, they despised still more the belief that the Lord and Saviour of the world \vas a cruci- fied malefactor who had risen from the dead. I see in the proselytism of Poppaea, guided by Jewish malice, the only adequate explanation of the first Christian persecution. Hers was the jealousy which had goaded Nero to matricide; hers not improbably was the instigated fanaticism of a pro- selyte which urged him to imbrue his hands in martyr blood. And she had her reward. A woman of whom Tacitus has not a word of good to say, and who seems to have been repulsive even to a Suetonius, is handed down by the rene- gade Pharisee as *'a devout woman" — as a worshipper of God!^ And, indeed, w^ien once the Christians w^ere pointed out to the popular vengeance, many reasons would be adduced to prove their connexion with the conflagration. Temples had perished — and were they not notorious enemies of the temples?^ Did not popular rumour charge them with nocturnal orgies and Thyestaean feasts ? Suspicions of incendiarism were sometimes brought against Jews ;* but the Jews' were not in the habit of talking, as these sectaries } Compare what St. Paul says about the virulence of Jewish enmity in i Thess. ii. 14-16; Phil. iii. 2. Yet Christianity grew up " sub umbraculo licitae Judaeorum religionis" (Tert. A^ol. 21). 2 fleoo-ejSijs (Jos. Antt. xx. 7, § 11). The word means a " monotheist." or proselyte, like ce^ojaecos (Acts xiii. 43, xvi. 14, etc.). See Huidekoper, Judaism at Rojne, pp 462-469. 8 As were also the Jews, who were confounded with them. Rom. ii. 22, '* Dost thou (a Jew) rob temples?" See Life and Work 0/ St. Paul, ii. 202. « Jos. B. y. vii. 3, § 2-4. 44 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. were, about a fire which should consume the world/ and rejoicing in the prospect of that fiery consummation.* Nay, more, when Pagans had bewailed the destruction of the city and the loss of the ancient monuments of Rome, had not these pernicious people used ambiguous language, as though they joyously recognised in these events the signs of a coming end ? Even when they tried to suppress all outward tokens of exultation, had they not listened to the fears and lamentations of their fellow-citizens with some sparkle in the eyes, and had they not answered with some- thing of triumph in their tones ? There was a Satanic plausibility which dictated the selection of these particular victims. Because they hated the wickedness of the w^orld, with its ruthless games and hideous idolatries, they were accused of hatred of the whole human race.^ The charge of incivisme, so fatal in this Reign of Terror, was sufficient to ruin a body of men who scorned the sacrifices of heathen- dom, and turned away with abhorrence from its banquets and gaieties." The cultivated classes looked down upon the Christians with a disdain which would hardly even mention them without an apology. The canaille of Pagan cities insulted them with obscene inscriptions and blas- phemous pictures on the very walls of the places wiiere they met.^ Nay, they were popularly known by nick- names, like Sarmenticii and Se?naxii — untranslatable terms of opprobrium derived from the fagots with v/hich they were burned and the stakes to which they were chained.^ Even the heroic courage which they displayed was described as being sheer obstinacy and stupid fanaticism.'' But in the method chosen for the punishment of these saintly innocents Nero gave one more proof of the close connexion between effeminate aestheticism and sanguinary callousness. As in old days, ''on that opprobrious hill," 1 As St. Peter and St. John did at this very time, i Pet. iv. 17 ; Rev. xviii. 8. Comp. 2 Pet. ill. 10-12 ; 2 Thess. i. 8. ; St. Peter— apparently thinking of the fire at Rome and its consequences— calls ^e perse- cution from which the Christians were suffering when he wrote his First Epistle a nrvpoxris, or "conflagration." i Pet. iv. 12. Comp. i Pet. i. 7; Heb. x. 27. , 3 Tac. Ann. xv. 44 : Hist. v. 5 ; Suet. Ner. 16. * The tracts of Tertullian Z>. v., X. 25; Apul. iii. 9, X. 10; Tert. Apol. 15, 50 (sarmenticii . . . semaxii) ; ad Mart. 5; ad Scab. 4; ad Mat. \. 18, '"'• incendiati tunica.'''' Friedlander, Sittengesch. Routs., ii. 386. 3 Champagny, Les Cisars^ iv. 159. •• Suet. Calig. 57. THE FIRST PERSECUTION. 47 and mangled by a bear, and really fling himself down and deluge the stage with blood. ^ When the heroism of Mucius Scaevola was represented, a real criminal^ must thrust his hand without a groan into the flame, and stand motionless Avhile it is being burnt. Prometheus must be really chained to his rock, and Dirce in very fact be tossed and gored by the wild bull f and Orpheus be torn to pieces by a real bear; and Icarus must really fly, even though he fall and be dashed to death ; and Hercules must ascend the funeral pyre, and there be veritably burnt alive ; and slaves and criminals m\ist play their parts heroically in gold and purple till the flames envelope them. It was the ultimate romance of a degraded and brutalised society. The Roman people, "victors once, now vile and base," could now only be amused by sanguinary melodrama. Fables must be made realities, and the criminal must gracefully transform his supreme agonies into amusements for the multitude by becoming a gladiator or a tragedian. Such were the spectacles at which Nero loved to gaze through his emerald eye-glass.* And worse things than these — things indescribable, unutterable. Infamous mythologies were enacted, in which women must play their part in torments of shamefulness more intolerable than death. A St. Peter must hang upon the cross in the Pincian gardens, as a real Laureolus upon the stage. A Christian boy must be the Icarus, and a Christian man the Scaevola, or the Hercules, or the Orpheus of the amphi- theatre ; and Christian women, modest maidens, holy ma- trons, must be the Danaids,'' or the Proserpine, or worse, and play their parts as priestesses of Saturn and Ceres, and in blood-stained dramas of the dead. No wonder that Nero became to Christian imagination the very incarnation of evil ; the Antichrist ; the Wild Beast from the abyss ; the ' Jiiv. Saf. viii. 187, " Laureolum z^^/,?^ etiam bene Lentulus egit," the actor "was nnable io fly over the cross." Mart Sfiectac. vii., " Nuda Caledonio sic pectora praebuit urso. Non falsa pendens in cruce Laureolus Vivebant laceri membris stillantibus artus. ... In quo quae fuerat /(ibula^ poeiia/uit.^^ See Suet. Caius. 57. Josephus {Antt. xix. 1, § 3) alludes to this terrible incident, and so does Tertullian in an obscure but remarkable passage, adv. Vale7it. 14, "nee habens supervolare crucem , . . quia nullum Catulli Laureolum fuerit exercitata." 2 Mart. vii. 8, 21, viii. 30, x. 25 ; cf. dearpL^ofievoi, Heb. x. 33. 3 The Toro Fam^se had been brought to Rome from Rhodes in the days of Augustus, and may have set the fashion for this tableau vivant (Plin. xxxvi. 5, 6; Apul. Metatn. vi. 127 ; Lucian, Lucius, 23 ;^Renan, UAniechrist, 171 ; Tert. Af>ol. 15 ; Plut. De Sera Num. Vind. p : TTup (ii'ieiTes €/c t^s a.vQiVT^ ^larript. njs otfcovjoieVrj?. * Luc. Phars. vii. ^ Tac. Ann. xv. 74, "Tamquani moriale fastigiuni egresso." THE FIRST PERSECUTION. 49 *' Careless seems the Great Avenger : History's pages but record One death-grapple m the darkness 'twixt false systems and the Word ; » Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne. Yet that scaftbld sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own." The air was full of prodigies. There were terrible storms ; the plague wrought fearful ravages.' Rumours spread from lip to lip. Men spoke of monstrous births ; of deaths by lightning under strange circumstances ; of a brazen statue of Nero melted by the flash ; of places struck by the brand of heaven in fourteen regions of the city ;^ of sudden darkenings of the sun.^ A Imrricane devasted Cam- pania ; Comets blazed in the heavens ;* earthquakes shook the ground.^ On all sides were the traces of deep uneasi- ness and superstitious terror. ° To all these portents, which were accepted as true by Christians as w^ell as by Pagans, the Christians would give a specially terrible significance. They strengthened their conviction that the coming of the Lord drew nigh. They convinced the better sort of Pagans that the hour of their deliverance from a tyranny so mon- strous and so disgraceful was near at hand. In spite of the shocking servility with which alike the Senate and the people had welcomed him back to the city with shouts of triumph, Nero felt that the air of Rome was heavy with curses against his name. He w^ithdrew to Naples, and was at supper there on Mqjrch 19, a.d. d'^^ the anniversary of his mother's murder, when he heard that the first note of revolt had been sounded by the brave C. Julius Vindex, Praefect of Farther Gaul. He was so far from be- ing disturbed by the news, that he show^ed a secret joy at the thought that he could now order Gaul to be plundered. For eight days he took no notice of the matter. He w^as only roused to send an address to the Senate because Vin- dex wounded his vanity by calling him " Ahenobarbus," and " a bad singer." But w4ien messenger after messenger came from the provinces with tidings of menace, he hurried back to Rome. At last, when he heard that Virginius Rufus had also rebelled in Germany, and Galba in Spain, he be- came aware of the desperate nature of his position. On re- 1 Tac. ^««. xvi. 13, "Tot facinoribus foedum annum etiam dii tempestatibus et morbis insignivere," etc. ; Oros. Hist. vii. 7, " Mox (after the martyrdom of Peter and Paul) acer- vatim miseram civitatem obortae undique oppressere clades. _ Nam subsequente auctumno tanta Urbi pestilentia incubuit, ut triginta millia fimerum in rationem Libitinae venirent." 2Tac. Hist. i. 4, 11, 78, ii. 8, 95 ; Suet. Ner. 57; Otho, 7; Plut. De Serci Num. Find.; Pau'-an. vii. 17; Xiphilin, Ixiv ; Dion Chrysost. Orat. xxi. 8 Tac. Ann. xiv. 12. * Tac Ann. xiv. 22, xv. 47; Sen. Qu. Nat. vii. 17, 21. * Tac. Ann. xv. 22. * Suet. Ner. 36, 39; Dion Cass. Ixi. 16. i5. 50 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. ceiving this intelligence he fainted away, and remained for some time unconscious. He continued, indeed, his gros§- ness and frivolity, but the wildest and fiercest schemes chased each other through his melodramatic brain. He would slay all the exiles ; he would give up all the pro- vinces to plunder ; he would orcfer all the Gauls in the city to be butchered ; he would have all the Senators invited to banquets, and would then poison them ; he would have the city set on lire, and the w41d beasts of the amphitheatre let loose among the people ; he would depose both the Consuls, and become sole Consul himself, since legend said that only by a Consul could Gauls be conquered ; he would go with an army to the province, and when he got there would do nothing but weep, and when he had thus moved the rebels to compassion, would next day sing with them at a great festival the ode of victory which he must at once compose. Not a single manly resolution lent a moment's dignity to his miserable fall. Sometimes he talked of escaping to Ostia, and arming the sailors ; at others, of escaping to Alexandria, and earning his bread by his *' divine voice." Meanwhile he was hourly subjected to the deadliest insults, and terrified by dreams and omens so som- bre that his faith in the astrologers who had promised him the goverjiment of the East and the kingdom of Jerusalem began to be rudely shaken. When he heard that not a single army or general remained faithful to him, he kicked over the table at which he was dining, dashed to pieces on the ground two favourite goblets embossed with scenes from the Homeric poems, and placed in a golden box some poison furnished to him by Locusta. The last effort which he contemplated was to mount the Rostra, beg pardon of the people for his crimes, ask them to try him again, and, at the worst, to allow him the Praefecture of Egypt. But this design he did not dare to carry out, from fear that he would be torn to pieces before he reached the Forum. Meanwhile he found that the palace had been deserted by his guards, and that his attendants had robbed his chamber even of the golden box in which he had stored his poison. Rushing out, as though to drown himself in the Tiber, he changed his mind, and begged for seme quiet hiding-place in which to collect his thoughts. The freedman Phaon offered him a lowly villa about four miles from the city. Barefooted, and with a faded coat tlirown over his tunic, he hid his liead and face in a kerchief, and rode awav with THE FIRST PERSECUTION. 5 I only four attendants. On the road, he heard the tumuit of the Prcctorians cursing his name. Amid evil omens and serious perils he reached the back of Phaon's villa, and creeping towards it through a muddy reed-bed, was secretly admitted into one of its mean slave-chambers by an aperture through which he had to crawl on his hands and feet. There is no need to dwell on the miserable spectacle of his end, perhaps the meanest and most pusillanimous which has ever been recorded. The poor wretch who, without a pang, had caused so many brave Romans and so many inno- cent Christians to be murdered, could not summon up re- solution to die. He devised every operatic incident of which he could think. When even his most degraded slaves urged him to have sufficient manliness to save himself from the fearful infamies which otherwise awaited him, he ordered his grave to be dug, and fragments of marble to be collected for its adornment, and water and wood for his funeral pyre, perpetually whining, '' What an artist to perish ! " Meanwhile a courier arrived for Phaon. Nero snatched his despatches out of his hand, and read that the Senate had decided that he should be punished in the ances- tral fashion as a public enemy. Asking what the ancestral fashion was, he was informed that he would be stripped naked and scourged to death w^th rods, with his head thrust into a fork. Horrified at this, he seized two daggers, and after theatrically trying their edges, sheathed them again, with the excuse that the fatal moment had not yet arrived ! Then he bade Sporus begin to sing his funeral song, and begged some one to show him how to die. Even his own intense shame at his cowardice was an insufficient stimulus, and he wiled away the time in vapid epigrams and pompous quotations. The sound of horses' hoofs then broke on his ears, and, venting one more Greek quotation, he held the dagger to his throat. It w^as driven home by Epaphroditus, one of his literary slaves. At this moment the centurion who came to arrest him rushed in. Nero was not yet dead, and under pretence of helping him, the centurion began to stanch the wound with his cloak. '' Too late," he said ; '' is this your fidelity ? " So he died ; and the bystanders were horrified w4th the way in which his eyes seemed to be start- ing out of his head in a rigid stare. He had begged that his body might be burned Avithout posthumous insults, and this was conceded by Icelus, the freedman of Galbo. So died the last of the Caesars ! And as Robespierre 52 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. was lamented by his landlady, so even Nero was tenderly buried by two nurses who had known him in the exquisite beauty of his engaging childhood, and by Acte, who had inspired his youth with a genuine love. But, as we shall see hereafter, his history does not end with his grave. He was to live on in the expectation alike of Jews and Christians. The fifth head of the Wild Beast of the Revelation was in some sort to re-appear as the eighth ; the head with its diadem and its names of blasphemy had been w^ounded to death, but in the Apocalyptic sense the deadly wound was to be healed/ The Roman world could not believe that the heir of the deified Julian race could be cut off thus suddenly and obscurely, and vanish like foam upon the water. ^ The Christians felt sure that it required something more than an ordinary death-stroke to destroy the Antichrist, and to end the vitality of the Wild Beast from the Abyss, who had been the first to set himself in deadly antagonism against the Redeemer, and to wage war upon the saints of God. 1 Rev. xiii. 3, xvii. ii. 8 Hos. x. 7. ST. PETER AND THE CHURCH CATHOLIC. CHAPTER V. WRITINGS OF THE APOSTLES AND EARLY CHRISTIANS. 'AAteD ixeponuiv IleAayov? /ca/ct'aj KujuaTo? e\9pov TkvKepfj ^iiif) SeAea^oij'. — Clem. Alex. Paed. iii. ad Jin, When we turn from the annals of the world at this epoch to the annals of the Church, we pass at once from an atmosphere heavy with misery and corruption into pure and pellucid air. We have been reading the account given us by secular literature of the world in its relations to the Church. In the First Epistle of St. Peter we shall read directions which were written to guide the Church in its relations to the world. We have been reading what Pa- gans said and thought of Christians ; in the writings of Christians addressed to each other, and meant for no other eye, we shall see what these hated, slandered, persecuted Christians really were. In place of the turbulence laid to their charge, we shall have proofs of the humility and cheerfulness of their submission. We shall see that, so far from being resentful, they were taught unlimited forgive- ness ; and that, instead of cherishing a fierce hatred against all mankind, they made it their chief virtue to cultivate an universal love. But although we are so fully acquainted with the thoughts and feeHngs of the early Christians, yet the facts of ^ their corporate history during the last decades of the first century, and even the closing details in the biographies of their very greatest teachers are plunged in entire un- 54 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. certainty. When, with the last word in the Acts of the Apostles, we lose the graphic and faithful guidance of St. Luke, the torch of Christian history is for a time ab- ruptly quenched. We are left, as it were, to grope amid the windings of the catacombs. Even the final labours of the life of St. Paul are only so far known as we may dimly infer them from the casual allusions of the pastoral epistles. For the details of many years in the life of St. Peter we have nothing on which to rely except slight and vague allusions, floating rumours, and false impressions created by the deliberate fictions of heretical romance. It is probable that this silence is in itself the result of the terrible scenes in which the Apostles perished. It was indispensable to the safety of the whole community that the books of the Christians, when given up by the unhappy weakness of '^ traditors " or discovered by the keen malignity of informers, should contain no compromising matter. But how would it have been possible for St. Luke to write in a manner otherwise than compromising if he had de- tailed the horrors of the Neronian persecution ? It is a reasonable conjecture that the sudden close of the Acts of the Apostles may have been due to the impossibility of speaking without indignation and abhorrence of the Em- peror and the Government which, between a.d. 64 and 68, sanctioned the infliction upon innocent men and women of atrocities which excited the pity of the very Pagans. The Jew and the Christian who entered on such themes could only do so under the disguise of a cryptograph, hiding his meaning from all but the initiated few in such prophetic symbols as those of the Apocalypse. In that book alone we are enabled to hear the cry of horror which Nero's brutal cruelties wrung from Christian hearts. But if we know so little of St. Peter that is in the least trustworthy, it is hardly strange that of the other Apostles, with the single exception of St. John, and — in the wider sense of the word ''apostle" — of St. James the Lord's brother, we know scarcely anything. To St. Peter, St. John, and St. James the Lord's brother it was believed that Christ, after Ilis resurrection, had " revealed the true gz/osis,'' or deeper understanding of Christian doctrine.' It is singu- lar how very little is narrated of the rest, and how entirely that little depends upon loose and unaccredited tradition. » Clem. Alex. a/. Euseb. //. £. ii. i. WRITINGS OF APOSTLES AND EARLY CHRISTIANS. 55 Did they all travel as missionaries ? Did they all die as martyrs ? Heracieon, in the second century, said that St. Matthias, St. Thomas, St. Philip, and St. Matthew died nat- ural deaths, and St. Clemens of Alexandria quotes him with- out contradiction.' The only death of an Apostle narrated in the New Testament is narrated in two words, avdXc jxaxaupa — "slew with the sword." It is the martyrdom of St. James the Elder, the son of Zebedee." Of St. P^hilip we know with reasonable certainty that he lived for many years as bishop, and died in great honour at Hierapolis in Phrygia. Eusebius makes express mention of his daughters, of whom two were virgins, and one was married and buried at Ephe- sus. It cannot be regarded as certain that there has not been some confusion between Philip the Apostle and Philip the Deacon ; but there is no reason why they should not both have had virgin daughters, and Polycratcs expressly says that the Philip who was regarded as one of the great *4ights of Asia" was one of the Twelve.^ If we ask about the rest of our Lord's chosen Twelve, all that we are told is of a most meagre and most uncertain character. The first fact stated about them is that they did not separate for twelve years, because they had been bidden by Christ in His parting words to stay for that period in Jerusalem. Accord- ingly we find that up to that time St. Paul is the only Apostle of whose missionary journeys beyond the limits of Palestine we have any evidence, whereas after that time we find James the Lord's brother alone at Jerusalem as the per- manent overseer of the Mother-Church. We are told that, after the Ascension, the Apostles di- vided the world among themselves by lot for the purpose of evangelisation," and in the fourth century there was a prev- alent belief that they had all been martyred before the de- struction of Jerusalem, excepting John. This, however, can have only been an a priori conjecture, and there is no evi- dence which can be adduced in its support. The sum total, then, of what tradition asserts about these Apostles, omitting the worst absurdities and the legendary miracles, is as foUow^s : — 1 Clem. Alex. Strom, i. 4. See Dollinger, First Age o/the Churchy p. 137. 2 He became the Patron Saint of Spain from the legends about the removal of his body to Iria Flavia. Compostella is said to be a corruption of Giacomo Postolo (Voss). See Cave, Lives oftJie Apostles, p. 150. The Hollandists still retain the legend first mentioned by Wal, Strabo {Proevt. de XII. Apost.) that he was martyred there. ^ Clem. Alex. Strotn. iii., p. 448 ; Polycr. np. Euseb. iii. 31 ; Dorotheus, De Vit. et Mart. Apost. ; Isidor. Pelus. Epp. i. 447, etc. Metaphrastes and Nicephorus add various fables. * Socrates, H. K. i. 19. 56 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. St, Andrew, determining to convert the Scythians,' vis- ited on the way Amynsus, Trapezus, Heraclea, and Sinope. After being nearly killed by the Jews at Sinope, he was miraculously healed, visited Neo-Caesarea and Samosata, returned to Jerusalem, and thence went to Byzantium, where he appointed Stachys to be a bishop. After various other travels and adventures he was martyred at Patrae by /Egeas, Proconsul of Achaia, by being crucified on the de- cussate cross now known as the cross of St. Andrew.^ St. Bartholomew (Nathanael) is said to have travelled to India, and to have carried thither St. Matthew's Gospel.' After preaching in Lycaonia and Armenia, it is asserted that he was either flayed or crucified head downwards at Albanopolis in Armenia. The pseudo-Dionysius attributes to him the remarkable saying that " Theology is both large and very small, and the Gospel broad and great, and also compressed."* St. Matthew is said to have preached in Parthia and .Ethiopia, and to have been martyred at Naddaber in the latter country." According to St. Clemens, he lived only on herbs," practising a mode of life which was Essene in its simplicity and self-denial. St. Thomas is called the Apostle of India, and is said to have founded the Christian communities in India who still call themselves by his name. But this seems to be a mis- take. Theodoret says that the Thomas who established these churches was a Manichee, and the ''Acts of Thomas " are Manichean in tendency. Origen says that the Apostle preached in Parthia.^ His grave w^as shown at Edessa in the fourth century.® St. James the Less, the son of Alphasus, who is distin- guished by the Greek Church from James the Lord's brother, is said to have been crucified while preaching at Ostrakine in Lower Egypt.'* St. Simon Zelotes is variously conjectured to have preached and to have been crucified at Babylonia or in the British Isles. ^^ 1 Origen np. Euseb. iii. i. 2 See PLuseb. //. E. iii. i ; Nicephorus, H. E. ii. 39. In Hesychius a/>. Photium, Cod. 269, is first found his address to his cross. 'l"he Acta Andreae (Tischendorf, Act. AJ>ocr., p. 105 ff.) are among the best of their kind. ' Euseb. V. 10 : Sophronius aj>. Jer. De Script. Eccl. * De Mystic. Theol. i. 3. ° Niceph. /. c. : Metaphr. nd Aug: 24 ; Fortunatus, De Senat. vii. Various fables are added in Xiceph. ii. 41. 8 Paedag. ii. i. ^ Orig. ap. Euseb. iii. i. •> Chrys. Horn, in Jlebr. xxvi. * Niceph. ii. 40. i" Niceph. viii. 30. WRnix\GS OF APOSTLES AND EARLY CHRISTIANS. 5/ Judas, LEBByEUS, or Thadd.eus, is said to have been de- spatched by St. Thomas to Abgar, King of Edessa, and to hav^e been martyred at Berytus.' Scanty, contradictory, hite, and unauthenticated notices, founded for the most part on invention or a sense of eccle- siastical fitness, and recorded chiefly by writers like Gregory of Tours late in the sixth century, and Nicephorus late in the fourteenth, are obviously valueless. All that we can deduce from them is the belief, of which we see glimpses even in Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen, that the Apostles preached far and wide, and that more than one of them were martyred. It would be strange if none of the Twelve met with such an end in preaching among Pagan and barbarous nations ; and that they did so preach is rendered likely by the extreme antiquity and the marked Judaeo-Christian character of Churches which still exist in Persia, India, Egypt, and Abyssinia. But in the silence and obscurity which thus falls over the personal history and final fate of the Twelve whom Christ chose to be nearest to Him on earth, how invaluable is the boon of knowledge respecting the thoughts, and to some ex; tent even the lives, of such Apostles as St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John, as Avell as of St. Jude, and St. James the Lord's brother, and the eloquent writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews. And the boon is all the richer from the Divine diversity of thought thus preserved for us. For each of these Apostolic writers, though they are one in their faith, yet approaches the hopes and promises of Chris- tianity from a different point of view ; each one gives us a fresh aspect of many-sided truths. Let us imagine what would have been our position, if, in the providence of God, we had not been suffered to possess these works, of which the greater number belong to the closing epoch of the New Testament Canon. The New Testament would then have consisted exclusive- Iv of the works of five writers— the four Evangelists and St. Paul. The Synoptists, in spite of well-marked minor differences in their point of view, present for the most part a single — mainly the external and historical — aspect of the life of Christ. We find in them a compressed and fragmentary outline of the work of Christ's public ministry, and even this Dorotheus, De Vit. Apost. ; Niceph. ii. 40. 58 THE EARLY D^YS OF CHRISTIANITY. is almost confined to details about one year of His work and one region of His ministry/ followed by a fuller account of His Betrayal, Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, In the fourth Gospel alone we have a sketch of the Judaean phase of the ministry, as well as the doctrine of the Logos, and a yet deeper insight into the Nature t^id Mind of Christ. But, with this exception, we should be left to St. Paul alone for the theological development and manifold applications of Cliristian truth. And yet in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Epistles of St. Paul himself, we should have found abundant traces that his view of Christianity was in many respects independent and original. Alike from his own pages, and those of his friend and historian St. Luke, we should have learnt the existence of phases of Christianity, built indeed upon the same essential truths as those which he deemed it the glory of his life to preach, but placing those truths in a different perspective, and regard- ing them from another point of view. We should have heard the echoes of disputes so vehement and so agitating that they even arrayed the Apostles in a position of contro- versy against one another, and we should have found traces that though those disputes were conducted with such Chris- tian forbearance on both sides as to prevent their degener- ating into schisms, they yet continued to smoulder as ele- ments of difference between various schools of thought. Taking the Corinthian Church as a type of other Churches, we should have found that there was a Kephas party, and an Apollos party, and a Christ party, as well as a party which attached itself to the name of Paul ; and even if we admitted that the Corinthian Church was exceptionally factious, we should have learnt from tlie Epistle to the Galatians, and other sources, that there were Jews who called themselves Christians, and claimed identity with the views of James, by whom the name and work of the Apos- tle of the Gentiles were regarded not only with unsympa- thising coldness, but with positive disapproval and dislike. We should have felt that we were not in possession of the materials for forming any complete opinion as to the char- acteristics of early Christianity. We should have longed for even a few words to inform us what were the special tenets which differentiated the adherents of St. James, and St. Peter, and St. John, and Apollos from those of the _ » See the remark of St. John " the Elder" (/.r) tou xopov' — Chrysost. in yoann. Horn. 88. The early life of St. Peter cannot here be re-written, because in two previous works ' I have followed the steps of his career so far as it is sketched in the sacred volume. After his youth as a poor and hardworked fisherman of the Lake of Galilee, we first find him as one of the hearers of St. John the Baptist in the wilderness of Jordan. Brought to Jesus by his brother Andrew, he at once accepted the Saviour's call, and received by anticipation that name of Kephas which he was afterwards to earn, partly by the stronger ele- ments of his character, and part!}' by the grandeur of his Messianic confession. We have already tried to understand the significance of the scenes in which he takes part. We have seen how he was called to active work and the aban- donment of earthly ties after the miraculous draught of fishes. We have watched, step by step, the " consistently inconsistent " impetuosity of his character, at once brave and wavering — first brave then wavering, but always finally recovering its courage and integrity.' The narrative of the Gospel has brought before us his attempt to walk to his Lord upon the water ; his first public acknowledgment of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God ; the magnificent promises which, in his person, the Church received ; the subsequent presumption, which his Lord so sternly rebuked; the many eager questions, often based upon mistaken notions, which he addressed to Christ, and which formed the occasion of some of our Lord's most striking utterances ; the incident of the Temple contribution ; the refusal and then the eagerness to be washed by Christ ;, the warnings 1 The Life of Christ, 1874 : The Life of St. Paul, 1879. 2 " Vrai coniraste de pusillanimity et de grandeur, condamn^ A osciller toujours entre la faute et le repentir, mais rachctantglorleusement sa faiblesse par son humilitd et ses larmes" (Thierry, St. ferome, i. 176). ST. PETER. 73 •addressed to him ; the inability to *' watch one hour"; the impetuous blow struck at the High Priest's servant ; his forsaking of Christ in the hour of peril; his threefold de- nial ; his bitter repentance and forgiveness ; his visit to the Sepulchre ; the message which he received from the Risen Saviour ; the exquisite scene at morning, on the shores of the misty lake, when Jesus appeared once more to seven of His disciples, and when, having once more tested the love of His generous but unstable Apostle, He gave him His last special injunctions to tend Flis sheep and feed His lambs, and foretold to him his earthly end. Similarly we have studied, in the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles, the leading part which he took in the early days after the death of Christ ; his speech on the Day of Pentecost ; his miracles ; his journey to Samaria and the discoriifiture of Simon Magus ; his kindness to St. Paul ; his memorable vision at Joppa ; his baptism of Cornelius ; his bold initiative of living and eating with Gentiles who had received the gift of the Holy Ghost ; the dauntlessness with which he faced the anger of the Jerusalem Pharisees ; his imprisonment and deliverance ; the manly outspoken- ness of his opinions in the Synod at Jerusalem, when he declared himself unhesitatingly in favour of the views of St. Paul as to the freedom of Gentile converts from the bur- den of Mosaic observances. At this point — about a.d. 51 — he disappears from the narrative of the Acts. From this time forward he was overshadowed — at Jerusalem by the authority of James the Lord's brother, throughout the Gen- tile communities by the genius and energy of St. Paul. This was naturally due to his intermediate position between the extreme parties of Paulinists and Judaists. Among the scattered Christian communities of the Circumcision he main- tained a high authority, although it is probable that Chris- tian tradition has not erred in indicating that even among the Jewish Christians of the Dispersion St. James still occu- pied the leading position. All that we can further learn respecting him in Scripture is derived from his own Epis- tles, and from one or two casual but important allusions in the Epistles of St. Paul. In the Epistle to the Galatians we read the description of the memorable scene at Antioch, which produced upon the Church so deep an impression. Led away by the timidity which so strangely alternated with boldness in his character, St. Peter, on the arrival of emis- saries from James, had suddenly dropped the familiar inter- 74 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. course with Gentiles which up to that time he had main- tained. Shocked by an inconsistency of which he would iiimself have been incapable, St. Paul, the young convert, the former persecutor, w^as compelled by the call of duty publicly to withstand the great Apostle, who by his own conduct stood condemned for inconsistency, and had shown himself untrue to his ow^n highest convictions. Further than this, we learn that the name of Peter was elevated at Corinth (a.d. 57) into a party watchword ; and that he was engaged in missionary journeys, in w^iich he was accom- panied by a Christian sister, w^ho (since we know that he was married) w^as in all probability his wife. From his own Epistles we learn almost nothing about his biography. Nearly every inference w^hich we derive from them is pre- carious, even when it is intrinsically probable. He writes ■'to the elect sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Ga- latia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia," but we cannot be certain that he had personally visited those countries.^ • The question whether his letter is addressed to the Jewish or the Gentile converts is one which still meets wnth the most con- tradictory, although at the same time the most confident, re- plies. He sends his letter by Silvanus ; but we are not expressly told that this Silvanus is the previous companion of St. Paul. He sends a salutation from '' Marcus my son," but there is nothing to Jfroz^e that Marcus was not his real son,' nor have we any certain information that he is refer- ring to St. Mark the Evangelist. In these instances we may, however, accept the general consensus of Christian antiquity in favour of the affirmative suppositions,^ If so, we see the deeply interesting fact that the chosen friends and companions of St. Peter were also the chosen friends and companions of St. Paul — a fact which eloquently re- futes the modern supposition of the irreconcilable antagon- ism between the two Apostles and their Schools. But when we come to the closing salutation — '' The co-elect in Baby- lon saluteth you," the conclusions of each successive com- * That he had done so is simply an inference from i Pet. i. i. Origen only says, "He seems lo have preached there" (a/. Euseb. iii. i). See Epiphan. Hatr. xxvii. ; Jerome, Catal. J. V. Pctriip, '■^ St. Clemens of Alexandria says {Strom, iii., p. 44P) that he had sons of his own, but their names are not preserved, and they were therefore probably unknown persons. Tradi- tion tells of a daughter, Petronilla (Acta Sn/ict.. May. 31). 3 Some have supposed that an actual .son of St. Peter's is meant, but Origen (a/. Euseb. //. /?. vi. 25), (Ecumenius, etc., are probal)ly right in supposing that John Mark (Acts xii. 25), the Evangelist, is meant, especially as Papias, Clemens of Alexandria, Irenaeus and others, say that he was the follower, disciple, and interpreter of St. Peter (Euseb. //. Jt. iii. 39, vi. 14, etc.; Iren. Haer. iii. 11). ST. PETER. 75 mentator are widely divergent. It is still disputed whether *' the co-elect " is a Christian Church or a Christian woman; and if the latter, whether she is or is not Peter's wife ; and whether Babylon is the great Assyrian capital or a meta- phorical allusion to the great western Babylon — Imperial Rome. Eminent as was the position of St. Peter/ the real de- tails of the closing years of his life will never be known. But Christian tradition, acquiring definiteness in proportion as it is removed from tlie period of which it speaks, has pro- vided us with many details, which form the biography of the Apostle as it is ordinarily accepted by Romanists. We are told that he left Jerusalem in a.d. ^;^, and was for seven years Bishop of Antioch, leaving Euodius as his successor ; that during this period he founded the Churches to which his letter is addressed ; that he went to Rome in a.d. 40, and was bishop there for twenty-five years, though he constantly left the city for missionary journeys. The chief events of his residence at Rome were, according to legend, his con- version of Philo and of the Senator Pudens, with his two daughters, Praxedes and Pudentiana ; and his public con- flict with Simon Magus. The impostor after failing to raise a dead youth — a miracle which St. Peter accomplished — finally attempted to delude the people by asserting that he would fly to heaven ; but, at the prayer of St. Peter and St. Paul, he was deserted by the demons who supported him, and dashed bleeding to the earth.' During the Neronian persecution the Apostle is said to have yielded to the ur- gent requests of the Christians that he should escape from Rome ; but when he had got a little beyond the Porta Ca- pena he met the Lord carrying His cross, and asked Him, '* Lord, whither goest thou?" {Domi?ie^ quo vadis'i) *' I go to Rome," said Jesus, "to be crucified again for thee." The Apostle, feeling the force of the gentle rebuke, turned back, and was imprisoned in the Tullianum. He there converted his jailer, miraculously causing a spnng to burst out from the rocky floor for his baptism. On seeing his wife led to 1 See Excursus I., on tlie Asserted Primacy of St. Peter. 2 Tliere seems to liave been a similar legend nbout Balaam, dimly alluded to by the LXX. in the words kv rjj poirjj, Josh. xiii. 22, and in the Targum of Jonathan, Num. .\xxi. 6. See Frankl, ForstiuiieK. p. 187. For the whole legend of Simon Magus see Justin. Mart. A/>ol. ii. 69; Iren. Haer. i. 20; Tert. Apol. 13; Euseb. //. E. ii. 14; Cot'tst. Afiost. vi. 8, 9: Arnob. adz>. Gentes, ii. : Epiphan. Haer. xxi. ; Sulp. Sev. ii. ; Egesippus, De E.xcul. Hieros. iii. 2 (on Egesippus see Herzog, s. v. Heg. ) ; Nicephorus, H. K. ii. 14 ; Acta Fftri ct Fault : Ps. Abdias, Acta Apost. From these authors it is taken by Marcossius, De Haereticis. p. 444, and the Church historians. 76 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. execution he rejoiced at her "journey homewards,"* and addressing her by name, called to her in a voice full of cheerful encouragement, "Oh, remember the Lord !" He was executed on the same day as St. Paul. They parted on the Ostian road, and St. Peter was then led to the top of the Janiculum, wiiere he was crucified, not in the ordinary po- sition, but, by his own request, head downwards, because he lield himself unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord. In the whole of this legend, embellished as it is in cur- rent Martyrologies with many elaborate details, there is scarcely one single fact on which we can rely. For instance, the notion that Peter was ever Bishop at Antioch between the years a.d. 33 — 40 is inconsistent with clear statements in the narrative of the Acts, in which Paul and Barnabas appear as the leaders and virtual founders of that Gentile Church.''' Again, if he la^d /oim^ed the Church of Rome, or had ever resided there before a.d. 64, it is inconceivable that neither St. Luke in the Acts, nor St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, nor again in the fiA^e letters which he wrote from Rome during his first and second imprisonments, should have made so much as the slightest allusion to him or to his work. The story of his collision with Simon Magus is a romance. It is founded on St. Peter's actual meeting with the sorcerer in Samaria, w^hich is developed in the Clementines into a series of journeys from place to place, undertaken with the express view of thwarting this " founder of all the heresies." The legend is partly due to a mistake of Justin Martyr, who supposed that a statue dedi- cated to the Sabine god Semo Sancus^ (of whom Justin had never heard) was reared in honour of " Simon Sanctus." * With these elements of confusion there is mixed up a malig- nant Ebionite attempt to calumniate St. Paul in a covert way under the pseudonym of Simon Magus, and to imply that St. Peter was at the head of a counter-mission to over- throw the supposed heretical teaching of his brother-Apos- tle. The notion of this counter-mission is derived from the actual counter-mission of Judaists who falsely claimed the sanction of St. James.^ The circumstance which suggested J T^? ei? oIkov a»/a/co/xt6^s (Clem, Alex. Strain, vii.). 2 Acts xi. ig. 3 Qy Fast. vi. 213 ; Prop. iv. 9, 74, etc. * He was identified with Dius Fidius. The inscription was actually found in 1574, in the popedom of Gregory XIII., on an island in the Tiber, as Justin said. Justin, ApoL i. 26 ; Tert. Apol. 13 ; Karonius, Annal. ad an. 44 ; Gieseler, i. 49 ; Neander, ii. 162 ; Renan, Lrs Apdtres, pp. ■2T$-'2']T. In this island, now called "The Island of Saint Bartholomew," there was a college of Tridentalcs in honour of Semo Sancus (OrcUi, Inscr., 1860-61). * Acts XV. 24. ST. PETER. ^^ the legendary death of Simon in an attt;mpt to fly was the actual death of an actor, who was dashed to the ground at Nero's feet while trying, by means of a Hying machine, to sustain the part of Icarus.^ If the youthful actor who was condemned to make this perilous attempt was a Christian, who would otherwise have been executed in some other way, we may well imagine that Christians would not soon forget an incident which sprinkled the very Antichrist with the blood of martyrs.- But it is possible that the legend may rest on some small basis of fact. Rome abounded in Oriental thaumaturgists and impostors. Simon may have been attracted to a city which naturally drew to itself all the villainy of the world, and there he may once more have en- countered St. Peter. ^ But if they met at Rome, all the de- tails of their meeting have been disguised under a mixture of vague reminiscences and imaginary details. The assertion that St. Peter was Bishop of Rome, but that he constantly left it to exercise apostolic oversight throughout the world, is nothing but an ingenious theory.* The statement that he came to Rome in the reign of Clau- dius, A. D. 42, is first found in the Chronicon of Eusebius, nearly three centuries afterwards, and cannot be reconciled with fair inferences from what St. Paul tells us about the Church. As late as a.d. 52 St. Peter w^as at Jerusalem, and took an active part in the Synod of Jerusalem (Acts xv. 7) ; and he was then labouring mainly among the Jews (Gal. ii. 7, 9). In A.D. 57 he w^as travelling as a missionary with his wife (-1 Cor. ix. 5). He was not at Rome when St. Paul wrote to that Church in a.d. 58, nor when St. Paul came there as a prisoner in a.d. 61, nor during the years of St. Paul's imprisonment, a.d. 61—63, "oi* when he wrote his last Epistles, a.d. dd and 67. If he w^as ever at Rome at all, wiiich we hold to be almost certain, from the unanimity of the tradition, it could only have been very briefly before his martyrdom.' And this is, in fact, the assertion of Lactan- 1 On this attempt to fly, see the commentators on Juv. Sat. viii. i86 ; Mart. Spectac. vu.; Suet. Nero, 12. . .^ 2 "Icarus, piimo statim conatu, jiixta cubiculum ejus decidit ipsumque cruore respersit, Suet. /. c. 3 As asserted in Justin, Apol. i. 26, 56 ; Iren. contra Hacr. i. 23, § i ; Philosoplntmeua, vi. 20 ; Co>isti. Apost. v.; Euseb. H. E. ii. 13, 14, etc. •» It was first suggested by Baronius {Annal. ad an. 39. § 25) and Fr. Windischmann {Viiidiciae Petriuac, p. 112), and hastily adopted by Thier.sch (.V. Test. Cation, p. 104). 5 This view is now accepted by Roman Catholics like Valesius, Pagi, Hakir, Hug, Klee, Dolhnger, Waterworth, AUnatt. See Waterworth, Engl, and Rome, ii. ; AUnatt, Cathedra Petri, p. 1x4. The Roman Catholic historian Alzog only speaks of the twenty-five years episcopate as an ancient report (i. 104). 78 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. tius' (f 330), who snys that he first came to Rome in Nero's reign ; and of Origen (f 254), Avho says that he arrived there at the close of his life ;^ and of the Fraedicatio Petri, printed with the works of St. Cyprian.^ His "bishopric " at Rome probably consisted only in his efforts about the time of his martyrdom to strengthen the faith of the Church/ and es- pecially of the Jewish Christians. Indeed, there is much to be said in favour of the view that the Jewish and Gentile sections of the Church in Rome were separated by unusu- ally deep divisions, and possessed their separate "presby- ters" or "bishops" for some years. Such a fact would ac- count for some confusion in the names of the first two or three Bishops of Rome. Eusebius — following Irenaeus and Epiphanius — says that the first Bishops of Rome were Peter, Linus, Cletus or Anencletus, and Clement.^ But Hippoly- tus (a.d. .225) seems to regard Cletus and Anencletus as two different persons, and places Clement before Cletus ; and Tertullian (f 218) says that Clement was ordained by St. Peter. -^ The notion of the Apostle's crucifixion head downwards is derived from a passing allusion in Origen, and seems to contradict an expression of Tertullian.' It was possibly suggested by an erroneous translation of some Latin ex- pression for capital punishment. At any rate, it stands con- demned as a sentimental anachronism, bearing on its front the traces of later and more morbid forms of piety rather than the simple humility of the Apostles, who rejoiced in all things to imitate their Lord.^ Those who accept these legends must do so on the authority of an heretical novel, written with an evil tendency, not earlier than the beginning of the third century ; or else on that of the apocryphal Acta Petri ct Pauli^ which appeared at a still later date. All that we can really learn about the closing years of St. Peter ' T-actant. Dc ]\Tort. Persrc. 2. 2 Qrigen ap. Euseb. H. E. iii. i. ^ Cypriani, Oj>J>., p. 139, ed. Rigalt. '' Clemens Rumanus, third bishop of Rome, speaks even more of St. Paul than of St. Peter {Ep. ad Coy. v.). •'' Euseb. //. F.. iii. 2, 4, and 21 ; Iren. ap. Euseb. //. E. v. 6. ^ Tort. De Praesc. f/aeret. 32. ^ " Ubi Vctrus pas.iioni dotiivticae adaeqnatur,^^ De Praesc. 36. 8 Ncander, P/antini^. p. 377. It is curious to w.-itch the growth of this fiction. It begins with Origen, who simply says that it was done "at his own choice" (a/>. Euseb. //. E. iii. i). To this Rufinus adds, " that he might not seem to be equalled to his Lord" (ne e.xaequari Domino viderctur), which contradicts the saying of Tertullian, th:it " he was equalled to his Lord in the manner o\ his death." Lastly, St. Jerome .says that he was crucified with his head towards the earth and his legs turned upwards, " asserting that he was unworthy to be crucified in the same way as his Lord " i^De l^ir. Jllusir. i). SPECIAL FEATURES OF PETER'S FIRST EPISTLE. 79 from the earliest Fathers may be summed up in a few words, that in all probability he was martyred at Rome.' That he died by martyrdom may be regarded as certain, because, apart from tradition, it seems to be implied in the words of the Risen Christ to his penitent Apostle.' That this martyrdom took place at Rome, though first asserted by Tertullian and Gains at the beginning of the third cen- tury, may (in the absence of any rival tradition) be accepted , as a fact, in spite of the ecclesiastical tendencies which might have led to its invention ; but the only Scriptural au- thority which can be quoted for any visit of St. Peter to Rome is the one word "The Church in Babylon saluteth you."^ If, as I endeavour to show in the Excursus, there is reasonable certainty that Babylon is here used as a sort of cryptograph for Rome, the fair inferences from Scripture accord with the statements of tradition in the two simple particulars that St. Peter was martyred, and that this mar- tyrdom took place at Rome. These inferences agree well with the probability that Silvanus, of whom we last hear in company with St. Paul at Corinth, and St. Mark, for whose assistance vSt. Paul had wished during his Roman imprison- ment, were also at Rome, and were now acting in conjunc- tion with the great Apostle of the Circumcision. The belief that St. Mark acted as the "interpreter" (kpfx-qvevTrj^) of St. Peter may have arisen from the Apostle's ignorance of the Tatin language, and his need of some one to be his spokes- man during his residence and his legal trial in the imperial city. CHAPTER VII. SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER. " Then all himself, all joy and calm, ITiou^h for a while his hand forego. Just as it touched, the martyr's palm, He turns him to his task below." — Keble. The previous chapter has led us to conclude that the First Epistle of St. Peter was written at Rome. The ilaU at which it .was written cannot be fixed with certainty." The outburst of the Neronian persecution took place in a.d. 64, but it is difficult to suppose that St. Peter arrived acciden- ' See Excursus II., on .St. Peter's Visit to Rome. ' John .\xi. 19. ' See Excursus III., on the Use of the Name Babylon for Rome. 80 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. tally in Rome on the very eve of the conflagration. It seems more probable that he was either brought there as a pris- oner, or went to support the Jewish Christians during the subsequent pressure of their terrible afflictions.^ In that case he wrote the First Epistle shortly before his death, and he must have been martyred in the year 67 or 68, about the same time as his great brother-Apostle, St. Paul, with ^w^ioni he is always united in the earliest traditions. That the First Epistle of St. Peter is genuine — a precious relic of the thoughts of one of Christ's most honoured Apos- tles— w^e may feel assured. Its authenticity is supported by overwhelming external evidence. The Second Epistle, whether genuine or not, is at any rate a very ancient docu- ment, and it unhesitatingly testifies to the genuineness of the first. ''The First Epistle is," says M. Renan, *'one of the writings of the New Testament which are the most an- ciently and the most unanimously cited as authentic." Pa- pias, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, TertuUian, and Origen," all furnish indisputable evidence in its favour.^ The proof that the writer was influenced by the Epistle to the Ephesians is in accordance with the character of the age, for the early Christians, as was perfectly natural, were in the habit of echoing one another's thoughts. Modern writers do exactly the same. The words and thoughts of every writer who makes any wide or serious impression are, consciously or unconsciously, adopted by others exactly as if they were original and independent ; and this is true to such an extent than an author's real success is oftenjDbliterated by its very universality. The views which he originated come to he regarded as commonplace simply because all his contemporaries have adopted them. But this was still more the case in days when books were very few in number. The writings of the Apostles are marked by mutual resem- blances, and the works of men like Ignatius, and Polycarp, and Clement of Rome, consist in large measure of a mosaic ^ St. Paul seems to have been absent from Rome for two full years before his second im- prisonment, and durin. Zeitalt. ii. 22 ; Pfleiderer, PauUnism. ii. 150, E. T. 3 Matt. xvi. 18 ; i Pet. ii. 4-8. This peculiarity of the Epistle has been worked out and illustrated by no one so fully or with such delicate insight as by Dean Plumptre in his edition of the Epistle in the Cambridge Kibie for schools, p. 13, seq. ' 1 Pet. ii. 8, nirpa (TKai'8d\ov, ^ Matt. xvi. 18, (ttI Tavnp ttj nerpn ; aj, iTKavSi\6v ixov el. '' Matt. xvii. 24-27 ; 1 Pet. ii. 13-16. * Matt, xviii. 22 ; i Pet. iv. 8. ' .Matt. xix. 28 ; 1 Pet. i. 5, v. 4. « Matt. .\.\iv. 37. '■' CoTipare 1 Pet. iii. 20 with iv. 6. SPECIAL FEATURES OF PETER'S FIRST EPISTLE. 83 He had seen his Lord strip off His upper garment and tie a towel round His waist, when, wdth marvellous self-abase- ment, he stooped to wash Flis Disciples' feet ;^ hence, wiien he wishes to impress the lesson of humility, he is led insensi- bly to the intensely picturesque expression that they should *' tie on humility like a dress fastened with knots." ^ Per- haps, too, from that washing, and the solemn lessons to which it led, he gained his insight into the true meaning of Baptism, as being not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the intercourse of a good conscience Avith its God.^ At a very solemn moment of his life Christ had told him that Satan had desired to have him and the other Apostles, that he might sift them as wheat,* and he warns the Church of the prowling activity and power of the Devil, using respect- ing him the w^ord " adversary " (di/Tt8iKos), which occurs no- where else in the epistles, but more than once in the sayings of the Lord.^ Again and again on the last evening of the life of Christ he had been bidden to w\atch and pray, and had fallen because he had not done so ; and Avatchfulness is a lesson on w^iich he most earnestly insists." He had been one of the few faithful eye-witnesses of the buffets and wheals inflicted on Christ in His sufferings, and of His silence in the midst of reviling, and. to these striking circumstances he makes a very special reference." He had seen the Cross uplifted from the ground w^ith its awful burden, and respect- ing that Cross he uses a very peculiar expression.'^ He had heard Jesus w^arn Thomas of the blessedness of those who having not seen yet believed, and he quotes almost the very words.^ He had been thrice exhorted to tend and feed Christ's sheep, and the pastoral image is prominent in his mind and exhortations.^" Lastly, he had been speciallv bidden when converted to strengthen his brethren, and this from first to last is the avowed object of his present letter.'' 3. Again w^e recognise the true St. Peter by the extreme vividness of his expressions. It has been a unanimous tra- ^ John xiii. i-6. - x Pet. v. 5, ey/co/x^ujcrao-de. 3 I Pet. iii. 21. For tlie "answer" of the A. V. the Revised Version suggests "interroga- tion," "appeal," "inquiry," 7>. in/ra, p. 138. The verb eTrcpwrav is common in the Gospeli, and always means " to ask further," but the substantive does not occur elsewhere m the New Testament. ' 1-uke .\xii. 31. Here the common danger of the Apostles, "Satan has desired to hav3 yoH (vju.as), . . . but I have prayed for tkee{(Ti)" is restored by the Revised Version. 5 I Pet. y. 8 : Matt. v. 25 ; Luke xii. 58, xviii. 3. * i Pet. v. 8, seq, '' I Pet. ii. 20, Ko\a.4)i^6ixevoi ; 23, ovk cii'TeAotSopet ; 24, ov toJ (itaKiairi olvtov. 8 I Pet. ii. 24, avriviyKiv iv TtS o-wjiiaTi eirX to ^vKov. I', in/ra, p. 128. » I Pet. i. 8. lo'i Pet. ii. 25, v. 2. 11 i Pet. v. 12. 84 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. dition in the Church that the minute details recorded by St. Mark are due to the fact that he wrote from information ghven him by St. Peter. Picturesqueness is as evidently a characteristic of the mind of St. Peter as it is of the mind of St. Mark. In St. Mark it is shown by touches of graphic description, in St. Peter by words which are condensed metaphors.' 4. Such is the close analogy betw^een the thoughts and expressions of the Epistle and those Avhich the Gospel story of the writer would have led us to expect. Nor is the resemblance between the speeches of the St. Peter of the Acts and the style of the St. Peter of the Epistle less strik- ing. As in the Acts so in the Epistle, he refers to Isaiah's metaphor of the rejected corner-stone ;^ in both the witness of the Holy Ghost is prominent f in both he speaks of the Cross as "the tree";* in both he dwells on the position of the Apostles as "witnesses ;" ^ in both he puts forward the death of Christ as the fulfilment of prophecy ; ® in both the Resurrection is made the" main ground of faith and hope ;' in both we find special mention of God as the Judge of quick and dead ; ® in both the exhortation to repentance is based on the fact of man's redemption ; ^ lastly, in both, as a matter of style, there is a prevalence of simple relatival connexions, and as a matter of doctrine there is the repre- sentation of God as one who has no respect for persons.'" 5. Is it not, further, a very remarkable circumstance that in the Acts St. Peter, in one of his outbursts of impetu- ous boldness, ventures to call the Law "a yoke which neither our fathers nor we were strong enough to bear ; " and in the Epistle — though he was a Jew, though he was closely allied to St. James in many of his sympathies, though he strongly felt the influence of the pharisaic Chris- tians at Jerusalem, though he borrow^s the symbols of the theocracy to a marked extent '^ — does not so much as once mention or allude to the Mosaic Law at all ? Even if any of these peculiarities standing alone could be regarded as accidental, their aggregate force is very considerable ; nor ' I Pet. it. 2, "guileless, unadulterated milk ; " iv. 4, "outpouring" (excess of riot) ; iv.. 15, " other-people' s-bishop" (busybody in other men's matters). 2 I Pet. ii. 7 ; Acts iv. 11. 3 t Pet. i. 12 ; Acts v. 32. * I Pet. ii. 24 ; Acts v. 30, x. 39. ^ i Pet. i. 8, v. 1 ; Acts ii. 32, iii. 15, x. 41. " I Pet. i. 10; Acts iii. 18, x. 43. '' 1 Pet. i. 3, 4. 21, iii. 21 ; Acts ii. 32-36, iii. 15, iv. 10, x. 40. *' I Pet. iv. 5 ; Acts x. 42. • I Pet. ii. 24 : Acts iii. 19-26. 1° i Pet. i. 17 ; Acts x. 2. 11 I Pet. i. -J ("sprinkling"), 18-20, ii. 9, to (Ex. xix. 5, 6). SPECIAL FEATURES OF PETER'S FIRST EPISTLE. 85 do \vc think it possible that a forger — even if a forger could otherwise have produced such an epistle as this — could have combined in one short composition so many instances of subtle verisimilitude ? ' 6. A very remarkable feature of the Epistle, and one which must have great prominence in leading us to a conclu- sion about its date, characteristics, and object, is the extent to which the writer has felt the influence both of St. James and of St. Paul." No one can compare the number and pe- culiarity of the identical expressions adduced in the note, without the conviction that they can only be accounted for by the influence of the earlier writers on the later. At this epoch, both among Jews and Christians, there was a free adaptation of phraseology which had come to be regarded as a common possession. That St. Peter has here" been the conscious or unconscious borrower may be regarded as certain, alike on chronological and on psychological con- siderations. If the Epistle was written from Rome, we see the strongest reasons to conclude that it was written ^ To these might be added i Pet. i. 13 ("girding up the loins of your mind") : compared with Luke xii. 35 ; i. 12, "to stoop and look" (napaKVijjai.) ; compared with Luke xxiv. 12 ; ii. 15, " to put to silence "'((fujaoOf), compared with Luke iv. 35: and the use of the word o-KoAto? (ii. 18), as compared with his use of the same word m his recorded speech (Acts ii. 40). 2 r pass over as very possibly accidental and independent the few points of resemblance between the language of St. Peter and St. John (cf. i Pet. ii. 19, 22 with i John i. 7, iii. 3, iv. II, and i Pet. ii. 9 with Rev. i. 6) ; nor do I think that much importance can be attached to the few coincidences between i Pet. and Hebrews (f.i;., i Pet. i. 2 and Heb. ix. 13 ; i Pet. ii. 2 and Heb. v. 12, etc.). I regard the attempt of Weiss, in his elaborate Petyi)iiscke Lehr- ^eg'^iff, to prove the early date of the Epistle, and the indebtedness of St. Paul to its expres- sions, as misleading and untenable, if not as " altogether futile " (Pfleiderer, Faulinism. ii. 150). He has found very few followers in his opinion. The resemblances are mainly to the Epistles to the Romans and Ephesians I Pet. i. I Eph. 1. 4-7 I Pet. i. 3 Eph. i- 3 I Pet. i. 14 Eph. ii. 8 Rom. xii. 2 1 Pet ii. 6-10 Rom. ix. 25-33 I Pet. ii. II Rom. vii. 23 I Pet. ii. 13 Rom. xiii. 1-4 I Pet. ii. 18 Eph. vi. 5 I Pet. iii. I Eph. V. 22 I Pet. iii. 9 Rom. xyi. 17 I Pet. iii. 22 Eph. i. 20 Rom. viil. 34 I Pet. iv. I Rom. yi. 6 I Pet. iv. 10 Rom. xii. 6 I Pet. v. I Rom. viii. 18 I Pet. V. 5 Eph. V. 21 The chief resemblances between St. Peter and St. James will be found in the following passages : — I Pet. i. 6-7 James i. 2-4 I Pet. i. 24 James i, 10 I Pet. iv. 8 James v. 20 I Pet. V. 5, 9 James iv. 6, 7, 10 The supposed parallels between the Epistle and those to Timothy and Titus arc not real parallels, but arise from similarity of subject (i Pet. iii. i. v. i, xeg.). There is nothing in these similarities to discredit the authenticity of the Epistle, and the absence of Johannine phrases is another proof of its antiquity. 86 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. later thaiji the Epistle to the Ephesians, and therefore after the death of St. James. The manner in which St. Peter writes shows that he is often accepting the phrase- ology of others, but infusing into their language a some- what different shade of meaning. When we consider the extreme plasticity of St. Peter's nature, the emotional im- pressiveness and impetuous receptivity which characterise his recorded acts ; when we remember, too, that it was his habit to approach all subjects on the practical and not on the speculative side, and to think the less of distinctions in the form of holding the connnon faith, because his mind was absorbed in the contemplation of that glorious Hope of which he is pre-eminently the Apostle, — we find an addition- al reason for accepting the Epistle as genuine. We see in it the simple, unsystematic, practical synthesis of the com- plementary— but not contradictory — truths insisted on alike by St. Paul and St. James. St. Peter dwells more exclusive- ly than St. Paul on moral duties ; he leans more immediate- ly than St. James on Gospel truths. 7. There is no material difficulty in his acquaintance with these writings of his illustrious contemporaries. Among the small Christian communities the letters of the Apostles were eagerly distributed. The Judaists would have been sure to supply St. Peter with the letter of the saintly Bishop of Jerusalem ; and such companions as Mark and Silvanus, both of whom had lived in intimate relationship with St. Paul, and of whom the former had been expressly mentioned in the Epistle to the Colossians, could not have failed to bring to St. Peter's knowledge the sublimest and most heav- enly of the Epistles of St. Paul. The antagonism in which St. James and St. Paul had been arrayed by their hasty fol- lowers would have acted with St. Peter as an additional rea- son for using indiscriminately the language of them both. It was time that the bitterness of controversies should cease, now that the Church was passing through the fiery storm of its first systematic persecution. It was time that the petty differences within the fold should be forgotten when the howling wolves were leaping into its enclosure from without. The suffering Christians needed no impassioned arguments or eager dialectics ; they mainly needed to be taught the blessed lessons of resignation and of hope. These are the keynotes of St. Peter's Epistle.' , As they stood de- ^ Resignation., 1 Pet. i. 6, ii. 13-25, iii. 1, 9-12, 17, 18, iv. 1-4, v. 6; //o/e, i Pet. i. 4, 12, 13, iv. 6, 7, V. 1, 4, 6, 10, II. SPECIAL FEATURES OF PETER'S FIRST EPISTLE. 8/ fenceless before their enemies, he points them to the patient and speechless anguish of the Lamb of God/ Patient 'en- durance in tiie present would enable them to set an example even to their enemies ; the hope of the future would cliangc their very sorrows into exultant triumph. ■ In the great battle which had been set in array against tliem, Hope should be their helmet and Innocence their shield."' 8. And yet in teaching to his readers these blessed les- sons St. Peter by no means loses his own originality. The distinctions between the three Apostles— distinctions be- tween their methods rather than their views — may be seen at a glance. They become salient when we observe that where- as St. James barely alludes to a single event in the life of Christ, St. Peter makes every truth and exhortation hinge on His example, His sufferings. His Cross, His Resurrec- tion, and His exaltation ;* and that whereas St. Peter is j:^reatly indebted to the Epistle to the Romans, he yet makes no use of St. Paul's central doctrine of Justification by I'^aith. Thus even when he is influenced by his predeces- sor's phraseology, he is occupied with somewhat different conceptions. The two Apostles hold, indeed, the same truths, but, to the eternal advantage of the Church, they ex- press them differently. Antagonism between them there was none ; but they were mutually independent. The orig- inality of St. Peter is not only demonstrated by the sixty isolated expressions {hapax legomend) of his short Epistle, but also by his modification of many of St. Paul's thoughts in accordance with his own immediate s{)iritual gift. That gift was the xapto-/xa KVySepvTJcrcws — that power of administra- tive wisdom which made his example so valuable to the Infant Church. It was worthy of his high position and au- thority to express the common practical consciousness of the Christian Church in a form which avoided party disa- greements. The views of St. Paul are presented by St. Peter in their every-day bearing rather than in their spiritual depths ; and in their moral, rather than their mystical sig- nificance. St. Peter adopts the views of his great brother Apostles, but he clothes them in simpler and in conciliatory terms.* And if these phenomena, from their very delicacy, constitute an almost irresistible proof of the genuineness of J I Pet. i. 19, ii. 22-25. 2 Joy, I Pet. i. 6, 8, iv. 13, 14, 3 hinocence^ i Pet. i. 13-16, 22, ii. i, 2, 11, 12, iii. 13, 15, 21, iv. 15. * I Pet. i. 3, 7, 13, iii. 22, iv. 11, 13. ^ I Pet. i. 12, 25, V. 12 (comp. i Cor. xv, i). 88 THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. the Epistle, how decisive is the evidence which they furnish that there was none of that deadly opposition between the adherents of Kephas and of Paul which has been assumed as the true key to the Apostolic history ! How certain is it that "the wretched caricature of an Apostle, a thing of shreds and patches, which struts and fumes through those Ebionite romances, would not have been* likely to write with thoughts and phrases essentially Pauline flowing from his pen at every turn." ^ 9. It is important and interesting to illustrate still more fully this indebted yet indepe?ident attitude of the Apostle ; this tone at once receptive and original, at once firm and conciliatory, by which he was so admirably qualified to be the Apostle of Catholicity.^ i. We see it at once in the language which he uses about Redemptioti. St. Peter, of course, held, as definitely as St. Paul, that "Christ suffered for sin, once for all, the just on behalf of the unjust ; " ^ that "He Himself, in His own body, took up our sins on to the cross ; " ^ that we were " ransomed with the precious blood as of a lamb blameless and spotless, even of Christ."^ But divine truth is many-sided and in- finite ; and whereas St. Paul mainly dwells on the death of Christ as delivering us from the Law, and from the curse of the Law and from a state of guilt, St. Peter speaks of it mainly as a liberation from actual immorality :® a ransom from an empty, traditional, earthly mode of life ; ' a means of abandoning sins and living to righteousness: — and these are to him the consequences which are specially involved in that more general conception that Christ died "to lead us to God."® And besides this different aspect of the object of the death of Christ, the means by which that object is ef- fected are also contemplated from a different point of view. In St. Paul's theology the Christian so closely partakes in the death of Christ that, by that death, the flesh — the carnal principle of all sin — is slain within him ; ^ the old man is 1 Plumptre, St. Peter, p. 72. ^ Weiss's Lehrbegriff is entirely vitiated by his capricious effort to make out that St. Peter was tho original author of the thoughts which he adopted from others. 3 I Pet. iii. 18, Trepi. ajoiapTiwv . . . wirep ahirMV. ■* I Pet. ii. 24 ; on this difficult verse, vide i/i/ra, p. i6t. ^ i Pet. i. rS, 19. ^ I Pet. i. t8, €k t^? fxaTaia<; avacrrpo^^s naTpoirapoSoTov. ' I Peuii. 2.4, iva rat? aiiapTiai? awoyei'OiJ.fvoL TJj 8LKaio