YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
From the Library of
Morris F. Tyler

EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND
PAGANISM

S. CECILIA AND VALERIAN HER HUSBAND.

Vartyrs -circa A D. 177-180. From an ancient Mosaic, traditionaliy restored by Pope Paschal I.,
A.D. 822.

Early Christianity

AND

Paganism

A.D. tii TO THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH IN THE FOURTH
CENTURY

A NARRATION MAINLY BASED UPON GONTEMPOBABY
BEG0BD8 AND BEMAIN8

H. DONALD M. SPENCE, D.D.
dean of GLOUCESTER

New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
London: CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited

To the Dear Memory of Victoria, R,I., is dedi
cated this chronicle describing the building up of
the strong foundation storeys of the faith, of which
for sixty-four eventful years the great English
Queen was the illustrious and pious Defender.

Sia Majesty the King of .England has graciously approved this
Dedication, which the late Queen of glor-ious me-mory accepted only a few
days before she fell asleep.

CONTENTS.

"^introduction.
Manifestation of the Supernatural in the history of the early Church — Division
of Church history into two sections hy the Edict of Constantine — Sources
of Christian strength — Materials for constructing the narrative — Writ
ings of Disciples or Apostles — Of their immediate successors — Eusehius
— Early heretics — Silence of Eoman literati — Reports of trials — "Acts "
or "Passions " of Martyrs — Unity of Christian Faith — Identity of Chris
tian Practice — The foundation of that Unity — The Canon of the New
Testament

¦^CHAPTER I.
fiest stages.
Section I. — The Beginnings of Christianity : Records from a.d. 62 — First
section of the Acts of the Apostles : Christianity in the first place ex
clusively Hehrew — Extension to Samaritans and Gentiles — Second section
of the Acts : character of the " Travel Document " — Authenticity of the
work. Section II. — The Jew in Rome : Position of the Jews in the
Capital under the fu-st Csesars — The Peculiar People — The Ghetto —
Christians before Nero — The "Household" of Csesar — Pomponia Graeoina
— The Christians looked upou as a Jewish sect ... ... ... 20
CHAPTER II.

Section I. — The Persecution of Nero : Character of Nero's reign — The
great fire — Nero charges the Christians with causing the fire — Obedience
to Govemment a part of the Christian teaching — Possible sources of the
accusation — Attitude of the historian Tacitus — New form of the indict
ment — The exhibition in the Vatican Gardens. Section II. — Effects
OF the Persecution or Neko : Change in the position of Christians —
Christianity becomes a crime per se — Odium humani generis — Christian
readiness to die — Attitude of the Roman literati — The persecution con
tinued — First Epistle of S. Peter — The Apocalypse ... ... ... 40

X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
THE CHUECH IN EOME AFTEE NEED. PAGE
Attitude to Christianity of Vespasian and Titus — Persecution inactive — Re
newed persecution under Domitian — Roman episcopate of Clement —
Irena3us on Clement — Clement's letter to the Corinthians — Clement's
personality — His tone towards Govemment — His doctrinal teaching —
MSS. of Clement's letter and prayer— Existence of Forms of Prayer —
Cemetery of Domitill.a — Basilica of Clement .. . ... ... ... 60
^- CHAPTER IV.
S. JOHN AND POLTCAEP.
Section I.— S. John : S. John the third of the great Apostolic trio — Resi
dence at Patmos — Return to Ephesus — References in the Muratorian
fragment — References hy Irenaaus. Section II. — S. Polycarp : A
disciple of John — Letter of Ignatius to Polycarp — Letter of Irenseus to
Floriuus — Widespread influence of Polycarp — Polycarp at Rome : the
Easter Day controversy^ — His condenmation of heresies — Writings of
Polycarp — Story of his martyrdom — Authenticity of the account ... 76
CHAPTER V.
IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH.
What we know of Ignatius, chiefly in the seven letters — Life aud date of his
death — " Theophorus " — The Antiochene " Acts " — Arrest of Ignatius,
and journey to Rome — Stay at Smyrna — At Troas — At Philippi —
Account of his martyrdom iu the Antiochene "Acts" — His seven
letters — Condemnation of Docetism — Insistence on the threefold mimstry
in the Church — Letter to the Romans — Desire for martyrdom — ^Eifects of
this letter ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 94
CHAPTER VI.
TEAJAN AND HADRIAN.
Section I. — Pliny and Trajan: General lack of authentic records — Pliny
the Younger — His account of penalties imposed upon Christians — -His
examination and rejection of giave charges against them — Benefits re
sulting from their repression — Reply of Trajan — Repression, not perse
cution, his policy — Evidence of the letters as to the progress of
Christianity. Section II. — Hadrian : First Period : Letter of Sil
vanus GranianuB — Rescript of Hadrian — Discouragement of informers —
Character of the Emperor— Change in his later years. Section III. —
Hadrian : The Tragedy or the Jews : The last Jewish war — Exter
mination of Judaising Christianity — The Jews not persecuted afterwards
— The alarm inspired by Christianity. Section IV. — Christian Life
UNDER Hadrian as Presented by early Christian Apologists :
Quadratus — Aristides — Account of the Christians given by Aristides 
Features in his "Apology "—The " Letter to Diognetus." Section V.—
The Persecution in the last years op Hadrian : Change in Hadrian's
character— Martyrdom of S. Sj-mphorosa— Comments on the record ... 107

GONTENTS. xi
CHAPTER VII.
THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. PAGE
Section I. — The Roman Religion : Paganism an effective rival to Chris
tianity — Its reality as a religion — Change between the times of Cicero
and of Marcus Aurelius — From Scepticism to Devotion — Character of the
primitive form — Corrupting influence of Greece — Resulting scepticism.
Section II. — The Augustan Awakening : Importance attached to !Ee-
ligion by Augustus — His restoration of temples and ritual — Horace and
Ovid — The Ethics of the " Georgics " — Religious aspects of the ".ffineid "
— Infiuence of Virgil — General summary of Augustus' influence — The
successors of Augustus. Section III. — The Deification op the Em
perors : Divine honours paid to national heroes — The family Lares —
Julius Caesar deified — Augustus deified — Association of the Imperial
Deity with Roman Deity or Genius — Genuine acceptance of the deifica
tion — Not merely an equivalent of canonisation. Section IV. — Sacer
dotal Corporations : Revival of ancient sacerdotal corporations — The
Arval Brothers. Section V. — Admission of Foreign Deities among the
Old Gods op Rome: Early examples — Oriental examples — Christianity
alone excluded as itself intolerant. Section VI. — The Philosophers
AND THE Pagan Revival : Doctrine of the Unity of God — Claim of the
philosophers to our respect — Seneca — Difference from Christian Ethics —
Epictetus — The Stoics not directly influenced by Christianity — Stoicism
not directed to the poor and lowly — Contrast with Christianity ... 137

CHAPTER VIII.
THE CHRISTIANS UNDEE THE ANTONINES, A.D. 138 TO A.D. 180.
Position of Christians growing worse — The feeling of the Antonines towards
Christianity — The " Apology " ot Justin — Activity of Christian propaganda
— The second " Apology " of Justin — Increased severity under Marcus
Aurelius — ^Letters and " Meditations " of Marcus Aurelius — Worship of
the Pagan Deities — Development of anti-Christian policy ... ... 176
CHAPTER IX.
A CHAPTEE OP MAKTTEDOMS.
Section I. — Introductory. Section II. — An Example of a State Trial
of Accused Christians in Rome : The " Acts of S. Felicitas " — Inter
rogation before the court — Execution — Discoveries as to burial of these
martyrs. Section III. — The Prison Life before a Martyrdom: The
Passion of S. Perpetua — Dreams of Perpetua and Saturus — The eve of
martyrdom — In the arena — Authorship of the " Passion." Section IV.
— Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne {circa a.d. 177): The Gallic Church
— Gaul and Asia Minor— Arrest of Christians at Lyons — The martyrdom.
Section V. — Rome in the Latter Years of Marcus : The " Aots of
S.Cecilia" — Story of her martyrdom — Her burial-place ... ... 190

xii GONTENTS. PAGE
CHAPTER X.
AFTER THE ANTONINES.
Section I. — Christianity at the Close op the Second Century : The
reign of Commodus— The persecution at Madaura— The ScUlitan martyrs
— Leaders of the Church in Asia Minor — Association of Asian and GaUic
Churches— Irenseus— The Canon of Scripture — Writings of Irenseus—
Multiplication of Christians — TertuUian's observations. Section II. —
Severus and Caracalla: Pertinax succeeds Commodus — Severus ac
quires the Imperial power — Character of Severus — Lenity of his opening
years — Later harshness — In part due to the aggressive defiance of
Christian extremists — TertuUian : De Corona, Militis — Resulting proscrip
tion of Christianity — EspeciaUy about Alexandria — Signs of the persecu
tion in the Roman Catacombs — ^The persecution in North Africa —
Closing years of Severus — Caracalla — The Porphyrogeniti — The extension
of Roman citizenship. Section III.^From Caracalla to Decius:
Elagabalus— Alexander Severus — Peace enjoyed by the Christians —
Maximinus renews persecution — Popular animosity towards Christianity
— The elder Gordians — The younger Gordian — Philip the Arabian —
Tradition of his Christianity — The secular games — The Arval Brotherhood
— Ojmpromise between Christianity and official Paganism ... ...222

CHAJ-TER XL
THE CATACOMBS OP EOME.
Section I. — Origin op the Catacombs : Introductory — Care of aU Romans
for their dead — Burial clubs — First Christian cemeteries — Origin of the
term Catacomb — Extent of the gaUeries — Suitability for excavation —
Burial of martyrs — Use of Catacombs for other purposes. Section H. —
History of the Catacombs : First period — Remains of the first period
—Second period — Callistus — Earthing up — Third period — Damasus —
Fourth period — Raiding of the Barbarians — Translation of relics — Re
discovery of the Catacombs. Section III. — Art op the Catacombs :
Value as a record — Christian idea of Death  The " Orante " — The
"Good Shepherd" — The Fish— Inscriptions— Changes after the Edict
of Milan ... ... ... ... .. 263

CHAPTER xn.
INNER LIFE OP THE CHURCH.
Section I.— Rome : Hippolytus and Callistus : Liberal and austere schools
-Hippolytus' " Refutation of Heresies "-Seriousness of the dispute-
Career of Callistus— Career of Hippolytus- Records of Hippolytus— The
Papal Crypt -Readmission of Penitents to Communion - Episcopal
digamy— Celibacy— Marriage of slaves with the free— The Patripasskn
or SabeUian heresy— Relation of the First and Second Persons of the

GONTENTS. xiii
PAGE
Trinity — Teaching as to the Third Person of the Trinity. Section II. —
Carthage : Tertullian : Career of TertuUian — Christians in the State
service — Pagan rites — Austerity of TertuUian's views — Service in the
Army — Comproraise or no compromise — GeneraUy Uberal attitude of the
Church — Force of Paganism — Relaxation of discipline — Montanus —
Moutanism — Adhesion of TertuUian. Section III. — Alexandria :
Clement and Origen: Alexandria — Panteenus — Clement — Rise of
Origen — Quarrel with Bishop Demetrius — Immense literary output of
Origen — His catholicity — His speculative tendencies ... ... ... 290

CHAPTER XIII.
PEOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN.
Section I. — Carthage : Cyprian : Carthage — The original home of Latin
Christianitj" — Character of Cyprian — His views on the Episcopate
— The Decian persecution — Apostasy of Christians — Absolution by
martyrs — Problem of the " Lapsi " — The plague at Carthage — Devotion
of Christians — Persecution of Gallus — Valerian — The question of re-
baptising — Stephen of Rome— Persecution of Valerian — Banishment of
Cyprian— Edict of 258 — Arrest of Cyprian — Trial and martyrdom.
Section II. — Rome : Fabian, bishop and martyr — Cornelius — The Nova
tian schism — Martyrs of the arenaria — Stephen — Sixtus — St. Laurence
— Accession of Galllenus. Section III. — The Roman Emperors :
GaUienus — The " Thirtj' Tyrants " — Claudius Gothious — Aurelian — His
Pagan devotion — Persecution of Christians — Interregnum — Probus —
Carus and his sons — Treatment of Christians — Manichaeism ... ... 341

CHAPTER XIV.
DIOCLETIAN.
Section I. — First Period : Diocletian and Maximian : Increasing con
nection between Imperial and Ecclesiastical history — Character of Diocle
tian— His poUcy of Division of the Empire — Maximian — Toleration of
Christianity in the East — Hostility of Maximian — The story of the
" Theban Legion "—Its authenticity — The Council of lUiberis — Pagan
Monotheism — Porphyry. Section II. — Second Period : The Divided
Empire : The multiplication of Emperors — Constantius Chlorus, and
Galerius — The Edict of Persecution — Its appUcation in the Army —
Origin of the persecution — The second Edict, and its origin — Th e Great
Persecution — Not enforced by Constantius — The sacred books and the
" Traditores " — Cruelty of the Persecution — The Triumph of Diocletian —
Renewed persecution. Section III. — Review of the Persecution :
The poUcy of Constantius becomes dominant in the West — Severities of
the Diocletian persecution — Computation of the victims. Section IV. —
Authorities: Eusebius — -Lactantius — "Aots" of the Martyrs — The
Catacombs ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 396

xiv GONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV.
CONSTANTINE THE GEEAT. page
Section I. — Thb Rise op Constantine : Dominance of Galerius — Death of
Constantius — Constantine proclaimed — Slaximin Daia — Maxentius,
Maximian, and Licinius— Rome and the " Lapsi "—Death of Maximian —
And of Galerius : his Edict of Toleration— Persecution of Maximin Daia
— Affairs in the West — Constantine marches against Maxentius — Battle
of the Milvian Bridge. Section II. — The Conversion op Constantike :
Early years of Constantine — Pagan account of his conversion — Story of
his vision— The account of Eusebius— Character of the Emperor — Results
of the victory— Efiect on Maximin Daia— The Edict of Milan— Over
throw of Maximin Daia. Section III. — After the Edict of Milan:
Church bmlding— Disputes in the Church — Christian legislation —
Anomalous position of the Emperor — Constantine becomes sole Emperor 439
CHAPTER XVI.
FEOM PAGANISM TO CHEISTIANITT.
Section I. — The Change : The lament of the Pagans — Distress of the cul
tured classes— Popular acceptance of Christianity — Largely due to the
persecutions. Section II. — Typical Studies : Prudentius and his
poem the Teri Stephanm — Paulinus of Nola — His poetry — His praises
of S. FeUx— S. Martin of Tours— Pope Damasus — The glorification of
the martyrs — Vigilantius and Augustine ... ... ... ... 473
CHAPTER XVII.
AFTEE THE PEACE OP THE CHUECH.
Section I. — Christianity and the Fall of the Empire : Acceptance of
Christianity — Supposed demoraUsing effects — Society only changed its
religious formulae — Influence of the arena — Arianism — Extravagancies
—The Barbarian descent — Augustine— Orosius — Salvian — Salutary in
fluence of the great Churchmen. Section II.— The Monastic Develop
ment: Chrysostom — St. Anthony — The Monks of the Thebaid — Unani
mous approval of the Fathers — The Rule of Augustine — The Ascetics —
The Rule of Basil — The services of Monasticism — Conclusion ... ... 494

APPENDICES.
A. — ^Tables of Roman Emperors and Bishops of Rome ... 521
B. — The Presence of S. Peter at Rome ... ... ... ... 524
C. — On the Authenticity op the Seven Epistles and " Acts " of
Martyrdom op S. Ignatius ... ... ... ... ... 531
D. — Notes on the Passion op S. Peupetua ... ... ... ... 637
E. — Eusebius the Historian, and Lactantius.. ... ... ... 541
F. — Early Heresies op the Church... ... ... ... 545
G. — Extracts prom Lactantius and Eusebius... ... ... ... 552

LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS.

S. Cecilia and Valerian her Husband  Frontispiece
The Empire under Constantine  To face page 1
The Palace of the Caesars  ,.36
Nero  ,,44
"La Demifere Priere" (after J. L. GfirSme)  „ 51
The Colosseum  ,52
Early representations of Linus, S. Peter, and S. Paul . . . „ 62
Facsimile of a Page from "Codex A"  ,,71
Trajan  108
Hadrian  118
Augustus  ,,146
The Forum: View from the Terrace below the Capitol , , . ,,151
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus  ,,177
The Forum : View from the Capitol  ,,185
The Forum : View facing the Capitol  ,186
The Martyrdom of S. Perpetua (after G. B. Cavalerri) . . . ,,208
The Martyrdom of S. Cecilia (after Raphael)  218
S. Cecilia: the Effigy by Maderna  ,,219
The original Tomb of S. CeciUa  ,,221
Severus  „ 234
In the Palace of the CsBsars  , 244
The Appian Way  ,,264
Columbarium of Caesar's Freedmen  „ 266
Sepulchral Chamber in the Cemetery of S. CaUistus ....,, 268
Sepulchral Chamber of Ampliatus  „ 270
Sepulchral Chamber showing First Century Decoration . . . ,, 274
An Orante . . . ¦  ,,284
Group of the Blessed in Paradise : Third Century . . . , „ 288
The Good Shepherd  ,,289
S. Hippolytus  299
The Papal Crypt as discovered by De Rossi  , 302
The Papal Crypt as restored by De Rossi  303
Sepulchral Chamber with Tomb of S. CorneUus  „ 372
S, Laurence before the Judge (after Fra Angelico) ....,, 378
Inscriptions from the Catacombs . . . . . . . . „ 437
Constantine the Great  ,, 441
The Vision of Constantine (after Raphael)  „ 466
Facade of S. John Lateran  ,, 462
The Arch of Constantine  ,, 463
Sepulchral Chamber, with Tomb of Miltiades  ,, 468
The Temple of Castor and Pollux  ,,476
Sepulchral Chamber, with Tomb of S. Eusebius  ,, 490
Plan of the Crypt containing the Tomb of S. Peter . . . . ,, 529

EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND
PAGANISM.

INTEODUCTION.
IT has been justly said that " if ever there was a manifesta
tion of the Supernatural, it was in the condition of things
out of which arose the New Testament. We have only to
take up the Epistles of S. Paul, and we find him surrounded,
penetrated, permeated with the Supernatural. It is as it were
the very atmosphere which he breathes. He does not assert
it, he had no need to assert it."*
No thoughtful Christian scholar would be prepared to
question this statement. It is, however, generally assumed
that as the men who had been personaUy associated with
the Divine Founder of Christianity passed away, open mani
festations of the Supernatural became rarer and rarer until
they ceased altogether. After the last years of the first
century, a date usually given for the death of S. John, the
last survivor of the Apostolic band, few, if any, authentic
instances of that open manifestation can be adduced. But
the story of the rise and progress of Christianity during the
280 years which elapsed between the Ascension morning, in
A.D. 33, and the Peace of the Church secured by the famous
Edict of Constantine in a.d. 313, may be emphatically looked
upon as the story of a period on the whole permeated with
the Supernatural.
Outward manifestations of the Supernatural no doubt
* Prof. Sanday : Bampton Lectures, No. VII.

2 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
soon ceased; but a spirit not belonging to the ordinary
course of things stiU dwelt in the companies of Christians —
a spirit which gave the followers of "The Name" a special
wisdom, a special power of brave endurance of suffering in the
presence of world-wide opposition and hatred, in the presence
of angry jealousy and sharp dread of the new unknown
power growuig up.
In spite of this determined enmity on the part of the
world in which they lived and moved, an enmity which
frequently flamed up in the form of bitter persecution, these
Christians — for by that name at a very early date the
followers of Jesus Christ were called — flourished in a strange
fashion; their numbers continued, as year followed year, mar
vellously to increase. Their recruits, it is true, were drawn
largely from the stratum composed of the lower classes of
Eoman society, but they by no means consisted entirely
of persons drawn from that stratum. Their converts were to
be found in all classes, in the Imperial household on the Pala
tine, in lordly patrician families, among senators and lawyers,
soldiers and merchants, as well as the vast slave popula
tion. They included men and women of aU ranks, of all
ages. One singular characteristic feature was common to them
all — they never resisted their oppressors, their persecutors.
They were ever the most loyal of subjects ; conspiracy, rebeUion,
discontent with the estabUshed state of things — though the
estabUshed state of things was, as a rule, absolutely inimical
to their very existence — were simply unknown among them
during the whole period of 280 years of which we are writing.
Their Ufe, their brave patient persistence, their marveUous
endurance during these 280 years, tell us that soniething
supernatural dwelt among them, inspired them, blessed them :
something, termed in the phraseology of the Christians the
" Holy Spirit," which did not belong to this world — which
had never, as far as we know, been manifested to the same
extent before in any society, and certainly has never been
manifested since.
After this first period the Imperial Government gave up
distrusting, opposing, persecuting these Christians. It went

INTBODUGTION. 3
further. The Empire soon adopted as the "State Eeligion"
the creed of the long persecuted sect, the creed which duruig
those 280 years she had chosen to regard as a pernicious
superstition, positively inimical to the State. Thus the
History of the Christian Church falls naturally into two
great divisions : the first from its foundation a.d. 33 to
A.D. 313, the date of the Edict of the Emperor Constantine,
which gave peace to the Church ; the second from a.d. 313
to the present time.
The first division embraces the chronicle of the prolonged
years of struggle, when Christianity not only was not the
religion of the civilised world, but was the religion of a
sect at first comparatively smaU and chiefly powerful owing
to its earnestness and its unity, though the numbers of the
body scattered all over the Empire were after a time consider
able. AU through this period it was positively an iUegal
reUgion, proscribed as such by the laws of the Eoman
Empire. The nervous words of the famous Carthaginian
teacher TertuUian (circa a.d. 200), admirably sum up the
position of Christians all through that time — "Non licet esse
vos" ("It is not lawful to be you").
The second division of the History of the Church com
prises the whole period reaching from a.d. 313 to the
present day. Not only did the Edict of Constantine in
A.D. 313 make Christianity a lawful religion, but, a few
years later, it became the religion of the State, the favoured
cult, the cult professed by the Emperor.
A great gulf naturally separates these two divisions : for
good or for evil, a.d. 313 marks the parting of the ways.
In the second period the conditions which coloured the
story of the Church in the first are completely changed.
With the second period the present work does not profess
to deal. It is virtually confined to the first period, that of
stress and storm, when the confession of " the Name " was
simply iUegal, when its confessors were liable to the gravest
penalties, to imprisonment, confiscation, even to death. These
penalties were not always exacted, it is true, but the Chris
tian professor was stiU liable to them. Eoughly speaking.

4 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
about half of the 280 years were times of bitter, relentless
persecution; but ever} during the periods of stillness, when
the penalties, referred to above, were not generally enforced,
the sword of the Law was ever hanging suspended over the
heads of Christians, and the cord on which the sword
hung was indeed a slender one. At any hour, the caprice
of an Emperor, the fanatical zeal of a provincial governor,
the unreasoning fury of a mob, excited by passion, greed,
jealousy, unexplained uneasiness, might caU down on the
heads of thfe Christians resident in the city or province
the execution of a law which pronounced them dangerous
to the State, enemies of Eome. The story of these early
years is one indeed of surpassing interest, for it describes
how the Church of Christ in the face of tremendous opposi
tion, with aU the forces of the civiUsed world perpetuaUy
arrayed against it, slowly, surely won its way; using in its
quiet steady progress no earthly arms, never resisting by
force the wiU of the dominant power represented by the
Government ; its members only in comparatively rare cases
complying with the summons to give up their profession of
faith, constantly preferring to submit to any penalties, even
to death, rather than deny the Name of the Founder, the
Name they loved better than Ufe.
Following a practice very different from that usual among
professors of any of the persecuted forms of reUgion before
their time, or even among professors of a persecuted reUgion
after their time, the Christians throughout these years, although
conscious of their numbers, their organisation and their
power, never took up arms against their persecutors; these
hated, despised, outlawed men continued to be the most
loyal and peaceful subjects of the great world-wide Empire.
It is this strange power of passive resistance, to which we
have aUuded above, and of which we shaU speak again,
which is one of the principal evidences of a special super
natural assistance being vouchsafed to them.
When we come to write in detail of the inner life of the
Church, by which name the Christian sect from the earUest
days of its existence styled itself, we shall see what were the

INTBODUGTION. 6
sure hopes which Uved in the community from the beginning ;
hopes which inspired them to live the life which seemed so
strange to their contemporaries ; which gave them courage,
in the midst of so many and great perils, serenely and
calmly to face the loss of everything dear to man, even to
welcome death. Briefly, their adored Founder, whom they
justly looked upon as Divine, had supplied them with informa
tion respecting what would come after death — a question
always of surpassing interest, and one which in the first and
second centuries seems to have especially agitated the thoughts
of the Eoman world.
The Christian in possession of this information was freed
from all dread of the hereafter; for him, to die was to
depart and be with Christ; this was far better than to
remain on here even under the circumstances of a happy
earthly environment. The noble, the iUustrious by birth
or by fortune, was freed from all fear and dread of the
Csesar whose arbitrary and fatal power was so often a
threatening spectre to the wealthy Eoman noble. The slave,
a member of the enormous sad -eyed caste, as a Christian
became at once the freedman of the All-mighty Christ; very
short indeed would be his period of slavery, it would
terminate with this brief life. Death to the Christian slave
signified immediate freedom; and a life of joy and peace
too beautiful for human pen to describe would at once
follow dissolution. To aU faithful Christians, bond or free,
patrician or plebeian, rich or poor, the religion of Jesus
assured a blissful, restful, endless immortality.
The meetings together of the people who had embraced
the faith of Jesus — whether held in some quiet upper chamber
in a street of Eome or Antioch, of Ephesus or Carthage, or
by some secluded river side, or in the dimly lit corridor of
those Cemeteries men have come to caU the Catacombs,
where their dead were laid to sleep beneath old Eome — must
have been strangely joyous; the gatherings where the hopes,
the joys, the rewards of the Eedeemer were discussed in
terms of quiet but impassioned enthusiasm, must have been
indeed inspiring. It was at these that they gathered their

6 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
courage, their brave patience, their sure hope of a blessed,
blissful immortality.
Of such meetings, again and again repeated, we catch
sight in the well-known words of Pliny, the Eoman provincial
Governor, in the writings of such teachers as Justin Martyr
and TertulUan, in a few of the best authenticated Acts of
Martyrs; more vividly perhaps still in the marveUously pre
served passages and chambers of the network of cemeteries
(termed catacombs) beneath the Appian and other roads
hard by Eome : where many a dim and faded painting tells
us how these Chi'istians, during nearly three centuries, met
together and rehearsed their glorious hopes, their happy out
look, their deathless faith.
It will be seen, as we proceed in this our work, how we
have no lack of material out of which to construct the
wondrous story of Christianity in the first, second, and third
centuries. These materials out of which our account of the laying
of the early stories of Christianity is constructed, are many
and various; more ample indeed by far than the ordinary
student of Church History guesses. Only for one short
period are they, comparatively speaking, scanty, and even
for that short period authoritative data do not by any means
faU us.
For the first eventful years, that is, from about A.D. 30
to A.D. 33, the materials are ample. They are mainly the
Gospels and the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles.
From A.D. 33 the Acts and the Epistles of the New Testa
ment carry on the story until the deaths of SS. Peter and
Paul circa a.d. 67 ; while the testimony of S. John in his Gospel,
Eevelation, and Epistles, written after the deaths of S. Paul
and S. Peter, tells us much concerning the character of the
teaching of the great survivor of the original companions and
disciples of Jesus up to the very end of the first century.
Thus, until the close of the first century the testunony
of the Books of the New Testament is ever at hand, supply
ing us with materials which enable us to frame a fairly
exhaustive account of the laying of the early stories of the

INTBODUGTION. 7
Christian Church; for a tradition which may be said to be
unvarying relates how S. John lived and taught and wrote
at Ephesus untU the year of our Lord 99 or 100.
In addition to the inspired compositions of S. John, we
possess a few writings put out in the last decade of the first
century and in the early years of the second century, by
men who were disciples of the Apostles ; such as the Epistle
of Clement of Eome, a letter addressed about a.d. 96 to the
Church of Corinth and universally received by scholars as
absolutely authentic; the Epistle of Barnabas which cannot
be dated much later; the seven famous Epistles of Ignatius
of Antioch, belonging to the year 107, now, in what is
generaUy known as the Vossian Eecension, after long con
troversy accepted as indisputably genuine; the Epistle of
Polycarp of Smyrna sent circa a.d. 108 ; the Letter to
Diognetus, the first part of which was evidently put out
early in the second century. The recently discovered treatise
known as the " Teaching of the Apostles," by an unknown
writer, belongs to the same very early period. The " Apology
of Aristides," presented to Hadrian, lately brought to Ught,
was composed circa a.d. 124-130. The "Shepherd of
Hermas " was written a few years later. The writings (of
some considerable length) of Justin Martyr must be roughly
dated a.d. 145-150, the varied works of Irenseus a.d. 170-180
or somewhat earlier ; and it must be borne in mind that
these early Christian authors were closely connected one
with the other. Clement of Eome was the disciple of Peter
and probably of Paul ; Ignatius was a pupil of the Apostles ;
Polycarp, the friend of Ignatius, was a hearer of S. John
the Apostle ; Irenseus tells us how, when young, he sat at
the feet of Polycarp. Thus an unbroken chain of writers
and teachers links the age of S. John with the latter years
of the second century and the earlier years of the third
century ; when there arose a group of famous Christian
teachers, many of whose voluminous writings are preserved
to us in so perfect a form that the most ample materials
are present to our hand for a history of the struggles and
anxieties of this time, lasting from the days of Irenseus of

8 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Lyons (circa A.D. 170-180) until the middle of the third
century. This group of teachers includes Clement of Alexandria
(circa A.D. 190), Hippolytus of Eome (a.d. 201, generaUy quoted
as Bishop of Portus), TertuUian of Carthage (circa a.d. 200),
Origen of Alexandria (circa A.D. 230), and Cyprian of Carthage
(circa a.d. 250). We give the rough dates assigned as the
central points in the periods of influence of these great
Christian teachers ; an influence, of course, usuaUy extend
ing for some years before and after the year named.
Thus, although the list of trustworthy contemporary authori
ties for our history, for some seventy years after the death of
S. John, is not a long one, stiU in the providence of God,
enough of such writings has been preserved to enable us
to form from them a reUable story of the work and progress
of Christianity during that aU-important period. With great
force a modem scholar of the highest rank* thus lucidly
sums up the reasons why this precious Ust of writings
between a.d. 100 and a.d. 170 is not longer. "Time has
pressed with a heavy hand upon such literature as the early
Church produced. The unique position of the Apostles and
EvangeUsts might shield their writings from its ravages, but
the literature of the succeeding generation had no such
immunity. It was too desultory in form, too vague in
doctrine, to satisfy the requirements of more Uterary circles
and a more dogmatic age. Hence while Athanasius, Basil
and Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine and Ambrose were
widely read and frequently transcribed, comparatively Uttie
attention was paid to those writings of the first and second
centuries which were not included in the sacred Canon.
The literary remains of the primitive age of Christianity,
which to ourselves are of priceless value, were suffered to
perish from neglect, a few fragments here and there alone
escaping the general fate."
How much we have lost of these precious early works
from which we might have drawn so much, we learn from
the references and quotations of Eusebius, Bishop of Csesarea
* Bishop Lightfoot of Durham : The Apostolic Fathers, Vol. I., Section 1,
Part 1, S. Clement of Rome.

INTBODUGTION. 9
in the first half of the fourth century, in his invaluable
"Ecclesiastical History." A catalogue of some of the writings
belonging to the second century quoted by this eminent
scholar and compiler, writings which were available in his
day but now have vanished, is sufficient to indicate to us
something of the extent of our loss.
1. Papias, the friend of Polycarp, on the very verge of
the first age, early in the second century, wrote an "Exposi
tion in five Books of the Oracles of the Lord."
2. Hegesippus, about the middle of the second century,
put out an "Ecclesiastical History in five Books."
3. Dionysiiis, Bishop of Corinth, also in the middle of
the second century, wrote many letters ; Eusebius especiaUy
makes mention of "his inspired industry."
4. Melito, Bishop of Sardis ; Claudius Apollinaris, Bishop
of Hierapolis. These two once famous teachers, shortly after
A.D. 150, were the authors of many works on Scriptural
interpretations, controversial divinity, ecclesiastical order, and
other subjects.
5. Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus ; '
6. Theophilibs, Bishop of Antioch ; as writers, were weU
known in the last quarter of the second century when Eusebius
wrote and used their works.
But, except for a few meagre fragments, all this voluminous
literature quoted and referred to by writers such as Irenseus,
second century, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, third
century, Eusebius of Csesarea, fourth century, has been
blotted out,* has vanished ; largely no doubt owing to the
causes above detailed.
Very early in the History of Christianity we catch sight
of teachers and schools of thought growing up outside the
* In the last two decades of the nineteenth century the researches of scholars
in ancient Ubraries have brought to light several of the early works of the second
century, notably " The Teaching of the Apostles," written in the early years
of the second century; "The Apology of Aristides," circa a.d. 130-140; "The
Diatessaron," a Harmony of the four Gospels, by Tatian, circa a.d. 175 ; the so-
called "Apocalypse of S. Peter," of the first years of the second century; and
the so-called "Gospel of S. Peter," circa a.d. 160. We may hope, as time goes
on, that other pieces of this vanished early literature wiU come to light.

10 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Christian communities commonly classed as heretics and
heretical, but for the most part utterly alien from the Gospel
of Jesus Christ, although they seem to have introduced the
name of Christ into their strange and often purely fanciful
systems. They may be roughly divided into two great
divisions, the one Judaising and the other Gnostic. The
Judaising Heretics more or less denied the reality of Christ's
sufferings, curiously imagining that the Christ of the Gospel
was only a phantom appearance. The other, the Gnostic
Heretics, under different names, seem to have introduced
some Christian elements into philosophical systems of a
different, mostly of an Oriental origin.
The tares grew weU-nigh as rapidly as did the wheat,
and as Christians were multipUed and began to be numbered
by thousands in the different countries of the Eoman Empire,
so these heretical bodies numbered also their thousands.
The term Gnostic is apparently of later origin, and in the
second and third centuries the heretics were generaUy named
after the leaders of the special school to which they belonged,
such as Valentinians and Marcionites, the names of two of
the more conspicuous schools. These Gnostics appeared
certainly as early as the close of the first centiury, and before
the middle of the second century were beyond doubt widely
spread ; all through that century (the second) and the first
half of the third, they evidently occupied a conspicuous
position, owing to their numbers, their organisation, and
their learning. After the first half of the third century the
early heretical schools appear graduaUy to have withered
away, and their place was fiUed by new and quite different
schools of false teaching.
How numerous and formidable in the early days of
Christianity were these heretical groups, we see from the
prominence given to the refutation of their strange and
perverted tenets in the fragments of primitive Christian
literature which have come down to us ; notably in the works
of Irenaeus of Lyons (second half of the second century),
of Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian of Carthage and Origen
of Alexandria (end of second century and beginning of third

INTBODUGTION. 11
century), and of Hippolytus of Portus and of Eome, who
might also be dated as writing circa A.D. 200.
In the ranks of these numerous and widely spread
heretical schools of thought were not a few scholars and
thinkers, and even voluminous writers, from whose works
we might have hoped to derive much knowledge of the
teaching, the life, and the history of the early Christians,
from whose ranks they had originally sprung in part, and
with whom they were pleased to class themselves ; but aU
their original works, writings, histories, expositions of the
sacred books, have disappeared. It is beUeved that only one
or two productions* of these strange early dissenters from the
Catholic faith have come down to us. All our knowledge,
alas ! of these once famous schools is derived from treatises
of their bitter opponents, put out by Christian teachers, such
as Irenseus, Hippolytus, TertulUan, Clement of Alexandria,
and Origen; for example, Origen (first half of third century)
gives us some forty-eight extracts ('some of considerable
length) from the great Valentinian expositor Heracleon.
From Pagan writers, the compiler of early Christian
History gets comparatively little assistance. A few short
passages in Tacitus and Suetonius and in the well-known
letters of Pliny the Younger and the Emperor Trajan are
almost the solitary exceptions.
For a long period Christianity was little known to the
majority of Eoman literary men. It was by many mistaken
for a Jewish sect ; the reUgion of the Jew was despised
generally, and when not despised, was feared and dreaded
as a pernicious superstition ; and when towards the middle
and second half of the second century, the religion of the
Christians, owing to the increasing numbers, the earnestness and
the intense reality of the faith of the Christian communities
in all parts of the Empire, compelled a certain recognition
from the Govemment and the Emperor, a stiidied silence
on the part of Pagan writers and thinkers was evidently
* The wCa-ris ao^la of Valentinus circa the middle of the second century
(edited by Peterman, Berlin, 1861), and the recently discovered "Hymn of the
Soul," perhaps the work of Bardesanes.

12 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
observed. They would not describe the progress of a [religion,
or discuss the curious problem of its mighty influence! over
so many souls. To the thoughtful Eoman philosopher its
steady advance boded* no good to Eome ; in his eyes it was
rather a menace to the enduring prosperity of the Empire.
A good example of this singular studied reticence is the
solitary mention by the great and good Emperor Marcus,
A.D. 161-180, of his Christian subjects ; where he alludes to
their fearlessness in the presence of death, to their ready
willingness to die. But the Emperor's mention is a de
preciatory one, and is coloured too evidently by the feelings
of dislike and even dread with which he regarded these
people who professed a faith he was unable, perhaps cared
not, to understand.
Such a compUation as that on which we are at present
engaged must include not only the record of the principal
historical facts connected with the Christians who lived in
the first three centuries, but must embrace also much that
belongs to their private Ufe. The effect of that faith, for
which the Christians of the days of persecution gave up
so much, upon the every-day life of its professors, must be
dwelt upon at some length. We possess materials of the
highest value for this special part of our work on the every
day life of the Christians.
From the remains of some of the early writers, such as
Hermas, Justin Martyr, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria,
Minucius Felix, TertuUian, Origen, Cyprian, we draw much
of our knowledge here. These often take us into what we
may term the every-day Ufe of the Christians who lived in
the first, second, and third centuries ; they describe often
vividly and graphically the difficulties and temptations, the
hindrances and persecutions, to which the Christian was
exposed. But besides these writings we possess some other
and most important memoranda to which we may refer for
such particulars. These are the special accounts of martyrs,
and of men and women who suffered for the faith which they
professed. Now these precious memoranda are divided into
two classes. The first of these, the "Acts" properly so

INTBODUGTION. 13
caUed, are largely copies of the official reports (the proces
verbaux) of the proceedings of the Eoman Court of Justice
before which the accused Christian was summoned, and by
which the accused was condemned. Such copies of reports,
bearing as they do a purely official character, were sold by
the officials of the Court of Justice to friends of the accused,
and were preserved by them, or most probably by the
Ministers of the Church of which the condemned were
members, as a memorial of those persons who, in witnessing
a good confession sealed for the most part by the sacrifice
of their lives, did honour by their good and noble example
to the congregation to which they had belonged.
A few admirable specimens of such official reports, the
genuineness of which is undisputed, are, amongst others,
the Acts of S. Justin (Martyr), of S. Cyprian, and of the
SciUitan martyrs. Only, however, a few of such official
reports, most precious reUcs indeed, have come down to us.
The second class, also commonly known as "Acts of the
Martyrs," but more properly designated as the " Passions of
Martyrs," are very numerous.
These are something more than dry official reports of
the interrogations of the Court of Justice, and profess to
give at length the story of portions of the life, especially
of the imprisonment, trial, and death of the confessors or
martyrs. Many of the details of these " Passions of the
Martyrs" are improbable, deal largely with supernatural
incidents connected with the confessor whose " passion "
forms the subject of the narrative, and are evidently the
work largely of narrators, or compilers of the lives, writing
in many cases long after the events happened which they
professed to relate as eye-witnesses ; only a very few of these
" passions " bear the stamp of genuineness, and have come
unharmed through the crucible of criticism. Among these
few acknowledged genuine contemporary " Passions " are " The
Letter of the Church of Smyrna to the PhUomeUans which
relates the Mart3Tdom of S. Polycarp " ; " The Letter of the
Churches of Lyons and Vienne, which tells the Story of the
Martyrs of a.d. 177"; "The Passion of S. Perpetua and her

14 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM,
Companions." There are besides these a few more such
reliques which are generaUy accepted as genuine. But whUe
we must set aside the actual authority of the great majority
of these narratives as being mainly compilations of a period
more or less removed from the time when the events related
were said to have taken place, recent discoveries of archaeo
logists, such as those of De Eossi and his successors at Eome,
have nevertheless shown us that in the case of many of
these so-caUed spurious "passions" a large substructure of
truth existed, and that the general character of the recital
was often based on events which really took place. Hence
our views of much of what has been regarded as spurious
and belonging to romance rather than to history, require,
in the light of this late investigation by scholars, considerable
modification and reconstruction. The importance of these late
discoveries for our conceptions of the life led by the Christians
roughly between a.d. 34 and 313, wiU be discussed later.
In such a history as that on which we are now engaged,
nothing perhaps is so striking as the fact, demonstrated by
abundant evidence drawn from aU quarters of the Eoman
Empire during these 280 years, of the oneness, the identity,
of the faith which Uved in the countless scattered congrega
tions of Christians in such different national centres as Eome
and Corinth, Ephesus and Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage,
and Lyons ; of the oneness of the faith which inspired
nobles and slaves, soldiers and traders, men and women,
old and young, alike to Uve changed lives, to undergo
unheard of dangers, to brave frightful perils, to endure
tortures, to disregard death.
From the beginning the faith was one, absolutely change
less in its essential features. We read it expressed in clear
emphatic language in the writings of Peter and Paul, who
passed away by violent death in the 'sixties of the first
century, and in the Gospel, Apocalypse, and Letters of John,
who survived tiU the last years of the same century;
and these had learned it from the Master Himself. We
find the fundamental doctrines of the faith in the letters
of disciples and pupUs, in the Epistles of Clement of Eome,

INTBODUGTION. 15
of Ignatius of Antioch, of Polycarp of Smyrna, in the
apologies and writings of their younger contemporaries and
successors, such as Aristides, the apologist before the tribunal
of the Emperor Hadrian ; Justin Martyr, the scholarly Greek ;
and in the next generation Irenseus Bishop of Lj^ons, in
Gaul. It is repeated by Hippolytus of Eome, by Clement
of Alexandria, and TertuUian of African Carthage, who wrote
and preached and taught scarcely a hundred years after
the Apostles of the Master had passed away. The same
faith was again reiterated by the great teachers of the first
half of the third century, by Origen of Alexandria and
Cyprian of Carthage. After eighteen centuries the same
precious changeless tradition is the heritage of the Christian
Church, in aU its essential features, alike in Moscow and
Constantinople, in Rome and in London.
And the centre of all early Catholic teaching was Jesus
Christ, His work for men. His love for men. His blood which
He shed for men.
Critics who imagine that the lofty conceptions of later
ages on the subject of the pre-existence of Jesus Christ, of
His Divinity, of His being Very God of Very God, were
evoked by the Arian controversies of the fourth century,
are strangely ignorant of the letter and spirit of the teaching
of primitive Christianity. Indeed, the language used by
such writers as Clement of Eome and Ignatius of Antioch —
the first of whom was the disciple of Paul and Peter, and
the latter a scholar of the Apostles — and even by Hippolytus
nearly a century later, in expressing their belief in our
Lord's Divinity, while lacking the precision of the terminology
determined by the great Church Councils of the fourth
century, was occasionally so strong as almost to verge upon
Patripassianism.* * Fatripassian was a, name ©f reproach given at the end of the second
century to those theologians who, without careful definition of the sole original
PrincipaUty of the Father, claimed the Plenary Godhead for the Son the
Redeemer. The more accurate theologians of that age when the air was
charged with speculative controversies, drew an awful conclusion that the
loose and somewhat startUng phraseology used now and again without due
consideration, asserted that the Father, the one primary principle, must have
suffered on the cross.

16 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Irenaaus, Bishop of Lyons in Gaul, a great teacher of the
last quarter of the second century, many of whose writings
are preserved to us, singles out Clement of Eome's Letter
to the Corinthians as transmitting in its fulness the
Christianity taught by the Apostles, more especially by S.
Peter and S. Paul. This letter exhibits the beUef of his
Church (that of Eome) as to the true interpretation of the
Apostolic records. " To Clement, as to the mass of devout
Christians of all ages, Jesus Christ is not a dead man whose
memory is reverently cherished by men, or whose precepts
are carefuUy observed, but an ever Uving, ever active
Presence, who enters into all the circumstances of their
being." *
A simUar conception of Jesus Christ is found in Polycarp
and Ignatius. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is also
plainly taught in each of these very early writers, as are
the doctrines of the Atonement and Mediation of Christ.
There is absolutely a perfect accord in the teaching respect
ing these great fundamental doctrines of the CathoUc Church
in all the writings of the primitive fathers.
To give examples of the remarkable unity in the teaching
of the first ages of Christianity: — A general agreement from
very early times to keep holy the first day of the week in
commemoration of the Eesurrection of the Lord was common
to all the Churches. The two great Sacraments instituted
by Jesus Christ, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, we find
repeatedly mentioned in the earliest writings as a necessary
part of Christian life. The most careful provision for the
due administration of these Sacraments was made in all the
Churches without exception.
With a few minor differences, the government and ad
ministration of the inner Ufe of aU the Christian Churches
was the same. Before the middle of the second century
each Church or organised Christian community had its three
orders of ministers, its bishop, its presbyters, and its deacons ;
whUe very early in that century (the second) it is clear that
the episcopal office was universally estabUshed in all the
* Bishop Lightfoot: Clement of Some, vol. i., vi., p. 398.

INTBODUGTION. 17
churches ; indeed, " Episcopacy is so inseparably interwoven
with all the traditions and beliefs of men like Irenseus and
TertulUan, whose writings are spread over the last thirty
years of the second century and the first twenty of the
third, that they betray no knowledge of a time when it was
not." * The repeated and ample testimony of Ignatius here
takes us back to the time of S. John, and although the
estimate of the authority of episcopacy seems to have varied
as time went on in different Christian centres, historical
testimony is unanimous as to its existence even in the first
century. There was no divergence here in the various
Churches in the question of government.
Lastly, it is perfectly clear whence the Catholic f Church
of the earliest days derived her faith and drew her teaching.
One voice proceeds from the Christian communities of each
of the great centres of the ancient Church, from Antioch and
Alexandria, from Smyrna and from Eome, in the utterances
of Ignatius and Barnabas, of Polycarp and Clement. The more
famous early teachers, it is true, appealed rarely to written
words, for they had heard the living voice of the Apostles
of the Lord. But their teaching is based entirely upon those
discourses and actions of the Lord which we find recorded in
the Gospels, and upon no others. It is also evident that at
least the great majority of the Epistles of S. Paul, S. James.
S. Peter, and S. John contained in our New Testament
* Bishop Lightfoot: "Dissertation on the Christian Ministry" in Commentary

f The expression " Catholic " is used here in the technical sense it assumed
about the middle of the second century. OriginaUy it meant simply " universal,"
"general"; so the Resurrection is spoken of at an early date as the Catholic,
i.e. the general. Resurrection. The earliest extant example of the use of the
term in its techmcal theological sense, the " CathoUc Church," is in the
" Martyrdom of Polycarp," a document in the form of a letter addressed by
the Church of Smyrna to the Church of PhilomeUum {drca a.d. 167). We
find it again in the very early famous " Muratorian Fragment on the Canon,"
and in Clement of Alexandria towards the end of that century (the second).
In these writings the term Catholic Church means the orthodox and apostolicaUy
descended Church, as distinguished from sectarian aud heretical communities.
Catholic simply is orthodox as opposed to heretical. In the third century,
e.g. in aU the writings of TertuUian and Origen, the word in its technical sense
had passed into common use.

18 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Canon were known to them; and upon these Epistles and
no others, and upon the words and acts of the Lord above
referred to, they based their teaching and formulated their
creed; a changeless teaching, and a creed which from the
first days has been the heritage of the Catholic Church.
Thus in its strange grand unity the Christian Church,
in each of its important centres in Asia, Africa, and Europe,
during the last decade of the first and the early decades of
the second century, taught the same faith, told the same
wondrous story, basing faith and story upon the same
traditions oral and written, the traditions enshrined in the
Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament.
Just the first little group of ApostoUc men, Clement,
Ignatius, and Polycarp, omitted to quote from the written
records by name, because they had heard with their ears
the words of the Gospels and the teaching of the Epistles
from the lips of the Apostles of the Lord. But by the next
generation of teachers, made up of men who had not been
privileged to hear the voices of Peter, Paul, and John, while
identicaUy the same faith was taught and in almost the
same words, the written traditions of these same men were
quoted, and with ever greater circumstantiaUty as the years
of the second century wore on. We would instance Papias,
Justin, Irenseus, Clement, Tertullian, the Christian teachers
at HierapoUs and at Eome, at Lyons, Alexandria and
Carthage, never varying in the great essential doctrines,
never suggesting any novel doctrine, only quoting from the
same original records with ever greater accuracy and care
as time advanced, teaching the same fundamental truths as
did the ApostoUc Fathers, Clement, Polycarp, and Ignatius.
The earliest "versions" into which the books of the New
Testament were translated from the original Greek in whicli
they were first written, the Syriac and the old Latin, both
translations certainly made in the second century, tell the
same story of the unity of Catholic Christendom in the all-
important matter of the Records of primitive Christianity,
received and acknowledged by the Christian Churches of the
East and the West. The witness of these earUest translations

INTBODUGTION. 19
is most weighty, for whUe they exhibit the books contained
in what is termed the New Testament Canon,* they sanction
no Apocryphal books whatever. They speak here of the
unity of the primitive Church, with the voice of very early
Christendom, a voice none can gainsay or dispute.
This wonderful unity of the early Church in its estimate
of the Divinity of the Founder, of His ever-presence among
each company of those who believed in Him, and of His
support of each individual member ; in the great doctrines
connected with the Founder, in the worship of the Church,
in the government of the Church, in its acknowledgment of
the one primitive tradition of the Founder's teaching, oral
and written; is one of the secrets of its enormous power,
which no opposition, no persecution, ever affected or touched.
That unity immeasurably helped to secure the eventual
triumph of the Church in the first quarter of the fourth
century. * The omissions of one or other of these earUest versions to include certain
of the Epistles, notably that of S. James, the " Hebrews," and the Apocalypse
of S. John, omissions owing to local and other special reasons, do uot affect
the great argument. Combined with the original Greek, these ancient versions
practicaUy represent the New Testament Scriptures, just as we now possess
them, as they were read throughout the whole of Christendom towards the close
of the second century of the Christian Era.

20

CHAPTER I.
FIRST STAGES.
SECTION I. — THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Our recital in detaU of the events connected with the rise
and progress of Christianity begins with the year of our
Lord 62. In that year the writer of the "Acts of the
Apostles" lays down his pen, and for the history of the
Church of Christ in the years immediately foUowing that
date we are dependent, as far as regards inspired sources,
on scattered notices which we gather mainly from the
Pastoral Epistles of S. Paul, from the two Epistles of S.
Peter, especially the first, from the writings of S. John — his
Gospel and Epistles, belonging to the last years of the century,
and his Apocalypse* — and from certain other writings included
in the New Testament Canon, such as the Epistle to the
Hebrews. But after a.d. 62, when the memoirs of the "Acts of
the Apostles" were closed, we possess no continuous chronicle
by an inspired writer, such as we find in the first three
Gospels and in the "Acts," of the Church's foundation, work,
and progress. The task of the compUer reaUy begins fi:om
that year (a.d. 62), when we beUeve that S. Paul was released
from his Eoman imprisonment, and for a period of some
five or six more years resumed his missionary labours. Of
those labours we possess little or no tmstworthy informa
tion. Tradition is unanimous in asserting that the appeal
which the Apostle made in the Court House at Csesarea to
* The date of this work (a.d. 68-70) is discussed below, p. 58.

FIBST STAGES. 21
the Emperor terminated successfully; that he was acquitted
of the charges laid against him by his Jewish enemies, and
that after his acquittal he again resumed his old work, and
— in the language of his disciple Clement, who was after
wards Bishop of the Eoman Church — preached the Gospel
in the East and West, instructing the whole world (i.e. the
Roman Empire) in righteousness; travelhng even to the
extremity of the West before his martyrdom. This martyr
dom, according to universal tradition, took place at Rome
about A.D. 67-8. We shall presently relate the terrible
calamities which befel the Roman Christians between a.d.
62-3 and a.d. 67-8. It was no doubt in the course of
these dread events that the great teacher laid down his
own life.
But up to A.D. 62 the Divine story shrined in the New
Testament Canon relates the beginning of Christianity. The
S3aioptical Gospels known as S. Matthew, S. Mark, and S.
Luke speak of the first three years : these are too sacred
for ordinary analysis. They deal with only one life, but
it is that of the Divine Founder of the reUgion which aU
the world is by degrees to embrace — not rapidly as men
count years, but surely,* each succeeding decade enrolling
fresh recruits for the Christian army. Then the "Acts of
the Apostles " speaks of the progress of the religion after
the first three years ; it tells of the Ascension morning and
after. The two termini of the "Acts" are a.d. 33 and
A.D. 62. It is a wonderful book inspired by the Divine
Wisdom; but, differing from the Gospels, it does not defy
analysis, for the persons whose " acts " are related in it are
mere mortals ; men, many of them highly blessed, owing to
the work entrusted to them, but men of like passions with
ourselves. * On the morrow of the Ascension of our Lord the Christian Church
numbered a few hundreds — certainly not a thousand. Three thousand, then
five thousand, were added by the preaching of Peter after the first Pentecost.
The number graduaUy increased. It has been roughly computed that three
hundred years after Christ about two persons in every three hundred of the
population of the globe were Christian. Now in a.d. 1901 the proportion is
said to be over two in seven.

22 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
The "Acts" takes up the story on the morrow of the
Eesurrection of the Lord — on the morrow of the wonderful
event which was reaUy the commencement of Christianity.
At the rock tomb of Joseph of Arimathsea, in the eyes of
the friends and foes of Jesus, the strange career of the Great
Master appeared to be closed for ever. In spite of the
words of the crucified Teacher, no one appeared to have
even dreamed of a resurrection of the loved or hated Jesus;
seemingly aU was at an end.
The Evangelists in their closing chapters, the author of
the "Acts" in his beautiful memoir, serene and unim
passioned, tell the true story of their disappointment, dis
illusion, cowardice, despair, which passed into intense joyful
surprise. They conceal nothing.
Again, the astonishment, vexation, dismay of the San
hedrim and of the Jewish rulers is portrayed with the same
quiet and passionless truthfulness. The governing body of
the Hebrew people had worked their wUl upon the Teacher
they hated. They had done Him to death. His foUowers,
whom they looked upon as persons of humble origin, of
little learning, and of no particular abiUty, were dispersed;
they could afford to treat such men and women with con
temptuous neglect. The influential men in the Sanhedrim
knew of Peter and John, they were acquainted with the
Maries, but they did not care to secure their persons — they
were not worth a second thought; they would quietly dis
appear into the mass of the people whence they came, now
that their Leader was gone. These able and unscrupulous
persons, Annas, Caiaphas, and the others, judged, and judged
correctly, that the whole movement centred in the person
of Jesus ; and now that He was out of the way surely the
movement had collapsed, was stamped out, crushed, ex
tinguished and for ever!
When the startUng inteUigence was brought to the San
hedrim chiefs that the group of despised and ilUterate
Galilseans, of whom they had expected never to hear again,
were teaching and even preaching with splendid eloquence
hard by the sacred Temple, and were positively making

FIBST STAGES. 23
converts by thousands,* great indeed must have been their
surprise and dismay. Something had evidently happened
which had changed these timorous, saddened men into fear
less preachers of a condemned religion and a dead Master.
What had transformed UUterate fishermen and peasants into
impassioned, eloquent, and even leamed teachers and preachers?
It was the Eesurrection of Jesus which had effected the
former ; it was the illapse of the Spirit in the Divine Breath
of Pentecost which produced the latter startling phenomenon.
From the morrow of the Eesurrection and after Pentecost
the opposition of the Sanhedrim and of the rulers of the
Jews to the new sect of Christians (we use the well-known
appellation, though it belongs to a somewhat later date) was
fitful and uncertain ; now showing itself chiefly in measures
of extreme severity and harshness, now paying apparently
little heed to the vast developing power. Evidently from
the "Acts'' narrative, various feelings, perplexity and some
awe, as well as jealousy and hate, were at work among the
Sanhedrim and the influential Jews. At aU events, the
fitful opposition produced Uttie if any effect on the fortunes
of the fast growing community of believers in the crucified
and risen Jesus. The main interest in the story of the
"Acts" is concentrated upon the development of the Church
or community of Christians.
For a considerable period it remained a strictly Hebrew
Church ; but gradually, and partly through supernatural
agencies, the consciousness of their world-wide mission came
to the Christian leaders. For several years after the Pentecost
miracle the commanding personality of Peter gave him the
first place in the community. With him, however, we find
constantly associated John, the Disciple whom Jesus especially
loved. It was to Peter that the revelation, which worked
so mighty an influence on the Christian religion, came — the
* The writer of the " Acts " mentions tho numbers — three thousand aud
subsequently five thousand— who joined the ranks of the beUevers in Jesus of
Nazareth after some of the burning and moving addresses of Peter at Jerusalem.
The compiler never indulges in over-coloured pictures. The narrative is
scrupulously unemotional.

21 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
revelation which Isaiah centuries before had plainly fore
shadowed in his striking words : " It is a light thing that
thou shouldest be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and to restore the preserved of Israel: I wUl also give thee
for a light to the GentUes, that thou mayest be My salvation
unto the end of the earth." (Isaiah xlix. 6.)
Christianity during its first years of existence made extra
ordinary and rapid progress, but exclusively in the Jewish
world. It was not, indeed, by any means confined to
Jerusalem or to Palestine ; for it numbered among its converts
Jews dweUing in such centres as Antioch and probably at
Eome ; but it was, as it has been weU termed, an expanded
Judaism. It was preached by Jews, and was addressed to
Jews ; it was limited, national, exclusive. But aU this,
apparently, after some three years, was changed, the border
land of Samaria, between Judaism and heathendom, being
then included in the great Christian fold — Peter and John,
on the Samaritan* mission, stiU representing the Apostolic
College. But a far more important development of Christian work
was entrusted in the first place to the famous ApostoUc
leader: the Church of Jesus must become a world-wide
Church. A Divine revelation contained in a striking vision disclosed
to Peter that aU the rights and privUeges of the Christian
Church might be, ought to be, offered to the whole heathen
world. In the Eoman city of Csesarea took place the baptism
and admission of the heathen soldier, the Eoman CorneUus ;
the old barrier between the Jew and the GentUe was broken
down ; henceforth in the Christian community there was no
distinction between the Jew, the child of the chosen people,
and the GentUe of the great world which lay outside the old
charmed circle of the ChUdren of Israel.
This action of Peter in admitting the great Gentile world
into the Christian community was formally approved at
* The Samaritans, although unacknowledged by the genuine Jews, claimed to
be Jews, and in many respects Uved like Jews. They can scarcely be classified,
however, as Jews, but emphatically they were not heathen or idolaters.

FIBST STAGES 25
Jerusalein by a Council of Apostles and Brethren, some eight
or nine years after the first Pentecost.
The first great section of the "Acts of the Apostles" may
be said to be closed by this all-important development of
Christian work. From this epoch, the chief work in the now
widely extended Church passes into other hands than those
of Peter. A master mind appears on the stage, and a trained
and cultured Jewish scholar occupies the chief place in the
work of preaching Jesus to the vast world which lay outside
the Holy Land. Paul, a Jew of Tarsus, an important personage
in the official world of Jerusalem, is the prominent person
henceforth in the book of the " Acts " : his mission journeys,
which extended through the populous districts of Asia Minor
and Greece, the opposition he met with, his striking successes,
his first arrest by the Eoman Govemment at the instigation
of the Jews, and his subsequent arrival at Eome, fill up most
of the remainder — the larger half, indeed, of the inspired
book of the " Acts." The time occupied in the " Acts " recital
covers about thirty years, perhaps scarcely so much. The
following table of the rough dates of some of the principal
events of these thirty years will give an idea of the time
taken up by these early endeavours, developments, changes
in the Christian Church. But it must be borne in mind that
the exact chronology of this period, especially in the earlier
portion, is somewhat uncertain.

Chronology of the Acts.

A.D.

The public Ministry of Jesus Christ commenced... 30
The Crucifixion and Eesurrection of Jesus ... 33
The first Pentecost and its miracle... ... ... 33
Preaching of Peter and John to the Samaritans ... 35-6
Baptism and formal admission of the Eoman cen
turion Cornelius to the Christian Church, by
Peter, approved by Council of Apostles and
Brethren at Jerusalem  ... ... 41-2
First missionary journ^ey of Paul to Cyprus,
Pamphylia, Pisidia, Lycaonia ... ... ... 45-6

26 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Paul's missionary work among the Gentiles form- a.d.
ally approved by a CouncU of Apostles and
Elders at Jerusalem ... ... ... ... 49-50
Paul's second journey in Galatia, Lycaonia, Mace
donia, Attica (Athens), Corinth... ... ... 51-4
Paul's third journey in Galatia, Proconsular Asia
(Ephesus), Macedonia, Corinth, Achaia ... 54-8
Paul's arrest at Jerusalem, imprisonment at Csesarea,
joumey to Eome... ...  58-9
Paul's Eoman imprisonment, acquittal and release;
close of "Acts"  60-3
Such is the " Acts of the Apostles," a book compiled according
to the universal tradition of Christianity by Luke, an intimate
friend and a companion of Paul, and received among the
inspired books of the New Testament by aU the Churches
at a very early date. Its extreme importance as a history
of the Church during the thirty years which followed the
Eesurrection of the Lord Jesus cannot be overrated. It is
penetrated, permeated with the supernatural — accounts of
miracles, revelations, visions, supernatural appearances of the
Lord, and occasionaUy of Beings not belonging to this world
of ours, Beings caUed angels, like golden threads run through
the whole tapestry of the work of the " Acts." They cannot
be separated from it. They form a necessary part of it.
The writer is intensely anxious to give a true picture of
the time. Nothing is concealed or veiled. The weaknesses,
doubts, fears, mistakes of the human actors are faithfully
recorded. Well-nigh a third of these early pages of Christian
history are filled with the account of the missionary travels
of that great teacher who was entrusted by the Holy Spirit
to carry the first message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to
the Gentile world. These journeys beyond the frontiers of
the Land of Promise are dwelt upon with considerable detaU.
The manner of reception of the Divine message in important
centres, such as in Ephesus, in the Pisidian Antioch, in
Athens, Corinth, Thessalonica, Eome, is described with more
or less fulness.

FIBST STAGES. 27
This weighty section of the earUest Christian history — the
" Travel Document " as it has been termed — has been woven
into the general story by the writer of the "Acts," little
changed evidently from the original document composed no
doubt by S. Paul himself, or written under his immediate
influence. The great space allotted in the " Acts " to this
" Travel Document " is an indication of the vast importance
attached by the early Christians to the movements which
opened the portals of the Church to the world lying outside
the sacred and hitherto rigidly g"uarded enclosure of the
Chosen People.
We haVe found that in the first years Christianity was
but an expanded Judaism, preached by Jews and addressed
to Jews. The Christian Church of the first days was a
purely Hebrew Church. The Messiah was a Jew of the
purest race ; His disciples were earnest, we should say, even
bigoted Jews ; for several years no Gentile seems to have been
admitted into the sacred circle of Apostles and their disciples.
Even after the breaking down of the immemorial wall which
surrounded the earliest Christian Church as it had done the
Jewish Synagogue, we find Paul the Apostle of the GentUes
teUing his wondrous story first in the synagogues of cities
such as Ephesus, Corinth, and Pisidian Antioch. It was from
these Jewish centres that he seems, certainly for a long
while, to have gathered his converts for the main part.
The religious revolution inaugurated by Peter and
developed by Paul, Barnabas, and their immediate followers
was of tremendous import. For the Church of Jesus Christ
to become the Church of the world a thousand religious
fences must be broken down, numberless prejudices of
convention and tradition must be sacrificed, numberless
cherished safeguards which had hitherto been the life of
the nation must be abandoned. No wonder that so large a
portion of the " Acts " is consecrated firstly to the recital
teUing of the revelation to Peter which directed that all
privileges of the Christian converts should be offered to the
whole heathen world, and secondly to the famous "Travel
Document" of Paul, relating how the command contained in

28 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the revelation to Peter was carried into effect by Paul and
his companions.
This book, which contains the history of the CathoUc
Church during the thirty years which foUowed the Eesur
rection of the Lord, was, as we have said, received into the
Canon of Holy Scripture from the earUest times. Its
authenticity and genuineness have never been disputed. It
is contained in the oldest version made in the second cen
tury, viz. the Peschitta-Syriac — a revision of the old Sjnriac
version, probably made and used within the ApostoUc age
— and in the Old Latin, made and used certainly before
A.D. 170. The great Christian writers who flourished towards
the end of the second century, Irenseus (a hearer of Polycarp)
in Gaul, Clement of Alexandria, and TertuUian of Carthage,
frequently and expressly quote this book. It is not too
much to say that from the close of the first century onwards
the Catholic Church has ever, without a dissentient voice,
accepted as inspired the testimony of the "Acts of the
Apostles." SECTION II. — THE JEW IN ROME.
In less than two years after the acquittal of Paul and his
subsequent departure from Eome on his last long missionary
joumey, the terrible persecution directed by the Emperor
Nero against the Christian community at Rome began. The
date of this awful calamity was August, a.d. 64. With more
or less severity this persecution lasted some four years.
Before teUing the dark story of the Neronic persecution,
which to a certain extent determined the hostile relations
that, with intervals of partial quiet, were henceforward to
exist between the Christian sect and the Imperial Govern
ment for nearly two centuries and a half, it wiU be weU
to give some description of the Roman Christian community,
which at the early date of a.d. 64 was numerous enough
and of sufficient importance to attract the hostUe notice of
the Emperor Nero and his advisers.
We have already dwelt on the fact that in the first days
of Christianity the Church ot Jesus Christ was purely a

FIBST STAGES. 29
Jewish community. The Divine Founder in His earthly
relationships was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. His disciples,
their converts, the first Christian communities, were Jews ;
to the ordinary Eoman citizen. Christians were simply a
Jewish sect.
Eome, from the year a.d. 33 onwards, was more than the
capital of the civilised world; more than merely the seat
of the Govemment of the Eoman Empire; it was the centre
of all its life, civil, military, literary. To take a modern
comparison, Eome in the first and second centuries of the
Christian era was all that London and Paris, Berlin and
Vienna, St. Petersburg, modern Eome, and New York to
gether, are to the civiUsed world of the twentieth century.
In this great centre of peoples, the Jew for a considerable
period had been a well-known personage. As early as 138
B.C. there was a Jewish colony in Eome. In 58 B.C. we
come upon a curious reference to the presence and influence
of this people in the great metropolis. Cicero was pleading
in the Forum for one Flaccus, who had incurred the enmity
of the Jews of Eome by forbidding the sending of the sacred
tribute to Jerusalem ; and from time to time in the course
of his pleading, we read how the great lawyer lowered his
voice in order that what he said might not be heard by the
crowd of Jews thronging the forum : " You know," said the
famous advocate, "how numerous they (the Jews) are, and
how united, and what commanding influence they exert,
sometimes turbulently in the public assemblies ; to offend
the Jews is a matter of the gravest import."
JuUus Csesar, in his day of supreme power, markedly
courted these stranger residents, and bestowed on them a
succession of favours. While he Uved these Jews were
among his most steadfast adherents, and after the Dictator's
murder they showed their attachment by gathering round
his funeral pyre on the Campus Martins, weeping and utter
ing loud cries of lamentation by night as by day. The
Emperor Augustus (27 B.C. to a.d. 14) contuiued the favours
shown to them by the first and greatest of the Csesars.
After the death of Augustus the influence which these, for

30 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the most part, poor stranger folk, gradually acquired in
Eoman society evoked considerable jealousy, dislike, and
suspicion; and an anti-Jewish feeling, somewhat of the
character of the modern Jiiden-hetze (hatred of the Jews),
so common a feature in the nineteenth century in many of
the Continental cities of Europe, suggested strong measures
of repression on the part of the Government. In A.D. 19,
under the Emperor Tiberius, they were summarily expeUed
from the city, and a simUar decree in a.d. 49 again banished
them from Eome. Yet these expulsions had but little
permanent effect. The Jews were too deeply rooted to be
eradicated permanently, and very soon after each banishment
they seem to have returned to the metropolis in greater
numbers than ever.
What now was the secret of their power, of their influ
ence ? The question has been often asked, it is being asked
StiU. The Jews were not a speciaUy beautiful race, if physical
beauty is in the question. They have rarely been singled
out as specially winning writers or profound thinkers, or far-
seeing statesmen ; they have numbered in their ranks but
few soldiers or saUors of pre-eminent skiU, or conspicuous
valour, though perhaps an average number of each and all
of these have never been wanting in the Jewish race. No
important historian, however far above aU race-partiality or
favour, would dream of speaking of them as a lovable people,
as a people likely to call out feelings of enthusiasm or ad
miration. The feeling the Jew has evoked has been rather
dislike — not unmixed with envy at their strange prosperity,
particularly in commercial matters important and ummpor-
tant, and their vast unexplained power in the various centres
where any considerable numbers of them have settled. What
then was their secret? The answer is found in the Old
Testament story. For some reason unknown to men the
Eternal God Whose ways are not our ways, ages before the
Csesars ruled in Eome over the world, chose them as His
peculiar people, and in spite of their faults and many short
comings, the blessing of the Eternal God has ever rested on
them. Again and again they forfeited through their faults

FIBST STAGES. 31
and repeated disobedience the position among men they
might have occupied ; the awful deed of the century of
which we are writing, consummated at Jerusalem in the
year of grace 33, was the crowning sin; henceforth they were
the people under the Divine curse. But the immemorial
blessing was still theirs; the blessing which has preserved
them as a separate people, powerful even under circumstances
of the deepest degradation and oppression. Changeless in
the midst of change, the Jew is with us still. Is it then a
baseless dream which sees for this strange deathless race a
glorious future, when they shaU look on Him Whom they
pierced as their Messiah, Friend, Eedeemer, God ?
But at no period in their long drawn-out, wonderful
history does it seem that the Jews exercised a greater and
more peculiar an influence than in the society of Eome, the
world-capital in the first century of the Christian era. The
Jewish Sabbath, for instance, is frequently alluded to by the
poets of that age ; curiously enough, this exclusively national
observance found favour even in , certain Pagan circles. Not
a few among the higher ranks in the Roman world became
in greater or less degree converts to Judaism, under the
general appellation of "proselytes of the gate." Poppsea, the
powerful mistress of Nero, was probably one of them, as was
Fuscus Aristius, the friend of the poet Horace, to take well-
known instances. But the influence of the Jews of Rome
extended far beyond the circle of professed proselytes. In a
restless, immoral age the fervour, the rigid moraUty, the
intense earnestness of the Hebrew colony impressed Roman
society and gave them a moral influence quite disproportioned
to their actual numbers.*
* AUard: Sistoire des Persecutions (Paris, 1892), vol. i,, chap, i., "Tout
ce monde en haUlons est anime d'une vie intense, il travaUle, et cela deja est
une originaUte au miUeu de la pl^be oisive de Rome. II propage sa religion
par tous les moyens ; ses mendiants et ses sorciferes ne negligent pas 1' occasion de
dire un mot de leur loi h, I'oreiUe de la matrone dont eUes solUcitent I'aumone.
II prie et il etudie ses Uvres saints dans Rome qui n'a pas de theologie et qui ne
prie pas. Ses Synagogues . . . defendues avec energie contre les intrusions sont
des points de raUiement pour la population israelite de chaque quartier . . .
partout s'y reconnaissent les sentiments d'union, de fraternite, de misericorde

32 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
But the number of Jews who made up the Roman Jewish
colony was not inconsiderable. About the middle of the
first century they have been computed as amounting to
between twenty and thirty thousand, or even more. They
were mostly very poor, the few richer members of the colony
— and there were a few, doubtless, very wealthy members —
studiously concealing their riches.
A modern writer in a brilUant and vivid word-picture has
painted the Ghetto or Jewish quarter of modem Rome, before
the Ghetto was swept away to make room for recent im
provements. It is an accurate description of a city settle
ment of the changeless people, and with singularly Uttie
alteration would admirably describe a Jewish quarter in the
Imperial Rome of the first century. " The old Roman
Ghetto was a low-lying space enclosed within a circuit of a
few hundred yards, in which four or five thousand human
beings were permanently crowded together in dweUings cen
turies old, built upon ancient drains and vaults that were
constantly exposed to the inundations of the river (the
Tiber), and always reeking with its undried slime; a Uttie
pale-faced, eager-eyed people, grubbing and groveUing in
masses of foul rags for some tiny scrap richer than the
rest and worthy to be sold again ; a people whose many
women, haggard, low-speaking, dishevelled, toUed half-doubled
together upon the darning and piecing and smoothing of
old clothes, whose many little chUdren huddled themselves
into corners to teach one another to count ; a people of
seUers who sold nothing that was not old or damaged, and
who had nothing that they would not seU; a people
clothed in rags, living among rags, thriving on rags, a people
strangely proof against pestilence, gathering rags from the
city to their dens when the cholera was raging outside the
Ghetto's gates and rags were cheap, yet never sickening of
d'une communite de petites gens, ou Ton gagne son pain a la sueur de son front,
ou Ton seoourt ses pauvres, ou Ton vit entre soi loin du monde, d'une m6me
pensee reUgieuse. TeUe est cette etrange population juive, attrayante et re-
pugnante, intrigante et pieuse, riche en haillons et puissante dans sa misere. EUe
possede une force morale incounue de I'antiquite."

FIBST STAGES. 33
the plague themselves ; a people never idle, sleeping little,
eating sparingly, labouring for small gain amid dirt and
stench and dampness, till Friday night came at last, and
the old crier's melancholy voice ran through the darkening
alleys : ' The Sabbath has begun ' — and all at once the rags
were gone, the ghostly old clothes that swung Uke hanged
men, by the neck, in the doorways of the cavernous shops
flitted away into the utter darkness within; the old bits of
iron and brass went rattling out of sight like spectres' chains ;
the hook-nosed antiquary drew in his cracked old show
case ; the greasy frier of fish and artichokes extinguished his
little charcoal fire of coals; the slipshod darning- women, half
blind with six days' work, folded the half-patched coats and
trousers, and took their rickety old rush-bottomed chairs
indoors with them.
" Then on the morrow, in the rich synagogue with its
tapestries, its gold, and its gilding, the thin, dark men were
together in their hats and long coats, and the sealed books
of Moses were borne before their eyes and held up to the
north and south and east and west, and all the men together
lifted up their arms and cried aloud to the God of their
fathers. " But when the Sabbath was over they went back to their
rags and their patched clothes, and to their old iron and
their antiquities, and toiled on patiently again, looking for
the coming of the MessiaL
"And there were astrologers and diviners and magicians
and witches and crystal-gazers among them, to whom great
ladies came on foot, thickly veUed, and walking delicately
amidst the rags, and men, too, who were more ashamed of
themselves, and slunk in at nightfaU to ask the Jews con
cerning the future — even in our time as in Juvenal's, and in
Juvenal's day as in Saul's of old."*
Into the midst of this busy, active, teeming population of
Roman Jews feU the seeds of the Gospel message at a very
* From the Ave Rmna Immortalis of Marion Crawford (vol. ii. xi.), Sant.
Angelo, 1898.

34 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
early date — perhaps even as early as a.d. 33 — borne by some
of those " strangers of Rome " mentioned by the writer of the
"Acts of the Apostles" when he tells the story of Pentecost
and its marvel, and particularises the nationality of the first
hearers of S. Paul at Jerusalem. These "strangers of Rome"
on their return to their Italian home would probably have
told the wondrous story they had heard in Jerusalem, and
so in the Imperial City no doubt sprang up at a very early
date in the Jewish colony a little band of men, ever rapidly
increasing, who beUeved in the Risen Jesus.
Roman CathoUc writers consider that some ten years after
the " first " Pentecost the Jewish Christian Church at Rome
was visited by the great Apostle Peter himself, who after
that date, roughly given as a.d. 42, resided in Rome untU
a.d. 49, in which year the Emperor Claudius banished the
Jews from the city. Peter, of course, left Rome with the
rest of his fellow-countrymen. These writers consider that
the Apostle did not return to the capital before A.D. 62, and
that it is highly probable that the two Apostles met in
Rome shortly before the spring of a.d. 63, the date usuaUy
assigned for the acquittal of Paul and his release from his
long imprisonment. Paul then, according to their theory,
went forth again, journeying westwards, resuming his mis
sionary travels, Peter remaining in Rome. Paul returned to
the city, it is generally assumed, in a.d. 67, and in that year,
or the foUowing, with his brother Apostle Peter, suffered
martyrdom.* The questions, however, of the duration of S. Peter's
ministry at Rome, and of the authenticity of the earUer visit,
circa A.D. 42-3, although of the deepest interest on many
accounts to the student of early Christian records, are not of
vital importance. Of the highest importance, however, is the
condition of the Roman community at the epoch of the
persecution of Nero, which began in the middle of the year
64. This terrible experience of the Church of the metropolis
* The somewhat vexed question as to the presence and work of S. Peter at
Rome, and especially of the earUer visit of the Apostle to the capital of the
Empire circa a.d. 42, is discussed at some length in Appendix B.

FIBST STAGES. 35
we are about to relate with some detaU. It was no mere
passing cloud ; its dread results were far-reaching. It may be
said without exaggeration to have largely determined the
position of Christians in the Empire for a period roughly of
two hundred and fifty years.
There is no doubt whatever that the Church of Rome in
A.D. 64 was a considerable and even in some respects an
influential community. The language of Tacitus, who was by
no means kindly disposed to the growing sect, is decisive as to
its numbers. Had the Christians of Rome not been a well-
known and somewhat influential body, Nero would never have
thought it worth his while to turn' his attention to them,
and to make the sect his scapegoat in the matter of the
great fire, of which he was suspected to have been the
contriver. We possess no definite records of the Roman Church of
this early period. The salutations of S. Paul in his Epistle
to the Romans, written from Corinth circa a.d. 58, and in his
Epistle to the Philippians, written during his Roman imprison
ment circa a.d. 61-2, help us to form our conception of the
community. Besides these contemporary references to the
state of Christianity at Rome in the years 58-62, we possess
a striking incident connected with the year 57 related by
Tacitus* — an incident upon which De Rossi's later discoveries
in the Catacombs throw considerable Ught.
What now do these references — Christian and Pagan — tell
us ? That the Roman Christian community was made up of
very different elements ; was of a composite character ; that
in it the majority were certainly poor, including not a few
slaves and freedmen in its ranks; but that there were on its roUs
the names of some high-bom personages. Varied nationalities
also were represented in this great typical early Christian
community. The Jew, and the Pagan by birth and training,
stood side by side. The Greek and the Oriental, as weU as
the Italian and the Roman-born, had each at some time
during the period covered by the " Acts of the Apostles "
received from the lips of a Peter or Paul or John, or perhaps
* See pp. 37, 38.

36 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
had heard and welcomed through the medium of an Evangelist
unknown to fame, the message of Ufe.
When Paul wrote to the Roman Christians from Corinth
in A.D. 58, although he had never been at Rome, he evidently
knew well many of the members of its community. The long
Ust of salutations addressed to individuals of various nation
alities and to persons of different ranks tells us this ; while
households even are included in these greetings of the
"travelled" Apostle. The references in his epistle written
from Rome to the PhUippians circa a.d. 61-2 are even more
suggestive, especiaUy the well-known greeting from "the
members of Csesar's household" (PhU. iv. 22). The "domus
Csesaris," " domus Augusta " (the household of Csesar) who
sent their salutations to PhUippi were presumably earUer
converts who did not owe their knowledge of Christ to
S. Paul's teaching at Rome. The "household of Csesar" in
the first century of the Christian era occupied a large and
conspicuous place in the Ufe of Rome. It included persons
of exalted rank and of the highest consideration, as well as
a great crowd of slaves and freedmen. The most elaborately
organised of modem royal establishments would give only a
faint idea of the multiplicity and variety of the offices in
the palace of the Csesars. The departments in the household
were divided and sub-divided, the offices were numberless.
The " tasters," for instance, constituted a separate class of
servants under their own chief; even the pet dog had a
functionary assigned to him. The aggregate of Imperial re
sidences on or near the Palatine fomied a smaU city in itself;
but these were not the only palaces even in Rome. More
over, the country houses and estates of the Imperial family
aU contributed to sweU the numbers of the " domus Augusta."
But besides the household in its more restricted sense,
the Emperor had in his employ a countless number of
officials, clerks, and servants of every degree required for^the
work of the several departments, civU and mUitary, which
were all concentrated in him as head of the State.* And
* Bishop Lightfoot : Clement of Rome, vol. i., pp. 25-6, and Fp. to Phil,
pp, 167-70.

P.ii-.i: Aliitin & Cjo*, «jmj. THE PALACE OF THE C/ESARS.
ViL'W fvcjijL S. Prisca, lin- cimreli louilt, rujconling U< traditinn, in 380 a.u. im Uk site of tlic limise of Arjuila :miX rriscilla.

FIBST STAGES. 37
this vast "household of Csesar" was made up of all nation
alities as weU as being composed of all sorts and conditions
of men. There were Romans, of course, among them, and
Italians by birth, but perhaps the greater number were
Greeks, Egyptians, and Orientals, including a fair proportion
of Jews. It was into this great Imperial household that Christianity
at a very early date penetrated. It was from some among
this mighty mixed house of Csesar that the greetings contained
in the Philippian Epistle were sent by Paul. But it must
be remembered that the "Faith" which was living among
them was a power — how real, events soon showed — before
the great Gentile Apostle had arrived in Rome as a closely
guarded prisoner.
It is no baseless thought that the presence, the long
continued presence, according to the immemorial tradition,
of such a one as Peter had helped to fan the flame of
devotion which Paul found burning so brightly when, as a
prisoner, he was lodged in or near the great Prsetorian barracks
or camp outside the wall to the north-east of the city, hard
by the modem Via Nomentana.*
Thus the synagogues of the thirty or more thousandf of
the Jewish residents in Rome, the vast mixed multitude of
the dwellers in the metropolis of the world, including the
"household of Csesar,'' supplied their quota to the ever
growing company of adherents to the new faith.
But besides these were some — few perhaps, but still enough
to give a powerful influence to the strange community — out
of the mighty and exclusive Patrician order who had no
special connection with the " house of Csesar." There is a
well-known story in Tacitus J of a great lady — one Pomponia
Grsecina, the wife of Plautus, the general who conquered
* The site of the Prsetorian barrack or camp is weU known to the modem
English traveUer. It is a little to the south of the Porta Pia and the present
EngUsh Embassy, (a.d. 1901.)
t Many more probably, when the adherents and less strict converts of the
Jews are taken into account, such as Proselytes of the Grate. These were very
numerous in the Rome of the first century.
XAnn., xiu. 32. j

3S EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Britain under the Emperor Claudius. In the year 58
Pomponia was accused of having embraced a "foreign super
stition." The matter was referred, in accordance with Roman
custom, to a Domestic Court, in which her husband sat as
chief judge. The noble lady was adjudged innocent. She
lived afterwards, we read, to a great age, but in continuous
sadness. No one, however, interfered with her any more,
protected as she was by her stainless character and exalted
rank. For a long whUe the strange superstition in which
this eminent person was accused of sharing was supposed
by many students to have been " Christianity," but later
discoveries have converted the supposition into what is almost
a certainty. In the course of his exhaustive investigations
into the network of subterranean corridors devoted to the
burial of the dead Christians around the Catacomb of
CaUistus, De Rossi has shown that the oldest portion of
that vast cemetery on the Appian Way, known as the
Cemetery of Lucina, belongs to the first century. In this
ancient burial place a sepulchral inscription belonging to
the close of the second century has been found with the
name " Pomponlus Grsecinus " ; other neighbouring monuments
bear the names of the same Pomponian House. It is clear
from the character of the decorations of the sepulchral
chambers that the crypt was constructed in the first instance
by some Christian lady of high rank before the close of the
first century for her poorer brother and sister Christians.*
De Rossi considers that the name " Lucina," which belongs
to this division of the Catacomb of CalUstus, is only another
name of Pomponia Grsecina herself; the name "Lucina" not
being found in Roman history, the famous archseologist
considers it highly probable that it was assumed by Pomponia
Grsecina in accordance with early Christian phraseology, which
spoke of baptism as an "enlightening" (^wTto-yu-o?). Be this
how it may, the strange discovery of the connection of the
* This pious custom was a common practice in the Christian communion
of the first and second centuries, and to it the beginnings of the enormous net
work of Christian cemeteries or catacombs beneath the suburbs of old Eome
must be attributed. This is explained in detail in the chapter which is devoted
to the Catacombs (p. 267).

FIBST STAGES. 39
Pomponian famUy with the ancient cemetery is a strong
confirmation of the surmise long entertained by scholars,
that Pomponia was a Christian.
No doubt she was an example of other persons of high
rank who had accepted the easy yoke and light burden of
Christ in that age of inquiry and fervent longings after the
nobler and better life. Only a few years later, as we shall
see, history teUs us of yet nobler converts. For before that
first century had run its course, the religion of Jesus had
found its way into the famUy of the Csesars. The " Atheism "
for which the Emperor Domitian's cousin, Flavius Clemens,
suffered death in a.d. 95, and for which his wife DomitiUa
was banished, was doubtless only a name for Christianity.
Such were the materials out of which the Roman com
munity of Christians was composed. With the exception of
the faithful who came from the "household of Csesar," the
same elements made up the communities of the Church of
the first days in those other important centres we hear of in
the " Acts," Corinth, Ephesus, Antioch, and other less populous
cities, such as Philippi, Thessalonica, Colosse. But the com
munity of Rome in the year 62-3 was undoubtedly the largest
and most influential. There the two Apostles who, during
the thirty years which followed the Ascension and the miracle
of Pentecost, occupy unquestionably the first place in the
story of the Church, for a considerable time had resided and
had taught. There Christianity had evidently made a firm
lodgment, and counted its adherents probably by thousands.
Apart from the hostility of some of the Jews, who, as we
have said, had in the capital a large and powerful colony
numbering at least some thirty thousand — probably many
more — the Christian sect practised its simple rites, and quietly
multipUed its converts without opposition. The Imperial
Government, whUe quite aware of their existence, chose to
regard them as a Jewish sect, and the Jewish reUgion was
at the time, we luaow, legally recognised by the Roman
power.

40

CHAPTER IL
NERO.
SECTION L — THE PERSECUTION OF NERO.
At this time, a.d. 62-3, the reigning Emperor was the in
famous Nero, one of the strangest and most incomprehensible
tyrants who has ever occupied a perfectly irresponsible position
of well nigh boundless authority. The pitiful historian, in
attempting the impossible task of explaining the growth and
development of the character of this inhuman master of the
world, dwells on the fooUsh partiality of his evil mother,
who through a series of bloody intrigues gained at last the
Imperial purple for her beautiful boy.*
This mother, Agrippina, is painted by Tacitus in the
darkest colours, as a woman of daring schemes, of reckless
cruelty, a princess who suffered no scruple ever to stand in
the way of her merciless and shameless intrigues. Nero was
but seventeen years old when, thanks to her successful plot
ting, he became the uncontroUed master of the world. Bent
on selfish pleasure, he regarded his mighty empire as existing
only to supply material for his evil passions. As years passed
he grew more cruel, more vain. In the gratification of his
passions and lusts he spared none; his mother, his wife, his
intimate friends and companions, some of them the noblest
by birth and fortune of the Roman patricians, were aU in
tum murdered by his orders. To his disordered fancy, the
circus, with its games — games, many of them of the most
* The early busts of Nero show how different he was before vice and in
dulgence changed his beautiful features into the heavy, lowering face of the later
portraits with which we are now famUiar.

NEBO. 41
degraded character, cruel, bloody, pandering to the lowest
passions of the people — were the centre of Roman Ufe. The
whole world he looked on as only existing to minister to the
evil pleasures of Rome. For several years he was adored by
the mixed crowds of various nationalities which composed the
people of the Queen City ; these irresponsible masses rejoiced
in the wicked tyrant who from day to day amused them by
the strange and wonderful spectacles of the circus and the
amphitheatre. The populace loved him, the soldiers of the
all-powerful Prsetorian guard, whom he flattered, bribed, and
cajoled, for a long period supported and upheld him. For
his treachery, cruelty, and faithlessness affected the mercenary
soldiers and the populace but little. It was only the great,
the rich, the noble who trembled for their lives. The irre
sponsible mass of the people, the hireling Prsetorian guards,
delighted in a master who made their lives a perpetual holiday,
who amused them with spectacles that in the world had never
been matched before, so brilliant, so attractive, but of a char
acter calculated only to debase and to lower the ignorant
crowds who thronged the vast theatres where the marvellous
and awful games were played. Often as many as fifty thou
sand, or even more, of this degraded populace would assemble
in one of the great circus buildings to look, hour after hour,
on scenes where cruelty, obscenity, and vice were idealised;
at times the lord of the Romans deigned to join in the shameful
sports, as charioteer, as singer, as buffoon, and would receive
with gratification the noisy and tumultuous applause of the
deUghted thousands who hailed him as Emperor, and even
worshipped him as divine.
Under Nero the whole tone of Roman society, from its
apex down to the lowest ranks, was corrupted. The terms
honour, truth, loyalty, purity, patriotism lost their significa
tion. It was the glorification of shame and dishonour. It
was only in the last years of his wicked reign, when the
enormous power of the Prsetorian Prsefecture was entrusted
to Tigellinus, one of the wickedest of the human race — after
mother, wife, and weU nigh aU his friends had been mur
dered ; when the vast treasures of the Imperial family had

42 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
been heedlessly squandered, and darker and ever darker expe
dients to replenish an exhausted exchequer were resorted
to ; — that the cup of wickedness of the Emperor Nero was
fiUed, the legions of the provinces revolted, and the tyrant
found himself, even in the Rome which he had so basely
flattered and corrupted, without a friend. Then the end
came, and Nero escaped the penalty of his nameless crimes
by self-murder; but even the supreme hour of the infamous
Emperor was marred by cowardice and unmanly fear.*
It was in the July of the year 64, a memorable date
never forgotten, that the terrible fire broke out which
reduced more than half of Rome to ashes; it began among
the shops fiUed with wares, which easUy feU a prey to the
flames, located in the immediate neighbourhood of the
great circus hard by the Palatine HiU. For six days and
seven nights the fire raged ; whole districts fiUed with the
wooden houses of the poorer inhabitants of the city were
swept away; but besides these, numberless palaces and
important buildings were consumed.
Of the fourteen regions of Old Rome, four only remaiued
uninjured by the flames. Three were utterly destroyed,
whUe the other seven were filled with wreckage, with the
blackened waUs of houses which had been burnt; but the
irreparable loss to the Roman people after aU was the utter
destruction of those more precious monuments of their past
glorious history, on which every true Roman was accus
tomed to gaze with patriotic veneration. The cruel flames
* Renan in his Antichrist (chap, vi.) gives a vivid epigrammatic description
of Nero : " Qu'on se figure un melange de i'ou, de jocrisse et d'acteur, revetu de
la toute puissance, et charge de gouverner le monde. II n'avait pas la noire
m^ohancete de Domitian, ce n'etait pas non plus un extravagant comme CaUgule ;
c'etait . . . un Empereur d'opera, un melomane tremblant devant le parterre et le
faisant trembler . . ces ridicules parurent d'abord chez Neron assez inoffensifs, le
singe s'observa quelque temps, et garda la pose qu'on lui avait apprise: la
cruaute ne se deolara chez lui qu'apprfes la mort d'Agrippine, eUe I'envahit bien
vite toute entier. Chaque ann6e maintenant est marquee pai- ses crimes . . .
Neron proclame chaque jour que toute vertu est un mensonge, que le galant
homme est celui qui est franc, et qui avoue sa complete impudeur, que le
galant homme est celui qui sait abuser de tout, tout perdre, tout depenser. Un
homme vertueux est pour lui un hypocrite . . co fut uu monstre.''

NEBO. 43
spared few indeed of these. When the fire graduaUy, after
the dread week, died away, only blackened, shapeless ruins
stood on the immemorial sites of the Temple of Luna, the
work of Servius TuUius, the Ara Maxima, which the Arcadian
Evander had raised in honour of Hercules, the ancient Temple
of Jupiter Stator, originaUy built after the vow of Romulus ;
the little royal home of Numa Pompilius, the houses of
the ancient captains and generals, adorned with the spoils
of conquered peoples, indeed well nigh all that the reverent
love of the great people held dear and precious, had dis
appeared in this awful calamity. Such a loss was simply
irreparable. Rome might be rebuUt on a grand scale,
but the old Rome of the kings and the Republic was gone
for ever.
The darkest suspicions were entertained as to the mys
terious origin of this overwhelming calamity. Men's thoughts
naturally were tumed to the half insane master of the Roman
world; was he not the author of the tremendous fire? It
was known that he had for a long time viewed with dislike
the tortuous, narrow streets, the piles of squalid, ancient
buUdings which formed so large a portion of the metropolis
of the Empire ; that he had formed plans of a great recon
struction, on a vastly enlarged scale, of the mighty capital ;
that he had dreamed of the new, enormous palace surrounded
by immense gardens and pleasaunces, which soon arose under
the historic name of "Nero's Golden House." Had not the
evil dreamer, who exercised such irresponsible power in the
Roman world, chosen this method, sudden, sharp, and swift,
of clearing away old Rome, and thus making room for
the carrying out of his grandiose conceptions of the new
capital of the world ? The truth of this wiU never be
known. Serious historians chronicle the suspicions which filled
men's minds; they tell us how the marveUous popularity
which the wicked Emperor had hitherto enjoyed among the
masses of the people was gravely shaken by the tremendous
calamity of which he was more than suspected to have been
the author. All kinds of sinister rumours were in the air;
it was said no stringent and effective measures had been

44 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
adopted by the Government to stay the progress of the
flames. Men even said that the Emperor's slaves had been
detected with torches and inflammable material helping to
spread the fire. The only plea that the friends of Nero were
able to advance when that dark accusation gathered strength
and force was that when the fire broke out the Emperor
was at Antium, far away from Rome, and that he only
arrived on the scene of desolation on the third day of the
great fire.
At all events, when all was over Nero found himself
generally suspected as the author of the tremendous national
calamity. It was in vain that he provided temporary dweUings
for the tens of thousands of the homeless and ruined poor;
that he threw open the Campus Martins and even his own
vast gardens for them, erecting temporary shelter for them to
lodge in, supplying these homeless ones at a nominal cost
with food. AU these measures were of no avaU — the Emperor,
so lately the idol of the masses, as we have said, found himself
at once unpopular, even hated, as the contriver of the awful
crime. It was then that the dark mind of Nero conceived the
idea of diverting the suspicions of the people from hunself,
and of throwing the burden of the crime upon others who
would be powerless to defend themselves. His police pre
tended that they had discovered that the Christian sect had
fired Rome.
What now were his reasons for fixing upon this harm
less, innocent, comparatively speaking little known group of
Christians as his scapegoat ? What induced the bloody, half-
insane tyrant to choose'' out the poor Christian community
for his] shameful, cowardly purpose, and to accuse such a
loyal, quiet, peace-loving company of the awful crime which
had resulted in the destruction of more than half the
metropolis of the world ? What had they done to excite his
wrath? Never a word had been uttered by the leaders of
the Christian sect which could be construed into treason
against himself or even into discontent with the Imperial
Govemment. For the Christian sect all through the ages of

NERO.
From a Bast found at Athens, now in the British Museum.

NEBO. 45
persecution were not only a peace-loving body — they
remained ever among the most loyal subjects of the Pagan
Emperor who proscribed the religion they loved better than
life, and who allowed them to be done to death unless they
chose to purchase life by denying the " Name " they beUeved
in with so intense a faith. From the days of Nero in the
'sixties to the days of Diocletian, when the sands of the third
century were fast running out, the loyalty of the Christians
was never called in question. In their ranks no conspirator
against the laws and Government of the Empire was ever
known to exist.
It was so from the first. In what we may term the State
papers, which contain undoubtedly the official pronouncements
of the honoured chiefs of the earliest Christian communities —
Peter, Paul, and John — we find the most solemn charges to
the beUevers under aU circumstances to maintain a strict,
unswerving loyalty to the Csesar, and to the Roman Govern
ment of which the Csesar was the representative. The charges
are even peremptory in their directness. So Paul wrote to
the brethren at Rome from Corinth in the year 58 :
" Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers . . . the powers
that be are ordamed of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power
resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to
themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but
to the evil . . . He beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the
minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
Wherefor ye must needs be subject . . . also for conscience' sake . . .
Bender therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due ; fear
to whom fear; honour to whom honour." — Romans xiii. 1-7.
In truth a very noble definition of authority, a sublime ideal
of loyalty, was thus set before the little congregations of the
rising sect. So Peter, too, in his first epistle — an epistle
received with respect and reverence in all the Churches as an
inspired pronouncement from the very beginning — writing from
Rome, under the shadow of that fearful persecution we are
going to relate in detail, repeats with _even greater emphasis
his brother Paul's directions :
" Dearly beloved . . . submit yourselves to every ordinance of man
for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto

46 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
governors as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of
evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well : for so is the will
of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of
foolish men ; as free, but not using your liberty for a cloke of malicious
ness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood.
Fear God. Honour the king."— 1 S. Peter ii. 13-1'7.
What Paul wrote in a period of comparative quietness in
A.D. 58, Peter repeats a few years later, circa a.d. 65-6, in the
days of one of the most cruel persecutions that perhaps ever
weighed upon the Church ; whUe John, who, after Peter and
Paul had passed away, somewhere about a.d. 67-8, was regarded
by the Church as its most honoured and influential leader,
in his Gospel — probably put out in the latter years of the
first century — when giving the account of the trial of Jesus
Christ before Pilate, quotes one of the sayings of his Master
addressed to the Roman magistrate ; in which the Lord clearly
states that the power of the Imperial ruler was given him
from above — that is, from God (S. John xix. 11); thus
emphasising, some quarter of a century later, the words and
charges of Peter and Paul, ordering the Christian communities
to be loyal and obedient to the constituted powers of the
State, and to the Sovereign who wielded this authority as the
chief officer of the State, , because such powers were given
"from above."
This spirit of unswerving obedience and perfect loyalty
which we find in the official writings of Peter, Paul, and
John, lived in the Church all through the three centuries
of the oppression. It was ever its guiding principle of action
in aU its relations with the Empire.
Thus we come again to the question : What then pro
voked the first cruel persecution ? What determined Nero
to proscribe so loyal and harmless a sect? It has been
suggested, nor is the suggestion by any means baseless, that
the proscription of the Christians by the Emperor was in
consequence of a dark accusation thrown out by the Jews.
Not improbably the first idea of Nero and his advisers was
to fasten the crime upon the Jews themselves. Their loyalty
to the State was ever questionable. The condition of the

NEBO. 47
Hebrew mother-country was just then restless and uneasy.
The threatenings of the great revolt, which culminated in
the Jewish war and destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, were
already plainly manifest. It is indeed highly probable that
to avert the suspicion of many a Roman who too readily
looked on the Jewish colony as the authors of the great
calamity, the Jews themselves suggested to the Emperor
that in the hated Christian sect he would find the true
authors of the fire of Rome. Nor were the Jews without
friends at Court, who were able and wiUing to press home
the false and evU accusation. Poppsea, the beautiful Empress,
at that time high in the favour of Nero, who had taken
her from her husband, was deeply interested in the Hebrew
religion; some even think she had absolutely joined the
ranks of the chosen people and had become a "Proselyte
of the Gate." Other friends, too, of the Jews, besides the
profligate Empress, were in the inner circle of Nero.
But StUl the historian of Christianity is loth to charge
the Jews with this crime of a false accusation, which led
in the case of the Christians to such fearful consequences.
It is possible, certainly, that other reasons may have induced
Nero to turn his thoughts to the foUowers of Jesus of
Nazareth. In the year 64 it is clear that they were no
secret or inconsiderable community, and it is Ukely that
they were already looked upon by many of the superstitious
and jealous Romans with dislike and even with hatred.
Christianity was beginning to make rapid progress. Its
votaries, while loyal to the State and the magistrates, made
no secret of their dislike and contempt for the Deities whose
shrines were the object of such intense veneration. These
considerations would at least suggest to Nero that in this
sect he would easUy find an object of popular hatred.
The Imperial order went forth. It was about the middle
of the year 64. The first martyrology of the Church was
written by no fervid Christian, by no ecclesiastical historian
living years after the dread events happened of which he
was the perhaps partial chronicler; it was compUed by no
admirer of martyrdom, too anxious it may be to draw a great

48 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
lesson, and to point to a noble example of faith and fortitude.
The teUer of the story of the martyrs of Nero was a Roman,
a Pagan, a scholarly and eloquent admirer of Rome and of
her immemorial traditions; and withal one who lived oiUy
a Uttie more than half a century after the date at which
the memorable events he related took place. No one
certainly can suspect the Pagan historian Tacitus of exaggera
tion. He tells the story with his usual cold brilhancy of
style ; but no one can charge him with undue partiality
for the sufferers whose fate he so graphicaUy depicts. In
his eyes the hapless victims deserved the severest punish
ment, though even for them, guUty though they were, the
punishment meted out was perhaps too cruel, the sufferings
excessive. They excited pity, Tacitus teUs us ; the horrors
which accompanied their punishment gave rise to a suspicion
that this great multitude of condemned ones who died thus
were rather the victims of the cruelty of an individual
(Nero) than merely ordinary offenders against the State.*
The result of Nero's proscription was the immediate arrest
of many prominent and well-known members of the Christian
community. These, Tacitus says, confessed ; but their con
fession was evidently not their share in the buming of Rome,
not that they had been incendiaries, but simply that they
were Christians; for the huge multitude of Christians (ingens
multitudo) who, as the investigation of the Government
broadened out, were subsequently arrested, were presently
convicted on the general charge, not of firing the great city,
but simply of "hatred against mankind." f The procedure
seems to have been terribly simple. Nero, intensely anxious
to divert from himself the indignation which it was evident
had been universaUy aroused against him as the author of
the conflagration which had destroyed a great part of Rome,
and particularly its cherished monuments of the past, used for
his purpose the popular dislike of the new sect of Christians.
" Unde quanquam adversus sontes et novissima exempla meritos miseratio
onebatur, tanquam non utihtate publica sed in stevitiam unius absumerentur."
— Tacitus : Ann., xv. 44.
t " Odio humani generis convicti sunt." — Tacitus : Ann., xv. 44.

NEBO. 49
Many were sought out. They were weU known and easily
found. They at once confessed that they were Christians.
Then on the information elicited at their trial, perhaps
too on the evidence of writings and papers seized in their
houses, many more were involved in their fate. AU pretence
of their connection with the late tremendous fire was probably
soon abandoned, and they were condemned simply on their
confession that they were Christians. Their punishment was
turned into an amusement to divert the general populace,
and thus Nero thought he would regain some of his lost
popularity. His fiendish desire no doubt was partly success
ful. For the games were on a stupendous scale, and were
accompanied by scenes hitherto unknown even to the plea
sure-loving crowd accustomed to applaud these cruel and
degrading spectacles.
The scene of this theatrical massacre was the Imperial
garden on the other side of the Tiber, on the Vatican HiU.
The spot is well known, and is now occupied by the mighty
pile of St. Peter's, the Vatican Palace, and the great square
immediately in front of the chief Church of Christendom and
the vast palace of the Popes.
Whether the awful and bloody drama in the Vatican
Gardens lasted more than one day is not made certain by
the brief though graphic picture of Tacitus.* Enormous
destruction of human life, we know from other " amphi
theatre" recitals, could be compassed in a long day's pro
ceedings, especially under an Emperor like Nero, who had
all the resources of the Roman world at his disposition.
If the whole were comprised, as seems probable, in one
day's long performance, it is clear that the hideous games
were prolonged far into night. It began with a long and
pathetic procession of the condemned, made up of aU ages
* Suetonius, a contemporary of Tacitus, gives too a brief account of the great
persecution ; Clement of Rome, end of Cent. I., Tertullian, end of Cent. II.,
among other Christian writers, refer to it ; but by far the most graphic picture
of the awful sufferings of the Christians at Eome in the Neronic persecution is
that painted by Tacitus. He is emphatically, enemy though he was of the
Christian sect, the first martyrologist, and his testimony, coming from such a
quarter, is especially conclusive.
E

50

EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM,

and of both sexes, round the great amphitheatre erected and
enlarged for the show. This was foUowed by the "Venatio"
or hunting scene, a spectacle in which wUd beasts— lions,
tigers, vrild buUs, wolves, and dogs— bore a prominent part ;
to add to the horrors of the scene, some of the victims would
be partiaUy clothed in skins of different animals, to whet the
ferocity of the dogs and other beasts specially trained for
fighting. By a strange refinement of cruelty, the Roman
mob in the course of these savage games was regaled with
some dramatic spectacles, the scenery of which was drawn
from well-known mythological legends. A Hercules was
carried to the funeral pyre and then burnt alive, amid the
frantic applause of the spectators; an Icarus was made to
fly, and then faU and be dashed to death. The hand of a
Mutius Scsevola was held in the burning brazier tiU the Umb
of the tortured sufferer was consumed ; a Pasiphae was gored
by a buU; a Prometheus was chained to the rock where he
underwent his terrible punishment ; a Marsyas was flayed
alive; an Ixion was tortured on his wheel; an Actseon was
actually tom by his dogs. This dread realism formed part
of the cruel amusements of Nero's show in his Vatican
Gardens. To these pieces of real sorrowful tragedy were added
on this occasion other scenes out of the legendary history of
the past, so degrading and demoralising that the historian
must pass them over in silence.* At last, night threw its
pitiful veU over the bloodstained arena. During the long
hours of the Italian summer day, the fierce, excited multitude,
numbering many thousands, had been gazing on these un
heard-of tortures, and watching the dying agomes of the
crowd of the first Christian martyrs of various ranks and
orders, slaves and freedmen, soldiers and traders, mostly poor
folk, but here and there one of higher rank and standing,
* Clement of Eome, writing some few years after the " dread show," parts of
which he probably witnessed, tells us how " unto these men of holy lives was
gathered a vast multitude of the elect, who, through many indignities and tortures,
being the victims of jealousy, set a brave example among ourselves . . . Women
being persecuted after they had suffered cruel and unholy insults . . . safely
reached the goal in the race of Faith, and received a noble reward, feeble though
they were in body."— S. Clement of Eome : Fpist. to Cor. 6.

NEBO. 51
some old men, others in the prime and vigour of life, tender
girls, women of varied ages, some even children in years ; but
all, as it seems, enduring the nameless agonies with calm,
brave patience, asking for no mercy, offering no recantation
of their faith in the Name for which they were suffering,
some even smiling in their pain. . . . But the night which
followed that August day, so memorable in the Christian
annals, brought in its train no merciful sUence into the grim
garden of death and horror, where Nero was entertaining his
Roman people. The games still went on, but the spectacle on
which the crowds were invited to gaze was changed. The
broad arena was strewn with fresh sand, blotting out the dark
stains left by the long-drawn-out tragedy of the day. Perfumes
were plentifuUy sprinkled to freshen the heavy, blood-poisoned
atmosphere, and the arena was lit up for the concluding acts of
the Imperial drama. Here, however, the Emperor had devised a
new and original spectacle to deUght the fierce crowd whose
applause he so loved to evoke. The principal amusement of
the night was to consist in chariot racing, in which the Lord
of the World himself was to bear a leading part ; for Nero
was a skUful and courageous charioteer, and it was his habit
now and again to show himself in this guise to his people,
coming down from his gold and ivory throne into the arena.
And as the torches, plentifuUy scattered on that vast arena,
gradually flamed up, the bystanders were amazed, and it
seems from Tacitus' words, were even struck with horror at
the sight, and for the first time in that day of death and
carnage, pitied as they gazed ; for every torch was a human
being, impaled or crucified on a sharp stake or cross. The
"torches" quickly flared up, for every human form was
swathed in a tunic steeped in oU, or in some inflammable Uquid.
Such was the ghastly illumination of the arena on that
never-to-be-forgotten night of the late summer of the year
64, when the chariot races were run. It was a novel form of
lighting the amphitheatre, and we have no record that it
was ever repeated.* It seems to have been too shocking
* This manner of buming criminals aUve, thus robed in what was termed the
" tunica molesta," was not uncommon, but only on this one memorable occasion
were the living torches used as the Uluminations.

52 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM,
even for that demoralised and bloodthirsty populace, whose
chief delight, whose supreme pleasure, was in those sanguinary
and impure spectacles so often provided for the people by the
Emperors of the first, second, and third centuries.*
The number of victims sacrificed in this persecution of
Nero is uncertain ; it was undoubtedly very large. Clement
of Rome, writing before the close of the first century, describes
them as " a great multitude." Tacitus, a very few. years later,
uses a similar expression (ingens multitudo) ; and when it is
remembered what vast numbers on different occasions weref
devoted to the public butcheries in the arena for the amuse
ment of the populace, it may be assumed without exaggeration
that the Christian victims who were massacred at that ghastly
festival we have been describing probably numbered many
hundreds. SECTION II. — EFFECTS OF THE PERSECUTION OF NERO.
Nero's games in the Vatican Gardens, of a.d. 64, evidently
left a profound impression on the Roman world. The
spectators were used to these pitUess exhibitions. The crowds
who thronged the amphitheatre had often seen men die ; but
they had never seen men die like those Christians who, in
scenes of unexampled horror, by the sword, under the teeth
of wUd beasts, or in the flames, passed to their rest. The
memory of the scene evidently was stiU fresh in Seneca's
mind when, a year or two later, he wrote to Lucilius urging
him to bear up bravely under sickness and bodUy pain.
* These " human " torches seem to have burned for a considerable time,
before they slowly flickered out, so Juvenal describes them :
. . . "Taeda . . .
Qua stantes ardent, qui fixo guttore fumant,
Et latnm media sulcum diducit arena."
Satires 1, 155-157. Compare, too, for reference to this persecution, Clem.,
Ad. Oor., 6 ; Tertullian, Apol. 5 (when he refers to official records), also Ad. Nat.,
vii. 60-1, and Scorpiace, 15; Eusebius, S. E., 11, 22, 25, etc.; Lactantius, De
Morte Persecutorum, 2 ; Tacitus, Ann., xv. 44 ; Suetonius, Nero, 16.
t In the bloody naval games given by the Emperor Claudius iu a.d. 52 on
Lake Fucinus, as many as nineteen thousand condemned criminals fought
together. — Tacitus, Ann., xii. 56.

Photo ; Alinari & Cook, Rome.

THE FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATRE, OR COLOSSEUM

Completed by Titus in a.d. SO. There were seats for forty or fifty tiiousand spcetators, and a total accommodation prolDaf)ly for 100,000 persons.

NEBO. 53
" What," he wrote, " are your sufferings compared with the
flames, and the cross, and the rack, and the nameless tortures
that I have watched men endure, without shrinking, without
a complaint, without a groan ? And as if aU this quiet
endurance and brave patience was not sufficient, I have seen
these victims even smUe in their great agony."*
We have dwelt in some detail on this first memorable
" wholesale " martyrdom under Nero, for it was the com
mencement of a new era in the Christian life. Up to a.d. 64
the profession of the new faith was made in quiet and, com
paratively speaking, in secret. Up to that date, throughout the
Empire, in the eyes of all magistrates, the disciples of Jesus
were more or less included among the Jews, who enjoyed
toleration, and in some quarters even favour. But hence
forth the Christians occupied a new position. They belonged
from this time to a proscribed sect. Hitherto their existence
had, indeed, been known to many, including, of course, the
police and magistrates; but, politically speaking, it had been
ignored. Now, however, the action of Nero, when he sought
for victims on whom he could cast the odium of being
the incendiaries on the occasion of the great fire which
had desolated Rome, completely changed the situation. As
Christian writers universally affirm, it was the wicked Emperor
who first dragged the Christian body into publicity, who first
drew the sword of the State against them, who gave the
signal for the long drawn-out persecution of Christians which
lasted about two centuries and a half During that time
there were no doubt intervals, even long intervals, when
persecution slept ; but only to awaken to fresh violence.
From the day of the Neronic games of a.d. 64, the sword
drawn by Nero ever hung over the heads of the condemned
sect until the hour of the Christians' triumph some two
hundred and fifty years later, when the peace of the Church
was at last guaranteed by the Edict of Constantine, A.D. 313.
We will rapidly sum up the position of Christians in
the Empire.
* Seneca : Fp. 78. There is little doubt but that Seneca was referring to the
scenes he had witnessed in the Vatican Gardens, a.d. 64.

54 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Until A.D. 64 the Roman officials had, on the whole,
treated the Christians with indifference, or even with favour
mingled with contempt, as exempUfied several times in the
treatment of Paul when brought before the Imperial magis
trates. If they acted harshly, either they were influenced
by the enmity of influential Jews or they punished the
Christians as being connected with disturbances which were
due in part to their presence and actions.
But in A.D. 64, a year after Paul's acquittal from the
charges brought against him as related in the " Acts," Nero
began a bitter persecution against the sect for the sake of
diverting popular attention in the matter of the burning of
Rome. It was soon seen that they had had no real hand
in that terrible crime ; but in substituting the charge of
" hatred for mankind " the Emperor in fact introduced the
principle of punishing Christians for their Christianity. His
example became inevitably the guide for all officials, in the
provinces as well as at Rome.* The general persecution of
Christians was established as a permanent p)olice nrvectsure,
directed against a sect considered dangerous to the pubhc
safety. No edict or formal law at that early period was
passed, but the precedent of Rome was quoted in every case
when a Christian was accused. The attitude of the State
towards the sect graduaUy, in the course of a few years,
became settled. No proof of definite crimes committed by
the Christians was required. An acknowledgment of the
" Name " alone sufficed for condemnation ; as is shown by the
well-known correspondence of the proconsul Pliny with the
Emperor Trajan, which we shall presently again refer to in
detail, some fifty years later in a.d. 112. "The action of
Nero inaugurated a new era in the relation of the Empire
towards Christianity, says Suetonius ; and Tacitus does not
disagree." *
On the other hand, the action of Nero among the Chris
tians themselves had a far-reaching effect. It gave them a
new and mighty power, or rather it revealed to them what a
* Professor Ramsay: The Church in the Poman Empire before A.D. 170
chap. xi.

NEBO. 55
power they possessed — an absolute fearlessness of death.
Possibly this was unsuspected before the Neronic persecu
tion. A historian* of rare skill, no friend indeed to the
religion of Jesus, does not hesitate to style the day of Nero's
bloody games in his gardens of the Vatican " the most
solemn day in the Christian story after the Crucifixion on
Golgotha." The expression is a rhetorical one, but though
exaggerated, it has a basis of truth. With the excep
tion of the prominent" and militant leaders, Stephen and
S. James, who were victims of Jewish jealousy, we have no
records of Christians during the first thirty years which
followed the Resurrection and Ascension of the Founder of
the religion laying down their lives for the Name ; nor
does it appear that in any of the communities of the
foUowers of Jesus was the dread alternative of death or
denial ever put before them in that first period.
The Neronic persecution presenting that alternative must
have come upon the Roman Church, a community probably
numbering several thousands, with startling suddenness;
revealing what apparently was before unknown or at least
ignored — the repulsion with which the Christians were generally
regarded by the great world lying outside the little circle
who happened to know something about them. They were
charged, says Tacitus, with " hatred of the world " (i.e. the
Roman world), odium humani generis ; in Professor Ramsay's
words, " with being enemies to the customs and laws which
regulated civiUsed (i.e. Roman) society. The Christians, so
said their enemies, were bent on destroying civilisation, and
civilisation must in self-defence destroy them."t
Thus put to the test, the events of the summer of the
year 64 showed what was the secret of the Christians'
strength, demonstrated the intensity of their convictions ;
young and old, slave and free, the trader and the patrician-
born alike, proved that while ready and wUling to Uve
quiet, homely lives as loyal true citizens, as faithful ser
vants of the Emperor, to them "to depart [to die] and
* Renan : Sistoire des origines de Christianisme. — " L'Antechrist," chap. vii.
f Professor Eamsav ^h Church in the Roman F-mpire, ohap. xi.

56 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
to be with Christ was far better." In the Vatican
Gardens of Nero began, as it has been weU said, that
marvellous epic of "martyrdom" which amazed and con
founded a sceptical though superstitious world for two
centuries and a half
Out of this passion for martyrdom sprang the ennobhng
enfranchisement of woman, and the elevation of the vast
slave class from the position of hopeless and demoraUsing
degradation. For in the many and striking scenes of
martyrdom, the woman and the slave played again and
again an heroic and even a leading part. What had taken
place at Rome when Nero was Emperor was repeated on a
smaUer scale before less distinguished and less numerous
audiences again and again in famous provincial centres,
sijch as Smyrna, Carthage, Lyons, Caesarea, now in groups,
now singly. When the supreme hour of trial struck
and the Christian had to choose between death and hfe
— hfe being the guerdon offered for the simple renouncement
of Christ — very rarely indeed was hesitation shown ; the
guerdon was at once rejected. The contempt of Christians
for death puzzled, irritated, disturbed the Pagan writers and
phUosophers as much as the magistrates. They were utterly
at a loss to comprehend the secret power which inspired
this wonderful sect. As much as possible they avoid aU
allusion to Christians ; whenever a mention of them occurs
irritation and surprise are plainly visible. The one reference *
made to them by the great Emperor Marcus Aurelius is a
curt and angry aUusion to their contempt for death. This
strange readiness to die for their belief was the characteristic
feature which especially struck the Roman mind. So ready,
so eager were the Christians to give up dear Ufe that we
find that their great teachers were now and again obliged
to curb and even to restrain what had positively become a
too passionate desire for martyrdom.
The example of the first martyrs of Rome was foUowed
with a curious persistency, alike in Syria and Asia, in Africa
and in Gaul, whenever, indeed, in the course of these two
* Marcus AureUus : Meditations, xi. 3.

NEBO. 57
centuries and a half they were challenged to deny the
" Name." The number of waverers was comparatively small.
The first persecution, begun at Rome with the Vatican
Games of 64, but soon, as we have noted, spreading through
the Provinces, continued to press heavily on the Christian
congregations untU the death of the Emperor Nero* in 68.
The martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul, according to an
immemorial tradition, took place in the year 67-8. S. Peter
probably, as we have seen, was at Rome in a.d. 64, but was
not one of the victims on that occasion. S. Paul was absent
from the capital in 64, but returned a year or two later,
probably with the idea of gathering together and strengthening
the scattered and decimated Roman congregations. Tradition
speaks of the two great Christian leaders perishing at or
about the same date, before the tyrant's downfaU and death
in 68. Two of the most ancient Christian documents, which by
the consent of the whole Christian Church have been placed
in the canon of inspired books, were probably written under
the shadow of this first great calamity. They contain many
and undoubted references to persecution. These documents
are the First Epistle of S. Peter and the Apocalypse of S. John
(the Revelation). The letter of S. Peter, dated from Rome
(for weU nigh all scholars are now agreed that under the mystic
name of Babylon which occurs in the salutation at the close
of the letter — 1 Peter v. 13 — Rome is' signified), is a writing
addressed to Oriental Christians, bidding them take courage
in view of the grave trials which lay immediately before them.
No book, with the exception of the Apocalypse of S. John,
is so evidently marked with references to trial and suffering
as is this First Epistle of S. Peter. And the references are
evidently to no solitary burst of persecution, however terrible,
but to a systematic proscription, to which aU Christians
dwelling in different parts of the Roman world were liable.
* " Nero, Eomge Christianos suppliciis ac mortibus affecit ac per omnes pro
vincias pari persccutione excruciari imperavit." Orosius, Adv. Pag. Sist., vii. 5;
cf. also TertuUian, Apol., 5; and Lactantius, De Mort. Pers., 11, aud see too
Suetonius, Nero, 16.

58 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
The Apocalypse of S. John was also evidently written
under the dark shadow of persecution. The only question
is whether the persecution referred to therein is that suffered
by the Church in the days of Nero, or that endured some
twenty years later under DomitiaiL If the first, then the
writing would date from circa a.d. 68 ; if the second, the
Apocalypse would have jbeen put out circa a.d. 90. The
witness of Irenseus, who wrote about a century later, circa
A.r>. 170-80, and who gives the later date, is of course a very
weighty one. The general, though not the universal, con
sensus of modern scholars, however, prefers the earlier date.
In the words of Professor Sanday : " Apart from details, I
question if any other date fits so well with the conditions
impUed in the Apocalypse as that between the death of
Nero (a.d. 68) and the destruction of Jerusalem (a.d. 70) ; on
aU hands there were wars and rumours of wars. ... It might
weU seem as if the crash of empires was a fit prelude to the
crash of a world. Never was the expectation of the approaching
end so keen, never were men's minds so highly strung . . .
there were no such tremendous issues, no such clash of
opposing forces, no such intense expectation of the end under
Domitian. The background seems inadequate."
With strange pathos, John the beloved, the survivor of
the Apostolic band, in his inspired utterance expresses the mind
of the Christian Church after the first terrible persecution. The
fiery trial had done its work ; henceforth we see the Church
braced up, ready to suffer and to be strong, in the face of the
most deadly persecution. " How grandly over aU echoes the
voice which borrows its tones straight from the prophets of
the older covenant: 'Righteous art Thou, which art and
which wast, Thou Holy One, because Thou didst thus judge
. . . yea, 0 Lord God the Almighty, true and righteous are
Thy judgments.' Whenever it is. Christians are being per
secuted; the Empire is making its hand heavy uppn them;
they are as incapable of offering resistance as a child. And
yet the prophet's gaze hardly seems to dwell upon the
sufferings of himself and his people. They are a school of
steadfastness and courage. ' Be thou faithful unto death, and

NEBO. 59
I wiU give thee the crown of life,' is the chief moral to
be drawn from them. But the prophet looks away beyond
the persecution to the fate of the persecutors. . . . The
central feature of the Apocalypse is its intense longing for
the advent of Christ and His kingdom, with its confident
assertion of the ultimate victory of good over evil, and of
the dawning of a state of blissful perfection where sorrow
and sighing shall flee away."*
The confusion and disorder which foUowed immediately
upon Nero's death were speedily closed by the accession of
Vespasian to supreme power.
* Professor Sanday: Bampton Lecture VII.

60

CHAPTER III.
THE CHUECH IN EOME AFTEE NEED.
What now was the condition of the Christian Church during
the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, that is, from A.D. 68 (the
date of the death of Nero) to A.D. 81 ? That the Christians
were harried by a persecution under Domitian, who succeeded
his brother Titus as Emperor in the year 81, reigning untU
A.D. 96, is universaUy accepted as certain ; whereas Christian*
and profane historians alike, as a rule, represent the period
covered by the reigns of Vespasian aud Titus as a time of
stUlness for the harassed religion. Recent investigations, how
ever, point to a somewhat different conclusion.
An important passage from Sulpicius Severus, a Chris
tian writer of the fourth century, has, in late years, been
criticaUy examined, with the result that the passage in
question is judged to have been based upon an extract from
a lost writing of Tacitus. The words of Sulpicius Severus
teU us of a Council of War held by Titus after the capture
of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. In the councU Titus is reported
to have expressed the view that the Temple of Jerusalem
ought to be destroyed in order that the reUgions of the
Jews and of the Christians might be more completely extir
pated. The Christians had arisen from amongst the Jews,
and when the root was tom up the stem would easUy be
destroyeif This points to the poUcy of stem repression,
inaugurated by Nero, being continued for political reasons
* Compare, however, as an exception here, Hilary of Poitiers {circa middle of
fourth century), who ranks Vespasian, as a persecutor of the Church, " between Kero
and Decius," Contra Arianos.
I Compare Professor Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, chap. xii.

THE GHUBGH IN BOME AFTEB NEBO. 61
by Titus and his father Vespasian. There is a passage of
Suetonius (Vespasian 15) where it is said that "Vespasian
never in the death of anyone [took pleasure, and in the
case of] merited punishment he wept and even groaned."*
The passage is mutUated, but it seems probable that the
reference here is to punishments which, according to the
precedent of Nero, were inflicted upon Christians. Such men
as Vespasian and Titus would hate to inflict cruel punishment
upon quiet subjects of the Empire, as they were conscious
the Christians were ; but it had been already decided by the
Government to treat the Christian sect as enemies of the
public weal, and in this decision the great princes of the
Flavian House concurred, agreeing in the conclusion come to
in the reign of Nero that the peculiar tenets of the Christians
were inimical to the weU-being of the State as then con
stituted. '''"•
Reasoning further fr-om the famous correspondence of the
Emperor Trajan with the proconsul Pliny, from which we
gather that a practically fixed procedure had long been
established in the treatment of the new sect of Christians,
it would seem on the whole unlikely that the Christians
enjoyed any period of real quietness directly after the death
of Nero. That there was no active proscription is probable,
but that they practised their religion under circumstances
of difficulty and danger is almost certain. In Domitian's
day, however, the persecution became once more active, and
we shall have to chronicle amidst the crowd of unknown
sufferers the fate of certain notable victims who were subjected
to the severest penalties, and in some cases were even put
to death. To return to the important Church in Rome, which
had suffered so grievously at the cruel hands of Nero. On
the death of the two Apostles Peter and Paul, circa a.d.
67-68, the government of the Church of the capital of the
* "Neque caede cujusquam unquam [Isetatus est et] justis suppliciis inlacri-
mavit, etiam et ingemuit." "Some" (says Professor Eamsay) "fiU the obvious
gap with the single word Icetatus, but neque at the beginning looks forward
necessarily to et following." The Church in the Ronum Empire, xii. 2.

'y'2 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Empire came into the hands of Linus, the same probably
who sends greeting to Timothy on the eve of S. Paul's
martyrdom (2 Tim. iv. 21). Of this episcopate of Linus we
know nothing; even tradition is almost sUent here. The
"Liber Pontificalis," in which many ancient and some fairly
trustworthy traditions are embodied, only teUs us that this
Linus issued a direction for women to appear in church
with their heads covered. From the Usts of the early
Roman succession we find that Linus presided over the
Roman community some twelve years. A veU of sUence,
too, rests over the episcopate of his successor, Anencletus or
Cletus. The duration of his rule is also given in the Eusebian
Catalogue as twelve years. Clement of Rome, who foUowed
him, Uved through the reign of Domitian, in whose days the
fuiy of persecution 'awoke again. Clement survived the
tyrant, dying in the third year of the reign of the Emperor
Trajan, the year that closed the first century. Ecclesiastical
writers speak of the proscription of Christians in the reign
of Domitian as the second persecution of the Church.
Although the pohcy of the Empire in the days of Vespasian
and Titus, and in the early period of Domitian's reign, had
been adverse to the existence of Christianity, the practical
rule of action was, that the officials of the Govemment
should not in any case seek out these " rehgious '' offenders.
It was true that a Christian was a criminal who deserved
death, but the magistrate might shut his eyes to his existence
until some notorious act on the part of the Christian or the
information of an officious accuser compeUed him to open them.
But this unwUlingness to proceed against the sect only
gave them partial protection. The iU-wiU of an Emperor
or even of a Provincial Govemor at any moment might
unsheathe the sword of the Law, never quite hidden in its
scabbard; and the defenceless Christians would find them
selves at once exposed to the severest penalties. If the
Emperor was hostile, the persecution became general ; if
merely the Provincial Magistrate was iU-disposed to the
sect, the persecution was generaUy confined to the district
over which his authority extended.

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This second severe attack differed in some respects from
the Neronic persecution. Under Domitian there was no
massacre of crowds of unresisting men and women as in the
amphitheatre games of Nero. Individual Christians, some
of them of the highest rank, even among the Emperor's
own kinsfolk, were arrested and put to death ; but, although
there was no wholesale butchery, the number of sufferers
in the course of the active persecution under him was very
considerable. The Church was constantly harassed ; no
Christian was safe from the consequences of the report of
an infamous informer ; and, in most cases, death speedily
foUowed the arrest. Flavius Clemens, the cousin of the
Emperor, was among the victims who perished ; Domitilla,
his wife, among the banished. DomitiUa, however, lived to
return to Rome after the tyrant's death.
We possess no records which give us any details respect
ing the state of the Church in Rome during the period of
comparative quietness between the persecutions by Nero
and Domitian. The Letter of Clement, however, a little
more than a quarter of a century after Nero's death, gives
us important information respecting the position of the
Church of the Capital; while recent archaeological discoveries
also throw a strong sidelight on the position of Christians
at Rome, and incidental mention of individual Christians in
contemporary writers assists us in our conception of the
progress of the Church during that quarter of a century.
Although for the time seriously weakened by the severe
measures of a.d. 64, and disheartened by the deaths of
Peter and Paul, the Church in Rome gradually recovered
from the calamity. It had made too firm a lodgment in
the great city to be permanently injured, and it emerged
from the fiery trial purified and strengthened. Its con
verts, too, as we have seen, were drawn from all ranks
and orders; by no means was the Christian community
only composed of slaves or freedmen, or of persons belonging
to the plebeian trading classes. It numbered many wealthy
Romans, some of them of the highest rank.
About the year 92 we find Clement occupying the position

64 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of Bishop of the Christian community at Rome. Now, no
one outside the Apostolic ranks occupies so prominent a place
in early Christian story as does this Clement, who, in the
various lists of the Roman succession which from the middle
of the second century onwards have come down to us, gener
ally appears as the third in succession from St. Peter. When
this Clement succeeded to the government of the Roman
Church, the reign of Domitian was more than half over.
The duration of his episcopate is given in the Usts as nine
years. His death occurred, then, in the last year of the first
century, when the Emperor Trajan was reigning.
Clement, without doubt, was the most prominent figure
in the flourishing Church of the metropoUs of the world in
the age which succeeded the removal by death of Peter and
of Paul ; and evidently wielded an extraordinary authority in
the Church, not only in Italy, but in distant countries more
or less connected with Italy and with Rome. How great was
the influence of the Church of Rome in other and remote
centres we shall show presently. '
We may put aside as mythical the various detaUs con
nected with Clement which appear in the singular early
romance generally known as "The Clementines." This
curious religious romance dates from about the middle of
the second century. Its unknown author seems to have
wanted a hero for his story, and no more imposing name
than that of the famous Roman bishop, who was at once a
great Church administrator and a writer, could be found for
his purpose. This very early work probably suggested a
similar use of Clement's name to later writers.*
Dismissing these various apocryphal compositions as un
historical, what do we know certainly about this famous
Church leader ? Now Irenceus, writing a.d. 175, or a few
years later, had spent some time in the metropolis, when
the memory of Clement was still fresh. He tells us ("Adv.
* Compare Bishop Lightfoot's ApostoUc Fathers, Clement of Rome (vol.
i., pp. 100, 101), on the authorship of the " Clementine Homilies and Eecogni-
tions," the " Epistles to Virgins," the " Second Epistle to the Corinthians," the
"Apostolical Constitutions," etc.

/ THE GHUBGH IN BOME AFTER NEBO. 65
Haer," iii. 3, 3) that the founders of the Roman Church are
"the glorious Apostles Peter and Paul"; they committed it
to the charge of Linus, who is mentioned in the Epistle to
Timothy (2 Tim. iv. 21). The next in succession to Linus
was Anencletus. After Anencletus followed Clement, " who
also had seen the blessed Apostles, and had conversed with
them, and had the preaching of the Apostles still ringing in
his ears, and their tradition before his eyes . . . He was not
alone in this, for many stUl remained at this time, who had
been taught by the Apostles." ..." In the time of Clement,"
continues Irensus, " a feud of no smaU magnitude arose
among the brethren in Corinth, and the Church in Rome
sent a most exhaustive (iKavwTaTrjv) letter to the Corinthians,
thinking to bring them to peace, and quickening their faith,
and declaring the tradition which they had so lately received
from the Apostle."
It is this "Letter to the Corinthians," to which Irenseus
refers, which constitutes the real importance of Clement's
life and work to us. There were other Bishops of Rome
immediately preceding and succeeding Clement; but from
none of them do we inherit a long and weighty document
like this, issuing from the heart of the Church only a quarter
of a century after the passing away of Peter and Paul, dating
from a time when John was still living and teaching at
Ephesus ; a document which not only bears in itself ample
proofs of its genuineness, but is testified to by ancient and
trustworthy authorities in the most positive and decisive
language. That it was in the hands of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna,
is perfectly clear from the long list of paraUel passages, many
of them copied verbatim by Polycarp from Clement, in his
Epistle to the Philippians circa a.d. 108-10. Irenseus, circa
A.D. 170-80, we have already quoted as referring expressly to
it, ascribing to it a position of very high importance, because
it records the traditional interpretation of ApostoUc teaching,
which was the standard of truth in the great church of
Rome from the earliest times. Dionysius of Corinth, cvrca
A.D. 170, relates how this epistle was read in church pubUcly
F

G

66 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
on the Lord's day. Clement of Alexandria, before the close
of the second century, quotes this epistle frequently and with
great respect. Origen, a few years later, quotes several
passages from Clement's letter, and holds his testimony in
honour. Coming down the stream of time, the historian
Eusebius, to whose patient industry we owe so much of our
knowledge of the Church of the "Age of the Persecutions,"
writing in the first half of the fourth century, caUs Clement's
epistle " great and marveUous," and dwells on its " having the
testimony of antiquity to its genuineness." Besides the above,
Clement is quoted by name by Cyril of Jerusalem, circa
A.D. 347 ; Basil of Ccesarea, circa a.d. 375 ; Epiphanius,
circa a.d. 375 ; Jerome, circa A.D. 375-410 ; and by Rufinus,
circa a.d. 410.
So highly was this letter of Clement of Rome held in
honour that it was frequently read pubUcly in churches
other than that of Corinth, to which it was addressed.
Eusehius teUs us that it was the custom to do so in very
many churches, both formerly and in his own time (H. E. iii. 16).
This epistle of Clement, which was so widely known and
highly valued from the end of the first century onwards for
more than three hundred years, is a document written in
Greek. It is somewhat longer than St. Paul's Epistle to the
Romans, and incidentally, among other and less important
points, gives much information respecting the position which
Rome occupied towards other Churches ; upon the attitude
which the Christian Church was directed to assume towards
the Emperor and the Government of the Empire ; and upon
the fundamental doctrines which were the groundwork of the
dogmatic teaching of the large and important Christian com
munity of the capital in the last years of the first century.
And yet, highly valued and prized as was this letter of
Clement the Bishop of Rome, the eminent teachers who
made use of it, and the Churches who even introduced it into
the public teaching of the congregation, evidently placed it
on a lower and very different level from the writings of such
men as Paul and Peter, whose letters at a very early period
were received as absolutely authoritative.

THE GHUBGH IN BOME AFTEB NEBO. 67
Who, now, was this Clement who was then so widely
known and honoured? Origen, who wrote in the first half
of the third century, and whose profound scholarship and
literary power place him very high as a witness, without any
doubt identifies him with the Clement mentioned by S. Paul
writing to the Philippians (iv. 3) as among the "feUow
labourers whose names are in the Book of Life." This
identification is adopted by the historian Eusebius, and by
not a few early writers; and although modern critics consider
it as somewhat precarious, aU serious scholars agree in accepting
the very early constant and definite tradition that he was the
disciple of one or both of the great Apostles Peter and Paul,
whose names are so closely connected with the foundation of
the Roman Church.
Dismissing as unlikely the theory maintained by some
that Clement the Bishop was identical with Flavius Clemens,
the cousin of Domitian, it seems on the whole most probable
that the famous Bishop was a man of Jewish descent, perhaps
a freedman belonging to the household of Flavius Clemens,
the Emperor's I cousin, who suffered martyrdom in the course
of the persecution of Domitian.
Very vivid is the light thrown upon the inner life of the
Church of Rome in the last decade of the first century by
the letter of the Bishop, the genuineness and authenticity of
which, as we have seen, is undoubted. In the first place, it
teUs us what was the position of the Church of the capital
towards other Churches. Now the object of the letter was
to induce the rulers of the Church of Corinth to put an end
at once to a spirit of faction and insubordination to their
official rulers which had arisen lately in the community
there. The danger to the weU-being and prosperity of the
Church was evidently very great, and the tone adopted by
the Church of Rome in the letter of Clement was urgent,
almost imperious. The recognition of the ascendancy of the
Church of Rome* is implied in the fact, already noted, that
* The moral ascendancy of the Church (not the Bishop) of Rome, Bishop
Lightfoot well considers to have been the historical foundation of the undoubted
primacy of Eome, a primacy which evidently existed in primitive times.

68 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
this letter was for a long period constantly read in the public
services of the Church of Corinth.
In the second place, very clearly is the attitude adopted by
Christians towards the reigning Emperor and the Governraent
set forward in Clement's letter.
The Christians in Rome had had experience of the first
and one of the most terrible persecutions to which the
followers of Jesus were ever exposed. They had then passed
through a long period when the sword of proscription was
ever threatening, if not actually drawn, in the reigns of
Vespasian and Titus, and in the earlier years of Domitian.
They had very lately gone through a renewed period of bitter
trial during the latter portion of Domitian's reign. But in
the letter of Clement, which accurately reflected the mind
and policy of the Christian Church of the metropoUs in the
closing years of the first century, not an angry word is
written, not a hint of resistance to the powers that be is
ever whispered. After referring to the victories of persecu
tion, after openly stating that at the hour of writing the
letter the Christian community was exposed to some dire
penalties, after penning the sad sentence, " We are struggUng
on the same arena, the same conflict awaits us and you,"
Clement wrote the foUowing noble prayer for Ruler and
Governor : " Guide our steps to walk in holiness and righteous
ness and simpleness of heart, and to do such things as are
good and weU pleasing in Thy sight, and in the sight of
our rulers. Give concord and peace to us and to all that
dwell on the earth . . . that we may be saved ; while we
render obedience to Thine Almighty and most exceUent
Name, and to our Rulers and Governors upon the earth.
Thou, 0 Lord and Master, hast given them the power of
sovereignty, through Thine exceUent and unspeakable might,
that we, knowing the glory and honour which Thou hast
given them, may submit ourselves unto them, in nothing
resisting Thy will."*
* Clem. Eom. -. Ep., 1, 7, 60-61. The rest of this most beautiful prayer in
the liturgy at the end of the Epistle, lately recovered, is well worth reading and
pondering over, as it evidently reflects [perfectly the mind of Christians towards

THE GHUBGH IN BOME AFTEB NEBO. 69
This expression of quiet loyalty to the Emperor and the
Magistrates of the Empire on the part of the important Roman
community at such an early period, while a cruel persecution
was actually going on, voiced by so eminent a Christian
leader as Clement, the Bishop of Rome, is of great import
ance; and after the affirmations respecting doctrines, which
we shaU presently deal with, is perhaps the most interesting
disclosure respecting the inner life of the primitive Church
in this great letter. The principle of unswerving loyalty
to the chief of the State, and of uncomplaining sub
mission to the harshest Imperial decrees, here laid down
so sublimely in this weighty utterance of the Roman Church
circa A.D. 96, passed into the unwritten law of the Church.
It is dwelt upon by other famous Christians in writings
which have come down to us, probably about a century
after the death of Clement, notably by the eloquent Cartha
ginian theologian Tertullian.
Loyal obedience to the constituted power of the Empire
was pressed home in the most emphatic terms by the
Apostles Peter and Paul ; and their disciple Clement, when
he became head of the great Church they founded, reiterated
the charge given by those inspired foUowers of the Master.
But, in the inner life of the very early Christian Church,
of still greater importance is the testimony afforded by
Clement's writings to the fundamental doctrines taught in
the Christian Church of Rome a quarter of a century after
the deaths of Peter and Paul. Irenseus quotes Clement's
letter as passing on to other Churches the tradition which
he, Clement, had lately received from the Apostles.
A^ery definite was the teaching on the Atonement and
Mediation of Christ. The spirit of Clement was deeply tinged
with the thoughts and the very language of the Epistle to
the Hebrews ; constantly he speaks of the " blood of
Christ " with reference to " ransom," " deliverance," etc. He
emphatically believed in the pre-existence of Christ, and
their persecutors in the first century. It was the model upon which the Christians
ordered their behaviour to the State during the second and third and the early
years of the fourth century.

70 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
refers explicitly to His Resurrection. The doctrine of the
Holy Trinity is clearly emphasised. We come upon the
foUowing passages, for instance, in our letter : " As God
liveth and Jesus Christ liveth, and the Holy Ghost (Who
are) the faith and hope of the Elect " (c. 58), and " Have
we not one God and one Christ and one Spirit of Grace that
was shed upon us ? " (c. 46).
The Divinity of Christ is even asserted by Clement in
terms which the more guarded theologians of the fourth
century would have §hrunk from using, for fear of being
charged with Patripassian errors.*
These are only great landmarks in Clement's famous
writing; but the letter shows how deeply saturated was the
writer with the doctrinal teaching of the more important
Epistles of Paul to the Romans and Corinthians, as weU as
with the Catholic truths set out in several of the smaUer
Epistles, notably in that to the Ephesians. He was equaUy
at home too with Peter's first and weightier Epistle, and
also with that of James ; the Epistle to the Hebrews, its
thoughts and even its language, were evidently so famiUar
to Clement that many ancient scholars attributed the author
ship of that great letter to him. To sum up, he is a
powerful witness to the unity, to the oneness of the teaching
of the primitive Church; never divided, as some modem
critics love to assert, into schools of which the honoured
names of Peter and Paul and James were respectively the
watchwords. The witness of the letter of Clement to the inner life
of the Christian community of Rome at the end of the first
century has been wonderfiiUy enriched by an unexpected
discovery in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
The Epistle of S. Clement of Rome was first published
* The passage referred to occurs in the second section of the letter, when if
the reading deliberately preferred by Bishop Lightfoot (with Harnack) be adopted
Clement would be speaking of the " sufferings of God" (ra 7ro84^oTo outoS), the
antecedent to airoS being "God." This language is found not unfrequently in
early writers, e.g. Ignatius, several times ; in Melito of Sardis, in Tatian, and in
the " Testament of the XII. Patriarchs," and in various places in Tertullian, with
which Acts XX. 28 may be compared.

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FACSIMILE OF A PAGE FROM CODEX A,"
CONTAINING A PORTION OF CC. XVI. AND XVII., ETC., OF THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT.
Presented to Cliarles 1. by the Patriarch, C\ril Lucar; now in the British Mnseiini.

THE GHUBGH IN BOME AFTEB NEBO. 71
about two centuries and a half ago from a precious MS.
presented to King Charles I. by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch,
first of Alexandria and subsequently of Constantinople, and
brought to England in the year 1628. It is now in the
British Museum, and is known as " A." It contained originally
the Old and New Testaments, but has been mutilated. The
MS. was written as far back as the fourth century, or
possibly a little later in the fifth century. The letter of
Clement*' stands at the end of the New Testament, in
this MS., which until the last few years was the only exist
ing MS. of our letter, and just at the end a page was wanting.
In the year 1875 the letter was published by Bryennios,
Metropolitan of Serrae, from a MS. lately discovered in the
library of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople. In this
MS. the long lost page existed. Very shortly after a Syrian
MS. was unearthed, also containing the letter with the
lost page. We therefore now possess the whole of Clement's
writing. The recovered page contains a beautiful and striking
prayer of considerable length, occupying above seventy lines
of an ordinary octavo page. It is a kind of htany, opening
with an elaborate invocation of God; then comes an inter
cession for wanderers, hungry ones, captives, etc. These
intercessions are followed by a general confession of sins
and prayer for pardon and Divine help. It is in the course
of this long litany and prayer that the remarkable sentences
occur to which reference has been already made, which
indicate the attitude assumed by the suffering and persecuted
Christians towards the Emperor and his Government.
Bishop Lightfoot of Durham draws the following con
clusions from this prayer of Clement :
"What then shall we say of this litany ? Has S. Clement in
troduced into his epistle a portion of a fixed form of words
then in use in the Eoman Church ? " He thus answers
his question : " There was at this time no authoritative
* There is a second letter of Clement following the " first " in the MS.,
but as it is not considered by scholars as a writing of Clement, we have not
noticed it here.

72 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
written liturgy in use in the Church of Kome, but the
prayers were modified at the discretion of the officiating
minister. Under the dictation of habit and experience, how
ever, these prayers were gradually assuming a fixed form. . .
As the chief pastor of the Roman Church would be the
main instrument in thus moulding the liturgy, the prayers,
without actually being written down, would assume in his
mind a fixity as time went on. When, therefore, at the
close of his epistle he asks his readers to fall on their knees,
and lay down their jealousies and disputes at the footstool
of grace, his language naturally runs into those measured
cadences which his ministrations in the Church had rendered
habitual with him when dealing with such a subject. . .
It has all the appearance of a fixed form."*
The deduction which must be drawn from the presence
of this " memory " of what was evidently a public hturgy, is
that before the end of the first century there were fixed
forms of prayer ; if not written, certainly committed to
memory, and used in the religious assemblies of the Church
in Rome. Before Clement, the disciple of Peter and Paul,
had passed away, the Roman Church, with its wide alms
giving by no means confined to the members of the
metropolitan Church, its government, its forms of service,
its authoritative teaching in all fundamental articles of
doctrine, evidently had already been carefully organised.
The especially reverent care for the bodies of the faithful
departed was a great feature among the Christians of the
first three centuries. We shall a httle later discuss and
illustrate this anxious solicitude of Christians for their dead,
when we come to speak of the cemeteries or catacombs.
Already, however, in the days of Clement's episcopate, and
even earlier, we have proofs of this care and sohcitude.
Late investigations have clearly identified the catacombs

* Nor is it only in the lately recovered page of the letter of Clement
that memories of a weU-known and often repeated liturgy are discernible.
In ¦various portions of the writing, bits of solemn prayers evidently used in
the congregation are woven into the tapestry of this most ancient letter of
the Bishop and community of Eome to the Corinthian Christian community.

THE GHUBGH IN BOME AFTEB NEBO. 73
on the Via Ardeatina, hard by the well-known Appian Way,
as the cemetery of Domitilla. This cemetery was made upon
and beneath the estate of Flavia DomitiUa, the kinswoman
of Domitian, whose husband, the former consul, suffered for
his faith in the Domitian persecution, when DomitiUa herself
was banished. The cemetery in question was one of the
earliest prepared by wealthy Roman Christians for the recep
tion of the dead members of their own family, as well as to
provide a resting place for the remains of poorer members of
the Church. Among the various pieces of identification of
the cemetery is the character of the adornment of its
sepulchral chambers, which belong unmistakably to the first
century. The cemetery of Domitilla, however, is not the
only one which clearly belongs to this very early time.
The story of Clement after he passed away came to be
invested with a mythical dignity which is without example
in the ante- Nicene Church. The events of his life have been
so strangely involved in consequence of the religious romances
which bear his name (the Clementines, etc., above referred
to) that for the most part they must remain in inextricable
confusion.* We have endeavoured to disentangle something,
separating some clear facts from the merely legendary, and
to present, mainly drawn from his own words, just a few
really historical records of this first-century leader of the
Church of the metropolis, and of his work.
A striking historical monument of Clement has recently
been brought to light. It was a custom of very early date
in the Church to build over the tomb of a saint or martyr a
little memorial chapel or oratory. This oratory is frequently
styled the "Memoria." Now Jerome, writing circa a.d. 392,
tells us how a Church or Basilica erected at Rome at the
foot of the Ccelian HiU protects (custodit) the "Memoria"
of Clement. It was, from Jerome's words, no very recent
erection. (He was writing at the close of the fourth century.)
Constantly during the centuries which foUowed the death of
Jerome, we come upon mentions of this church or basilica of
Clement. Late excavations throw much hght upon this
* Bishop Westcott of Durham, on the Canon (chap, i., section 1).

74 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
venerable relic of the famous pupil of the Apostles Peter and
Paul. It was found that three distinct buildings existed;
one erected over the other. Beneath the present church is
an earlier basilica in which the original columns are now
standing. This was the church of which Jerome writes in
the fourth century. It was built in the hoUow between the
Coehan and EsquiUne Hills. After the utter ruin of large
portions of the city, caused by the storming of Rome by
Robert Guiscard in the year 1084, the dip or hollow between
the two hills was, in part, gradually filled up by the ddbris
of the ruins of that quarter of the city, which especiaUy
suffered in that crushing calamity. As time went on, over
the old basilica, which was buried beneath the dibris in
question, arose the "new" church, which is stiU standing.
The new basilica, though it was somewhat smaller, closely
followed the lines of the old church of the age of Constantine,
that of which Jerome writes. Much of the stone and marble
furniture which had not perished was brought up and placed
in the present church, which retains more of the detaUs of
primitive church architecture (of the fourth century) than
any other buUding in Rome. Directly underneath these two
churches was found a third and yet lower building (the dis
covery was in 1858-61). This lowest edifice was partly com
posed of masonry dating back to the regal or republican
period. But what was of the highest interest in this third
building was a chamber, which the famous archasologist De
Rossi, whose researches have thrown so much light upon the
Church of the first three centuries, believes to have been the
original " Memoria " of Clement. To the west of this chamber,
with its wonderful traditions, was found another long vaulted
chapel, with an altar and other remains, showing that it was
once used for the worship of Mithras, a divinity who became,
towards the end of the second and during the third century,
a favourite and fashionable object of worship in Rome and
its neighbourhood. De Rossi thinks that this "chapel" was
once a part of the original house of Clement ; that it was
confiscated in one of the earlier persecutions and devoted to
the popular rites of Mithras ; and that, some time after the

THE GHUBGH IN BOME AFTEB NEBO. 75
peace of the Church (a.d. 313), it was restored to the Church
when a basilica (the one spoken of by Jerome) was erected
over the original little " Memoria " * of Clement.
Clement passed away circa a.d. 100, dying, it would seem,
a natural death. We do not hear anything of his martrydom
tiU about three centuries later.
The Acts of Clement are evidently fictitious, and were
probably written not Earlier than the end of the fourth
century. In these he is related to have been banished to
the Chersonese, where he suffered martjrrdom. In the ninth
century his bones were strangely discovered, brought back to
Rome, and deposited in the basilica bearing his name. That
such a translation of his "supposed" remains took place in
the pontificate of Adrian II. (a.d. 867-872) is apparently, how
ever, an authentic record.
What, then, was the " Memoria " spoken of by Jerome
centuries before? Was it a chapel, erected actually over
Clement's remains, or was it simply a little oratory com
memorative of the great Bishop ? The former would seem
more probable ; in which case the first basilica of Clement
was no doubt built over his actual tomb.
* The word "Memoria" sometimes alternates with " Confessionary," being
used to denote the small oratory or chapel built over the tomb of a martyr or saint.
Jerome's words are precise here : " Nominis ejus {i.e. Clement) memoriam usque
hodie Eomas exstructa ecclesia custodit." " A church erected at Eome preserves
to this day (or protects to this day) the memorial chapel built in his name." ( Vir.
illustr., 15.)

76

CHAPTER IV.
a JOHN AND POLYCARP.
SECTION I. — S. JOHN.
Among the first leaders of the Christian communities there
were three teachers of commanding personahty, each of the
three having his own pecuUar characteristic features. Two
of these, S. Peter and S. John, had been with the Lord during
the whole of His pubhc ministry, and had especially enjoyed
His friendship and confidence. The third, S. Paul, although
not His companion during the three years of His public
ministry, had been singled out by the Holy Spirit shortly
after the Resurrection, and set apart for a pecuhar and
important work — a work which he carried out during many
years of unresting toil with conspicuous devotion and singular
success. The career of two of these great teachers was closed, as
we have seen, about the year 67-8, in the course of the
persecution of Nero. The connection of Peter and Paul with
the Roman congi-egation was very close. There, in the
metropolis, they had spent a considerable time ; the Roman
Church in an especial way had been their care. Peter was
the traditional founder of the Church of Rome, whUe the
longest and most important of Paul's letters was addressed
to the Roman Christians. Rome was the scene of the close
of their devoted lives. While they lived there is no doubt
that the great capital of the Empire was the centre of the
fast growing religion of Jesus.
Peter and Paul passed away, however, if not together, at
all events at very nearly the same J.time, and in the same

S. JOHN AND POLYGABP. 77
fiery trial; and, after their death, the headquarters of
Christendom for a considerable period was shifted to another
centre. The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple
(a.d. 70), some three or four years after the death of the two
Apostles, for ever put an end to any claim of the Holy
City, with its undying memories, to be in any sense a
Christian centre. We must seek henceforth another spiritual
capital. When Peter and Paul were dead it was natural that the
eyes of Christians in different parts of the Roman world
should be turned to the disciple who, along with them, had
been ever looked upon as a special depository of the
Lord's teaching; in some respects less prominent than the
two who had sealed their long and faithful witness by a
death of pain and agony, but in others even their superior.
.John was some years younger than Peter and Paul, of a
nature more retiring, more contemplative. But he fiUed a
place never occupied by those two great teachers; for when
Jesus lived on earth it was well known that John was the
" Disciple whom the Master loved." The memory of that
love was ever the peculiar title to honour of the third of
the great trio who were the acknowledged leaders of the
Church of the first days; and when Peter and Paul were
no longer on earth John became indisputably the central
figure, to whom all the Brethren looked for guidance and
teaching. At the epoch of the catastrophe of Jerusalem, a.d. 70,
John was in the Island of Patmos — banished, and probably
a prisoner. But the banishment and confinement soon came
to an end when the period of comparative stillness set in
after the death of the tyrant Nero; for after a.d. 70 we
find the loved Apostle residing at Ephesus, which seems
to have been his headquarters during the thirty years which
still remained for him to live and work among men. Ephesus
therefore, and the region of Asia Minor round that important
city, must be regarded as for many years the spiritual centre
of Christendom.

78 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Others, too, of great reputation among the Christian
community were attracted to Asia Minor ; they probably
selected this populous and famous district as their home in
order to be near John. Among these, trustworthy tradition
specially mentions two brother Apostles, friends of John in
his youth, and, like him, originally fishermen of Bethsaida,
Andrew and Philip.* We learn also from the same ancient
authority of two other personal disciples of Christ in these
parts — Aristion and a second John, with whom Papias had
talked respecting the human life of the Lord and the earliest
days of the Church.
In the city of Ephesus and its neighbourhood, for some
thirty years after the deaths of Peter and Paul and the
faU of Jerusalem (a.d. 70) S. John hved, dying in extreme
old age about the last year of the first century, when the
Emperor Trajan was reigning. In this famous centre he
gathered round him many disciples, ordaining bishops and
presbyters. From very early notices we possess some
authentic traditions respecting his busy, active hfe; indeed,
the traditions of S. John, owmg no doubt to the great
prolongation of his life after the Church was firmly estab
lished and in part organised, and to his fixed residence in
the midst of a large Christian community, are more con
sistent and trustworthy than those which relate to the later
life of any other of the Apostles.
It was in this period that he revised his Apocalypse,
written in the first instance probably between a.d. 68 and 70
while in exile at Patmos. It is some such revision or
redaction by the Apostle himself to which Irenaeus most
likely refers when he mentions somewhat vaguely the end
of Domitian's reign as the period when the vision was seen.
It was, too, in this long time of comparative stiUness, when
he dwelt at Ephesus, that the fourth Gospel was put out
* Mentioned in thb Muratorian Fragment on the Canon — an authentic piece
dating from circa a.d. 170. This is quoted at some length a little farther on.
Papias specially alludes to Philip and his daughters residing at Hierapolis.
See Eus. S. E. iii., 39, v. 24. Papias was a companion of Polycarp, and
lived and wrote early in the second century. Some think, with Irenseus, that
he was himself a hearer of S. John.

S. JOHN AND POLYGABP. 79
in the form in which we now possess it. The words of the
ancient Muratorian Canon (circa a.d. 170) give the original
tradition of how the first draft of that Gospel was suggested.
The exact phraseology of this venerable fragment of early
Christian literature is peculiarly interesting.
" The fourth Gospel is (the work) of John, one of the
disciples. Being exhorted by his fellow-disciples and Bishops,
he said : ' Fast with me to-day for three days, and let us
relate to one another what shall have been revealed to each.'
The same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the
Apostles, that 'John should write down everything in his
own name, and all should certify' . . . ."
The narrative portion of the Gospel, and the great theo
logical truths enshrined in it, had doubtless often formed
part of S. John's teaching in public and in private. The
Gospel according to S. John, arranged as we now have it,
embodying as it does a summary of the great Apostle's
teaching respecting the Person and Office of the Lord, was
the result of much toil and thought, and was the great
monument of the prolonged life at Ephesus.
The Muratorian fragment above referred to proceeds to
quote John's own words in his first Epistle : " What we have
seen with our eyes and heard with our ears, and our hands
have handled, these things Ave have written unto you." He
thus declares himself to be not only an eye-witness and a
hearer, but also a recorder of aU the wonderful things of the
Lord in order.*
Any personal memories of S. John at this period are of
rare interest. Three of these are preserved to us in un
doubtedly authentic documents. Irenseus, wiiting in the last
quarter of the second century, gives us some of his memories
* The "Muratorian Fragment" was discovered in the Ambrosian Library at
Milan in a MS. of the works of Chrysostom of great antiquity. It is mutilated at
the beginning and the end, and is an unskilful translation of a letter from a lost
Greek original. It is a piece of the highest importance. Its date is shown by a
reference to Pope Pius I., and must be placed circa a.d. 170. Internal evidence
f uUy confirms its claim to this high antiquity ; and scholars generally regard it as
«, summiu-y of the opinion of the Western Church on the New Testament Canon
shortly after the middle of the second century.

80 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of his old master Polycarp. Polycarp, it must be remem
bered, was a hearer and disciple of S. John. He relates
how Polycarp used to describe to his pupils his intercourse
with John, and with the rest of those who had seen the
Lord, and how he would relate his very words.*
Another of these memories of S. John is also given us
by Irenseus, speaking again of his old master Polycarp.
"There are those who have heard him (Polycarp) tell how
John the disciple of the Lord, when he went to take a
bath at Ephesus, and when he saw Cerinthus [the famous
heretical teacher] within, rushed away from the room with
out bathing, with the words 'Let us flee lest the room
should fall in, for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is
within.'" t The old fiery spirit of the "Son of Thunder,"
Boanerges, as the Lord once termed him and his brother
long years before, still hved evidently in the old man John
One more striking memory of S. John's hfe at Ephesus
is preserved to us by Clement of Alexandria, who also
wrote about the end of the same century (the second). It
is too long for quotation, but it gives a graphic description
of a young convert to Christianity who had faUen away,
had taken to evU courses, and had become a robber. John
seeks him out in the midst of the robber horde, and
with touching reproaches wins him back again, telling the
apostate how he had found pardon for him in his prayers
at the hands of Christ. Clement relates the story, em
phatically prefacing it with the words : " Listen to a story
that is no fiction but a real history handed down, and care
fuUy preserved, respecting the Apostle John." f

SECTION II. — S. POLYCARP.
Immediately after the death of S. John, at the close of the
first century, we gather some weighty materials for the
history of the Church in the writings, undoubtedly authentic,
* Letter of Irenseus to Florinus. Eusebius, S, E., v. 20. (See p. 83 infra.)
t Irenseus, Adv. Saer., iii. 3.
X See Eusebius, S. E., iii. 23. Clem. Alex., Quis dives salv., 42.

8. JOHN AND POLYGABP. 81
which we possess of two eminent Christian teachers, both
younger contemporaries of the Apostle.
The elder of these, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, we leave
for the moment, since his famous letters are weU nigh aU that
we possess of his history.
The other, Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna and disciple of
John, occupies in the annals of early Christianity a pecuUar
and commanding position. This he owes partly to his long
and distinguished career, partly to the " Memories " preserved
to us by his great disciple Irenseus, Bishop of Lyons in Gaul
and by others; partly, of course, also, to his own interesting
Epistle to the Philippians, and to the letter written after his
death by his Smyrnaean flock to the Church of Philomelium,
containing details of his martyrdom ; both of which " pieces "
are considered by all serious critics as undoubtedly genuine.
Polycarp was born about the year 69-70. He evidently
belonged to a Christian family, and was brought up in that
district of Asia Minor where the influence of S. John was
paramount, but where other eminent Christian leaders, besides
S. John, were residing — men who had personally known the
Lord. When S. John died, Polycarp was only about thirty
years old. Irenseus teUs us he received his appointment as
Bishop of the important congregation of Smyrna from Apostles ;
and other writers, e.g. Tertullian, not much later than Irenseus,
say distinctly that he was appointed to his responsible office
by S. John himself.
At an early period of his public career (circa a.d. 107-9),
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, on his journey to his Roman
martyrdom, writes to Polycarp, already Bishop of Smyrna.
The spirit of this letter — one of the now generally acknow
ledged genuine Ignatian epistles — is what we should expect
from an old man writing to a younger one who was holding
a position of great responsibihty, and had proved himself,
in spite of his comparative youth, to be worthy of his high
and dangerous post, but who yet evidently, in the eyes of
the martyr, had faults which he might correct.
He charges his younger friend in the foUowing language :
"Vindicate thine office in all dUigence, whether in things
G

82 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
carnal or in things spiritual. Have a care for unity, than
which nothing is better. Sustain aU men, even as the Lord
sustaineth thee. Suffer all men in love, as also thou dost
. . . Ask for more wisdom than thou hast . . . The time
requireth thee, as pilots require winds, or as a storm-tossed
mariner a haven, so that it may find God ... Be sober as
God's athlete . . . stand firm as an anvil imder the stroke of
a hammer. It becomes a great athlete to endure blows and
to conquer." Of the circle of disciples and pupUs whom S. John during
his long residence at Ephesus gathered round him, Polycarp
was the most iUustrious. Indeed, after the passing away of
the loved Apostle, at an advanced age, he was perhaps one
of the most important persons in the Church.
Long years afterwards it was the dehght of the Bishop
of Smyrna to relate to his disciples and hearers what he
had heard from eye-witnesses of the Lord's earthly life; and
especially he seems to have loved to dweU on his friendship
and intercourse with John the beloved. Before Polycarp
died even unbelievers had come to look upon the venerable
Bishop of Smyrna as the Father of Christians.
Irenseus, one of the ablest of the Christian writers of the
second century, who became Bishop of Lyons in a.d. 177>
received his early instruction at the hands of Polycarp, and
in a passage in one of his writings of singular interest, gives
us a picture of his great master. It occurs in a letter to an
old comrade and feUow pupU, one Florinus, who in later
Ufe had become unhappUy famous as a heretical leader.
Irenseus is remonstrating with his old friend after his faUing
away in the foUowing terms : " These opinions, Florinus,
that I may speak without harshness, are not of sound judg
ment; these opinions are not in harmony with the Church,
but involve those adopting them in the greatest impiety
. . . these opinions the elders before us, who were also
disciples of the Apostles, did not hand down to thee. For
I saw thee, when I was still a youth in Lower Asia, in
company with Polycarp, while thou wast faring prosperously
in the royal court, and endeavouring to stand well with him

S. JOHN AND POLYGABP. 83
(Polycarp). For I distinctly remember the incidents of that
time better than events of recent occurrence ; for the lessons
received in childhood, growing with the growth of the soul,
became identified with it; so that I can describe the very
place in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he
discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and his
manner of life, and his personal appearance, and the dis
courses which he held before the people, and how he would
describe his intercourse with John and with the rest who
had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words.
And whatsoever things he had heard from them about the
Lord, and about His miracles and about His teaching, Poly
carp, as having received these from eye-witnesses of the
life of the Word, would relate altogether in accordance with
the Scripture, To these (discourses) I could listen at the
time with attention, by God's mercy which was bestowed
upon me, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart ;
and by the grace of God, I constantly ruminate upon them
faithfuUy. And I can testify in the sight of God, that if
the blessed and Apostolic elder had heard anything of this
kind " (aUuding here to the heresy of Florinus he was
writing about) "he would have cried out, and stopped his
ears, and said after his wont, ' O good God, for what times
hast Thou kept me, that I should endure such things ? '
and would even have fled from the place where he was
sitting or standing, when he heard such words. And indeed
this can be shown from his letters which he wrote to the
neighbouring Churches for their confirmation, or to certain
of the brethren for their warning and exhortation."*
Far and wide extended the work of this great early
teacher of Christianity. The flourishing and powerful Church
of Gaul, which we shaU have to speak of later as one of
the most sorely tried ' by persecution, was the daughter of
the Asian Church where Polycarp for so many years exercised
so predominant an influence. Irenseus, whom we have just
quoted, became Bishop of the important GaUican see of
Lyons in a.d. 177, in succession to the aged Pothinus, who
* Eusebius, S. E., v. 20.

84 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
suffered mart3n:dom in the persecution which raged in the
Churches of Lyons and Vienne when Marcus Antoninus
was Emperor. The circular letter from Gaul giving the
graphic account of the martyrdom of the saints of Lyons
and Vienne, so weU known to students of early Christian
literature, was addressed to the brethren in Phrygia and
" Asia," and shows how close was the link which bound the
two distant countries together. Christian Gaul, when it sent
the pathetic recital of the sufferings of its martyrs in the
arena, was assured, it writes, of the deep sympathy of the
older Christian communities.
" The veneration of Christians for Polycarp was unbounded.
His Apostolic training, his venerable age, his long hours spent
in prayer, his personal holiness, aU combined to secure him
this reverence. By the heathen, as we have noticed, he was
regarded as the ' Father of the Christians.' They singled him
out as the one man who had dethroned their gods, and
robbed them of the sacrifices and the adoration of their
worshippers. More especiaUy did he seem gifted with a
singular prescience. It was even beUeved that nothing which
he foretold ever failed of accomphshment ; but far more im
portant to the Church than his predictions of the future
were his memories of the past. In him one single link con
nected the earthly life of Christ with the close of the second
century, though five or six generations had intervened. S.
John, Polycarp, Irenseus — this was the succession which
guaranteed the continuity of the Evangelical record and of
the Apostolic teaching. The long life of S. John, foUowed
by the long life of Polycarp, had secured this result." *
Far on in his busy, beautiful life, Polycarp, then acknow
ledged, as Irenseus tells us, as the most venerable personage
in Christendom, paid a visit to Rome. There were many
subjects of information on which it was desirable that one
who had been a pupil of S. John should confer with Anicetus,
the honoured chief of the great community of Christians
resident in the metropolis of the Empire.
One of these subjects especially exercised the minds of
* Bishop Lightfoot : Ignatius and Polycarp, vol. i. 1, pp. 473-4.

8. JOHN AND POLYGABP. 86
beUevers. Christians were curiously divided on the question as
to the correct time when the Easter festival should be cele
brated. Two opinions were held; the one, for which Polycarp
pleaded the practice of S. John and of other Apostles with
whom, in his early days, he had been associated, maintained
that the Paschal Supper the evening before the Passion of
the Lord, should be celebrated after the Jewish custom on
the fourteenth day of the first (Jewish) month (Nisan) ; and
three days later, without regard to the day of the week, the
feast of the Resurrection was kept. Rome and other Western
Churches, however, held it unlawful to interrupt the fast of
the Holy Week, or to celebrate the Resurrection on any
other day than the first day of the week. Their Easter con
sequently was always on a Sunday. The Asiatic or quarto
decim,an practice, as it was termed, was advocated by Polycarp
on the authority of S. John and of the Apostles, who in then-
later lives had lived in Asia Minor. That of Rome was ad
vocated by Anicetus (Bishop of Rome) on the authority of
S. Peter and S. Paul, who had lived and taught long in the
great metropolis. Again and again this curious divergence
of opinion on the question as to the day on which the great
Church festival should be kept, cropped up and divided the
Church.* Polycarp, however, without yielding the point, did not
allow the difference in rituaUstic usage for an instant to
interfere with his cordial relations with Anicetus and the
Roman Church. And Anicetus foUowed his concihatory ex
ample and allowed Polycarp, in token of an unbroken friend
ship, to celebrate the Eucharist in his place.
Very different, however, was the procedure of the great
* The quarto deciman, or Jewish practice maintained by Polycarp and other
distinguished Christian leaders, notably by Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, in his
controversy with Victor, Bishop of Eome {circa a.d. 197), was finaUy given np by
a decision of the Council of Nicea a.d. 325, which ruled that Easter should be
kept on one and the same day throughout the Christian world, viz. on the Sunday,
the flrst day of the week. But the cycle by whioh the Easter festival was to be
calculated was not agreed upon ; hence the discrepancy in the date of the Easter
festival, which was one of the points disputed between the Church of Eome and
the ancient British Church.

86 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Asian Bishop, the pupU of S. John, during his Roman visit,
when graver questions respecting fundamental doctrine were
brought before him. He could, and did, place on one side as
comparatively unimportant, divergence in ritual and in mere
observances — for which divergence, be it noted, evidence on
both sides was aUeged. These things, thought the aged
disciple of the Apostles, should never be allowed to interfere
with the loving intercommunion of the Christian Brother
hood. But when heresy which affected the Person and Work
of the Lord was in question, Polycarp could, and did, show
himself the stern, uncompromising teacher of the truth. Let
us listen again to Irenseus' account of Polycarp here, in his
own vivid and soul-inspiring language : " And so it was with
Polycarp also, who was not only taught by Apostles and hved
in familiar intercourse with many that had seen Christ, but
also received his appointment in Asia from Apostles, as
Bishop of the Church of Smyrna; whom we too have seen
in our early years; for he survived long, and departed this
life at a very great age by a glorious and most notable
martyrdom ; having ever taught those very thiags which he
had learnt from the Apostles, which the Church hands down,
and which alone are true. To this, testimony is borne by all
the Churches in Asia, and by the successors up to the present
time," (circa a.d. 170-80) "of Polycarp, who was a much
more trustworthy and safe witness of the truth than Valen
tinus or Marcion " (famous Gnostic teachers) " and aU such
wrong-minded men. He also " (Polycarp) " when on a visit to
Rome in the days of Anicetus, converted many to the Church
of God from foUowing the aforenamed heretics, by preaching
that which he had received from the Apostles, that doctruie
and that only which was handed down by the Church as the
truth." (Here Irenseus tells the story of the horror of S. John
when he met at the bath at Ephesus the Gnostic Cerinthus.)
" Yea, and Polycarp himself, also, when Marcion on one
occasion confronted him and said : ' Do you recognise me ? '
Polycarp replied, ' Yes, yes ; I recognise the first-born of Satan.'
So great care did the Apostles and their disciples take not to

8. JOHN AND POLYGABP. 87
hold any communication even by word with any of those
who falsify the truth. As Paul also said, 'A man that is a
heretic, after a first and second admonition, avoid, knowing
that such an one is perverted and sinneth, being self-
condemned.' " *
Rome, in the middle of the second century, was the
common rendezvous of Christian teachers, orthodox and
heretical, from all countries; and Irenseus here tells us how
Polycarp, in the course of his memorable Roman visit, met
with the eminent leaders of the widespread Gnostic heresy,
and what he thought of them.
As a writer this great early Christian leader was in no way
remarkable. Polycarp was clearly inferior here to Clement of
Rome or to Ignatius. We possess of his writings but one
epistle of undoubted authenticity, addressed by him to the
PhUippian Church. The scanty reliques of our early Christian
literature include no theological treatise by him. He was
rather a man of action than of contemplation ; a great organiser ;
a devoted pastor; an unwearied shepherd of an ever-growing
and often sorely harassed flock. These were Polycarp's titles
to honour. The one solitary epistle of his which has come
down to us possesses the highest value as an undoubted
document of very early Christian literature, but as a literary
production it does not rank high. It is remarkable from the
number of its quotations from Apostles' writings. Short as it is,
it contains striking coincidences with, or plain references to,
as many as some twenty or more passages from the writings of
Paul and Peter and other documents now included in our
New Testament Canon. S. Paul especiaUy is quoted and
referred to. Polycarp mentions him by name, placing
himself on a much lower level than the revered Apostle
of the GentUes. His words here are speciaUy interesting as
an indication of the exalted estimate formed, by the responsible
Christian chiefs of the second generation, of the original band
of Apostles, among whom Paul is reckoned. Polycarp is
apologising for writing an official letter at all to the Philippian
Church ; he only ventured to do it, he says, on their " special
* Irenseus, Adv. Saer., iii. 3-4.

88 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
invitation," " For neither am I," he goes on to say, " nor is
any other like me, able to follow the wisdom of the blessed
and glorious Paul who, when he came among you" (the
Philippians) "taught face to face with the men of that day,
the word which concerneth truth, carefully and surely ; who
also, when he was absent, wrote a letter to you, into which if
you look diligently, ye shaU be able to be builded up unto
the faith given to you, which is the mother of us all."*
Very emphatically and simply does Polycarp in this httle
letter affirm the great Evangelical truth of the work of Jesus
Christ. "Let us," he says, "hold fast by our hope . . .
which is Jesus Christ, Who took up our sins in His own body
on the tree."
With great force he expresses his views of the Godhead
of the Lord Jesus. Twicet near the close of the letter he
speaks of Jesus as God. The second reference is a striking
one. " May He grant unto you a lot and portion among
His saints, and to us with you . . . who shaU beUeve on our
Lord and God Jesus Christ, and on His Father that raised
Him from the dead."
This eminent Christian teacher of the Church of the
early and middle years of the second century, in some of
the concluding words of his epistle, shows us, Uke Clement,
who wrote from Rome some twelve or fourteen years before,
how an unswerving loyalty to the Roman Govemment was
enjoined upon Christian congregations ; although part of the
same letter treated of victims of the Imperial policy, of the
martyred Paul and Ignatius, and other less known sufferers;
while in the end the writer of the loyal words himself joined
the same noble army. "Pray," wrote Polycarp (c. 12), "for
kings, and powers, and princes, and for them that persecute
you and hate you."
This sole surviving letter of Polycarp to the Philippian
Church must have been written as early as a.d. 108-10.
The end of that eamest, useful life, so long protracted, came
at last, very soon after Polycarp returned from Rome, circa
* Polycarp, Phil., 3. t Polycarp, PhiL, 12.

8. JOHN AND POLYGABP. 89
A.D. 157.* One of those many persecutions, some of them
general, some of them confined to certain localities, which
harassed Christians more or less all through the first and
second centuries, was raging in the populous district of
Asia Minor of which Smyrna was a principal centre. The
Christians of Proconsular Asia had markedly increased in
number by the middle of the second century. In that
Province, owing no doubt to the influence of the school of
S. John, of which, as we have seen, Polycarp was the most
distinguished representative, some writers even consider that
by the middle of the second century well nigh half the
population t was Christian. Fierce and uncontrollable
jealousy of the Christians was, however, now and again
excited among the Pagan inhabitants, among the many
especially who lived by the worship at the heathen shrines —
priests, tradesmen, craftsmen, and others connected with the
widespread network, partly political, partly religious, of the
ancient idolatrous cult. Such interested persons, probably
very numerous, easily fomented a popular disturbance, and
forced the Roman magistracy, often against their wUl, to
take action against the obnoxious Christians; to set in
force the State edicts which treated the members of the
Christian community as enemies of the State, and as liable
to the severest punishment. Such a state of things prevailed
at Smyrna circa a.d. 157, when the inhabitants of Asia
Minor were celebrating the great anniversary festival in
that city. A vigorous persecution of the Christians began.
Eleven of the more prominent were condemned to the wild
beasts, and suffered in the public arena. The passions of the
easily excited populace were stirred up by the bloody sight,
and the cry arose, "Death to the Atheists. Let search be
made for Polycarp their chief"
The story of the events which followed is told in simple
* In order to complete our picture of the life of this great early leader of the
Christians, for which we possess such considerable authentic details, we have passed
over a long and important stretch of time, to which we shall of course retum.
But Polycarp's life extended into the 'fifties of the second century.
t So Eenan : L'Fglise Chretienne, p. 432. This estimate is, however, probably
far too high.

90 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
pathetic language in a letter written immediately after the
tragedy by the Church of Smyrna to the Church of PhUo-
meUum, a small town with an eamest and devoted con
gregation of believers, situated some two hundred mUes or
more to the east of Smyrna on the borders of the Province
of Proconsular Asia, not far from Pisidian Antioch.
The letter of the Church of Smyrna to the Christians
of PhilomeUum is of undoubted authenticity. What has
been weU termed " the feverish and restless criticism " of
late days has failed to shake the general confidence of
scholars in its genuineness. One of the leading critics* of a
school bitterly hostile to Christianity does not hesitate to
accept it, and describes it in characteristic language: "This
beautiful piece constitutes the most ancient example known
of aU the 'Acts of Martyrdom.' It was the model which was
imitated, and which furnished the procedure and the
essential parts of this species of composition."
Polycarp — we foUow the recital in the letter to the PhUo-
mehans — when these bloody games were being played in the
Smyrna arena, had retired into the country at some distance
from the city. His whereabouts was disclosed to the
Imperial police, who proceeded to arrest the aged Bishop.
The old man might even then have escaped, but he dis
dained to fly, saying simply, "God's wiU be done.'' His
guards evidently sympathised with him. He had long been
a weU known and venerated personage in Smyrna. They
did not hurry him, but granted his request to be aUowed
to pray before accompanying them. For two hours, so says
the recital in the letter, he talked with God, remembering
in that solemn moment aU who had ever come in his way,
small and great, high and low. The officials, after he had
finished his long prayer, seated the old man on an ass, and
so brought him to the city. There the captain of the pohce
and his father met him, and taking Polycarp into their
carriage, tried to prevaU upon him to acknowledge Csesar
as "Lord," and to offer incense at his shrine, but he refused.
They conducted him into the theatre where the games
* Eenan : L^Aglise Chretienne, ch. xxiii., pp. 462-3.

8. JOHN AND POLYGAEP. 91
were being held, but the combats with wild beasts were over.
A great uproar arose as the old man was led in.
A voice, which some thought came from above, cried out,
'' Polycarp, be strong and play the man." But he needed
no such reminder. Death had no terrors for the aged
Christian "athlete." The solemn moment to him was an
intense joy and deUght. Very urgently the proconsul, who
was evidently loth to proceed to extreme measures in the
case of one so loved and venerated, urged him to avaU
himself of the easy method of deliverance provided by the
Roman Govemment ; all he had to do, said the magistrate,
was to say, " Away with the Atheists," and to swear by the
" Genius of Csesar."
Polycarp, looking up, away from the shrieking multitude
and, the ensigns of Imperial Rome, solemnly replied, "Yes,
away with Atheists." Then the proconsul thought he had
yielded. "Swear, as I have told you, Polycarp, by the genius
of the Emperor, and revUe Christ, and I wUl at once set
you free." " Revile Christ ? " repUed the brave old Bishop.
" Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He hath
done me no wrong. How can I say evil things of my King
who saved me ? "
Then the proconsul, perhaps reluctantly, announced that
Polycarp had confessed himself a Christian. The concourse
present shouted, " To the lions with him." The president ot
the games, the Asiarch PhiUp, said that would be impossible,
for the " wUd beasts " part of the great show was over. The
crowd cried, " Then burn him."
With cruel rapidity the enemies of the Christians coUected
the materials for the fire; quickly the death-pyre was heaped
up, and Polycarp, throwing aside his cloak and girdle, aUowed
himself to be bound to the stake. Then the old man
prayed, and his words were words of praise and thanksgiving,
and the wood was lighted and presently blazed up.
There is little if anything of the marvellous and super
natural in the touching, simple story. Some have thought
a Divine interposition was visible in the action of the high
wind, which wafted the flames aside, leaving the martyr in

92 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the midst, while the fire, Uke the beUying sail of a ship,
arched itself around him. But such a phenomenon* involves
no miracle ; the like has been seen in other scenes of buming.
The voice bidding Polycarp "be strong and play the man"
when he appeared before the assembly of the people in the
stadium, no doubt proceeded from one of the bystanders.
The dove which apparently issued from the wounded side
of the martyr can also be explained. A bird hastUy flying
across in the immediate neighbourhood of the sufferer, ia the
heated imagination of the bystanders could easily be con
strued as a miraculous sign. The sweet scent, as of incense,
which was said to have issued from the burning pyre, was
probably the perfume of some of the wood which was pUed
up round the stake ; especiaUy as we read how the hostUe
Jews and other enemies of the Christian hastily gathered
together timber and wood from different workshops and
baths in the city.
Indeed, the comparative absence of the supernatural in
the narrative, very different from many other records of the
death of early Christian martyrs, or even of the passions of
more recent sufferers for religion, is in itself a strong argu
ment for the genuineness of the document.
The sufferings of the noble victim were not protracted ;
when the officials saw that the fire, from one cause or other,
faUed to do its work, the officer of the arena, whose special
duty it was to despatch wounded and d3dng beasts, was sum
moned to complete the work ; he pierced the old man
with a dagger in a mortal place, and death speedily foUowed.
The Christians, the story goes on to say, were anxious to
secure the hallowed remains of their sainted Bishop, but the
Jews prevented them; and the centurion in command, to
prevent a tumult, aUowed the body to be consumed in the
tardy flames of the pyre. The bones, however, were after
wards carefully collected, and reverently interred by the
brethren. * Something of a similar kind is related to have taken place at the burn
ing of Savonarola at Florence and of Bishop Hooper at Gloucester, when the
wind for a short space of time blew aside the flames from the victim.

8. JOHN AND POLYGABP. 93
The letter which contained this simple, true account was
written to the Philomelians, who had asked for the details
of the death of the great Christian teacher whom they loved.
They were directed to circulate it among other and more
distant congregations.
This martyrdom of Polycarp and of the other Christians
at the games of Smyrna must be dated circa A.D. 157 —
when the Emperor Antoninus Pius was reigning; and is a
good instance of the deadly perils to which the worshippers
of Jesus were constantly exposed, even under the rule of the
wisest and most beneficent of Roman Emperors, during the
first three centuries of their existence as a religious sect.

94

CHAPTER V.
IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH.
Strictly speaking, our account of Ignatius should have
preceded that of Polycarp. We have dwelt first upon the
life story of the Bishop of Smyrna mainly because through
the references of contemporaries we have been enabled to
trace the whole prolonged career of one who was in his early
days directly connected with S. John.
Very different, however, are our materials for any picture
of the career of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. Here we have
scarcely anything from the very scanty references of con
temporaries to help us. The few traditions belong to a later
age and are untrustworthy. Ignatius, Uke others who hved
in the age immediately following the times when the Apostles
taught, would have been to us but the shadow of a great
name, had it not been for a httle collection of epistles of his
which have come down the stream of time ; a httle packet, so
to speak, of letters, which, in the form we now use, the most
trustworthy scholars dare to pronounce absolutely genuine.
These letters, seven* in number, but by no means long,
are of intense interest. They give us considerable insight
into the constitution of the Christian Church a very few
years after the death of S. John. Their date is clear, circa
A.D. 107-10. They also give us the opinions of a great and
responsible teacher, who learned his lessons from the hps of
* The whole seven taken together are not equal in bulk to S. Paul's two
Epistles to the Corinthians by several chapters. On the question of their un
doubted genuineness, see Appendix C in this volume ; where the question of their
authenticity is discussed at some length, and the results of the long drawn out
controversy respecting their genuineness are summarised.

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOGH. 95
Apostles, on some of the more important of the fundamental
Christian doctrines; teUing us exactly what the disciples of
Jesus thought of the Master, and said of the Master, in the
first years of the second century.
Written under the shadow of death, the buming yet care
fuUy weighed words of the writer show us also what an
earnest Christian of that early age thought of death. To one
Uke Ignatius, death seemed a friend which would bring him
at once into the company of his adored Lord. These epistles,
apart from their inestimable value as a very early piece of
doctrinal teaching, lay bare to us the thoughts of a martyr
before his passion. His words, the true expression of his
heart, have brought to thousands of devoted followers of the
Master comfort, encouragement, confidence; not only in the
awful scenes so common in the centuries of persecution, but
also in countless instances to , harassed souls in the ages of
comparative quiet which foUowed the first two hundred and
eighty years of storm and stress for the Christian communities.
His martyrdom we can place with some certainty between
A.D. 107 and A.D. 110. From expressions in his letters, it
would seem that he was an old, or at least an elderly man,
when he was condemned. This would give circa a.d. 40 as
the date of his birth. He represents himself apparently as
not born of Christian parentage, but as having been converted
to Christianity in mature life. The earliest traditions unite
in representing Ignatius as the second of the Antiochene
Bishops. That he was a disciple of one of the great Apostles
all early traditions teU us, one mentioning S. Peter, another
S. John, a third S. Paul as his master. That he was an
" Apostolic " man, or in other words a pupil of the Apostles,
seems almost indisputable. That for a lengthened period
he presided over the influential and numerous congregation
of the great Syrian capital' Antioch is equally certain.
By Syrian writers, to the name Ignatius is added the
appellation Nurono, which some have supposed referred to
the town Nora or Nura in Sardinia, " Ignatius Nuraniensis " ;
but there is nothing anywhere related which would give
colour to the supposition that he was a native of Sardinia. The

96 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
appellation probably comes from the Syrian word "Nuro,"
or flame, and he would have received the name from his
passionate devotion to the Redeemer, his heart being aU
aflame for God.
The term, however, by which Ignatius is best known,
and which he uses himself in his letters, is " Theophorus,"
the God-borne; or, if the Greek word be differently accented,
the God-bearer. This name or appellation has given rise to
the favourite and beautiful story that Ignatius was the very
child whom our Lord took in His arms (S. Mark ix. 36-37).
But the striking legend was utterly unknown in early times.
Eusebius, for instance, who has much to say of the Martyr-
Bishop and his famous letters, is silent here. S. Chrysostom
besides definitely teUs us that, unlike the Apostles, Ignatius
had not seen the Lord. Another interesting explanation, but
little known, was current. This curiously relates how, when
his heart was cut into smaU pieces, the name of Christ was
inscribed in golden letters on each single piece. This fanciful
legend strangely enough reminds us of Queen Mary's words —
that when she was dead, the name of Calais would be read
engraven on her heart.* The most probable explanation of the
name is that the saint himself adopted it, as expressive of
the ideal he ever proposed to himself — one who would bear
God always in his thoughts. This assumption of a special
designation in addition to the original name, was a common
practice, of wliich there are many instances.
Of the circumstances of his arrest, trial, and condemnation
at Antioch circa A.D. 107-10, we possess no definite informa
tion beyond what the saint tells us himself in his letters.
The details contained in the " Acts of Martyrdom "t cannot
* Of. Lightfoot, Epp. of Ign., i. 1.
t The careful way, however, in which the dates and chronological notices
are given in the " Acts of Martyrdom " are among the points which have been
with some reason pressed, when the theory of an older and authentic document
underlying the " Acts " in their present form is advanced. The Antiochene
"Acts" above refei-red to are, however, the only "Acts "for whioh any plea of
genuineness cau be advanced. Many eminent scholars of an older generation,
such as Usher, Pearson, Leclero, and in our own time Allard, are persuaded
at least of a basis of truth underlying them; see, however, the conclusions
arrived at in Appendix C.

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOGH. 97
be received as authentic contemporary history. A perse
cution, which does not appear to have been general, a fierce
onslaught on the Christian community of Antioch, had
broken out, probably through some special accusations of
informers ; Ignatius, the chief pastor of the Church, was
charged with professing and teaching Christianity ; and on
confessing at once that he was a Christian was condemned
by the provincial magistrate to the wild beasts, and with
other criminals was reserved for the Imperial games at Rome.
These bloody sports in the reign of the Emperor Trajan
were on a vast scale, and included mimic battles with real
bloodshed, by sea and land, combats of men with wild
beasts, and other horrible diversions in which the Roman
populace evidently delighted, such as those mentioned in
the account above given of Nero's games in the Vatican
Gardens. A considerable supply of victims was required
for these inhuman exhibitions. To meet this need the pro
vincial governors were required to send up to Rome from
time to time criminals who had been convicted of a
capital offence ; to play, fight, and suffer in one of the
enormous amphitheatres, and to be included in the great
crowd of guilty and mnocent men and women who on
high festival occasions were " called for to make sport for
the people."
Ignatius was one of these victims. No successful general
ever journeyed Romewards — looking forward to being the prin
cipal figure in one of those proud triumphs with which the
Empire was wont to honour her successful captains — more
joyfuUy than did Ignatius in that painful journey of his
from Antioch to Rome — looking forward to being, in the eyes
of his brother Christians, the chief sufferer in the blood
stained Imperial games. His only fear was lest some Ul-
advised powerful friend of the Christians should use his
influence at the last moment, and rescue him from the
martyr's death for which he so passionately longed.
It was a long journey from Syrian Antioch to Rome.
Under the custody of a httle company of ten soldiers, he
most probably embarked at Seleucia for some CiUcian or
H

98 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
PamphyUan harbour, and from there traveUed across the
districts of Asia Minor to the Westem Coast.
At Philadelphia his escort made a halt, to which he
especially refers in his letters to the Church. From this
city he was taken to Smyrna, where again a stay was made
of some considerable duration. There the prisoner was
warmly and affectionately welcomed by the Bishop, Polycarp.
Thither also there came to visit him delegates from Ephesus
and its Church, headed by the Bishop Onesimus, and from
the Christian communities of the cities of TraUes and
Magnesia. From Smyrna the martyr wrote four of the famous
epistles which we stUl possess ; to the Churches of Ephesus,
Magnesia, and TraUes, and one, which as we shaU see was
especiaUy prized by the early Church, to the Roman com
munity. After Smyrna, the next lengthy halt was at Alexandria
Troas. At Troas the condemned Bishop wrote three more
letters. Of these letters, two were addressed to the com
munities he had visited in his painful journey — the Christians
of Philadelphia and Smyrna ; and the third, from which we
have already quoted, was speciaUy written to Polycarp, the
Bishop of Smyrna. When this letter was written he was
about to sail to Neapolis, on the European coast. From
Neapolis he was taken another stage of his long journey, to
PhiUppi But after the letters written by Ignatius at
Troas we have nothing fr-om his pen; what Uttie more we
learn of the saint comes from another source.
While at PhiUppi he had directed the brethren there to
write a letter to his own Church of Antioch, with news of
thefr captive Bishop. The PhUippian Church wrote to Poly
carp of Smyrna requesting that their letter, written accord
ing to the martyr's direction, should be conveyed to Antioch
Polycarp's reply to the PhUippians, already referred to, is
the sohtary letter which we possess of the great Bishop of
Smyrna. In it he asks for any further information they
might possess respecting the fate of Ignatius; but we have
no record of their reply.

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOGH. 99
So far for the celebrated journey of Ignatius from Antioch
to Rome we have authoritative evidence. The genuineness
of the seven letters of the martyr and of the subsequent
letter of Polycarp to the Philippians is now placed beyond
dispute. That Ignatius was taken from Philippi to Rome,
that he suffered death, exposed to wild beasts in that enormous
amphitheatre, whose vast ruins are so well known under the
name of the Colosseum, erected by the Imperial Flavian
House expressly for the bloody games in which the Romans
delighted, there is no doubt. Tradition is unanimous, here.
It will, however, be specially interesting to see what the
Antiochene " Acts of Martyrdom " relate concerning the last
hours of the martyr.
In the Appendix C the genuineness of the existing form
of the " Acts " is discussed. Bishop Lightfoot, whUe rejecting
(contrary to the opinions of some scholars) these " Acts " as a
genuine contemporary piece, considers that a residuum of a
true tradition is possibly preserved in them, some earUer
document being embodied in the recital, especially in those
parts which profess to be related by eye-witnesses. These
eye-witnesses tell us how a favourable wind carried the ship
in which Ignatius was sailing past Puteoli to the harbour of
the Romans (Ostia) too quickly for these eye-witnesses, who,
to use their own words, were "mourning over the separation
which must soon come between ourselves and this righteous
man, while he had his wish fulfiUed ; for he was eager to
depart from the world quickly, that he might hasten to
join the Lord whom he loved. Wherefore as he landed at
the port of the Romans just when the unholy sports were
nearing a close, the soldiers were vexed at the slow pace,
while the Bishop gladly obeyed them as they hurried him
forward." The witnesses of the end set out from the port at break
of day and, "as the doings of the holy martyr had already
been rumoured abroad, we were met by the brethren, who
were filled at once with fear and joy — with joy, because they
were vouchsafed the meeting with the ' God-bearer ' ; with
fear because so good a man was on the way to execution.

100 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM,
And some of them he, Ignatius, also charged to hold their
peace, when in the fervour of their zeal they said that they
would stay the people from seeking the death of the righteous
man. Having recognised these at once by the Spirit, and
having saluted all of them, he asked them to show their
genuine love, and discoursed at greater length than in his
epistle, and persuaded them not to grudge one who was
hastening to meet his Lord ; and then, all the brethren falling
on their knees, he made entreaty to the Son of God for the
Churches, for the staying of the persecutions, and for the
love of the brethren one to another, and was led away
promptly into the amphitheatre. Then forthwith he was put
into the arena in obedience to the previous order of Csesar
(the Emperor Trajan) just as the sports were drawing to a
close . . . whereupon he was thrown by these godless men to
savage beasts, and so the desire of the holy martyr Ignatius
was fulfiUed forthwith . . . that he might not be burdensome
to any of the brethren by the collection of his rehques,
according as he had already in his epistle expressed his
desfre that his own martyrdom might be, for only the
tougher part of his holy rehcs were left, and only these were
carried back to Antioch and laid in a sarcophagus. . . .
Now these things happened on the 13th before the Kalends
of January, when Sura and Senecio for the second time were
consuls among the Romans.
"Having with tears beheld these things with our own
eyes, and having watched all night long in the house, and
having often and again entreated the Lord with supphcation
on our knees to confirm the faith of us weak men after what
had passed, when we had faUen asleep for a whUe, some of
us suddenly beheld the blessed Ignatius standing by and
embracing us, while by others again he was seen praying over
us, and by others dropping with sweat, as if he were come
from a hard struggle, and were standing by the Lord's side
with much boldness and unutterable glory. And being fiUed
with joy at the sight and comparing the visions of our dreams,
after singing hymns to God, the Giver of good things, and
lauding the holy man, we have signified unto you ' both the

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOGH. 101
day and the time, that we may gather ourselves together at
the season of the martyrdom and hold communion with the
athlete and valiant martyr of Christ, who trampled the devU
under foot, and accompUshed the race of his Christian devo
tion in Christ Jesus our Lord, through Whom, and with
Whom, is the glory and power with the Father, with the
Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen ! " *
But we must dweU for a brief space upon those " seven
authentic letters " which come to us as a breath from the
very heart of the early Christian Church, telhng us some
thing of the hopes which inspired, of the fears which per
plexed, of the faith which strengthened and encouraged the
little communities of Christians, in the years which imme
diately succeeded the "passing" of S. John, the last, and
perhaps the greatest, of the Apostolic band. Those seven
letters, which have come down to us in so wonderful a
manner through the eighteen hundred years of storm and
stress, through the age of persecution, through the yet longer
ages of war and confusion — what were they ?
The whole seven taken togethet, as we have said, are
barely as long as the two Epistles to the Corinthians of S.
Paul. They are, each of them, with the exception of that
written to the Ephesians, which is of some length, but Uttie
things after aU. They cannot be termed treatises on any
definite subject ; they are not reasoned out, they bear
evidently the marks of haste and hurry. But their passionate
expressions, full of love, anxious care, burning faith, spring
evidently from the heart of the writer, and that writer no
ordinary man. He was, we see clearly, one long accus
tomed to rule, to organise, and to teach. His theological
system, to use a later term, was a definite one. His mind
was fuUy made up on the questions of the great fundamental
doctrines of Christianity, as we should expect in one who
had been the pupil of Apostles, trained by Peter or Paul
or John, not improbably a hearer of each of these disciples
of the Lord.
There is a certain sameness in five of the seven epistles,
* Acts of Martyrdom of S. Ignatius (the so-called Antiochene Acts), 5, 6, 7.

102 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
viz. those written to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians,
Philadelphians, and Smyrnseans. That addressed to Polycarp
is, as might be expected, more personal in its character.
The letter to the Romans is quite different from the other
six. It is almost wholly taken up with thoughts connected
with his martyrdom. In many respects it is the most
remarkable and interesting of the seven, and has enjoyed
by far the widest popularity.
To go a little farther into detail, in the five above
alluded to as being cast somewhat in the same mould
the Churches addressed are solemnly warned to beware of
heresy, of false doctrine. And the special error, which
evidently gave the great teacher uneasiness lest the pure
faith of the communities should be endangered, was a
strange wandering from the original EvangeUc teaching
respecting the Person of Christ. In theological language
the heresy against which Ignatius warns his readers is termed
"Docetism," a heresy which questioned the reality of Christ's
humanity, of His actual birth and Ufe and death in the
flesh, maintainiog that " the body with which Christ seemed
to be clothed was a phantom, and that a,ll his actions were
only in appearances."
" Docetism " is a danger which has long passed away ;
to us it is but " the shadow of smoke, is the dream of a
dream " ; yet all the writings which have come to us from
the teachers of the second century show us that in those
early days this curious error constituted a very real peril to
Christianity. Strong anti-Docetic statements are repeated
in similar language in five of the epistles, such as "Jesus
Christ . . . who was truly born and ate and drank, was
truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified
and died in the -sight of those in heaven, and those on earth,
and those under the earth, moreover, was truly raised from
the death. . . . But if it were, as certain persons, who are
godless, that is unbeUevers, say, that He suffered only in
semblance . . . why am I in bonds ? and why also do I
desire to fight with wUd beasts ? So I die in vain ! Truly
then I Ue against the Lord. . . . Shun ye, therefore, those

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOGH. 103
vUe offshoots that gender a deadly fruit, whereof if a man
taste forthwith he dieth. For these men are not the
Father's planting." (Ep. to the TraUians, 9, 10, 11.)
And again, " I know and beheve that He was in the
flesh even after the Resurrection; and when He came to
Peter and his company He said unto them, 'Lay hold and
handle me, and see that I am not a demon without a body,'
and straightway they touched him and they beUeved."
(Ep. to the Smyrnseans, 3.)
But besides the reality of the Passion of the Lord, on
which, in view of the heretical suggestions of the Docetic
teachers, Ignatius laid so much stress, the great Bishop, in
five of his seven letters, was peculiarly urgent in pressing
home the supreme necessity for ecclesiastical order, which he
considered as the great bulwark against doctrinal errors.
None of the eminent Church teachers in any age has so
persistently advocated the authority of the threefold ministry
as has Ignatius. In the eyes of the Martyr - Bishop of
Antioch, who was the first authoritative mouthpiece of the
Church after the passing away of S. John, the threefold
ministry of bishops^ priests, and deacons was, to use the
words of his latest scholarly biographer, " the husk, the shell,
which protects the precious kernel of the truth." So repeated
and so urgent were his charges here, that it is difficult in a
brief summary to select from the letters even the more telhng.
" It becometh you," he writes to the Ephesians, " to run in
harmony with the mind of the bishop ... for your honour
able presbytery, which is worthy of God, is attuned to the
bishop, even as its strings to a lyre."
To the Magnesians : " As the Lord did nothing without
the Father (being united with Him), either by Himself or
by the Apostles, so neither do you anything without the
bishop and the presbyters."
To the Philadelphians : " I cried out, when I was among
you, I spake with a loud voice, with God's own voice — Give
you heed to the bishop, and the presbytery and the deacons."
To the Smyrnseans: "Let that be held a valid Eucharist,
which is under the bishop, or one to whom he shaU have

lOi EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
committed it. It is not lawful, apart from the bishop, either
to baptise, or to hold a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall
approve, this is well pleasing also to God, that everything
which you shall do may be safe and vahd."
And these, we must remember, are only a few quotations
from a number of like sayings in the letters. Well might
reformers like Calvin, who, no doubt largely owing to the
force of circumstances, had adopted Presbyterianism, and,
later, our Enghsh Milton, impugn the authenticity of the
Ignatian letters. This they did, as is weU known, in language
of reckless invective ; for if the seven famous Ignatian epistles
were accepted as genuine, it would foUow that the form of
Church government adopted by the advocates of Presby
terianism was absolutely at variance with the Church order
generaUy recognised circa A.D. 100-10, and so strongly com
mended by one of the most honoured and revered of the
Church teachers and leaders of that age.
Of the genuineness and authenticity of the seven letters,
from which the above quotations are taken, and in which
many simUar passages to those quoted above occur, there is
no longer any room for doubt.
But among the seven there is one letter in which neither
is heresy combated, nor the necessity of ecclesiastical order
enjoined. In the epistle to the Romans the writer had in
mind another object — his coming martyrdom. It is coloured
with his hopes, his fears, his outlook. His hopes are all
centred in the glorious agony which lay before him; his fears
are summed up in a strange, nervous dread that he might
never, owing to some mistaken kindness of friends, or through
the pity of his enemies, attain to that goal of martyrdom he
so passionately longed to reach ; his gaze was dfrected alone
to the other world, where he would meet his loved Lord face
to face. It was, indeed, a strange, wonderful letter. He looked
forward to the supreme hour of the arena, feeling that the
great example he hoped to set would be a help to the cause
he loved with his whole soul. If only they would keep sUence
and leave him alone to die, he would be " a word of God,

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOGH. 105
instead of a mere cry." He shrank from no suffering, fully
realising what lay before him in that dread arena. "Let me,"
was his passionate utterance, "be given to the wild beasts;
for through them can I attain unto God. I am God's wheat,
and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be
found the pure bread (of Christ) ; rather entice the wild
beasts, that they may become my sepulchre, and may leave
no part of my body behind. ... It is good for me to die
for Jesus Christ rather than to reign over the farthest bounds
of the earth. Him I seek Who died on our behalf. Him I
desire Who rose again (for our sakes)." Cunious, indeed, was
his fear lest his Roman friends, through a mistaken kindness,
a too officious zeal, should obtain a reversal of his awful
sentence. To Ignatius death was life, and Ufe, as we com
monly understand it, was death. "Do not hioder me," he
pleaded, " from living " (as he understood living), " do not
desire my death, . . . suffer me to receive the pure light ;
when I am come thither, then I shall be a man : let me
be an imitator of the Passion of my God. . . . Never shaU
I find an opportunity such as this to attain unto God. . . .
I dread your very love, lest it do me an injury. . . . Come
fire and cross and grapplings with wild beasts, cuttings and
manghngs, wrenchings of bones, hacking of limbs, crushings
of my whole body, come cruel tortures of the devils to assaU
me — only be it mine to attain unto Jesus Christ." Much
more like this is to be found in this strange letter. It is all
one passionate longing cry for martyrdom.
Very striking was the effect of this epistle of Ignatius
to the Romans. It crystaUised in words, so to speak, the
spirit of the early Church in the face of death, that spfrit
which so dismayed, disturbed, made anxious great Pagan
statesmen like the Emperor Marcus. Men reaUsed that the
feeling which despised death, the feeling so strikingly and
so early voiced by Ignatius, was thoroughly earnest, was very
real and genuine. This intense conviction that death was
life, that death would, unite them for ever to thefr Lord,
was the victory which overcame the world, which eventuaUy
swept away the old Pagan cult, and which, after two centuries

106 EAELY GHEISTIAJ^ITY AND PAGANISM.
and a half of combat, enthroned Christianity as the world's
religion. Although it is clear that the seven letters of Ignatius
enjoyed from early times a wide popularity, this epistle to
the Romans, which preached martyrdorh for the faith as
the true life, as the pure light, as the perfect discipleship,
which exalted the martyr's crown as a better prize than even
the kingdoms of the world, in this respect excelled them aU.
It appears to have been even circulated as a separate tractate.
It has been happily termed a sort of " Martyr's Manual," a
vade mecum of martyrs in subsequent ages. In the earliest
authentic contemporary records of martjTdom that we possess,
as for instance in the letter to the PhUomeUans, written from
Smyrna immediately, after the death of its great Bishop Poly
carp, circa A.D. 157, in the pathetic story, evidently compUed
by a contemporary, of the persecutions at Lyons and Vienne,
in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas at Carthage, in the
Acts of the SciUitan Martyrs, its reflection is clearly seen.
It was one of those pieces of early Christian literature which
impressed itself with strange power on the thought of the
Church of the age of persecution ; and the secret of its
widespread influence must be largely sought and found in its
language, true as it was passionate, the faithful echo of the
spirit which lived in that early Church, and was ever
whispering that for the Christian "to live was Christ, but
to die was gain " ; that while for a Christian teacher to
abide in the flesh was perhaps needful for the brethren,
yet " to depart and be with Christ was far better."

107

CHAPTER VI.
TRAJAN AND HADRIAN.
SECTION I. — PLINY AND TRAJAN.
In completing our picture of Polycarp, we have anticipated
a somewhat distant date ; since his life was a long one, and
stretched from the days of the Apostles well into the middle
of the second century. The materials for our picture were
not numerous, nor abundant, but they sufficed for our pur
pose and, what is of the highest importance, were absolutely
authentic. Now, however, we must retrace our steps, and see what
we can gather respecting the fortunes of the Church between *
the year of Ignatius' martyrdom, circa a.d. 107-10 and the
date of Polycarp's death, circa a.d. 157.
Anything like a consecutive and detailed history of the
Church during the age of persecution, especially during the
first and second centuries, is impossible. There are no con
temporary annals, no chronicles of events to assist us in such
a work. What we do possess are a few contemporary writings of
unimpeachable genuineness, and a few contemporary notes
from Pagan writers. Out of these we construct our story ; but
the writings which have come down to us are after aU but
few and fragmentary, and the notices fitful, touching only
certain years, and affecting only certain localities. StiU,
there are enough of these flashes of light amidst the dark
ness which shrouds the early years of the Church's existence
for us to form some conception of the marvellously rapid
progress of the superhuman courage and endurance, of the

108 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
widespread quiet influence, of the disciples of Jesus of
Nazareth in those far back years of the first and second
centuries. In quite the early part of the second century, when the
memory of S. John, who had only passed away some dozen
years before, was stUl fresh and vivid; in the comparatively
early days of Polycarp's long episcopate at Smyrna, just
after the long drawn out tragedy of Ignatius had been played
in the cities of Proconsular Asia and in Rome ; another and
a strong Ught is flashed upon the then condition of Chris
tianity. A light from a very different source; proceeding
from no treasured letters of a martyred Christian leader, from
no fragment of the correspondence of an early Christian
bishop which has survived the wear and tear of eighteen
centuries, from no precious memories preserved to us by an
Irenseus, or gathered up by the pious and scholarly care of
an Eusebius, but from the very heart of the Imperial Pagan
Govemment of the day
In the year 112 the younger Pliny fiUed the important
post of proprsetor or governor of the large province of
Bithynia-Pontus. This wide district, roughly speaking, in
cluded the countries of modem Asia Minor, from the coasts
which he opposite to Constantinople to a point some eighty
or more miles beyond Sinope on the Black Sea, and stretched
far into the interior to the borders of Proconsular Asia and
Galatia. Pliny was a noble Roman of high character, a
statesman and lawyer of great reputation, who enjoyed the
confidence and friendship of the Emperor Trajan, the master
of the Roman world. Trajan, whose policy to a great degree
determined the relations between Christianity and the Empfre
during well nigh the whole of the second century, ranks high
on the list of the good and great Emperors — not a long list,
alas ! This powerful sovereign in many respects has been
the object of exaggerated praise, for his life was sadly stained
by not a few dark crimes and by shameless immorahty, as
well as by his love of war and foreign conquest. But the
sharp contrast which, on the whole, his wise and far-seeing
administration presented to the tyrannical and wicked rule

TRAJAN,
From u Bust found in the Campagna, now in the British Museum.

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 109
of many of his predecessors and successors, has won him
unstinted adulation not only from Pagan but from Christian
writers. It cannot be denied, however, that his government
of the vast Roman world was just and his measures moderate,
and generaUy tending to stillness at home.
The reply of such an Emperor to his friend the Proprsetor
PUny on the attitude to be observed by the Government
towards Christians, crystallising as it did the Imperial policy
for a long period, is of the highest importance to any history
which deals with the early story of the Church.
A somewhat perplexing question had arisen in Pliny's
province. The proprsetor felt that the decision once for all
of the points at issue would have far-reaching consequences;
and therefore he wrote.' for instructions to his friend and
master, Trajan, whom he regarded, and rightly, as a very
able and far-sighted administrator. Our knowledge of the
transaction is derived from a volume in which the corre
spondence* of Pliny with Trajan is preserved.
We leam from the letter of Pliny to the Emperor that
the new religion (Christianity) had spread so widely in his
province of Bithynia, that not merely in the cities, but also
in the villages and rural districts, the temples were well-
nigh deserted and the trades connected with the elaborate
system of sacrifice were being rapidly ruined. It was evident
in Pluiy's mind that the wonderful progress of the new
religion bade fair sooner or later to upset the existing
conditions of Roman society. Ought not, then, some severe
check to be at once imposed upon a society which threatened
to bring about such disturbing influences ? From Pliny's
letter we see that the grave matter which he referred to
the Emperor had already passed through two stages. The
first stage had included a number of accusations dfrected
evidently against the more prominent adherents of the faith.
* Pliny : Fpist. ad TraJ., 96-97. This correspondence has been pronounced
by the universal verdict of scholars and critics as undoubtedly genuine. The
MIS. containing it was only brought to light circa a.d. 1500. It contains a
unique picture of provincial administration in the Empire early in the second
century.

110 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
The accused appear all without exception to have boldly
confessed their faith, and thaee the proprsetor, in accordance
with the aclmowledged and universal precedents of Roman
procedure in the case of Christianity, at once condemned to
death if they were provincials; those who were Roman
citizens he sent to Rome for the Emperor's final decision.
But there was a second stage. A further development of
the matter had taken place, in which decision on the part
of the proprsetor was not so easy or simple a matter.
Emboldened probably by the success of their first informa
tion, the informers, through the instrumentality of an
anonymous writing, denounced to the Roman govemor a
very large number of other persons aUeged to be Christians.
Further trials were the result of this information. In
this second group of trials, different from the first group
(when the accused doubtless were prominent Christians firm
and steadfast in their faith), there were some who entirely
denied that they had ever been Christians at aU ; others of
the accused, terrified at the thought of death, forthwith
recanted, offered incense before the statue of Trajan the
Emperor, and reviled Christ.
Pliny hesitated whether or not he should let such
repentant persons go scot-free without punishment, and
referred the question to the Emperor. But before the refer
ence was sent to Rome the proprsetor caused a searching inquiry
to be made into the peculiar hfe led by these Christians
who were so widely hated. Had the persons, for instance,
who had so readily when threatened with death abjured
the religion, been guilty in the exercise of their pecuhar rites,
of any of the secret crimes with which their enemies so
freely charged them, such as child-murder, cannibaUsm,
and divers dark offences against morality ? Such offences
as these, had they been committed, surely demanded some
punishment (short, perhaps, of death), even though the
offender had repented. Those who recanted were strictly
examined, and two ministrce, who occupied some official
position (deaconesses, no doubt) among the Christians, being
slaves, were interrogated under torture.

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. Ill
The results of these inquiries Pliny transmitted to the
Emperor, together with his opinion. He (Pliny) was satis
fied that these secret charges of wickedness were absolutely
without foundation. He reported that the lives led by the
professors of the unlawful religion were innocent and simple.
He transmitted, too, in his report a fairly accurate, though
somewhat meagre outline of Christian worship and Ufe
which he had gathered in the course of his searching
inquiries. The votaries of the unlawful religion were in
the habit of meeting before sunrise on a certain day, when
they used to sing hymns together in praise of Christ as God.
They had the custom, too, of binding themselves by a
solemn oath (Sacramentum) or undertaking never to commit
theft, adultery, or any breach of trust, and subsequently after
the religious service was ended they would gather together
for an, innocent repast. He concludes that this Christianity
was nothing more than a " superstitio prava immodica," a
kind of superstitious worship, utterly un-Roman; hurtful to
the State in that it inculcated a worship hostile to that
which was sanctioned by the Government, and formed an
integral part of the life led by the loyal citizens of the
Empire.* Pliny besides pointed out that in consequence of his
energetic (persecuting) measures a great improvement had
already taken place in the provinces. The gods of Rome
were now being again worshipped by crowds who had
deserted their sanctuaries, as was shown, too, by a marked
improvement, already noticeable, in the sale of the fodder
for the beasts kept for sacrifice at the heathen altars, and
thus a grave injury to lawful trades and industries which
were under the patronage of the State was in process of
being remedied.
The answer of Trajan, without replying formally to each of
Pliny's references, gives a general summary of the policy which
he desired should be pursued in the relations of the Empire
* The Eoman religion, the worship of the gods of Eome, has been accurately
described as " the expression of Eoman patriotism, the bond of Eoman unity, and
the pledge of Eoman prosperity."

112 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
to the Christian sect. First the Emperor confirms Phny's
view of the precedents heretofore followed by the State;
in the case of the accused persisting in styling himself a
Christian after due warning, the extreme penalty of death
would follow. In the various instances suggested by Pliny
which might be pleaded as supplying extenuating circum
stance, such as youth or sex, a free hand w;as left to the
magistrate. Penitence, recantation, wiUing pubUc compU
ance with the rites of the Roman religion, were in aU
cases to be deemed sufficient. An accused Christian thus
purged must at once be set at liberty. No doubt the
Emperor was here largely influenced by Pliny's strongly
expressed conviction of the innocence of the Christian hfe
and the harmless nature of the rites practised by the sect.
Then foUows a very merciful direction, which plainly
shows that the great Emperor was personaUy averse to any
new harsh persecuting measures being devised against his
Christian subjects, if by any means these could be avoided.
The governor of a province was not to search for Christians,
nor to entertain any anonymous accusations. Only in the
event of a formal accuser coming pubhcly forward must the
charge be formaUy investigated ; but in the case of the charge
being proven (and no recantation being forthcoming), the
fuU penalty must, in accordance with Roman precedent, be
inflicted. Briefly to sum up the signification of the Roman precedent
upon which Pliny acted in the case of his death sentences:
The action of Nero, a.d. 64-8, first determined the relations
of the Empire towards Christianity. From that date the
profession of the religion of Jesus Christ was iUegal, and
its votaries were liable to the penalty of death. Under
Vespasian the precedent of Nero was again considered, and
confirmed in a more definite shape. The correspondence of
PUny with Trajan, just dwelt upon, marks a third stage and
shows us how in a.d. 112-13 the question of the relations
of Christianity and the Empire was again under considera
tion. It was once more, as we shall see, considered by the
Emperor Hadrian a few years later ; who, however, scarcely

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 113
altered the line of conduct to be pursued by the magistrates
as laid down by Trajan.*
The State correspondence of the Emperor Trajan and his
friend and subordinate the Proprsetor Pliny, possesses for the
scholar a peculiar importance, as it shows what in a.d. 112
were the exact relations between the Imperial Government
and the Christian Church; indicating, too, the view which
an upright statesmen and lawyer had formed of the sect
which in so marveUous a manner had taken such rapid root
in the complex society of the Empire — a view apparently
partly endorsed by a wise and able Emperor.f For the
general student it is of yet greater interest, for it enables
him, on the evidence of a Pagan official of the highest char
acter and ability, to form an estimate of the great numbers
and general influence in an important province of the Empire

* The Church and the Roman Empire. Professor Eamsay, chapters ix.-xiv. ;
where the Imperial relations with Christianity in the flrst and second centuries are
discussed at some length.
t Professor Eamsay {Ibid., chap. x. and xi.), in the course of a long and
exhaustive analysis of Pliny's letter and the Emperor's answer, suggests that
Pliny's intention in consulting the Emperor evidently involved something more
than a desire to ascertain Trajan's views. The governor of Bythinia and
Pontus wished and hoped that the State policy towards the Christians should
be reconsidered, and he went as far as he could without directly suggesting
it to the Emperor. Attention is especially called to the striking difference in
the colour of the latter part of Pliny's letter from that observable in the first
part. The attitude of the writer is changed; the first part begins with direct
condemnation, but this passes into a question which virtuaUy asks, " Should he
punish Christians at all ? " It seems as though " the writer is desirous to have
the policy changed, and yet shrinks from seeming in any way to suggest a change."
This scarcely veiled benevolent wish on the part of Pliny evidently sprang from
the results of the searching examination he had conducted into the life and character
of the accused Christians.
The letter of Pliny, it is clear, exercised considerable influence on the Emperor,
who, while clearly regarding the proscription of Christians as a fundamental
principle of Imperial policy which he did not choose to alter, still in his reply
inaugurated a policy milder in practice that that before pursued towards the
Christians. Ramsay with great force dwells on the pleasant thought that PHny's noble,
although cautious pleading for the Christians, emanating from his sense of what
was just and right, was the deliberate work of one " whose life gives us a finer
conception than any other of the character of the Eoman gentleman under the
Empire." I

114, EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of a sect of religionists whom the official, of whose testimony
he was avaiUng himseff, distrusted and somewhat disliked.
We have already seen how in Italy, and especially in
Rome at a yet earlier date, in the year 64, the number of
Christians was very considerable ; so large that Tacitus speaks
of the Christian victims of Nero as " a great multitude." We
know, too, from the letters of Clement to the Corinthians
how that sorely tried Roman community, decimated by per
secution, had again before the first century closed become a
great power among the Christians. We dwelt on the flourish
ing churches of the populous and wealthy Proconsular Asia,
when we spoke of the seven letters of Ignatius and the work
of Polycarp ; and now we learn incidentally from the corre
spondence of a well-known provincial govemor with the
Emperor Trajan, that Christianity, before the years 112-13,
had penetrated into the more remote districts of northern
Asia Minor; and that the religion of Jesus in the provinces
of Bithynia and Pontus had taken such a hold on the masses
of the population in the villages and rural districts, as well
as in the cities, that the temples of the Roman gods were
almost deserted, and the sacrificial ritual in thefr sacred
shrines was interrupted to such an extent as to interfere
gravely with the traders, who depended largely on the sale
of victims provided for the numerous Pagan sacrifices.
Thus from these chance notices we can gather some idea
as to the progress Christianity had made — at least in those
countries which bordered upon or were adjacent to the
Mediterranean Sea — ui the eighty years which followed the
first preaching of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus by the
Apostles in Jerusalem, the city where His deadly enemies
were the ruling power.
SECTION II. — HADRIAN : FIRST PERIOD.
Some twelve years after the faraous rescript of Trajan to the
Proconsul Pliny on the subject of the treatment of Christians
formaUy accused before a State tribunal, another rescript was
issued from the Imperial chancery by Trajan's successor in

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 115
the Empire, Hadrian, on the same subject. The evidence for
the genuineness of this second rescript has been carefully
sifted, and the opinion of most competent scholars* is
practically unanimous in pronouncing it an authentic docu
ment. It is quoted in full by Justin Martyr in his first
" Apology " addressed circa a.d. 140-5 to the Emperor Antoninus
Pius ; and it is mentioned by Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in
his Apology addressed to Marcus Aurelius some thirty years
later. The occasion which called forth Hadrian's rescript was a
letter addressed to the Emperor by Silvanus Granianus, pro
consul of Asia, dwelling upon the injustice of yielding to
popular clamour and condemning Christians who were guUty
of no crime, simply because they were Christians, on the
information of irresponsible and prejudiced informers ; similar
remonstrances seem to have been made by other provincial
governors to Hadrian. The letter of Granianus was written
circa A.D. 123-4, and the Emperor's reply was sent in the
foUowing year to Minucius Fundanus, who had succeeded
Granianus in the government of the province of Asia. It
would seem on first thoughts that there was scarcely occasion
for any provincial govemor to consult the Emperor anew on
a question which had been definitely settled about twelve
years before by Trajan's rescript addressed to Pliny. But in
truth the situation had considerably changed in the interval.
The Christian communities were steadily increasing; popular
jealousy and discontent had grown too ; and in some
districts the popular unrest had evidently attained to dis
turbing proportions. It is clear, also, that some of the more
just and generous among the Roman magistrates were grieved
at having to yield to a popular clamour which caUed upon
them to persecute and to harry innocent, law-abiding persons.
Hence their fresh inquiries addressed to the Emperor to
learn his will in the matter. The Emperor Hadrian — whose
character will be presently briefly discussed — "the Olympian
god who roamed over the Empire looking into every religion,
* So Mommsen, Lightfoot, Eamsay, Allard, who all agree as to its absolute
genuineness.

116 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
initiated into various mysteries, was quite alive to the fact
that the State religion was probably a sham,* and looked
at as a religion was a failure ; but he knew also that it was
the keystone of the Imperial policy, and he could not, or
would not, face the task of altering it. He leaves the
religious question quite open, and lets the religious sects
fight it out for him to watch. In this ordinance about a
religion, he never alludes to the idea of religion. No other
person could have written such a rescript, and without any
evidence we might have identified it as Hadrian's."
The Imperial document followed pretty closely the rescript
of Trajan, but it changed some of the directions, and the
changes were on the Unes suggested by the proconsul to
whose query it was the formal reply. So far it improved the
position of the Christians. It required, in the case of a
Christian prosecution, definite evidence, and further it ordered
that if the prosecutor failed to prove his case he should be
exposed to severe punishment. The whole rescript was
studiously vague, leaving much to the magistrate's discretion.
The original principle, however, was still left in Hadrian's
rescript, viz. that if the governor was satisfied that the accused
was a Christian, his plain duty was at once to direct his
execution. StUl the discouragement of mere popular clamour, and
the severe penalty to which an informer might be subjected
if his accusation could not be clearly proven, for a time
made the position of the followers of Jesus ia the Empire
more tolerable, especially in those provinces where a just
and generous governor bore sway. It seems probable that at
one period of Hadrian's reign the mind of the Emperor was
somewhat influenced in their favour. But the gleam of
Imperial favour was, as we shaU see, but transitory.
It will be worth while to give a brief sketch of the career
and character of this master of the Roman world from
* Prof. Eamsay, The Church and the Roman Empire, chap. xiv. Thia
epithet (" a sham "), in the opinion of the writer of this history, is too strong
a one. It is doubtful if the Emperors who followed Augustus looked upon the
religion of Rome as a " sham." This is discussed later in Chapter V.

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 117
A.D. 117 to A.D. 138; twenty-one of those momentous years
when the foundation stories of the Christian Church were
being laid in all the provinces of the Empire by the early
builders — with much anxiety, often in suffering, but always
in sure hope. Hadrian in many respects was a typical
Roman of the highest class ; and his conduct towards the
Christian sect, which in his days had afready expanded into
a somewhat important community in the Empire, was a
fair example of the general poUcy of the Imperial chancery
in its dealings with Christians all through those years of
the second century when a kindly, weU-disposed Emperor
was on the throne. How quickly, without apparent provo
cation, the benevolent, kindly feeling which showed itself
in a partial toleration of an unlawful religion, which it
must be remembered Christianity ever was, could change
for the worse, is shown in the harsh persecuting policy which
broke out in the closing years of this Emperor's reign.
Hadrian, a favourite and highly trusted relation of
Trajan, was only formally adopted as his successor to the
Empire in the last hours of the great Emperor's life ; and
some even doubt if this formal adoption was not rather the
work of Trajan's wife, the Empress Plotina, than of Trajan
himself There was no real opposition, however, to his succession,
and his reign was singularly free from all plots and rebelUons.
We except, of course, the great Jewish revolt which happened
far on in the peaceful and prosperous reign. Hadrian was
an exceptionally briUiant genius; comparatively Uttie has
come down to us from Pagan chronicles respecting his inner
life, but we are told that he was at once painter and sculptor,
musician, poet, and grammarian. The number of cities
which bear his name in different provinces of the Empire
demonstrate the truth of the assertion that he was an
enthusiastic builder ; an antiquarian, too, who prided himself
on his genius for research. After making all allowances for
the too flattering estimate of his abilities, which naturally
would be made by the contemporaries of an aU-powerful
sovereign, there is no doubt of the real powers of the Emperor

118 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM,
Hadrian, powers which he loved to exercise generaUy for
the public weal. His government was distinguished by
innumerable acts of public munificence; countless cities
were beautified and adorned by such works of utility as
aqueducts and baths. History relates how other great
princes in different ages spent a considerable portion of
their lives in travel. But whUe the distant foreign expedi
tions of Alexander the Great and Csesar, of Charlemagne
and Saint Louis, of Charles V. and the great Napoleon,
were solely for the purposes of war, the Emperor Hadrian
is, perhaps, the solitary example recorded in history of a
sovereign spending fifteen years in visitmg his vast dominions
solely in the interests of peace. Memorials of this strange
reign of Imperial travel can be traced in Britain, Gaul,
Africa, Egypt, and those wide provinces of Asia which in
the great days of ItaUan supremacy were under the rule
of Rome. His character was made up of strange and startling con
trasts. Usually almost an ascetic in the rigorous plainness
of his private repasts, he was famous, too, in that age of
self-indulgence and luxury for the wUd excesses of his public
banquets. Again, he prided himseff on his knowledge of
philosophy and his powers of philosophic argument, and yet
we find him dabbling in occult and hidden mysteries, fiUing
the position of high Pontiff as weU as of an Arval brother,
of one who was initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis and
the secrets of the life to come.*
Hadrian was the author and inspirer of much wise and
benevolent legislation; more especially the sad lot of the vast
* If the well-known lines on the fate of the soul after death with which
Hadrian is credited, were written by him in his last days, he had gathered
surely but little comfort from his Eleusinian teachers.
" Animula, vagnla, blandula
Comes hospesque corporis
QuiE nunc abibis in loca f
Pallitlula frigida nudula
Nec ut soles, dabis jocos."
Tet he once was very near those who could have given an answer to his
question.

HADRIAN.
In the British Museum.

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 119
slave class, the curse of Rome, was sensibly ameliorated by
his wise and merciful laws ; yet the sovereign's private life
was disfigured with shameless, even with nameless, immorality.
Again, it is difficult to pronounce whether or no mercy or
cruelty were the special features of Hadrian's complex character.
The assassination of prominent personages who might have
proved formidable competitors for the purple at the outset
of his reign shocked and dismayed Rome, and at first fears
were entertained in the metropolis that the age of the
tyranny of a Nero or a Domitian was about to be repeated.
But many years of a comparatively gentle and just rule
foUowed this first burst of reckless bloodshed, and the early
cruelties which disfigured the beginnings of his rule were
in time forgotten. Then in the last years of his briUiant
reign the cruel spirit seemed once more to awaken in the
failing Emperor, circa a.d. 134—5, or a little earlier. The
shock of the Jewish war and its dreadful slaughter ; failure
of strength, accompanied with ever increasing pain and
weariness; have been pleaded as excuses for this changed
and sombre spirit which overshadowed the three or four
years preceding the Emperor's death. A long list of pro
scriptions in which some of the noblest of the Romans
perished, among whom some of his own kinsfolk were included,
alarmed and disturbed the public mind; no one was safe
from the jealous suspicions of the sick tyrant, to whose
insane and baseless terrors the highest and the lowest in
their turn would fall victims. It was a melancholy close
to a very brilliant and generally prosperous rule. His many
good deeds were completely forgotten in the gloomy reign
of terror of the closing years, and he passed away amidst
the execrations of the people over whom he had long ruled
wisely and well. The Senate even wrote publicly to condemn
his memory, and would have indignantly refused to grant
him the usual posthumous divine honours paid to a dead
Emperor, had not the devoted piety of his adopted successor,
known in history as Antoninus Pius, disarmed thefr wrath,
and induced them very reluctantly to give him his place
among the gods of Rome.

120 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
It was during this melancholy period that his conduct
towards the Christians completely changed, and the bitter
persecution of which we shall presently speak was dfrected
against those quiet and ever loyal subjects of the Empire ;
adding not a few to the long list of martyrs and confessors
of the faith, some of whose names have been preserved in
the Church's Martyrologies.

SECTION III. — HADRIAN: THE TRAGEDY OF THE JEWS.
It was in the reign of Hadrian that the final expatriation
of the Jews from Jerusalem and its neighbourhood took
place, under circumstances accompanied with the most awful
bloodshed. The story of the Jews for a hundred years after the
tragedy of Golgotha is one of the saddest in history. Three
times the passionate hatred of the race flamed out in open
revolt against their Roman conquerors and oppressors. The
numbers who perished in these Jewish wars are possibly
exaggerated, but there is no doubt that they must be counted
at least by tens of thousands.
The great and crowning victory of Titus and the destruction
ol the Temple and part of the city in a.d. 70, with its frightful
carnage, did not prove sufficient to break the stubborn spirit
of resistance. In the reign of Trajan a grave revolt took
place, and spread over Cyprus, part of Egypt, and North
Africa. This was got under ; but a far more formidable
rebelUon stained the latter years of the comparatively peaceful
period of Hadrian with Uteral torrents of blood. The scene
of this last insurrection was Judsea, and especiaUy the im
mediate neighbourhood of the desecrated holy city. In this
revolt or rebeUion the danger to the Empire was considered
so grave that Hadrian summoned from distant Britain Julius
Severus, who was reputed to be the ablest of his generals,
and appointed him as commander of the Roman army of
Judsea. The fierce war — a war not merely waged for national
independence, but further embittered by the burning desire

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 121
to rescue their holiest Hebrew sanctuary from Pagan dese
cration — was protracted for a considerable period. In its
course, fifty strongholds Avere stormed, nine hundred and
eighty-five cities ahd villages were razed to the ground, five
hundred and eighty thousand persons are said to have perished
by the sword, by famine, or by pestilence. So say the chroniclers
of this deadly struggle, who have probably somewhat exag
gerated the numbers of cities razed and strongholds destroyed.
What remained of the holy city, already partially overthrown
by Titus, was leveUed to the ground. The site of the Temple
was symbolically sown with salt, and a new Pagan city arose
on the site of the loved Zion, under the new name of .^lia,
with its Roman theatre, its baths, and its temples ; the image
of the Emperor being erected side by side Avith that of
Jupiter Capitolinus. The Jew was forbidden ever to enter
the new Pagan city ; only once a year was he suffered to
come near, that he might weep and mourn over the grave
of his vanished hopes. In the Jewish liturgies the memory
of their last and crushing desolation was preserved by solemn
prayers, when on the anniversary of the victory of Hadrian
the Lord of Hosts was supplicated to punish this second
Nebuchadnezzar, who was said to have destroyed four hundred
and eighty synagogues of the chosen people.
The result of this final and complete destruction of
Jerusalem, and desolation of the Holy Land, was far-reaching
in its effects upon Christianity. The last Unk in the connection
of the Church and the Synagogue was now snapped. The link
in question had been the Jewish-Christian community of
Jerusalem. Dating from the days of the Apostles, the Church
of Jerusalem had ever been presided over by one who Avas a
Jew by birth. The community still exacted circumcision from
its members ; it observed the Jewish fasts and feasts, while
at the same time it taught faithfuUy the fundamental Christian
doctrines. The Church of Jerusalem was respected and
venerated throughout Christendom as the Church which not
only owed its foundation to the Apostles, but was sanctffied
by the blood of the first martyr. To the JeA^ish convert it
was especially dear, as it still practised the rites and ceremonies

122 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of the chosen race. But after the war of Hadrian, the Jew of
Palestine was for ever banished from the scenes of the old
Hebrew glories, and the Christian Church of the Circumcision
from henceforth virtually ceased to exist ; Avhat remained of it
was soon incorporated with other foreign Gentile communities,
but there Avas no longer a Jewish centre in Christendom.
A strange anomaly, however, here presents itseff to the
historian of the early Christian Church, and one that must
be at all events briefly dwelt upon, as it tells us something
of the position of Christians in the second and third cen
turies in the Pagan world of Rome. It discloses something
of the feelings generally entertained towards them by the
Roman Government. It helps to explain some of the causes
of the repeated persecutions which harassed the Church
during the first two hundred and eighty years of its existence.
The Jew was the bitterest, the most stubborn foe the
Roman ever encountered. Three formidable revolts against
the Roman rule in the times of Titus, Trajan, and Hadrian,
had to be put down at an enormous expense of blood and
treasure : on a smaller scale — for their powers of resistance
had been weU-nigh stamped out — the Jews rose again ia
rebellion in the course of the reigns of both the Antonines
and of Septimius Severus ; and yet, strangely enough, we
never find them prevented from worshipping in accordance
Avith their especial tenets, during or after their repeated
and serious insurrections. The Jewish race, after aU its
unheard-of calamities, still continued to exist, if it did not
flourish, and few indeed were the Roman centres of popula
tion in the second and third centuries Avithout a Jewish
synagogue. Contrary to all the ordinary laws of history its
extraordinary vitality preserved it from extinction, apparently
even from diminution of its numbers ; for after the fear
ful war of extermination under the lieutenants of Hadrian A7e
still find the Jcav in such centres as Rome, Alexandria, or.
Carthage, Uving and trading much as before the tremendous
calamities. Nor Avas he persecuted. Unhindered, he went
to the synagogue, openly he practised aU the observances of
his cherished religion. Later we even find the Emperor

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 123
Severus specially sanctioning the assumption of municipal
offices by the Jews, and certainly in their case formally
dispensing with the ordinary Roman religious rites which
invariably formed part of the ceremonies attached to such offices.
We never hear of a Jew being haled before a magistrate on
account of the religion which it was well known he professed,
never of his being requfred to swear by the " Genius of Caesar,"
or to scatter grains of incense on the altar of a Pagan deity.
On the other hand the Christian — against whom no
charge of disloyalty to Csesar Avas ever advanced, who in
Rome, as in the most remote provinces, was ever the strict
laAv-abiding citizen, who never shared in any risuig or
rebellion against the Emperor or the constituted powers of
the State — during the two hundred and eighty years
which followed the Resurrection;* of the Master, lived with
a sword ever suspen(^d by a very slender strand above his
head in a state of perpetual outlawry, with the sentence of
condemnation ever ready to be launched against him, with
the hideous penalty of a cruel death prepared to be exacted
of him ; a sentence and a penalty only temporarily suspended
at certain periods of careless toleration or of fitful generosity.
What was the secret of this strange contrast between the
behaviour of the Roman authorities in aU the provinces of
the great Empire in the case of the turbulent Jew, and their
behaAriour in the case of the patient, law-abiding Christian ?
The truth was that the Imperial Government, when
¦"once the Hebrew nationality was destroyed, ceased altogether
to fear the Jews. They seemed but the poor remnant of a
vanquished nation, interesting noAv rather than formidable,
welcome always as traders, money-lenders, and the Uke, useful
especially as the bitter, irreconcUable foes of the Christian,
whom the Romans did fear, with, perhaps, an indefinable
dread. There is , no doubt whatever ' that the dominant factor in
the strange hatred of the Romans for everything connected
with Christianity was fear. The trader, it is true, often
disliked the Christian with a sordid antipathy, because he
spoUed the various markets open to him in connection with

124 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the sacrifices and ritual belonging to the gods of Rome ;
but the statesman, the serious thinker who in his heart,
not always but at times, was too conscious that the religion
of the Empire was largely unreal, had an uneasy conviction
that in the proscribed and hated faith there was real hfe
and genuine power. Those who were acquainted Avith some
thing of its wondrous story were well aware how rapidly,
in spite of the crushing disabilities under which the members
of the proscribed sect ever lived, it had gained ground, and
was ever gaining ground, not in Rome only, but in most
of the cities and provinces of the vast Empire.
There were many who, with unfeigned dismay, watched
its quiet, silent, onward march, and Avho marked well its
marveUous and ever groAving influence. Scarcely a famUy,
as the second century waned, but some member in it
belonged to the secret powerful community of Christians,
and that member — slave or mistress, freedman or master —
from the moment of becoming a Christian became also at
once the unresting, untiring emissary of the faith. No
threat seemed to terrify those Christians, no punishment,
however terrible, had any effect on them — torture and death
were welcomed rather than shunned. A superhuman energy
appeared to Uve and work in thefr ranks, an energy which
inspired with heroic courage men and women draAvn from
all classes, ages, sexes ; a princess of the Imperial house like
Domitilla in Rome, an aged teacher like Polycarp at Smyrna,
a slave girl like Blandina at Lyons, a young and cultured
lady like Perpetua at Carthage, in different Imperial reigns,
were similarly strengthened by this unearthly power which
Uved in the Christian sect.
Before such a spirit as that which inspired the humblest
votaries of the new religion, and which, as time went on,
showed no signs of weakness or exhaustion, the gods of
Rome, who were after all, as some could not help reahsing,
but a shadowy unreality, must surely in the end go doAvn.
And the long line of the great Roman statesmen who were
persuaded that the old State religion, Avith its immemorial
traditions, Avas the keystone of the Imperial policy, the pohcy

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 125
which had buUt up and was the bulwark of Rome's world-
Avide Empire, not unnaturally viewed Christianity as the
Empire's deadliest foe, an enemy Avhich must be stamped out,
destroyed — " delenda est Carthago."
This was the secret reason of the changeless policy which
persecuted the Christians whom Rome feared, whUe it spared
and even favoured the Jews, Avhom Rome in its heart despised.

SECTION IV. — CHRISTIAN LIFE UNDER HADRIAN AS PRESENTED
BY EARLY CHRISTIAN APOLOGISTS.
We have dwelt a little on the life and character of the famous
Emperor Hadrian, who certainly for the first sixteen years
of his reign very gently interpreted the Imperial precedents,
Avhich with one consent determined to regard the Christian
communities as composed of outlaws who had incurred the
extreme penalty of the Roman law. Some have even chosen
to regard Hadrian as, in one portion of his reign, positively
inclined to favour the worshippers of Jesus. The tendency of
his rescript to Minucius Fundanus, of which we have spoken,
was certainly in this direction; for it allowed a kindly pro
vincial governor effectually to discourage any attempt at
persecution. Encouraged, apparently, by the benevolent attitude of the
all-powerful master of the Roman world, two Christian scholars
ventured to approach the throne and publicly to defend the
proscribed and dreaded faith. The first of these formal
Apologies for Christianity was presented to Hadrian at the
time of one of the Imperial visits to Athens by Quadratus, who
was, some scholars think, the Quadratus distinguished for his
prophetical gifts referred to by Eusebius* as a disciple of the
Apostles. The Avork of Quadratus has not come down to us.
But Eusebius has given us from it some striking sentences
which suggest power and originality, and seem besides to imply
that the writer had been personally acquainted with some of
* S. E., iii. 37, v. 17. If, however, it is this Quadratus he must have
reached a great age when he presented his " Apology " to the Emperor.

126 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
those who had seen the Lord. The passage is a very remarkable
one, and runs as follows : " The works of our Saviour were ever
present, for they were real ; [they were] those who were healed,
those that were raised from the dead, who were seen not only
when healed and when raised, but were always present. They
remained living a long time, not only whilst our Lord was on
earth, but likewise when He had left the earth, so that some of
these have also survived even to our own times."
The other apologist, Aristides, Eusebius describes as "a
man faithfully devoted to the religion we profess." Like
Quadratus, he has left to posterity a defence of the faith,
addressed to the Emperor Hadrian. "Their works," says the
historian, " are also preserved by a great number, even to the
present day" (i.e. the first half of the fourth century). The
"Apology" of Aristides was for ages among the lost works of early
Christianity, and Avas only quite lately re-discovered in part and
published, in an Armenian version, by the learned Armenians
of the Lazarist monastery at Venice. Since then, in the year 1889,
a Syriac rendering of the whole text of the long missing work
was found in the library of the Convent of S. Catherine, upon
Mount Sinai ; and in the last decade of the nineteenth century
the Greek text, with very shght modifications, Avas found to be
embedded in the famous romance of " SS. Baalaam and
Josaphat " — a writing that dates from the sixth century or
earlier, and once enjoyed an extraordinary popularity. Thus^
thanks to the research of modern scholars, one of the most
interesting of the lost early Christian writings has been restored
to us in Greek and in SjTiac, and a portion of it in Armenian.*
The " Apology " of Aristides is of singular interest to the

* Compare "The Apology of Aristides" in the Cambridge Texts and Studies
(Mr. S. Reader Harris and Canon Armitage Eobinson), 1893; and Allard, Sist.
des Persectitiotis, vol. i. iii. On the question whether the "Apology" of
Aristides was addressed to the Emperor Hadrian or to his successor, Antoninus
Pius some thirteen or fourteen j'ears later, see Texts and Studies, pp. 6-12,
and Allard, i. iii. pp. 253-4, the French scholar preferring the earUer date as
given by Eusebius and Jerome to the latter date in the reign of Antoninus
Pius, which is maintained in the Texts and Studies, and by Harnack and
De Eossi. Hadrian reigned a.d. 117-38 ; Antoninus Pius succeeded him in the
Empire.

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 127
historian of early Christianity ; for in the course of his argument
for the truth of the religion of Jesus, the Avriter lifts the veil
which hangs over the inner life aimed at and largely followed
by those Christian communities which had sprung mto existence
in so many of the important cities of the Empire during the
thirty or forty years Avhich foUoAved the death of S. John. We
will give some of the very words of Aristides. They are at
once simple and beautiful, and give us a unique picture of
early Christian life and conduct.*
" Now the Christians, 0 King,t by going about and
seeking, have found the truth. . . . They know and believe
in God the Maker of Heaven and earth . . . from whom
they have received those commandments Avhich they have
engraved on their minds, which they keep in the hope and
expectation of the world to come ; so that on this account
they do not commit adultery or fornication, they do not
bear false witness . . . nor covet what is not theirs, they
honour father and mother, they do good to those who are
their neighbours . . . those who grieve them they comfort,
and make them their friends, and they do good to them,
and they do good to their enemies. Their Avives, 0 King,
are pure as virgins, and their daughters modest, and their
men abstain from all unlaAvful wedlock and from all im
purity, in the hope of the recompense that is to come in
another Avorld ; but as for their servants and handmaids . . .
they persuade them to become Christians from the love
that they have towards them ; and when they have become so,
they call them Avithout distinction brethren . . . they walk
in all humility and kindness, and falsehood is not found
among them, and they love one another. From the widows
they do not turn away their countenance, and they rescue
the orphan from him who does him violence ; and he who
has gives to him who has not, and when they see the stranger
* The extracts are translated from the Syrian version of the " Apology."
See Texts and Studies, pp. 48-50 (above referred to), Cambridge, 1893.
¦f- The "King" addresssed is either the Emperor Hadrian or the Emperor
Antoninus Pius. It must be remembered that Eusebius and Jerome both explicitly
tell us that the flrst of them — Hadrian — is addressed.

128 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
they bring him to their dwellings and rejoice over him as
over a true brother . . . When one of their poor passes away
from the world, and any one of them sees him, then he
provides for his burial according to his ability ; and if they
hear that any of their number is imprisoned or oppressed
for the name of their Messiah, all of them provide for his
needs, and if it is possible that he may be delivered, they
deliver him.
"And if there is among them a man that is poor and
needy, and they have not abundance of necessaries, they fast
two or three days that they may supply the needy with
their necessary food. And they observe scrupulously the
commandments of their Messiah, they live honestly and
soberly as the Lord their God commanded them. Every
moming and at all hours, on account of the goodness of
God toward them, they praise and laud Him, and over
their food and over their drink they render Him thanks.
And ff any righteous person of their number passes away
from the world, they rejoice and give thanks to God, and
they follow his body, as if he were moving from one place
to another. And when a child is born to any one of them
they praise God, and if again it chance to die in its infancy
they praise God mightUy as for one who has passed through
the world without sins. And if again they see that one of
their number has died in his iniquity or in his sins, over
this one they weep bitterly and sigh, as over one who is
about to go to his punishment. Such is the ordinance of
the laws of the Christians, 0 King, and such their conduct.
" As men who know God, they ask from Him petitions
which are proper for Him to grant and for them to receive,
and thus they accomplish the course of their Uves. . . . And
because they acknowledge the goodnesses of God towards
them, lo ! on account of them there flows forth the beauty
that is in the world. . . . But the good deeds which they
do they do not proclaim in the ears of the multitude, and
they take care that no one shall perceive them ; they hide
their gift as he Avho has found a treasure and hides it. And
they labour to become righteous as those who expect to

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 129
see their Messiah and to receive from Him the promises
made to them with great glory. . . . But their sayings and
their ordinances, O King, and the glory of their service,
and the expectation of their recompense of reward according
to the doing of each one of them, which they expect in another
world, thou art able to know from their Avritings. . . . Truly
great and wonderful is their teaching, to him that is wilhng
to examine and understand it. . . . Take now these Avritings
and read in them, and lo ! you will find that not of myseff
have I brought these things forward, nor as their advocate
have I said them, but as I have read in thefr writings, these
things I firmly believe, and those things that are to come.
... I have no doubt that the world stands by reason of
the intercession of Christians. . . . The Christians are honest
and pious, and the truth is set before their eyes, and they
are long-suffering, and therefore while they know their
error (ie. of the Greeks, or Pagans), and are buffeted by
them, the more exceedingly do they pity them as men
who are destitute of knowledge, and in their behalf they
offer up prayers that they may be tumed from their error.
. . . Truly blessed is the race of Christians more than all men
that are upon the face of the earth. . . . Thefr teaching is the
gateway of light ; let all those then approach thereunto who
do not know God, and let them receive incorruptible words,
those (Avords) which are so always and from eternity ; let
them therefore anticipate the dread judgment which is to
come by Jesus the Messiah upon the whole race of men.
" The Apology of Aristides the philosopher is ended."
In our sketch of the inner life of the very early Church
(circa, as we think, a.d. 124-30) which we are drawing from
the picture of the life painted so vividly in this "Apology
of Aristides," we must not omit the dogmatic references.
These are, as we should expect in the circumstances (a
Pagan sovereign and his court being addressed by the
apologist), most simple and elementary in character, though
they include the more important fundamental doctrines of
Christianity. That a creed, very similar to the Apostles'
Creed, was current in these very early Christian communities,
J

130 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of which Aristides was writing, is evident; and this creed
can be without difficulty reconstructed, at any events in large
part, from the expressions used in the " Apology."
The fragments of Aristides' creed are as foUows : — *
" We believe in one God, Almighty,
Maker of Heaven and Earth,
And in Je.sus Christ, His Son,
Bom of the Virgin Mary .f
He was pierced by the Jews,
He died and was buried,
The third day He rose again,
He ascended into heaven.
He is about to come to judge."
Nothing is said about the sacraments, baptism or the eucharist.
This omission is naturaUy accounted for. The document we
are citing was simply an " apology " addressed to a Pagan
auditor; whereas, in a treatise probably older than that of
Aristides, the Didache, or " Teaching of the Apostles," Avritten
for believers, the two great sacraments in question occupy a
prominent place. In Aristides, however, the liturgical refer
ences are all of the most simple character, prayer and thanks
giving to God being alone dwelt upon ; to these several
references occur, and even detaUs as to the nature of such
prayers and thanksgiving are given — prayers for the enemies
of Christians being expressly mentioned. In close connec
tion with these general notices on prayer stands a reference
to fasting, which is aUuded to in the " Apology " as a practice
* Texts and Studies : The Apology of Aristides (S. Reader Harris), pp.
13, 19, 24, 25.
t The words of Aristides here on this article of his creed are : " The Christians
then reckon the beginning of their religion from Jesus Christ, who is named the
Son of God Most High, and it is said that Q-od came down from heaven, and from
a Hebrew virgin took and clad Himself with flesh, and in a daughter of man
there dwelt the Son of God. This is taught from that Gospel whioh a little while
ago was spoken among them as being preached, wherein if ye also will read, ye will
comprehend the power that is upon it." (Translated from the Syriac version of
the "Apology.")

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 131
observed by the communities for whom the writer was plead
ing. Such fasting is not mentioned as " ordered," or as part
of the " rule " of Christian life, but simply as a bit of generous
self-denial on the part of poor folk, who were in the habit
of " fastiag " for two or three days so as by this means to be
able to save something to provide for the needs of brethren
poorer than themselves.
Similar directions on " fasting " are given in the " Simili
tudes" of Hermas, written only a few years later in this
century, where directions are given that on the day of a
fast only bread and water (the bare necessaries of life) are
to be eaten, and the amount thereby saved is to be given
to the needy.
One curious mark of the very early date of this writing
of Aristides has been pointed out in the comparatively
friendly spirit with which the Jews are alluded to. They
are spoken of (in Section xiv.) as being "much nearer the
truth than all the peoples, in that they worship God more
exceedingly, and not His works"; in their compassionate
love for others, etc. Very different, indeed, was the feeling
of Christians towards Jews a few years later, as we see for
instance in the allusions to them in the account of the
martyrdom of Polycarp, circa a.d, 157, where the tone
adopted towards the Jews has become decidedly hostile. The
Church and the Sjmagogue evidently had not finally parted
company when the " Apology of Aristides " Avas put out.
We possess another writing which also may be classed
amoiig what are termed "Apologetics," the well known and
beautifril " Letter to Diognetus." The author is unknown.
It is evidently somewhat later than the "Apology of Aristides";
some critics, indeed, have suggested that it was a treatise
supplementary to it. It is best placed betAveen that Avriting
and the first " Apology " of Justin Martyr, its concluding
fragment being later than the earlier part. This would date
it roughly some time before the middle of the second century.
The " Letter to Diognetus " also gives us a few most
interesting and graphic pictures of the life led by these
Christians of the second century. The writer teUs us how

132 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
they conformed to the customs of the country in which they
lived ia matters of clothing, and of eating and drinking, and
while in possession, many of them, of the rights of citizens,
were yet universaUy treated as strangers. They avoided all
excesses, they lived on earth while thefr hearts were all the
time in heaven. They submitted to human laws and ordin
ances, observing them with the greatest care ; loving all men,
though persecuted by all, and condemned by those who knew
nothing about them and their lives ; they were evU-spoken
of, put to death — but death meant to them eternal lffe ; they
were hated by the Jews, persecuted by the Greeks, and yet
in spite of all they kept advancing and multiplying day by
day. The common mode of punishment to which they were
subjected, says the writer of the letter, was exposure to wild
beasts or condemnation to the flames. The epistle to
Diognetus was evidently the work of a scholar.

SECTION V. — THE PERSECUTION IN THE LAST TEARS OF HADRIAN.
We have afready alluded to the change in the feelings of
Hadrian towards the Christians in the latter part of his
reign. This change was probably occasioned by his bitter
resentment at the great JcAvish rebeUion. It was long before
the Roman was able to distinguish accurately between the
Jew and the Christian. The irreconcilable hatred of the
Jews for the Christians eventually no doubt effected this. In
Jerusalem, Hadrian's disUke of the Christians was especially
marked by his desecration of all those places venerated by all
Christians ahke. He fiUed up the depression in the little
vaUey which separates Golgotha from the Holy Sepulchre,
thus destroying the ancient landmarks and altering beyond
recognition the old aspect of the venerated spot. The cave
of the Nativity was transformed into a grotto sacred to
Adonis, while a consecrated wood and a temple of Adonis
covered the holy site of Bethlehem. On a portion of the
vast enclosure of the Holy House of Zion, once "the joy
of the Avhole earth," arose a lordly temple dedicated to

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 133
Jupiter of the Capitol. The Roman Emperor, in these sad
latter years of his brUliant life, seems to have taken a special
"interest ia dishonouring and destroying the most sacred and
revered sanctuaries of that devoted and quiet sect to whose
earnest pleadings in his earlier and noble years he had listened
v/ith seeming interest, and whose votaries he had even pro
tected under the mantle of his Imperial power.
Finally at Rome, and under the very shadow of that
enormous and fantastic palace-villa* at Tibur, then almost
a suburb of the Imperial city^to the erection of which
Hadrian the Emperor, sick alike in mind as in body, devoted
the boundless resources of the Empire — began that bitter,
cruel persecution of the Christians which darkened his closing
days. Tradition, not very copious as far as regards these earlier
years of the second century, has preserved for us a fairly
long' Ust of Confessors of the Faith who suffered martyrdom
under Hadrian. The great majority of these of course belong
to the period covered by his closing years. The most dis
tinguished of them was S. Telesphorus, Bishop of Rome, whose
"glorious" martyrdom was mentioned especially by Irenseus
(Adv. Haer., iii 3).
But the story of another episode of Christian suffering
for the " Name," which must be dated circa a.d. 136-7,
certainly not long before Hadrian's death, has obtained a
far wider notoriety than that of the martyr Bishop of Rome.
The "Acts" of S. Symphorosaf in this once widely
read and comparatively popular class of literature were well
known and highly esteemed. Modern criticism dealing
* " L'immense et ridicule villa qui semble le reve d'un petit bourgeois realise
avec les ressources d'un tout' puissant Empereur . . . oe colossal assemblage de
batiments de tous les pays et de tous les styles — avec son Lycee, son Academie, son
Prytanee, sa vallee de Tempe, son Portique du PoecUe, son Canal de Canop6,
son Th^Mre gree, son Theatre latin, jusqu'a son Elysee et son Enfer — dont la
masse capricieuse couvrait une surface de sept miUes remains." — ^Allard : Sist.
des Persecutions, i. , v. 4.
¦[• Euinart, Acta Sincera, thus speaks of the "Acts of S. Symphorosa" : "De
eorum sinceritate nullus videtur dubitandi locus." He gives the yet earlier date
of A.D. 120 for the martyrdom; the later date, however, given above is no doubt
the accurate one.

134 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
especiaUy with internal evidence has branded the recital
with grave doubts respecting its genuineness; but the
more conservative spirit which has lately prevailed, by
subjecting the " Acts " to a searching critical examination,
has largely disposed of these objections, and has shoAm
effectuaUy that none of the circumstances connected Avith
the charge made against S. Symphorosa and her seven
sons, or with the trials that ensued, or with the martyrdoms
which closed this stern, sad episode, are any of them
improbable, or in any way liable to the imputation of being
unhistorical ; while the discoveries resulting from recent
researches conducted by scientific antiquarians have gone
very far to establish the substantial truth of the "Acts"
in question. The story is as foUows, and suppUes a good
iUustration of the manner in which the Imperial rescripts
were put in action, with fatal results in the case of the
accused Christians.
The jealous and hostile priests and officials of the Tibur
temples appear to have brought before the sick and super
stitious Emperor an oracular message complaining of the
vexation caused to the Roman gods by the daily prayers of
Symphorosa and her sons to the God of the Christians.
Symphorosa belonged to a respected Roman family which
had already made itself notorious by its devoted attachment to
the proscribed religion, and had in past years, in the persons of
two distinguished officers of the Roman army, contributed
its quota to the increasing ranks of the martyr army.
Hadrian himself conducted the judicial inquiry, and
commanded Symphorosa, the widow of one of the soldier-
martyrs in question, to sacrffice to the all-powerful national
gods on pain of being sacrificed herself, with her sons. The
" Acts " relate that, undismayed by threats, and proof even
against torture, the Roman lady remained steadfast, and
was eventually thrown into the river Anio with a stone
fastened round her neck. On the foUowing day her seven
sons Avere severally interrogated, and on thefr persistent refusal
to sacrifice to the heathen deities, were put to death ia
various ways, and were interred together in a deep dug pit.

TBAJAN AND HADBIAN. 135
These seven martyrs have always been known as the " septem
biothanati." The redactor or reviser of the present version of these
" Acts of Martyrdom " which we now possess, has apparently
added little, ff anything, to the original recital. No eloquent
or elaborate discourse by way of defence is put into the mouths
of the victims, no circumstances of miraculous approval or
interposition are superadded to the simple true story. Very
little indeed of the marveUous appears. We are accurately told
in the "Acts" that the place where the bodies of the seven
brothers were laid was henceforth called " Ad Septem Biothan-
atos" (the place of the seven who perished by a violent death).
As time went on, the original Greek name by which the spot
was knoAvn in the days of Hadrian, when Greek was the
" fashionable " language of the Empire, became the abbreviated
Latin appeUation, " Ad Septem Fratres," and by this name the
spot was even caUed all through the Middle Ages.
And in our own day and time the spot has been identified
with striking proof Some nine miles from Rome, on the
Via Tiburtina, the remains * of a basilica built on to a much
smaller pile have been unearthed, a kind of chapel with three
apses, a very ancient form. The deep grave alluded to in the
" Acts " could clearly be traced. The little triple apsidal chapel,
or more probably the yet earlier and humbler buUding alluded
to in the "Acts," was raised, as was the custom, over the
martyrs' grave. Then, as time went on, probably early in the
fourth century, the Uttie "memoria" or chapel became too
small for the ever increasing number of visitors and pUgrims
to the sacred resting-place of the children of Symphorosa ; and
the large basUica was built, as was so often the custom, adjoining
the primitive " memoria." f The crowd of pilgrim worshippers
* Already in the seventeenth century, Bosio, that great pioneer of catacomb
explorations, had noticed the remains of a ruined church on the spot which the
people of the district still called " a sette fratte. " Cf. Bosio, Roma Sotteranea,
pp. 105-109. •)• This was the almost invariable ancient Christian custom. The original
tomb of the saint or martyr was ever left undisturbed, and the little " memoria "
or chapel originally built over the tomb remained untouched, while to accommodate
the increasing number of pilgrims who visited the sacred spot, adjoining the chapel
a larger chapel or church was built.

136 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
assembled in the larger basilica could thus see and venerate
the tomb in the little building joined on to it.
The memory of this early martyrdom has thus been kept
alive for more than seventeen and a half centuries, and these
late discoveries have set thefr seal upon the substantial truth
of the story contained in the "Acts." "He would be a rash
man," says a modern scholar of high reputation, "who would
venture to tear now from the history of Hadrian's reign the
blood-stained page on which this sad record of early Christian
life is told."

137

CHAPTER VII.
THE REVIVAL OF PAGANISM.
SECTION I. — THE ROMAN RELIGION.
A VERY important question arises in the story of the early
struggles between Christianity and Paganism which presses
for an answer. The reUgion of Jesus very soon, we have
seen, made a firm lodgment outside the numerous class of
freedmen, petty traders, and slaves. In the first century
we find already persons connected with the Imperial court
converts to Christianity, which had even made its way
among members of the Imperial family. Early in the second
century men of high culture, such as Aristides, and later in
the same century Justin, Minucius Felix, Melito of Sardis,
and many others wrote elaborate treatises in defence of the
new faith. In Rome, in Ephesus, in Smyrna, in Athens, and
in countless other important centres, the Christians evidently
formed at an early date no inconsiderable portion of the
population. At the end of the second century the Christian
people were so numerous that Tertullian of Carthage Avrote,
somewhat rhetorically perhaps, as follows: "If we Christians
were to separate ourselves from you, you would be affrighted
at your solitude, you would be alarmed at the silence which
would, in a way, resemble the paralysis of a dead world."
How, then, came it to pass that Paganism, as it is commonly
understood, was enabled to hold its own and even to make
head against the steady progress of such a religion as
Christianity* — Paganism with its silly and monstrous fables,
* It seems clear that Christianity, at first, was generaUy received, in those
circles where its preaching and teaching penetrated, with considerable favour.
The growth of the hostile feeling among the people was somewhat later, and
was due to various social causes, injury to certain trades, domestic separations,
and the like ; these adverse feelings being fostered by interested persons.

138 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
with its immoral Deities; fables which the learned and
cultured of the first quarter of the first century utterly dis
believed. Deities that at the same period were openly
derided by a large majority of all classes and orders of the
civilised Roman world?
And yet it did. The serious opposition of Paganism revived
and increased steadily as the years of the Empire rolled on.
Something must have happened to account for the striking
change in the position which Paganism had come to occupy
in the minds and hearts of men at the end of the second
century; a change which took place, roughly, between the
beginning of the first century and the last years of the
second, in other words, in the period which lay between the
accession of Augustus* and the death of Commodus, the
son and successor of the good and great Emperor Marcus
Aurelius Antoninus.
In this chapter an answer to the question wiU be
attempted, and the reasons for the changed position of
Paganism briefly discussed.
The Pagan religion of Rome, reawakened from what
seemed the torpor of a rapidly advancing death, was inex
tricably mixed up with the Imperial Government; and the
highest positions in religion were fiUed by the occupants of
the powerful civil posts. The strange deification of the
Emperors, of which we shall speak presently, made the pro
fession of Christianity, which abhorred all idol- worship, treason
against the State.
The reawakened ancient cultt appealed to all classes, cul
tured and ignorant alike. It was seriously supported by the
whole weight of Imperial authority, and by the powerful aid
of men of letters, including historians, poets, and philosophers.
* The full name of the great Emperor after his adoption in 44 e.c. by Julius
Csesar was Caius Julius Cassar Octavianus. We have in the present study used
the title Augustus, which he assumed and by which he is commonly known, when
we speak of him. " Augustus " was a name no one had borne before.
t Professor Eamsay suggests that Christianity as early as the time of Hadnan
was a factor in the laboured Renaissance of Paganism. " Paganism even under
Hadrian began to feel, under the stimulus of the opposition of Christianity, the
pulse of returning life."

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 139
It appealed, with its revival of the ancient traditions and
ritual, to the Roman patriot Avho looked back with regret
to the far period when men lived their comparatively simple,
even austere, Avork-a-day lives ; the men who were the real
makers of Rome. It appealed with its mysteries, its oracles,
its dreams, to the superstitious — a very large class in the
Rome of the Empire, often including the Emperor himseff.
By its readiness to associate with the gods of old Rome
other and strange national deities, it appealed to the Asiatics,
the Africans, and the provincials of Gaul alike. Rome and
Ephesus, Carthage and Alexandria, Edessa in the far East,
Lyons in the far West, were all equally interested in the
Pagan system of religion as it Avas understood and practised
at the end of the second century after Christ. We must
therefore bear in mind that when Christianity, in the middle
of the second century, was confronted with Paganism in the
form adopted by the Roman Empire under the Antonines,
it was confronted with an adversary by no means discredited
or generally disbelieved.
In the period of the Antonines, Pius and Marcus, a.d.
138-80, the reUgion of Jesus was no longer confined to an
obscure and comparatively smaU sect. From a.d. 64 onwards,
it had been neither unknown to the Government nor set
aside as of no importance. The action of Nero when he
fixed upon the Christians as the object of his terrible per
secution, the behaviour of Vespasian, the correspondence of
Pliny and Trajan, the successive rescripts of Trajan and
Hadrian regulating the action of the Governors in the case
of accused Christians, the persecution in the later days of
Hadrian, all serve to remind us that the Roman Government
between a.d. 64 and a.d. 161, the date of the accession of
the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, was well aware that there
existed in Rome and in most of the provinces of the Empire
a strange and earnest community who chose to live outside
the pale of the religion of Rome. This society, owing to its
peculiar tenets, which in a way separated its members from
the ordinary citizens and subjects of Rome, was evidently a
source of grave anxiety to the Emperor and his lieutenants.

140 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
In the middle of the second century the Christians, ever
increasing in number, became so numerous and conspicuous
a body that the Government was forced to consider them a
distinct power in the Empire, absolutely opposed to the
State religion, which was closely bound up with weU-nigh
aU the offices and official dignities of the Empire, and was
apparently firmly believed in by the Emperor and more or
less by the leading men of Rome.
This Paganism — the religion of Rome as professed in the
days of Marcus Aurelius — was not that seemingly chUdish
and discredited cult of which Cicero speaks in the last
days of the Republic. A great change had passed over
Rome in the period which had elapsed since Cicero Avrote.
We wiU, therefore, briefly review what had happened during
this period, roughly comprehending a century and three-quarters,
in the Pagan rehgious world.
In Cicero's letters there is, comparatively speaking, httle
mention of religion. It is true that some of the sacerdotal
functions were stUl attached to, and were performed by
holders of, certain offices of the State. But these office-holders
were generally sceptics, and absolutely indifferent to the ancient
worship, in which they continued to perform a leading official
part. Great men became augurs and pontiffs at the same
time that they were prsetors or consuls. But the rehgious
functions which they had to discharge were to them of com
paratively little interest. Cicero in his writings admfrably
represents the spirit of his age and time. In some of his
works — speaking as a statesman — he appears as though he
believed in^the reaUty of the cult in which he shared. In
others, as, for instance, in his treatise on the " Nature of the
Gods," he speaks with undisguised contempt of the deities
of Rome. But in his letters, of which we have so ample a
collection, we see what Avas in the heart of the great orator
and statesmaa In his moments of sorrow and sadness,
when he mourned the loss of a dear daughter, or grieved
over his country's fortunes, never a Avhisper of eternal hfe,
never a word of trust in those Beings he professed to believe
in, appears to lighten the sombre narrative. And when the

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 141
end was fri sight, aU he could say was, " If Ave are among
the happy ones, we ought to despise death ; if among the
sad ones, Ave ought to look forward to it." The blessed hopes
of immortaUty which here and there Ulumine his Avritings
seem to have brought him no sohd comfort in his dark
hour. His expressions of respect for the gods of Rome were
evidently written for the public eye ; they could scarcely
have been the outcome of his own convictions.
And Cicero's contemporaries were like him; we find
among the best and noblest the same contradictory state
ments, outward professions of belief, inward utter indifference.
When we take up the letters of the Emperor Marcus
to his friend and master, Fronto, the thought of the gods
and the hope of the gods meet us in every page. The
Sovereign and his friend can hardly suggest a project without
adding : " If the gods please.'' When Fronto, for instance,
hears that Verus, the Emperor's adopted brother, has
recovered from a serious sickness, he Avrites the following,
evidently speaking from his heart : " At the good news I
went at once to the chapel and knelt at every altar. . . I
was in the country at the time, and I used to go and pray
at the foot of every tree sacred to the gods."
Sentences like these occur and recur in his Avritings : " Every
moming I pray for Faustina." Anxiety for the wife of Marcus,
the result of the sickness of the dear one, wells up in such
words as " We must trust her with the gods."
In the time of Cicero, the phUosopher was weU-nigh
always a sceptic. In the middle of the second century, the
philosopher or man of culture as a rule was apparently a
firm believer in the gods of Rome ; not a few of them were
superstitious in thefr beUefs. For instance, we find the
phUosopher Emperor Marcus in his "Meditations" gratefully
thanking the gods for having suggested in dreams remedies
for his malady.
What now had brought about this changed state of
things ? What had happened, suice the day when Julius
Csesar had assumed sovereign poAver in the old RepubUc,
so completely to change the state of religious belief in

142 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Rome ? For contemptuous unbelief had evidently given
place to a real, even a superstitious devotion in the case of
many, to the gods of the old worship.
To answer this question we must rapidly glance over the
past story of the old belief Religion during the earlier
times of the Kings and of the Republic had had great
weight among men, and really influenced the customs of
Italy and Rome. It was a creed which adored all forces of
Nature ; fear of these deities rather than love characterised
the old Italian devotion. Tullus Hostilius, for instance,
erected a temple dedicated to " Fear." The Roman peasant,
deeply superstitious, as he came to his Uttie hut after his
day's toil, dreaded lest he should meet some faun or other
supernatural being in the gloaming. It was a simple ritual
which was practised in early times, and the gods were long
represented by symbols rather than by images; Varro speaks
regretfuUy of the days when there were no temples and no
images in Rome, when the gods were adored under symbols,
such as a lance planted firmly in the earth or a stone
anointed with oil, or a noble tree in the forest. But this
primitive devotion was something real, and it powerfuUy
influenced the people. Very early were rehgious functions
associated with the State official positions, and, as we have
mentioned, when a Roman became prsetor or consul at the
same time he became augur or pontiff. This union of sacred
and political offices ahvays continued a characteristic feature
of Roman govemment under the Empire.
For a long time these high dignities were the especial
prerogative of the ruling patrician class. In them the plebeian
had no share.
The time came when a change passed over the old simple
religion of Rome. It may be dated from the period of the
conquest of Greece, and Greece soon avenged herself on her
conquerors by largely superseding the ancient Roman ways
with Greek culture, habits, thought, literature. Greek thinkers
seem, however, to have been much struck and impressed
with the spirit of order, purity, and morality in Roman
private life ; of obedience, discipline, and patriotism in Roman

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 143
public life. The Romans attributed the spirit which the
Greeks wondered at and admired, in great part to their
religion, to their fear of the gods. Great Roman writers and
thinkers like Cicero, even after the old behef had become
worn out, repeat this, and tell us that the Romans surpassed
other people in their devotion to the gods, that Rome
vanquished the world owing to her eamest reUgious belief,
that when Greece first came into close contact with Rome,
Rome was the most reUgious city of the world, and that to
her deep and simple piety she owed her greatness and her
conquests. It was largely OAving to the revival of this ancient spirit
of devotion and piety, a revival that commenced in the days
of Augustus, reaching perhaps its highest development in
the days of Marcus Aurelius, that the Paganism of the
Empire was enabled for some two centuries and a half to
carry on its Avar with that Christianity to which in the
end it succumbed.
Greece in due course avenged herself for her conquest in
various ways ; among others, she corrupted the old simplicity
of the religion of the conquering people, while teaching them
her own fables, some beautiful, some monstrous and childish.
There were very few of these legends or fables treating of
the gods current in Rome before Greek culture was intro
duced; and for a time these new fables struck the older,
simpler cult a fatal blow.
Other causes, too, were at work which served to sap and
to impair the power of the ancient Roman belief Strangely
enough, this old religion had been specially the religion of
the privileged class — the patricians. To these alone, as Ave
have said, belonged for a lengthened period the exclusive
right of fiUing the various offices connected Avith the priest
hood ; and in very early days the plebeians were even ex
cluded from sharing at all in the public religious rites.
GraduaUy the influence and power of the plebeians of Rome
increased, religious equality quickly followed civil equality, and
when the priestly offices were no longer confined to the
best and noblest in Rome, a marked deterioration was soon

144 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
visible among the pontiffs and augurs. The old ceremonies
were altered, even neglected. As time went on, the Greek
influence above referred to became more and more marked.
The Greek drama, when introduced among the Romans,
contributed largely to weaken the power of the old rehgion
among all classes and orders of the people. We find Plautus,
perhaps the oldest of the Roman-Greek school of playwrights,
openly parodying the most venerable formularies of the
ancient faith. Ennius still more openly mocked at the gods
and their votaries. To Ennius Rome owes a popular transla
tion of the sacred history of Euhemerus, the object of whose
work was to demonstrate that all the gods in the first instance
had been heroic men, kings or warriors, who had been exalted
after their death by their grateful and admiring contem
poraries and descendants into the position of deities.
AU these and other more subtle causes had weU-nigh
destroyed the old reverence for and belief in the objects of
the primitive Roman worship, and so it came to pass that,
in the last days of the Republic, Cicero, who so weU voices
the opinions of his day and time, often writes almost as a
sceptic in all matters of religion. The cold respect and
formal reverence which such men as he stiU inculcated for
the ancient beliefs and rites, belonged rather to State pohcy,
to what they believed was necessary to the weU-being of the
Republic, than, as we have pointed out above, to any deep
feeling of real conviction.
When the Republic gave place to the Empire, it is not too
much to say that in Rome religion was fast dyuig out. Many
of the temples of the most august among the gods were even
faUing into ruin. The sacred possessions attached to them
were being rapidly alienated. The haUowed woods and groves
were often confiscated by individuals for private purposes ; not
a few of the ancient festivals were neglected ; the chief sacer
dotal dignities were frequently unclaimed; and Varro did
not hesitate to affirm that the religion of Rome was even
perishing, not owing to the attacks of its foes, but because of
the neglect of its votaries.

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 145-

SECTION II. — THE AUGUSTAN AWAKENING.
The grave danger to the well-being of Rome which would
surely result from the absence of all religious belief among the
people, was perceived by several of the leading men in the
period of transition which immediately followed the downfall
of the Republic ; but it was the genius of OctaA^anus Csesar
(Augustus) which recognised the imperative necessity of religion
as the foundation storey of any permanent Government. The
very name by which this greatest of the Emperors is known
in history, and which he transmitted to a long line of Imperial
successors as their proudest title — "Augustus" — was a term
borrowed from the ancient Roman ritual language, where it
is used as the designation of a temple consecrated with
solemn rites. In assuming this semi-sacred title, he, as it
were, anticipated the apotheosis Avhich awaited him after
death — and claimed, too, that Avhile on earth the supreme
master of the Roman world was the representative of the
immortal gods. In the course of his reign the occupant of
the office of Pontifex Maximus died. Augustus at once took
upon himseff the office, which carried Avith it the headship of
religion in Rome. It was said Avith justice that the house
where this great restorer of the ancient cult dwelt on the
Palatine during his long, momentous reign, in some respects
resembled a temple in its form and special adornment. It is
no mere quaint fancy Avhich traces to the Avork and claim of
Augustus the semi-divine halo which has ever crowned the
sacred heads of a long line of Christian Emperors and Kings,
who more or less, in different lands, have succeeded to his
poAver and position. They, like him, though many with a
different and better title, claim to reign in some measure as
the vice-gerent of God on earth.
But it was not merely by the assumption of titles and
dignities or by the peculiar adornments of his palace that
Augustus played the part of a religious restorer and reformer.
He found, when he became Emperor, most of the ancient
temples falling into ruin and decay. In the restoration of
K

146 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the old shrines and in the erection and sumptuous adornment
of ncAv temples he spent vast sums, and persuaded the
representatives of the great houses to follow his example in
this generosity. And thus, as the years of his prosperous
Teign roUed on, the old Avorship was gradually restored to far
more than its ancient splendour. He neglected nothing which
might throw lustre upon the restored religious rites. On the
priests and vestals he conferred many privileges and an exalted
rank, requiring from senators and other distinguished persons
the same minute attention to all points of ritual observance
which he Avas ever careful to show himseff. It is indisputable
that the Avork of Augustus in a marveUous Avay infused neAv
life into a religion which in the last period of the Repubhc
seemed to be a dying and worn-out cult ; nor did he, in his
<3are for the shattered fanes and broken altars and neglected
rites of the discredited gods of Rome, forget to legislate for
the improvement of the moral Ufe of his city and Empire.
Augustus, as we have said, felt that the basis of aU stable
government must be laid upon the sound foundation of
religion, and upon laws which aim at morality and purity.
The great Emperor was emphatically a great legislator as well
as a restorer of the ancient religion.
A singularly brUliant group of Avriters adorned the court
of Augustus. The historian, the poet, and the philosopher,
«ach was represented ; and the works produced under the
shadow of the Emperor are among the most famous of the
Avritings of antiquity. Livy, Propertius, Horace, Ovid, Virgil,
to take the most conspicuous examples, are names whieh
apparently will never die Avhile the Avorld endures.
Historians and poets all struck more or less the same
note, the note their Imperial master loved : the glorification
of the old simple Roman life, and the old simple Roman
faith in the gods. It was to these that the present surpass
ing grandeur of Rome was oAving. The burden of the song
of the brilliant writers of the court of Augustus was " 0 that
the present generation of Romans who have entered into the
fruit of their ancestors' toils, would foUow them in their life,
and imitate them in their worship ! "

AUGUSTUS.
Once owned by Edmund Bnrke, now in the British Museum.

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 147
In the case of two of these, not, perhaps, the very greatest
of that illustrious group, Ovid and Horace, we have some doubt
as to their sincerity in really desiring the reforms Avhich
they advocated ; undoubtedly their writings are more severe
than were thefr lives, and even in these Avritings a terrible
picture of the society in which they lived, and in the ex
travagance of Avhich they shared and evidently deUghted, is
painted by them. The one — Ovid — gives us sketches of the
life of the immortals; but his evil pictures of the life led
by the dwellers on Olympus are evidently based on his too
faithful memories of the life led by his contemporaries and
associates at Rome. The other — Horace — without the thin
veil Avith which Ovid has covered his sketches, openly draws
pictures of Roman life, Roman aims and hopes; and they
are too often degrading, at times aimless, even hopeless.
Their advice, it must be confessed, has ever an insincere
ring, and their words were evidently not sufficient seriously
to influence society for good. Indeed, had we only the
writings of the popular poets, Ovid and Horace, we should
scarcely hesitate in coming to the conclusion that the
attempts of Augustus at reformation in morals, and his
efforts to restore the ancient worship, were barren of definite
results. But there Avas a yet greater writer standing at Augustus'
right hand, Avho leaves a very different impression on the
student. No one, statesman or poet, helped the noble project
of Augustus Uke Virgil; if others, more or less courtier-like,
took thefr cue from that all-powerful Emperor, and coloured
their works with aims and aspirations borrowed from him,
Virgil was at least in earnest. With his whole heart and
soul he longed to see the people return to the old religion ;
he believed with an intense belief that the grandeur of his
country was based upon the simple, pure life led by the
early makers of the Roman power.
In the " Georgics " — the great epic of rural life — we meet
with expressions which evidently came from the heart of the
great poet. He paints as none before him had painted,
perhaps none Avill ever paint again, how the strength of a land

148 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
lay in its peasants, how the old rural life of Italy produced
that race of hardy soldiers which had made Rome the
mistress of the world. The country life had ever strengthened
the real religious feeling which was the true foundation of
Roman greatness. It Avas no soft, dreamy existence in which
the Roman conquerors were nurtured, but a hard, laborious.
life, and in this the gods had ordered that men should live.
But the stern life of rural toil was sweetened and ennobled
by prayer. " Work and pray " Avas the conclusion of the great
poem ; " above all things worship the gods " was the solemn
charge of the " Georgics," " in primis venerare Deos." It was a
sad day fof Rome when the city lffe with the artificial plea
sures of the theatre and circus was substituted for the pure,.
healthy joys of the woods and the fields. The city life pro
duced an enfeebled and debauched race of lazy, useless men,.
who beUeved in nothing. The old rural life, on the other
hand, was the mother of a hardy race of men who were
ready to fight and die for their country, who feared the
gods and believed in the rewards and punishments of the
immortals. These men were the makers of Rome.
But it Avas in the "^neid" that VirgU especiaUy helped
Augustus in his effort to bring men back to the old faith. The
famous epic is before aU things a reUgious poem. The "^neid"'
was for the Italians of the first years of the Empire what the
religious epic of Dante Avas for the men who lived thirteen
or fourteen hundred years later.
Ea'cu more than the "Georgics" the "^neid" led men
to love and to reverence the old simple manners and
customs, with their all-pervading religious colouring, which
Augustus so longed to reintroduce into the artificial and
evil society of his time. Never Avas a more enchant
ing picture drawn than A^irgU's sketch of the old Eng
Evander, living his homely life, Avith his brave, simple, manly
ideas. We must not linger unduly over the great poem whicli
so powerfully aided the Emperor in his plans to make his
Empire better, purer, more reUgious ; one page, however,
must be given to the special religious colouring of the great

THE BEVIVAL OF P'AGANISM. 149
patriotic epic. While the Roman poet largely bases his
theology upon the scenery and legendary notices of the
Homeric poem, the gods of Homer are presented in the
Roman poem under very different aspects. Virgil gives us
a somewhat more reverent idea of the divinities whose
Avorship he would fain restore. They interfere less openly
in human affairs, they dweU in a more mysterious atmosphere.
They pity rather than share in mortal passions. The Roman
poet shrank from attributing to the gods anger, passion,
jealousy, and the like. The childish and frivolous, coarse and
fleshly, legends which Ovid, for instance, deUghts in re-telling
in his oAvn Avinning and attractive manner, never appear
in Vfrgil's great epic. The estimate of divinity Avhich Virgil
pressed upon his readers was a lofty one. The gods Avere
the supreme refuge, for instance, of the unhappy, the sad-
hearted, the oppressed. His hero, a child of the gods, so
resigned, so distrustful of himself, so ready for sacrifice of self,
so submissive to the wUl of heaven, is almost in character a
Christian hero. Indeed, m aU the Christian ages, Virgil has
been admired by not a few saintly foUoAvers of Jesus of Nazareth,
almost as a pioneer of the nobler and purer faith. Dante
well compares him to one walking in the dark night and
carrying, but holding aU the Avhile behind him, a burning
torch, which served as a Ught, not for himself but for those
who followed in his Avake.*

* As early as a.d. 325 Constantine quoted at considerable length Virgil's
"Fourth Eclogue" as a very early testimony to the divinity of Christ. From that
period, all through the Middle Ages, the great Latin poet was regarded in the
Ghi'istian Church as a seer and a preacher, though perhaps unconsciously, of
Christ. It was even the habit in some countries, in the dramatic representations
which were customary in the ritual of the Christian festival in the naves of great
churches, to introduce the more prominent prophets of the Old Testament, who
recited before the congregation their most famous prophetic testimonies to the
coming Messiah ; among whom, after Moses, David, Isaiah, Micih, and others of
the prophets had been introduced, Virgil came forward, and was invited as
"Prophet of the Gentiles" to rehearse his witness tothe Christ in the language
of the weU-known " Eclogue." A famous mediaeval legend relates how S. Paul,
passing by Naples in the course of his travels, visited the tomb of Virgil, and
weeping over the grave, thus addressed the dead : " What would I not have made

150 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Virgil may be taken as a typical Roman of the more
serious class, who, from patriotic reasons, if not on deeper and
more eamest grounds, looked with regret on the past, Avith its
more austere lffe, and its beUef in the rule of the gods ; who
gladly welcomed the measures which Augustus took to bring
about a new state of things in Rome, especially in its moral
and religious life. The Emperor had no aUy in his patriotic
work so influential as the universally admired poet.
The vivid representation of the life of the soul after death,
with its living pictures of the reAvards provided for the good,
and of the punishment reserved for the evil, contained in the
Sixth Book of the " ^neid," read and re-read as it was by aU
sorts and conditions of men, strangely affected Roman society,
and directed men's thoughts to the ever pressing questions
connected Avith the hereafter.
In his lifetime Virgil had absolutely no rival. AU serious
persons, even if they differed from his conclusions, welcomed
and read his verses. They were used almost at once as a
text-book in the schools. So great was his popularity that it
is even related how on one occasion, when he was noticed
entering the theatre, the vast assemblage rose as one man and
greeted him as it was the habit to greet Augustus himself
And his popularity was enduring. The influence of such poems
so widely and generally read and studied as were the "Georgics"
and the "iEneid" must have been enormous, and contributed
not a little to the restoration of the ancient faith.
One sorrowful fact, however, must be noticed in this,
our brief sketch of the re-awakening of the worship of the
old gods of Rome. In spite of Augustus' patriotic zeal for
the reformation of morality, in the face of the admirable laws
which Avere put out to this end in his reign, with aU his

of thee, 0 thou greatest of the poets, had I only found thee alive." The old rhythm
of the traditionary hj'mu or poem runs thus :
"Ad Mnrouis mausoleum
Ductus, fudit super eum
Pile rorem iacrymse.
'Quem te,' inquit, ' redidissem
Si te vivuni invenissem
Poetanim Maxime ! ' "

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 151
apparently real love for the more austere and purer life of the
primitive Roman people, it was an open secret that the private
life of the great Emperor was terribly stained with grave moral
irregularities ; and later in his reign his OAvn sin seems to have
brought its punishment, Avhen the disorders discovered in the
Imperial family in the persons of his daughter and grand
daughter were punished with exile, and even in the case of
some of the guUty accomplices with death. And among his
own immediate ministers, friends, and courtiers, there were
many Sybarites in their way of living ; many whose admira
tion of the old simple chaste life Avas confined to their Avords
and expressions, but found little place in their daily life.
There is no doubt how sadly these things, too weU known
in the city and Empire, mihtated against the complete success
of the re-awakening of religion, of the reformation of morals
in Rome and the provinces. But Avhen due alloAvance for all
these hindrances and drawbacks has been made, there is no
doubt that the wishes of Augustus, so magnificently voiced
by Virgil, especially in the question of the revival of religion,
were in a large measure crowned with success ; and before the
long and brilUant reign of the first great Emperor was closed,
the rehgion of Rome, partly based on primitive Italian
traditions, partly upon the Homeric presentation of Greek
religion, with certain modifications suggested by later philo
sophic thought, had become once more a power in the Empire.
The great gods, such as the Jupiter of the Capitol, the Venus
Genetrix, the Mars Ultor, the Apollo of the Palatine, whose
splendid temples, rebuilt or restored, dominated the great city
with their lordly magnificence, were no longer the objects of
contempt and derision as in the latter years of the Republic ;
the rites performed in their shrines by the numerous priests
and attendants were once more shared in by the people of all
ranks and orders, from the senator to the slave ; some following
the gorgeous and striking ritual because it was the fashion of
the day, set by the Emperor and his court, others without
doubt sharing in the restored and revived worship Avith feelings
of genuine devotion and unfeigned adoration.
After the death of the Emperor Augustus, the restorer ot

152 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Paganism, the period covered by the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula,
and Nero, with its unbridled tyranny, its cruelties, its reck
less confiscations, its contempt for lffe on the part of the
rulers of the Roman world, was on the Avhole favourable to
the development of the newly-aAvakehed faith in the gods ;
especially favourable to a deepened belief in the future life,
in rewards and punishments after the fret and fever of this
present existence were passed. For men are ever ready to
turn to religion in times of stress and danger and sorrow.
So the trend of events in those bloodstained reigns, when
human life was held so cheap, tended to draw Roman society
in the direction pointed out by the reforms of Augustus.
Strangely enough, though fr-om very different motives, the
evil Emperors Avho immediately followed Augustus were
solicitous for the prosperity of religion. Tiberius was learned
in ancient customs, and Avatched over the old Pagan ritual
and those Avho were in charge of the elaborate Pagan rites,
oonferring upon them additional rights and privileges.
Claudius was superstitiously devout ; Nero, Avho mocked at
the Avork of Augustus and made light of the gods, in his
Avay, too, was superstitious, and was in the habit of anxiously
consulting the auspices. The nobler successors of Augustus
were all of them anxious for the preservation of the ancient
religion, believing that the prosperity of the Empire was
closely linked Avith the maintenance of the Avorship of the
gods whom their fathers, who laid the foundation of the
Avorld-Empire, served so zealously.

SECTION 111. — THE DEIFICATION OF THE EMPEROES.
One singular development of Paganism requfres, at least, a
brief study. Again and again, when in Rome or in the
provinces a persecution of the Christians in " the 250 years "
was formaUy decreed, or Avas suddenly excited by popular
clamour, the accused Christian was frequently, perhaps in
the majority of cases, publicly brought in front of the statue
of the deified Emperor and chaUenged, if he valued his life.

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 153
to offer incense, and then to perform an act of adoration to
the Imperial personage portrayed by the image before him.
Again and again the Christian firmly refrised, with the in
variable result that the Ufe of the bold protester against
this form of idolatry was forfeited. "1 do not call the
Emperor a god," Avrote Tertullian in his famous "Apology"
(33-4), thus powerfully voicing the Christian shudder at this
extraordinary development of idol Avorship ; " I cannot lie
. . . I have but one Master, who is, too, the Emperor's
Master. Him must we adore, if we Avish Him to bless Csesar.
Do not caU him God who can do nothing without God's
help." The genesis of this curious cult, which became eventually
so prominent a feature in the government of Imperial Rome,
Avas as follows. Among the nations of antiquity it was a
common practice for the various cities to pay divine honours
to their supposed founders. This local hero Avas ever a
favourite object of adoration among the people, and even
the more cultured citizens joined in the popular worship for
various obvious reasons. In the East, the people went a
step further, and paid divine honours to all their sovereigns
Avithout distinction, without reference to their deserts as
founders, legislators, benefactors, or conquerors. So in Egypt
Pharaoh was ever regarded as divine, and later in the same
country the Ptolemies Avere careful to mafritain their title
to their divine rank among men. Greece in its later period,
when its ancient liberty Avas gone, servilely imitated the East,
and was content to adore its various masters, unworthy
tyrants though they too often were. In Italy it was different ;
it is true that in some way the Italians chose to regard as
deities the old mythic kings of Latium, such as Picus, Faunus,
Latinus ; but of the ancient kings of Rome, only Romulus
appears to have received divine honours. We never hear
even of the revered Numa or of any of his royal successors
being regarded as gods in Rome. Yet even in Rome and
Italy the way for the later Emperor-worship was prepared
by the general custom in family Ufe which chose to regard
"the departed" in the light of powerful spirits (Dii Manes),

154 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
spirits who were accessible to the prayers of dear ones they
had left on earth, and to whom they were enabled under
certain conditions still to afford assistance and protection.
Thus the father, or head of the household, after death, often
received worship from the members of his family. The
" Lares," according to popular opinion, were the souls of
ancestors, and these " Lares " were very commoiUy the object
of famUy worship in Rome.
The Stoic philosophy which often accommodated itseff
to popular vicAvs, endeavoured to modify this behef by teach
ing that it was only the souls of the good and great who
were thus privileged from their home in the other Avorld to
protect and assist their kinsfolk.
But the first formally deified Prince in Rome was Julius
CiEsar. No great hero perhaps ever captured popular opinion
as did the mighty conqueror who had Avon for his native
city and country such world-wide fame and poAver ; and who,
through his marveUous series of campaigns, had made Rome
the capital of an Empire hitherto undreamed of Julius
Csesar was something more than the greatest of conquerors.
As a ruler he Avas passionately loved as well as greatly
admired in Rome and Italy. We have already noticed the
real and intense devotion he had acquired among the Jews,
that strangest of foreign colonies in the capital city. The
pathetic circumstances of his tragic death served to fan the
flame of love and devotion with which that great master
of the Roman world Avas regarded at Rome ; and the deifica
tion of Julius Csesar Avas the result of an incontroUable
popular movement. It Avas not long before the Avorship of
the neAV god Avas legally established, and Avith strange rapidity
the cult of the murdered sovereign spread throughout the
Roman world, conquerors and conquered alike agreeing to
regard Julius Csesar as a god.
We pass by the efforts of smaller men such as Sextus
Pompeius and Antony, who obtained temporary power when
Csesar had passed aAvay, to Avin for themselves among their
contemporaries diA-ine honours similar to those accorded by
the popular love to the great JuUus; and we pause at the

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 15-5
story of the great ruler best knoAvn as the Emperor
Augustus. In the servile eastern provinces, after the successful
campaigns which Avitnessed the ruin of the hopes of his
competitors for the Empire, Augustus was quickly selected
as a deity; but he only permitted this form of adulation on
condition of being associated in the temples dedicated to
him Avith the goddess Roma. A number of such temples
soon arose in the principal provinces in honour of " Augustus
and Roma," and this example was foUoAA-ed, but more sparingly,
in the Avest. In Italy this Imperial cult was long discouraged ;
and though before he passed away there were temples in
his honour in many of the more important Italian cities,
Rome, while Augustus lived, Avas dishonoured by no example
of this strange, impious flattery. After his death the Senate
at once, by a formal decree, pronounced that the late Emperor
Avas henceforth to be reckoned among the gods. At his
State funeral, a ceremony of imposing splendour in the
Campus Martins, care was taken that an eagle shoidd be
seen by the crowd soaring from the burning pile, as though
bearing the soul of the departed monarch to Olympus — a
theatrical confirmation of the Senate's decree Avhich seems,
however, to have been usuaUy omitted in the case of the
deffied successors of the first Augustus.
The apotheosis of the founder of the long and stately
line of the Emperors of Rome, although Augustus had to
a certain extent outUved the Avonderful popularity which he
enjoyed in his earher years, Avas generally well received.
Outwardly at all events in Rome, as in the provinces, un
numbered prayers from all sorts and conditions of men were
off'ered up on the altars of "Divus Augustus," whose life,
though sadly stained Avith private vices, had been beneficial
on the Avhole to the great Empfre over which he had so
long ruled; but it Avas, after all, a strange life to hold up
to the veneration and adoration of a world !
Some scholars Avho seek to explain this strange and yet
generally popular form of idolatry, which continued to hold
its oAvn Avell-nigh all through the period of the Empire before

156 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the barbarian flood had become something more than a
menace — roughly speaking, a period extending over nearly
four centuries — tell us how, while Rome hesitated to pay
divine honour to the living Emperor, as a rule contenting
itself with acknowledging the departed sovereign as God,
the provinces had no such scruple, but worshipped the
reigning sovereign as well as the deified dead Emperors;
and they further explain the provincial cult as an act of
grateful loyalty to the Roman Empire under Avhose mighty
shadow they lived in peace and comparative security. The
worship of the Emperors in the provinces Avas in other
words the worship of the Roman power in the person of the
Emperor, who was the appointed representative of that
power. This worship of the Emperor, then, may be taken as the
symbol of the unity of the vast Empire made up of so many
nationalities. Every province, every important provincial
city, usuaUy possessed its OAvn special deity, as, for instance,
Ephesus adored Diana (Artemis) ; Pergamos worshipped
^Esculapius ; Cyziqua especially honoured Proserpine. But
the priest or flamen of " Augustus and Rome " represented
the Avhole Empire ; and thus there was a solidarity of worship
extending over Rome and aU the outlying provinces. " Flamen
Romse, Divorum et Augusti," Avas the general title of the
priest of the Imperial cult.
The Christian, who naturaUy refused Avith indignation
to offer incense at this national altar, in a way separated
himself from the religion of the Empire; and his refusal
Avas construed by the Imperial magistrate as an act of dis
loyalty to the supreme Government and to Rome.
It is true that in some cities there were various temples
dedicated to several Emperors, who more or less had won
or deserved popular recognition ; as, for instance, in wealthy
commercial Ostia, the port of the capital of the world,
Avhich possessed several distinct "Imperial" shrines. But,
as a rule, in an ordinary city the majesty of the Emperors
collectively Avas venerated in one common "Imperial"
temple.

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 157
But the question presses for a more direct answer : Was
this Avorship at a temple of an Emperor of Rome — or at a
shrine where, perhaps, many Emperors were adored in a
group, some of Avhom were monsters of cruelty and vice,
some of them poor creatures at best, and only a few reaUy
great and noble — a genuine expression of the hearts of the
worshippers ? Or Avas it merely a piece of hypocrisy, a courtly,
flattering, falsehood, repeated and repeated again throughout
the vast Roman world for nigh upon four centuries ? In
the latter case the dragging of Christians before such shrines,
the scenes of conscious hypocrisy and untruth, the requir
ing them under pain of death and agony to Avorship there,
to share in these scenes of unreality and pretence, would
increase enormously the crime of official Paganism.
A patient study, however, of this strange Imperial cult
on the Avhole purges it of this dark stain of unreality and
conscious hypocrisy. It Avas first of aU, undoubtedly in
the provinces, a most popular form of idolatry. MeUto,
Bishop of Sardis, in the last quarter of the second century,
for instance, tells us in his " Apology " that the statues of
the Csesars Avere more venerated than the images of the
ancient deities. This is partly accounted for when we
remember how " the majesty of Rome " was closely asso
ciated Avith the Emperor, and how in venerating the Csesar,
the genius or the power of Rome Avas included in the act of
adoration ; and a feeling of deep gratitude to the power or
genius of Rome for the peace and prosperity they enjoyed
undoubtedly lived among the majority of the provincials.
Their adoration, therefore, at these Imperial shrines does
not appear to have been mere hypocrisy. These worshippers
were, according to the light they possessed, in most instances
probably sincere.
In the case of the army, too, among those legions
stationed in so many quarters of the Roman world, the
worship of the Csesar was no doubt a reality. These would
not even need the association of " the genius of Rome " to
give the cult of the Emperor a reality. As a rule the
soldiery, Avhen faithful, were devotedly, passionately attached

158 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
to their supreme chief; the wicked Nero, almost to the
last, threw his glamour over the legions.
If an3rwhere, it is in Rome, where most of the thought-
leaders of the Empire congregated, that we must seek for
doubters and scorners when the question of the reality of
the worship of the Emperors presented itseff. It was in
Rome that these deified ones principaUy lived. The Uttle-
nesses, the ignoble vices, the dark crimes of the magnificent
Csesar, were too well knoAvn to the dweUers hard by the
sumptuous and stately group of buildings on the Palatine.
Could the Roman citizens, living as they did beneath the
shadow of the Csesar's house, acquiesce in the worship of
these strange gods?
And yet, curiously enough, there is little outward sign
even of Rome's repugnance to this worship. The apotheosis
of Augustus appears to have been honestly welcomed as
heartily in Rome as it was in the provinces. Even Seneca,
philosopher and statesman, who certainly now and again
had his doubts as to the righteousness of the Imperial cult,
thus Avrites of the deification of Augustus : " For us to believe
that he, Augustus, is a God, no compulsion is necessary."
The younger Pliny again addressed Trajan in these words:
" You have deified your (adoptive) father (Nerva), not from
any feehng of vanity, or to insult heaven, but simply because
you believe him a God." These are surely strong Avords con
firmatory of the bona fides, the sincerity of Pliny the scholar-
statesman, and of Trajan the great and good Emperor.
OccasionaUy, it is true, public opinion at Rome was
revolted at some glaring and monstrous attempt made by
some frresponsible Csesar to deify ridiculous and discreditable
personages; as Avhen Nero proclaimed Poppsea a goddess, or
Hadrian insisted on the Avorship of Antinous. But even
these insulting promotions of infamous mortals to the rank
of the deified, although, no doubt in Rome at least, they
Aveakened the theory of Imperial worship, had no permanent
effect on this most popular cult. Indeed, as time went on it
grew more general. It was at its height in the days of
Marcus Aurelius in the second half of the second century.

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 159
It has been suggested, with great ingenuity, that probably
whUe the masses, especiaUy in the provinces, accepted the
deified Emperors as genuine gods, and addressed thefr prayers
to them as such, the more enlightened, especiaUy at Rome,
regarded them rather in the light of the demi-gods, or as the
Heroes of Greek worship ; differentiating between the divus
(divine) prefixed to the name of the deified Csesar, and the
sacred term Deus (God) ; but this difference in signification
was certainly not primitive, nor do the above quoted words
of such serious writers as Seneca and the younger PUny at
all support the ingenious hypothesis in question.
FoUowing up this hypothesis, to quote a purely Christian
usage and to pursue a train of purely Christian ideas, the
official senatorial decree of deification was in effect a sort of
"canonisation," Avhich in the eyes of the more instructed
placed the deified Emperor among the saints in blessedness,
neither more nor less. The loftier conception which ranked
him as divine and on the same level as the immortal gods,
was probably held by the uncultured masses.
But this ingenious suggestion, for it is nothing more, even
if it be adopted, cannot be said to fully explain this worship
of the deified Emperors; which is and must remain a grave
difficulty in any inteUigent conception of Paganism. The
cult of the Emperors was a worship which was almost universal
in the period which lies between the death of JuUus Csesar
and the Edict of Constantine.
For there is no shadoAv of doubt that the Emperor, living
or dead, thus formally honoured by a decree of the Senate,
became at once in the eyes of the general Roman world a
god in the loftiest sense of the word. That some persons
Avere utterly incredulous, and mocked at the pretentious claim
of the newly elevated Imperial colleague of the immortals,
is more than probable ; but as a rule these scornful doubts
were veUed, and the Avhole Roman world , may be said to
have acquiesced in the worship of each newly deified mem
ber of the Imperial line of princes, as the equal of the
great gods, the objects of the reverent worship of thefr fore
fathers.

160 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.

SECTION IV. — SACERDOTAL CORPORATIONS.
It was indeed a wonderful renaissance of the old Roman
religion, this work of Augustus ; what seemed to be dying out
sprang up again with new and Adgorous life. Augustus Avas
persuaded that the prosperity of Rome Avas thus linked with
the maintenance of the ancient cult, and, as we have seen
his policy Avas adopted and continued by his successors in
the Empire, the Emperor Marcus (a.d. 161-80) following out
the pohcy with perhaps greater ardour than any of his
predecessors. Very carefully indeed Avere the hallowed traditions of the
past revived, as belonging to the story of the making of Rome,
closely linked in the pohcy of Augustus and the Emperors
with the maintenance and further development of Rome's
grandeur and poAver. Among these haUowed traditions we
have not aUuded to the ancient sacerdotal corporations which
had, especially in the latter years of the Republic, in a
measm'e passed out of sight and been suffered to decay.
Augustus revived these and re-estabUshed them, ff possible
giving them more than their ancient position and influence ;
and these powerful religious corporations, then re-estabUshed,
continued to flourish, some of them, until the time of Con
stantine, when naturaUy Avith the fall of Paganism they sank
into decay and oblivion.* Of these brotherhoods Ave may
mention, as instances, the Salii and the Luperci To be a
member of one of these corporations Avas a privilege highly
esteemed under the rule of the Pagan Emperors. The young
Marcus AureUus, for instance, was admitted into the SaUan
confraternity when he Avas only eight years old, and sub
sequently became the president ; and prided himself on his
accurate knowledge of the ritual which was used when a ncAv
member was admitted to the coUege.
But of these sacerdotal colleges that of the Arval Brothers was
the most famous and perhaps the best known. They traced
their foundation back to the times of Romulus, the first King
* The probable date of the dissolution of the Arval Brotherhood was, however,
earlier, circa a.d. 244-49. This is discussed briefly at the close of this section.

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 161
of Rome. Romulus, so said the ancient tradition, Avith the
eleven sons of Acca Laurentia, his nurse, had been the first
Arval Brothers. They appear to have been united as a college
of priests, instituted to pray and sacrifice to the gods who
presided over the fruits of the fields ; hence their name, from
arva, the fields. They invoked the blessing of the immortals
upon agriculture, in accordance Avith a very old form of Roman
Avorship. The chief deity invoked was feminine, but nameless,
pointing to a period anterior to the introduction of divinities
with specific functions. She is invoked simply as "Dea Dia."
During the Republic, whilst always existing as a con
fraternity, we learn little of these Arval Brothers. They had
nothing to do apparently Avith the State, hence the silence
which rests upon them. In the renaissance of reUgion and of
archaic customs under Augustus the Arvals received a large
share of Imperial patronage ; this was especially owing to
the hoar antiquity of their foundation and the mystic reference
of their ceremonies and ritual to agriculture and that primitive
rural life in which the reforming Emperor took so deep an
interest. Under the Empire the confraternity numbered among
its members many of the foremost personages in Rome, with
the Emperor himself at its head. It Avas considered a high
honour to be one of the ancient corporation, and in a list of
titles and dignities proudly displayed by a powerful Roman
under the Empire, the fact of being an Arval Brother Avas
never omitted.
Their chief annual festival lasted three days. Careful
minutes of their proceedings were kept, and we learn from
these that a most elaborate ceremonial Avas observed, consisting of
sacrifice and prayer, processions, and official repasts. A special
dress, too, Avas required, the whole ritual being based on ancient
tradition. Late discoveries have localised the site of the
sanctuary where these Arval mysteries were performed. It
seems to have been some few miles from Rome on the right
bank of the Tiber, as it floAved through the Campagna from
Rome to Ostia.
In the little book of the Arval rites which was given to
each brother was the famous sacred song of the Arvals, Avhich
L

162 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM,
had come doAvn from remote antiquity, and which they repeated
without perhaps understanding its archaic phraseology.*
This fashionable revival of a very ancient guUd or con
fraternity thus introduced into a company or brotherhood,
made up during the Empire of the noblest and most Ulus
trious of the Romans, memories and traditional usages handed
down from Romulus and the earhest of the Kings of Rome.
The Arval Brotherhood were besides especially bound to
loyal duties in connection with the reigning Emperor and
his Imperial house. They solemnly " kept " his birthday and
the birthdays of his family, celebrating, too, the memories of
any victories in Avhich he had been concerned.
Fragments of marble tablets on which the acts of the Arval
Brotherhood are inscribed have been discovered, Avith dates which
show its existence from the early days of the Empire doAvn
to A.D. 238. Nothing, hoAvever, has been found bearing a later
date than this — the Emperor Gordian's name being on the
last dated fragment.
It would seem as though shortly after the death of
Gordian the confraternity ceased to exist. Most probably the
favourable disposition of the Emperor PhUip, A.D. 244 to
A.D. 249, towards Christianity determined him to put an end
to the famous Pagan coUege in which the reigning Emperor
occupied so prominent a position, f
SECTION V. — THE ADMISSION OF FOREIGN DEITIES AMONG THE
OLD GODS OF ROME.
Mingled with the old gods of Italy Avere the gods of the
many nations Avho had been subjected to the authority of
Rome. The Roman Avas ever ready to recognise the points
of similarity between the gods of a conquered people and his
own ancestral deities. So Julius Csesar writes of the Gauls:
" They especially honour Mercury, and after him Apollo,
* The Song of the Arval Brothers has come down to us, and scholars consider
it the oldest specimen existing of the primitive Latin tongue.
t Compare De Eossi's Pullet ino di Archeologia Christiana, 1869, p. 14, and
Allard, Sistoire des Persecutions, vol. ii., vi. 2.

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 163
Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva." In a like spirit, long before
Csesar, during the weary siege of Veil, Avhich lasted ten
years, the besiegers admired the "Juno Regina" of Veii Avho
had inspired the city's splendid resistance ; and Livy relates
hoAv, when at length the place fell, the captors with aU
reverence drew near the sacred image, and asked ff she were
wiUing to follow them to Rome. On receiving a sign of
acquiescence, the idol symbol of the goddess was brought to
the city of the conquerors.*
This spirit of accommodation tended to facilitate the
settlement of the conquered people. There Avere no religious
antipathies to be guarded against. In many cases, as we
have seen above in the instance of Veii, the strange gods
of the conquered Avere brought to Rome and even adored
there. These introductions of foreign, especially of oriental
gods, who had apparently httle in common Avith the ancient
Italian deities, began before the days of the Empire. We
read of the triumvirs, after the death of Julius Csesar, build
ing a temple to Isis and Serapis. Rapidly the influence of
oriental cults increased at Rome. Mithras, adored in far
distant Persia, became in the early days of the Empire a
favourite divinity among the lower classes of the metropolis
of the world. In the latter days of the Antonines this
eastern cult grcAV more and more popular. In the third
century the temples of Mithras became perhaps the most
sought after and thronged of the many Pagan sanctuaries in
Rome and in the great provincial centres.
It is a debated question whether or no this curious
admixture of oriental cults, this gradual association of the
deities of Egypt and Syria and Persia with the ancient
worship of Italy and of Rome, injured or strengthened
Paganism. On the one hand it is clear that the introduction of the
emotional rites of the Syrian divinities, the mysteries of
Egyptian Isis, the strange and picturesque ritual of the
* It is true that the " Juno Regina " of Veii was one of the old Italian
>3eities, but I have quoted this as a striking and familiar instance of the recogni
tion and adoption by Eome of the special deity of a. rival and conquered city

164 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Persian Mithras, to take prominent examples, accorded ill
Avith the original designs of Augustus, so happily set forth
by his friend and confidant VirgU. These eastem forms of
worship really had little in common with the comparatively
calm, grave devotion paid to the gods whom Augustus pro
fessed to revere, and of whom Virgil sang. The emotional
extravagances of eastern reUgion were distrusted at heart by
the old Roman spirit which Augustus and his friends, by
their zeal and industry, contrived to awake.
On the other hand it has been ably argued that without
this oriental admixture of passion and mystery, the ancient
Roman cult, with its simple ritual, its cold and majestic
creed, would never have obtained a permanent hold on the
gi-eat cosmopolitan cities over which a Tiberius and a Trajan,
a Hadrian and a Marcus ruled; that never Avithout this new
element of oriental Avorship could Paganism have held its
own for more than two centuries and a half against the
transparent truth, the quiet earnestness, and the sublime
teaching of that Christianity which in the end swept aU
these false religions away.
The answer to such interesting and debatable questions
tarries; it Avill never be fully supplied. One thing, hoAVCA'er,
is clear. Under the Empire Paganism, allied as it Avas with
the majesty of Rome, was a real power ; and though the
eventual issue of its long contest with Christianity Avas, as
we see now, never for an instant doubtful, it was a long
and deadly struggle, and was only Avon by the brave patience,
the constant endurance of suffering, the quiet, burning
faith, of several generations of Christian men and women
in many lands, Avho in countless instances welcomed death
and torture rather than deny their beautiful true creed.
To a superficial observer it seems strange, on first thought,
that the Roman Avho more than tolerated all religions, who
even had Avelcomed the gods of every nation Avith Avhom
he came in contact, yet made a stern exception of the
religion of the Christian, and the Christ whom the Christian
worshipped. It seems, indeed, strange hoAv it came to pass
that in Rome, the religious as well as the secular capital

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 165
of the world, where the gods of aU the peoples of the
vast empire possessed special sanctuaries and altars, Christ
alone was proscribed, and His votaries alone were reckoned
as outlaws and enemies of the State.
But, after all, this singular position of Christianity in
the Roman Empire, this standing alone among all religions
as the one proscribed and forbidden, was owing to the
conduct of the Christians themselves. Other religions, eastern
and western, were content to dwell together, content mutually
to acknowledge and respect each other. And in Rome, the
religious capital of the world, as we have noticed, the
Persian Mithras, the Egyptian Isis, and the Roman Jupiter
each had their temples, their sanctuaries and their altars,
side by side. The sanctity of each Avas acknowledged by
the Roman people. The worshippers among the citizens
and dwellers in Rome indifferently adored at one or other
of these shrines. But the Christian Avas sternly forbidden
by the tenets of his holy faith to make any such concession.
To him the Egyptian Isis, the Persian Mithras, the Roman
Jupiter were equally abhorrent. They were each and all
idols. In the words of his sacred oracles, " He that sacrificeth
unto any God, save unto the Lord only, he shall be destroyed."*
(Exod. xxii. 20.)
* In the above study Christianity is dwelt upon as being the soUtary example
of a religion not tolerated by the Eoman power. The Jew is not noticed here ;
although the Jewish religion too, owing to its intense horror of all idolatry, would
have stood outside the pale of cults acknowledged by Eome. " Judtea gens
contumelia numinum insignis " (the Jewish race conspicuous for its contempt i'or
the gods), wrote Pliny. {Sist. Nat., xiii. 4.) But at a comparatively early date
in the Empire the Jewish religion became involved iu the grave political complica
tions which disturbed all the relations of the Jewish nation and the Empire.
Before a.d. 70 the immemorial sacred capital of the Jews was stormed and captured
by Titus as the result of the great Jewish revolt in the reign of Vespasian. The
people, however, still stubbornly refused to submit, and the long succession of
formidable uprisings was only closed in a.d. 136, when Jerusalem was again taken,
and this time razed to the ground. The people were banished, and vast numbers
perished. After this terrible punishment, inflicted by the Emperor Hadrian,
the Jews may be said to have existed no more as a localised nation. Henceforth
the scattered and impoverished people were not of sufficient importance to be
objects of any real jealousy or dread on the part of the Imperial Government.
They were too few and too insignificant. Nor is it unlikely that this poor,
impoverished remnant, in spite of their exclusive religion, were looked on often

166 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
It was this stern, rigid refusal of the Christian to share
in the common toleration of religions which excited the
bitter wrath of all the Pagan Avorld ; it was this which
united all the Pagan religions against him. He was
the common enemy of them all, and to crush him, to
destroy him and his exclusive faith, was the aim of every
serious Pagan. Thus the restless persecution of the Christian
by the votaries of aU the Pagan reUgions in every portion
of the world of Rome during the first three centuries is
largely accounted for.
It was indeed a war to the death, and the history of
early Christianity chronicles the events of that long, weary
conflict and its result.
SECTION VI. — THE PHILOSOPHERS AND THE PAGAN REVIVAL.
The higher teaching in Rome between the days of Augustus
and the days of Marcus and his son, roughly the period
included in the first and second centuries, is well exemplified
in the works Ave possess of the later Stoic philosophers. We
shall only be able to touch on the fringes of this study,
and we simply propose to give a few references to the
words of two of the most distinguished of these teachers,
Seneca and Epictetus. Yet even these brief references
will give us some insight into the attitude of Paganism
on the side of philosophic teaching, in the period of its
mortal struggle Avith Christianity.
Seneca Avas the tutor and for a time the adviser of the
Emperor Nero ; his death is dated a.d. 65. Epictetus taught
somewhat later, during the reigns of Domitian and Trajan —
soTue placing his death as late as the reign of Hadrian. At
all events, he lived Avell into the second century. Marcus, the
Emperor and philosopher, Avho in some ways may be looked
even with fn'our, on account of the services they not unfrequently rendered, as
iaformers and spies, against the feared and hated Christians ; as, for instance, in the
martyrdom of Polycarp at Smyrna. Then, too, it must not be overlooked that the-
Jewi.sh religion was never aggressive. It rarely sought for proselytes. Very
dillereut was Christianity; among the worshippers of Jesus, every one more or less
was a 111 issionary, an active and earnest proselytiser.

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 167
upon as the pupil of the great teachers of this late Stoic
school, whose words and " Meditations '' we have already touched
upon, carries us on to 181, the year of his death.
We have dwelt on the great change which undoubtedly
passed over Paganism in the reign of Augustus and the two
following centuries, and on the striking difference between the
Avithering scepticism of the age of Julius Csesar and the
superstitious devotion which so largely characterised the days
of Marcus. By this strong current of devotion, so to speak,
the philosopher teachers were largely influenced; and their
teaching in tum helped, especially among the higher ranks
of society, to make Paganism in the epoch of its fierce struggle
with Christianity something of a reality.
Their efforts were largely directed to reforming the popular
religion, and in some way bringing men's minds to the belief
in the unity of God. They would persuade men that the many
names under which the supreme deity was adored in different
lands only represented one Almighty poAver. It is doubtfril,
however, ff this higher teaching ever really penetrated the
masses of the people ; and it is more than probable that the
vast majority of ordinary folk, until the day of the final victory
of Christianity, continued to understand and to practise religion
in the old way, worshipping Minerva and Venus, Vesta and
Juno, Mars and Esculapius, as deities especially connected with
and disposing the issues of the home and the hearth, of peace
and war, of sickness and health, much as their ancestors had
done. But there is no doubt that an effort to teach men the
grand Unity of God, worshipped under whatever different
names and symbols, was made in the schools of the great
philosophic teachers of the first, second, and third centuries;
helping to give, among the more thoughtful at all events, a
renewed reality to a religion which had well-nigh, if not
entirely, lost its power over the hearts of cultured people.*
* " Under different names we adore the One God Whose eternal power gives
life to all, and in adoring this Divinity under its several attributes we adore
the One Eternal Power. We invoke, through the mediation of the lower Gods,
the Father of Gods and men, and thus in various forms of religion the same God
worshipped by all men of different nationalities." So wrote Maximus of
Madaura to S. Augustine {S. Aug. Epist. 16).

168 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Thus the philosopher, the thought-leader and teacher in
Rome, the statesman who ruled Rome, the patriot who loved
Rome with a great passion, for different reasons and in different
ways set themselves to restore — we might say to reform — the
fast dying religion of Paganism ; and they were partly success
ful. They breathed into its wild legends a new life by giving
them a new meaning; they prolonged its existence for well-
nigh three hundred years; they gave it vitaUty and power to
contend with Christianity aU through that period of struggle,
and although in the long run they Avere defeated, and in the
end the cause for which they struggled Avas utterly and for
ever ruined as far as the Roman Empire Avas concerned, the
contest was a long and painful one, and for a time, as far as
men could see, the issue hung in the balance. The long battle
between Christianity and Paganism eventuated in a complete
victory for Christianity, because the confiict was between truth
and falsehood, and in the long run truth wUl ever be victorious
on earth as in Heaven.
It is the fashion to describe the great contest between
Paganism and Christianity as a combat betAveen evU and good,
as a struggle of darkness against light. Such a general
presentment may on the whole be accurate, but it is easy to
exaggerate. It is too alluring a task for the Christian historian
and apologist in his desire to magnify the final victory of the
cause he justly loves, to underrate the efforts made by eamest>
serious men brought up in the atmosphere of Paganism, and
living all their lives amidst its associations, to raise the brother
hood of man to a higher and purer level That eminent and
devout teacher, Augustine, acknowledges the noble efforts of
the philosophers of the earlier Empire Avhen he writes that
" Christianity has found the only way which leads to the land
of peace, but the philosopher had seen that blessed land from
afar, and had saluted it."
Now the great teachers of philosophy, in thefr efforts to
reform the old religion, Avere not content with endeavouring
to inspire their disciples with a loftier, nobler, and truer
conception of the Divinity worshipped under so many aud
often such grotesque forms, but they pressed home besides

TEE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 169
in thefr teaching a higher and purer morality, a morality
indeed so exalted that many have supposed that they leamed
it from the life or from the writings of Christians.
To quote a few examples of their moral teaching: Seneca*
(circa ad. 50-60) has something very beautiful to say of
the charity or love which is so distinguishing a feature
in Christian practice. The Pagan master Avould have his
disciples console and lighten the sufferings of others by that
true sympathy which is often more efficacious than mere
gifts. He would have them tender and gentle even to
sinners, even to their enemies. He charges them to be
generous to the poor and needy ; he teaches that the son
should be ransomed and restored to the mother, that the
slave and the gladiator should be if possible redeemed, that
the holy rites of sepulture, so precious a privilege in the
eyes of the Roman world, should not be denied even to the
remains of a criminal. He Avould have his disciples live
among their fellows, as though God were ever present and
looking on, God who was ever with men, at once their
protector and friend.
Very subUme indeed appears to have been "Seneca's con
ception of God, Avho must not only be worshipped by men,
but must be loved by them (" colitur et amatur "). Bitterly
he inveighed against the popular Epicurean notion that God
or the gods were indifferent to us and carele&s of our woes.
Surely, he writes, one who could teach this, Avas deaf to all
the voices or prayers ever going up, was blind to the hands
clasped in supplication in every part of the world ! f
* In this necessarily brief study we have only cited from Seneca and
Epictetus; but these were only two of the masters who taught in this age in
the Eoman school of philosophy. They are the two best known, but it would
be a mistake to suppose they stood alone. They are conspicuous and iUustrious
examples of their school, nothing more.
t The teaching of Seneca was no doubt immeasurably superior to any
thing whioh had hitherto proceeded from the older philosophic schools. Now,
had he learned it from Christian teachers ? TertuUian {circa a.d. 200) would
seem to suspect this when he writes, " Seneca is often one of us " (Seneca saepe
noster). It has been argued that Seneca could scarcely have known S. Paul
in the flesh, as S. Paul's visits to Eome were subsequent to the date of Seneca's
writings. But there is little doubt that as far as dates are concerned he might

170 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Some, indeed, of the conceptions of the Deity are most
striking ; it Avould seem as though the Pagan philosopher
was a student of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, Avhen he teaches
that the gods ask not at our hands the sacrifices of oxen,
or the offerings of gold and silver for their temples, or for
money contributions to be poured into their treasuries ; what
they require from us is the offering of a heart at once devout
and just. The immortals need no lofty buildings of stone,
storey reared on storey ; what is required by them of man is
that he should build them an unseen sanctuary in his heart.
Little heed, however, was paid to such lofty and purely
spiritual ideas of worship by the Pagan peoples who in
habited the broad Roman Empire; and even such earnest
and devout disciples of phUosophy as the Emperor Marcus
were little moved by such noble conceptions, though they
emanated from the greatest of the Stoic masters. It was
Marcus who thought, in the course of his campaign on the
Danube, to propitiate the favour of the immortals by throw
ing two lions into the great river! It was the same pious
and devoted servitor of the gods who, before the expedition
against the Marcomanni, brought out and exposed the images
of the gods for seven days in Rome in accordance with an
ancient Pagan custom ; and on that occasion, too, vowed to
sacrifice, in the event of the war being successful, such in
numerable beasts, that the famous epigram recorded by
Ammianus Marcellinus was written : " The white oxen to

have met S. Peter, who we believe probably lived and taught in Eome, while
Seneca was in power, many years before S. Paul came to the capital. But
without personall-y coming in contact with any great Christian teacher such
as Peter or Paul, the echo of their voices, perhaps some of their writings even,
might have reached the philosopher. The Christian community of Eome, although
it was pointedly ignored by so many of the earlier writers of the Empire, must
have been well known and carefully watched by the Government. Nero's
aelection of the " Sect " as the object of his infamous accusation on the occasion
of the burning of Eome tells us this. It seems to be beyond dispute that
Christian teaching more or less affected and coloured, if it did not do more,
many of the doctrines and precepts of the later Stoic school of philosophy
tiom and after the middle of the first century. Jerome e\en refers to letters
which passed between Paul and Seneca. The letters, however, in question are
undoubtedly forgeries.

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 171
jMarcus Csesar, hail ! Alas, if you return a conqueror we shall
aU die!"
But while so many of Seneca's beautiful words possess
the aroma of evangelical teaching, Ave often come upon some
sentence, ^some reflection, Avhich tells us that the writer, al
though perhaps inspired not unfrequently by some divine
thought whose source must be sought and found in the
words of the Founder of Christianity, or of some one of His
disciples, yet lived in a very different atmosphere from that
breathed in the communities of Christians; as, for instance,
when the Pagan master speaks of the lofty platform occupied
by one who in good earnest is virtuous after his exalted
pattern. Such a one, he argues, draws near the gods and
becomes their equal * (" cum dis ex pari vivit") — and even in
certain respects is the superior of the god (Jupiter).t Very-
different indeed would have been the estimate of his life,
made by a holy and humble man of heart who formed one
among the congregation of a Peter or of a Clement !
Very striking, again, are many of the thoughts on religion
of Epictetus, who carries on the tradition of the teaching of
the philosophic reformers of Paganism into the next genera
tion, when Trajan was on the throne; perhaps even as late
as the days of Hadrian, well on in the second century. Epic
tetus would have all sorts and conditions of men pray to the
great God. " As for me, I am groAving old," said the sage,
" what can I do better than praise God ? I must do this, I
would have all join me here. I Avould say to Jupiter, f Do
with me what thou wiliest. Take me where thou pleasest, I
am thine, I belong AvhoUy to thee.'" Very touchingly, in
Avords which might well have been used in a chapel or
oratory of the Christians, Epictetus thus talks of prayer to
the Supreme Almighty Immortal. " Shut your door ; and,
in the solitude of your chamber, think not that you are
alone ; you are not —because God is Avith you." " Lord,"
* Compare Fpist. 59, 14.
t Compare Epist. 53, 11 — Deprovid. 6, 6.
X Jupiter was ever a favourite deity among the Eomans ; to him a supremacy
seems always willingly to have been accorded.

172 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAG.-INISM.
pleaded Epictctun, " have I ever complained of Thy dealings
with me, or found fault Avith Thy Providence ! I have been
sick because it Avas Thy will, I have been poor, ay, and
joyfriUy, because Thou didst avUI it. . . . Wouldst Thou have
rae go hence to-day from this glorious Avorld, I go hence
wiUingly ; I thank Thee for suffering ine to be with Theo, that
I am able to gaze at Thy Avorks, aud that I have had power
to grasp somcAvhat of the meaning of Thy government."
Thus these philosophers Avho taught in Rome from the
days of Augustus to the days of Marcus and his son, en
deavoured to lead thoir disciples to pray, to pour out their
hearts to the supreme God. The Emperor Mareus Aurelius
Antoninus, a.d. 161-80, Avas their faithful disciple, and Avill-
iij^^ly, and from his heart served the immortals; carrying,
indeed, his religious service often to tho verge of innnodcrale
superstition. To sum up. There Avas much in the inoral teaching of
those masters of the Stoic philosophy of the first and second
(caturies Avhich resembled the precepts of Christianity.
There was emphatically smndhlng in their teaching loftier,
purer, more real than had ever appeared before in the teach
ing of any Pagan phUosophic schools. It is at least higlily
probable that some echoes of tho words of Jesus and of His
disciples, which had been repeated again and again in the
Christian communities of Rome and of other great centres
of thought in the Empire, had reached the ears of men like
Seneca, Epictetus, and other masters of the later Stoic school,
liad strongly influenced them, and to a certain extent
had coloured their teaching ; more, however, than this cannot
be said. Neither Seneca, Epictetus, nor tho other philosophers
of this school, were Christians, or even in any sense eould
be said to teach Christianity. No Clui.stian dogma ui any
form ever appears in their AVords. If thoy Avere ac(juaintcd
Avith Christian doctrines, they rejected them apparently Avith
out examination. Marcus, tho Emperor, thoir most illustrious
disciple, evidently might have had before him such Avrituigs
as the " Apologies" of Justin. It is more than doubtful if he
ever road thom. He disliked the Christians, as we have seen,

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 173
Avith an intense disUke ; and even his sense of justice Avas not
sufficient to induce him to treat the sect Avith common fair
ness. In his e}'-es the followers of Jesus Avere, for reasons
upon which Ave have briefly dAvelt, a positive danger to the
Empire. And the attitude of Marcus Avas no doubt more or
less the attitude of the masters of that great philosophic
school of the later Stoics of Avhich he Avas so distinguished a
disciple. We hear little of this school of philosophers after the
passing aAvay of the renowned Emperor in a.d. 181.* A'arious
eausos wero at Avork Avhich explain this rapid Avaning of its
power and infiuence. In the reign of Marcus it had reached
tho highest point it ever touched. The great Emperor Avas
;i faithful disciple, and his advisers, and the men Avhom he
choso I'or the various administrative posts throughout his
vast Empire, Avere largely selected out of the ranks of its
best known professors and foUoAvers. But after the extinction
of the House of the Antonines in a.d. 193, the influence of
Stoicism A-ery rapidly Avaned.
One obvious reason Avas no doubt its failure to commend
itself to tho mass of the people. Cicero, someAvhat before thc
riso of the noAV Stoics, tells us of the general unpopularity
of philosophj' Avith the multitude. It never found the ke}'
to the hearts of the people. The Stoic philosophy appealed,
and often Avith poAver, to many of the cultured and the
thoughtful aniong the upper classes of Roman society, but it
tuner penetrated into the deep stratum which lay beneath
this comparatively small section of tho citizens of Rome.
For instance, Marcus, the Emperor, the greatest and most
influential of the disciples of the latei" Stoic philosophers,
failed completely to induce his people to second his noble
and earnest eftbrts to do aAvay Avith the sauguinarj' and
demoralising games of tho amphitheatre. They could not
or would not understand him,
* The philosophic totichers of tho .ngo, of which wo nre writing, by no means
((// belonged to tho Inter Stoies. Thoro woro in Eome, and in a much less degree
iu otlier grout oitio.i, othor sohools of philosophic teaching. But the Stoics
woro indisputably by fwthe most pi-oiiiinont, both in the number of their adherents
Mud in tlie groat influonco whioh they exercisod.

174 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
The lofty morality, the high and severe lffe recommended
by such teachers as Seneca and Epictetus, was utterly un
pleasing, perhaps incomprehensible, to the pleasure-loving,
thoughtless, careless multitude. Such teaching, often beauti
ful and true, though somcAvhat cold and severe, needed some
thing more to commend itseff to the people generaUy than
the eloquent words of the Stoic teacher, or even the high
example of a Stoic Emperor. That something existed
among the Christians, but was utterly wanting outside their
circle. Then again, the philosophic teaching of Seneca, Epictetus,
and the other later Stoic masters, powerful and seemingly
heart-searching though it often was, made httle or no effort
to reach the poor and humble dweUings of the struggling
trader, or, loAver stUl, the crowded and squaUd homes of the
artisans ; still less did it care to speak to the slave, though
one of its great exponents Avas a slave himseff. Its precepts
were admirable; its doctors, as we have seen, noAV and
again vied even Avith the Christian teachers in their eamest
desire to persuade the disciples of their school that all men
were brothers, and that all ahke Avere deserving of pity, help
and comfort ; but they Avent no further. They spoke to a
select few oiAj. Their Avords were rarely heard beyond the
waUs of their lecture haUs. They could talk beautffully oj
the poor, the slave, and that great army of sufferers who
make up the rank and file of the inhabitants of a great city
such as Rome ; but they never spoke to these — the poor, the
slave, and the sufferer.
Strangely different indeed was the way of working adopted
by the teachers of that widespread sect, the unresting opponents
of Stoic Pagan philosophy.
Unweariedly the teachers of Christianity pursued their
propaganda ; they had no public lecture halls, the scenes of
their instruction were the frequent religious meetings of
believers and enquirers — meetings held in poor upper rooms
belonging to artisans and little traders ; in chapels attached
to the houses of the great and powerful ; in crypts or catacombs,
where slept the loved dead of the Christian community.

THE BEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 175
The message was never silent; it was spoken with equal fer
vour to the patrician and the slave. It recognised no rank, it
cared httle for human culture. Indeed, it especiaUy sought
for the outcast, the humble, the unlearned. Never before had
any religious teachers taken pains and trouble to seek out the
poor, undistinguished, doAvn-trodden folk, but strange to say
it was among such that Christianity chose especially to deliver
its beautiful, life-giving, true message.
And it was rewarded. The ceaseless propaganda among
the poor and the despised — going on as it did year after year
in city and in country, in many lands and among many
nations, a propaganda carried on too, for the most part, amidst
circumstances of grave danger and ever-present peril to the
unwearied teachers — touched the hearts of the people ; and
the disciples of the new faith were, as the second century
grew old, counted by thousands and tens of thousands.
Still, though we recognise its especial weakness, its im
potence among the masses, Ave must not underrate the
assistance which the phUosophy of the later Stoics rendered
to Paganism in its hour of need. It was a real help, but it
only helped it among the cultured classes. It did nothing
to popularise it among the masses of the people. Other
influences than philosophy were at work which attached the
people to the old Pagan religion, which kept them in vast
numbers faithful to the old gods, and to the old idol ritual
practised in the stately temples where their forefathers had
Avorshipped. We have dwelt on some of these influences
already at some length — influences which put off for a long
period the final ruin of Paganism.*
* Another influence, that of Porphyry and the teachers of the Neo-Platonic
school in the second half of the third and the earlier years of the fourth century,
is touched upon later (pp. 409, -410),

176

CHAPTER VIII.
THE CHRISTIANS UNDER THE ANTONINES, A.D. 138 TO A.D. 180.
In the reigns of the Antonines, Pius and Marcus, who foUowed
Hadrian, a.d. 138 to a.d. 180, despite the generaUy Avise and
beneficial administration of these two princes, who justly are
deemed the noblest and best of the early line of Emperors, the
situation of the Christian communities in the midst of the
Pagan population of the Empire grew graduaUy more precarious.
The dangers to which they were exposed increased in number,
while the safeguards, Avhich the wisdom and understanding of
rulers like Trajan, and Hadrian in the earlier years of his reign,
had provided against popular clamour, were often more or less
disregarded or evaded.
Outwardly, at all events, the spirit of the rescript of Hadrian
coloured the letters addressed by Antoninus Pius to several
of the Greek cities in the provinces of Achaia and Macedonia;
wherein he gave orders that mere noisy clamour on the part
of the people should not be counted as a formal accusation of
the Christians to be taken official account of by the governor.
Letters, too, bearing on the same points were sent to Athens
and the Greek cities in general.
A good example of the effect of iUegal popular clamour in
the case of accused Christians occurs in the history of the
martyrdom of Polycarp, already related in the sketch of the
great Bishop's career, Avhich took place in a.d. 155, when
Antoninus Pius was reigning. We read that the proconsul
wished to give the accused Bishop a fuller hearing and a
formal trial, but that the tumult and shouting of the populace
induced him to sanction immediate execution.
There appear to have been in the reign of Pius many ot

photo : Alinan & Cook, Rome.

MARCUS AURELIUS
Statue in tho Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome.

THE GHBI8TIANS UNDEB THE ANTONINES. VlT
these popular outbursts of feeUng in Greek cities against the
Christians. This points clearly to the gradual revival of
Paganism, which was so prominent a feature in the reign of
Marcus, who followed Pius on the throne.
Although the Antonines made no ostensible alteration in
the policy laid down by their predecessors on the questions
connected Avith the relations of Christianity and the Empire,
yet, as we have seen, the Imperial rescripts Avere of so general
a nature that they could be interpreted in a sense favourable
or unfavourable to the religionists to whom they referred,
according to the disposition of the particular governor; in
which no doubt the supposed bias, favourable or otherwise
towards the Christian communities, of the all-powerful reigning
Emperor at Rome, would be an important factor. The pro
consul was certainly likely to shape his pohcy closely on the
lines which he judged would be acceptable to the Emperor.
Now the feeling of the Antonines was never favourable to the
growing sect, and it became more hostile as time advanced. The
policy of Antoninus Pius may be said to have been generally
indifferent, but the indiflerence gradually shaded into dislike
into a fixed idea that Christianity was un-Roman ; and in the
Emperor Marcus this idea became more and more pronounced.
The love of justice, the hatred of all oppression and tyranny,
which so strongly characterised the rule of the Antonines, to
some extent shielded these quiet and scrupulously loyal
sectaries from all open cruelty and high-handed acts of
oppression ; but the evident dislike of the great Emperors,
especially of Marcus, and their evident mistrust of the aim
and object of Christianity, made the profession of the Faith
in their reigns very burdensome, often very dangerous. Hence
the roU of martyrs in Rome and the provinces became longer
and longer in the times of the two noblest and most upright
of the Emperors.
Among the early Christian writings that we possess in their
entirety, the first " Apology " of Justin, presented to Antoninus
Pius circa a.d. 145-50, holds a conspicuous place. It is the work
of a scholar and thinker, a man versed in all the learning of
his day and time, who had embraced Christianity only when
M

178 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
he was, comparatively speaking, well advanced in life, and had
already carefully examined the principal cults practised by
the various peoples inhabiting the vast Roman Empire. The
first "Apology" of Justin Avas addressed to Antoninus Pius,
Avhen that sovereign had been reigning some fcAv years. In
the course of his elaborate and deeply interesting plea for the
one proscribed religion, the writer, among other points, presses
upon the Emperor the wonderful loyalty to constituted
authority always shown by the persecuted sect. They never
hesitated, for instance, to pay at once the Imperial taxes. The
only liberty they claimed was the liberty of conscience Avhich
bade them adore one God. In everything else they were ready
to obey with joy. They recognised the royalty and supremacy
of Rome, and Avere in the habit of praying that Divine help
might be given to the Sovereign. Justin pleads, too, with
great force that the sum of Christian teaching is that nothing
escapes the eye of God, that He sees and punishes eternally
the wicked man, the conspirator, the self-seeker, Avith a punish
ment exactly commensurate with his evil deeds ; that the
same God, too, rewards the virtuous man in proportion to his
righteous Avorks. Surely such teaching as this, he argues, is a
real and substantial help to the laws of a good government
like that of Imperial Rome, and gives stability to society.
Further, he contrasts the pure morals of the Christian sect
with the disgraceful examples set by the Pagan gods. He
indignantly repudiates the scandalous charges made against
the Christian Avorship, and paints in a foAv simple and eloquent
sentences its most sacred portion, the solemn Eucharistic
service. Pious, pure, peace-loving — surely Christians had the
right of protesting before the Emperor against the crying in
justice of the Roman laws against their religion ; laws by Avhich
the bearing of the name of Christian was proscribed and punished
with death. In their case no inquiry Avas necessary, whether
or not they had committed crimes. The mere fact of their
being Christians Avas sufficient to condemn them. They Avere
judged ixnd put to death simply on account of the Name they
bore, whilst, on the other hand, the mere renouncement of
the Name procured their immediate acquittal. In the name

THE CHBIS TIANS UNDEB THE ANTONINES. 179
of justice and mercy, he argued, let not Rome judge and punish
a word or Name, but let her judge and punish acts, if any such
be found worthy of punishment. When a Christian is haled
before Rome's tribunal, at once let his life be subject to a
rigid examination, let the court inquire carefully if he has
done aught amiss, but do not let the mere name of a Christian,
which embraces so much that is beautiful and good, be imputed
to him as a crime. Let not one who has never injured any,
Avho is a loyal subject of the Empire, be regarded as a
criminal deserving of the severest punishment ; let the Christian
be given the common privilege which the Roman law gives to
all accused persons. It is surely monstrous that a special law
should exist in the solitary case of one only charged with
being a Christian.
It was some years after the presentation of his first
"Apology" for Christianity that the second of these appeals
that common fairness should be shown to the accused
Christians was addressed to the Emperors (Pius and
Marcus) and the Senate. When Justin wrote his second
" Apology " in or about the last year of the reign of Antoninus
Pius, things looked very dark for Christianity throughout
the Empire. The reigning Emperor had no sympathy
with the wor,shippers of Jesus, who resolutely stood aloof
from all the religions favoured and sanctioned by the
State. His adopted son and successor, Marcus, Avas knoAvn
openly to dislike them, though the reason has ever been a
subject of wonder and inquiry. No new rescripts on the
Christian question had indeed been put out. But the old
Imperial directions, which issued from the chanceries of Trajan
and Hadrian, were still in force ; and their vagueness, which
left much to the discretion of the provincial governor,
was now sadly inimical to Christians, when it was under
stood that the Emperor himself was personally hostile to
the sect. The interpretation now of the old rescripts by
the provincial govemor was apt to be very different from
the interpretation of the same Imperial commands when
the reigning Emperor was known to be opposed to per
secution in any form, and when men were conscious that he

180 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
only reluctantly acquiesced in extreme measures if the
fact of the accused being a Christian were forced upon
the magistrates and officials of the Empire.
In the middle of the second century there was already
an active propaganda of Christianity carried on in numberless
families by means of Christian slaves, confidential servants,
teachers of various arts and accomplishments, physicians,
and others who had access to the inner life of families. It
is an error to suppose that Pagan society in the second
century had to seek instruction in Christianity secretly in
some little chapel of a wealthy Roman's house, or in a
sepulchral crypt of a dark and narrow catacomb. That teach
ing and preaching, probably of a high order, under the
charge of some learned and devoted master, was constantly
to be found in their most secret and hidden places, was no
doubt the case ; but the propaganda of the Faith was by
no means confined to these little centres. There were few
families in Rome after a time that did not count among
their numbers one or more Christians. Often these members
filled only humble positions, but their widespread influence
was incalculable. Justin, in his second "Apology," as the
crown of his argument, showing the great and lofty influence
of the Faith, gives us a striking example of how Chris
tianity influenced the home life. A Roman citizen and
his wife, of the middle class but evidently in good circum
stances, had been for some time living a disorderly sinful
existence ; a life too common in that age of luxury and
vice, when the popular Paganism was almost powerless as
a teacher of the nobler life, or as an influence for good.
Through some of those quiet, powerful influences of which
we have spoken the wife became a Christian, and at once
her old life became changed. Not so her husband. He
went on in his evil ways, plunging even deeper into dis
graceful sin, till at length the union became insupportable
to the wife, who applied for a divorce. Then the wicked
husband, seeking for the reasons Avhich had influenced his
wife, divined that she had become a Christian. The Pagan
in that age, when fairly unprejudiced, swiftly appraised the

THE GHBIS TIANS UNDEB THE ANTONINES. 181
purifying influence of Christianity. At once, if any marked
change of life was apparent, if any open opposition to
fashionable vice or sin was made, the true cause Avas forth-
Avith suspected. So it happened in the case of the couple of
Justin's story ; the angry husband at once pubUcly charged his
wife with being a Christian. The Christian woman, through
interest or possibly bribes, contrived to delay the trial. In
the meantime her husband, through some outside per
suasion, dropped the charge against his wife ; and having
learned that one Ptolemseus had been the instrument of
her conversion, made him the object of accusation. This
charge was pressed, and although no persecution was
raging and no special desfre just then existed to hunt down
Christians, Ptolemseus was tried and sentenced to death. A
bystander in the court named Lucius, listening to the
Roman Prefect's sentence, appealed to the judge, asking
him how he could condemn to death a man convicted of
no crime, simply because he had confessed himself a Chris
tian — surely such a sentence Avas unworthy alike of a pious
Emperor and the sacred Senate ? The Prefect deigned no
reply to the bold inquirer other than, " You, too, seem to
be a Christian." " Yes," said Lucius, '' I am," upon which
open confession Lucius too Avas led to immediate capital
punishment. A third Christian present in the court, fired
by these examples, confessed his faith, and the three died
together. In the course of an argument on the strength of the
attachment of Christians to their Master Jesus, and on the
numbers and varieties found among the martyrs of his day,
'Justin beautifuUy remarks that "Socrates (whom Marcus
revered) never had a disciple who was willing to die for
him. Jesus, on the other hand, has a crowd of such devoted
Avitnesses. Artisans, men and Avomen drawn from the very
dregs of the people; philosophers, too, and cultured men,
Avho were all wilhng and ready to die for His doctrine. The
power which strengthened these was not from human
wisdom. It was the strength of God." These martyrs, to
whom Justin was speciaUy aUuding, belonging to all sorts

182 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
and conditions of men, won their crown, be it remembered,
in a period of comparative stillness.
The events narrated had taken place in the reign of
Antoninus Pius, when persecution was inactive. But when
Pius passed away, the nineteen years (a.d. 161 to a.d. 180)
of the reign of his successor, the noblest of the Pagan
Emperors, proved nevertheless the hardest period of trial
the foUoAvers of Jesus had as yet experienced. More Chris
tian blood flowed under the rule of the Imperial Philosopher,
whose " Thoughts " or " Meditations " reveal apparently one
of the tenderest of consciences, than was shed in the sharp
but comparatively brief persecutions of Nero and Domitian,
or during the long reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus
Pius. A new and harsher interpretation was given to the
Imperial rescripts of Trajan and Hadrian, and to the still
earlier precedents of Vespasian and the Flavian princes, in
the difficult questions of procedure against accused Christians.
No doubt, too, the spirit which prompted the government of
Marcus to persecute, emanating as it did from so revered
and admired an Emperor, not a little influenced Septimius
Severus at the close of the century when he issued his sterner
anti - Christian rescripts. From the accession of Marcus
onwards, whenever an Emperor on the throne Avas not
favourably inclined to the followers of Jesus, the persecution
of the Christians assumed a more general as well as a more
deadly aspect.
But the effect of these harsher measures, the result of
this bitter opposition, Avas very different from Avhat the
Imperial Government contemplated. The general proscrip
tion exercised an enduring and powerful influence on the
scattered communities. It had the effect of uniting the per
secuted and harassed Christians more and ever more closely
together, while it never seriously diminished the number
of Christians ; the new converts being far more numerous
than the martyrs and the "lapsed." As the years passed
on, the Church thus tried became through adversity more
strong, more bravely patient.

THE GHEISTIAN8 UNDEB THE ANTONINES. 183
Hitherto we have passed over all events, hoAvever interest
ing, connected with the secular chronicle of the Roman
Avorld, unless such events were closely connected with the
history of Christianity. We have dismissed with only a very
brief notice the careers of those great men who played the
part of Masters of the World in the first and second cen
turies, excepting so far as their policy speciaUy affected
Christianity; as was the case with Augustus, who may be
said to have first built up that Paganism Avhich for so
long made an effectual stand against the religion of Jesus,
and with Hadrian, whose name Avill be ever connected with
the last great JoAvish war.
The Emperor Marcus Aurelius, however, demands a special
study, since his policy introduces a new and speciaUy un
friendly departure in the relations of the Roman world
Avith the many Christian communities, which more or less
affected Christianity until the hour of its final triumph
about a century and a half after his accession.*
We know much of the inner hfe of Marcus, since we
possess a private diary of his, revealing to us the inner
most thoughts which guided and influenced much of his
public life. These " Thoughts," or " Meditations," are private
memoranda,t written often hastily, without arrangement,
more often in the tent when he was with his army than
in the palace. As a kind of commentary on this " diary "
we have some charming letters addressed to him by his
friend and teacher Fronto, letters comparatively recently
discovered. The intense " religiousness " of Marcus is striking.
Here, face to face with Christianity, we have a Pagan who
apparently believed in the Roman gods rehabilitated by
the pious calculating care of Augustus. We will give just
a few extracts from Fronto's correspondence. The teacher
writes without fear to the absolute master of the world.
* The association of A''erus in the Empire by Marcus hardly requires notice.
He had little or no weight in determining policy, and died, somewhat opportunely
for Eome, after some eight years of joint rule, in a.d. 169.
t " La sincerite de cette interrogation soHtaire en fait un dea plus precieux
monuments de I'antiquite." Champagny : les Antonius, vol. iii., livre vi.,
ch. i.

184 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
" Be careful not to play the Csesar — do not plunge into the
waters of Imperial enticements; keep yourseff simple, good,
serious, the friend of justice, ready for aU duties, kind. . . .
Honour the gods. Save men, life is but short. There is
but one prize to be Avon in our earthly career, to have
striven after a holy aim, and to have lived a life which has
been useful to others. In aU things be a foUower of (your
adoptive father) Antoninus Pius. Call to mind his unresting
love of work, his steady friendships. Think of his piety,
never superstitious" (there was, perhaps, a warning here of
a danger Fronto suspected) ; " so order your life that the
end wUl find you as it found him, Uving in the peace of a
good conscience." And again, "Love all men, yes, and from
your heart. Be patient with the wicked man, be sorry for
him. . . . You never can be quite sure ff' something hidden
from you cannot be fairly urged as a plea for his conduct.
And you — are you perfectly pure yourseff? Even if you
are free from the faults and errors you condemn, is it not
perhaps from a vanity which preserves you from them ? "
In Fronto's advice, in Marcus' " Thoughts " or " Meditations,"
there is much that reminds us of Christianity; unsuspected
Christian influences are dimly perceptible. Indeed, there is
very little in ancient phUosophy or teaching at aU com
parable to or even resembling the lofty conceptions which
we meet with continuaUy in these " Thoughts " or " Medita
tions " and correspondence of Marcus. But everywhere, in
"Meditations" and in letters alike, constant references to the
gods meet us again and again. Yet the good Emperor had
no fixed belief; at times he even seemed to doubt the very
existence of the gods Avhose names were ever on his lips.
Longing intensely to believe in a guiding and directing
Power, he would in his superstitious anxiety even turn from
the ancient gods of Rome to the Eastern deities, with thefr
corrupt and corrupting rites, Avith their occult mysteries ;
sympathising with all religions save one. For towards
Christianity he was ever cold, ever hostile: once only he
alludes to it in his " Meditations," and then with accents
of petulant scorn. It is difficult to guess the reasons for

THE CHRISTIANS UNDEB THE ANTONINES. 185
this hatred Avhich the great, earnest, devout Emperor con
stantly showed to Christianity. The only explanation possible
is that Marcus Avas trained in the school of Roman statesman
ship, which regarded Christianity as utterly opposed to all
the cherished traditions of Roman government, which taught
that to be a Christian and at the same time a Roman Avas
simply impossible, that the peculiar and exclusive tenets of
the sect held them generally aloof from all offices in which
they could serve the State, and play the part of good citizens ;
that they were in fact as citizens a-)(p-)]c7roi (useless). It
does not seem as though the Emperor ever took the pains
to examine the principles of a faith which he thoroughly
distrusted and disliked, or ever really read a weighty
document like the second "Apology" of Justin which was
addressed to the Emperors, or that he ever came in contact
with any really great Christian personality, who might have
influenced him at least to give the Christian cause a fair
and patient hearing.
In spite of his unfeigned devotion to the gods of the old
reUgion, in spite of his earnest piety, which, it is evident,
at times shaded into strange superstitious notions, Marcus
had no definite vieAvs as to the " hereafter" ; he never alludes
to elaborate gradations of rewards and punishments, such as
we find in the magic pages of Augustus' poet, the loved
Virgil, but dwells rather on the idea of " rest in God " for
the soul, which, as Marcus understood it, seems to have
involved the loss of all personal identitjr.
The modem traveUer — as he stands on the Palatine in
the midst of the vast and melancholy ruins of the palaces
of the Csesars, and looks over the Roman Forum with its
immemorial story, with its now shapeless piles of mighty
stones, dominated by a few graceful columns, by a solitary
arch or two, by a fragment here and there of a once mighty
waU; as, painfully and wearily, he reconstructs in imagination
the matchless group of sacred buildings once crowded
together in that strange square or " place," for several cen
turies the centre of the world and its eventful story — begins
to comprehend something of the feelings of a Marcus

186 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Aurelius Antoninus, who gazed day by day on this wondrous
scene, still in its fair beauty, at the height perhaps of its
superb magnificence. Those stately temples, with their
golden roofs gleaming and flashing beneath the rays of an
Italian sun, were the chief earthly symbols of the deities
whom he had been taught to revere, as the gods of the men
who had been makers of the proud Empire over which he
ruled, as the inspirers of their great deeds, as the Providence
of their fortunes, as the Immortals who loved Rome with a
peculiar love. These gorgeous fanes were the representative
sanctuaries of such deities as Jupiter of the Capitol, Mars
the Avenger, Vesta with her sacred fire, Venus, Juno, Saturn,
or the " great Twin Brethren " who fought for Rome in her
day of trial. All that was great and glorious in Rome had
sprung — he had been taught — from the fact of the mighty
protection of these venerated Immortals. The past, the
present, the future of the Empire was bound up in thefr
cult. Not only Italy, but the whole of the enormous
Roman world in the East and in the West more or less
acknowledged their sovereignty and adored their changeless
majesty. Only one strange sect stood aloof from the cos
mopolitan crowd of worshippers at these awful shrines, a
sect comparatively speaking of yesterday — for when his
great predecessor Augustus reigned it existed not — a sect
which claimed for the Being it worshipped not toleration
but solitary supremacy. It was verUy an enormous, a
stupendous claim, for it involved regarding the great gods
of Rome as shadows, as mere phantoms of the imagina
tion. Well might one like the Emperor Marcus shudder at
a claim, at an assertion Avhich Avould seem to a true patriot
Roman, Avhose heart was all aflame with national pride, to
involve the most daring impiety, the most shocking blasphemy,
the most tremendous risks for the future of his people.
And this sect of yesterday, his ministers would tell him,
was steadily increasing not only in Rome, where curious
strange faiths abounded, but in all the provinces, in the
home-lands of Italy, in Greece, in Syria, far away even in
the Euphrates valley, in Egypt the seat of mysteries, in

THE GHEISTIAN8 UNDEB THE ANTONINES. 187
North Africa with its wealthy sea-cities, in the vast province
of prosperous Gaul. They Avould tell him hoAV this hateful
sect of Christians was adding daily converts to its extra
ordinary and dangerous belief, converts drawn from the
humblest traders, from freedmen and slaves — converts
draAvn too from the noblest houses of Rome, even from the
families of those patricians whose exalted rank gave them
perpetual access to the sovereign's inner circle. The Chris
tians, when Marcus foUoAved his adoptive father Pius on the
throne, from their great numbers, their unity, their organisa
tion, had become a real power in the State, a power with
which statesmen assuredly would have sooner or later to
reckon, a power which threatened every day to grow more
formidable. And to the patriot Emperor, whose pious nature ever
loved to dAvell on the unseen protection of the Immortals,
in whom he strove with intense earnestness to believe, to
whom he prayed daily, hourly, these Christians and their
aggressive uncompromising belief, for which, strangely enough,
they were only too ready to die, were abhorrent. They
constituted in his eyes an ever-present danger to Rome,
her institutions, her ancient religion.
The Emperors he had followed on the throne, mighty
sovereigns such as Vespasian and Trajan and Hadrian, noble
princes, such as was his (adoptive) father Pius, had pronounced
these Christians outlaws, had decided that the public con
fession of Christianity, without further investigation into the
hfe of the accused, involved the punishment of death; but
with the pronouncement, these Emperors had in some degree
protected them from prosecution. In view of the present
grave peril to the State, its most cherished institutions, and its
ancient religion, the Imperial policy must be somewhat changed.
The old rescripts of Trajan and his successors, which declared
that the profession of Christianity incurred the penalty of
death, might remain unaltered ; but the Imperial mantle of
protection which discouraged all persecution, hitherto spread
over the communities of Christians, must be Avithdrawn.
Henceforth the prosecution of Christians must not depend on

188 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
some chance event or information : these dangerous sectaries
must be actively sought for, hunted down, and on con
viction summarUy dealt with.
The foUoAving dry historical records of contemporary
writers referring to and briefly chronicling the persecutions
of Christians specially active in the days of Marcus, AviU be
the justification of a portion at least of the foregoing reflections
on his anti-Christian policy.
Celsus, in his Avriting "The True Word," circa a.d.
177-180, or possibly a very few years earlier, but stUl in the
same reign, speaks of Christians as being sought out for
execution. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, circa a.d. 170-171,
Avrites of new edicts which dfrected that Christians were
to be pursued. For such persecution no precedent, he
stated, existed. We have already expressed the opinion
that no new edicts were promulgated by Marcus Antoninus,
but that the old procedure was stUl carried on in the matter
of Christian prosecutions, only Avith greater harshness and
with an evident bias against the reUgion of Jesus. The
"new decree" alluded to by Mehto woiUd, if this conclusion
be accepted, signify fresh instructions or explanations from
the Emperor rather than legislation Athenagoras, circa
A.D. 177-180, dweUs on the harrying, robbery, and bitter per
secution of the Christians. Following the argument of Justin
Martyr, he inveighs against the Christian being condenmed
simply because of the " Name," no further evidence of guilt
being required. TheophUus of Antioch, circa A.D. 180,
also teUs us that Christians were sought out and hunted
down like dogs.
" The Acts of Martyrs " and records of martyrdom of
the period, some absolutely genuine, others translations
from the original proces verbaux, Avith Uttie or no addition,
speak to the same effect. In the "Acts of S. Felicitas and
her Sons," the genuineness of which wUl be briefly discussed
when we come to speak of some of the martyrdoms of the
reign, the anti-Christian policy of Marcus is sadly CArident.
In the famous account of the " Martjnrs of Lyons and Vienne ''
in Gaul we read hoAV the Christians of the great Gallic

THE GHBISTIANS UNDEB THE ANTONINES. 189
province were sought out. A similar inference must be
drawn in the case of the martyrdom of Justin, related in
the " Acta Justini."
It was this official hunting-down, this police seeking-out
of Christians, which was the new feature in the policy of the
Emperor Marcus towards the sect. It does not seem to
have been ever practised in the reign of Antoninus Pius,
and by Trajan and Hadrian it was explicitly forbidden, lest
the rescripts should be misunderstood by over-zealous magis
trates. The change introduced by Marcus Aurelius was com
plete and fundamental.

190

CHAPTER IX.
A CHAPTER OF MARTYRDOMS.
SECTION I. — INTRODUCTORY.
The martyrdoms of the Christians of the age of persecution, an
age which lasted roughly 260 to 280 years, form an important
chapter in early Christian history if we bear in mind their
terrible frequency, and remember hoAv powerful an influence these
conspicuous and repeated acts of suffering, even unto death,
had upon the Christian life and character. It AviU be worth
while to devote a short space in our history to a somewhat
detailed relation (1) of a typical trial in the reign of Marcus
Aurelius Avhich preceded the last awful act ; (2) of the scenes
which took place in the prison where these captives for the
religion were held in bondage and waited for the end ; and
(3) of the martyrdom in the public arena Avhere these brave
soldiers of the Faith in pain and agony passed to their
rest. The scenes we have chosen for our typical pictures lay
in different famous centres of the Empire, in Rome, in
Carthage, and in Lyons. The documents from which Ave
have drawn the materials for our accounts are contemporary,
and in the opinion of the great majority of serious critics
absolutely authentic*
(1) The trial scene we have selected for our example lay
in Rome; it was conducted by an Imperial functionary of
high rank, the Prefect of Rome, and the proceedings were
read and approved by the Emperor Marcus himself, Avho after
* The only one of the thi-ee pieces of which the authenticity as a contemporary
record is questioned is the first. The question of its authenticity is discussed below
at some length.

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 191
reading them ratified the stern sentences of the prefect.
The date of the trial in question was circa a.d. 162. The
source of the document from which we quote was evidently
the proems verbal of the trial
(2) The prison scene Ave have depicted lay in Carthage
the splendid and Avealtliy capital of the populous com
mercial province of North Africa. The date of this prison
scene was circa a.d. 202. We have appended to this a
very short account of the martyrdom which followed the
scene in prison from the recital of an eye-witness, as it
formed part of the original document describing the prison life.
(3) The other arena scene, chosen as a good example of the
usual close of a martyrdom, lay in the flourishing province
of Gaul, in the important city of Lyons. The date of the
events here narrated was circa a.d. 177, during the reign
of the Emperor Marcus. Again it is the record of eye
witnesses, who sent to certain Christian communities fri
distant Asia Minor a faithful record of what had been
endured for the Gospel's sake by their brethren in the
Faith in Lyons, then the chief city in the populous Gallic
provinces of the West. The intimate relations of the Churches
in Gaul Avith those in Asia Minor have already been noticed.
Thus, to sum up, the three typical scenes of Christian
martyrdom are draAvn from contemporary and authentic
sources. They date from a.d. 162 for the trial scene, for the
prison scene and its sequel from a.d. 202, for the arena scene
from A.D. 177. The period of these three events, chosen as
an example of what Avas taking place in many other cities,
is roughly the middle of the 280 years of our story.
Different great centres of the Empire have been selected.
The trial was in Rome, the prison in Carthage, the arena
in Lyons, thus illustrating the observation already made
that the early scenes of persecution were common to aU
parts of the Roman Empire.
SECTION II. — A STATE TRIAL OF ACCUSED CHRISTIANS IN ROME.
Early in the reign of Marcus Aurelius modern scholars
have placed one of the more famous scenes of martyrdom.

192 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
For various reasons the condemnation and passion of Felicitas
and her sons have ever been a favourite and popular piece
among martyrologists ; these martyrs have been, out of number
less similar instances, selected as special objects of veneration.
They occupied this position of high esteem in the Church's
records certainly as far back as the middle of the fourth
century, as we shall presently see.
SimUar prosecutions were set on foot in numberless
centres of the Empire at this period, a.d. 161-180; and as
this trial of Felicitas and her sons, persons of high birth,
took place at Rome, under the very eye of the Emperor, it
Avill certainly serve as a fair example of the procedure. Our
recital is based on the Latin text of the " Acts of S.
FeUcitas," which some critics* suppose to have been based
on a Greek original report of the trial. There seems no
reason for doubting, however, that the Latin text we possess
fairly represents the original notes, or proces verbal,\ of
* As, for instance, De Rossi, Marucchi, and Allard.
f Two unmistakable marks of the genuineness of the piece are — (1) It is
undated save that the name of the magistrate or prefect is given; hence it would
seem that the present version or redaction generally reproduced the original
document, no attempt having been made to amplify or to render it more interesting
or instructive. (2) The place or places of interment of these martyrs is not
indicated in the " Acts." This ie a mark of high antiquity, as in the early days
great secrecy at first, for obvious reasons, was observed as to the place where the
remains of any well-known confessor were laid. Accurate modern scholarship has,
however, determined the date almost with certainty, and modem scientific research
has, curiously, lighted upon some of the places of sepulchre of these martyrs.
A considerable amount of controversy has arisen on the question of the authen
ticity of these celebrated "Acts of S. Felicitas'" — Aube attacks them, and Eenan
accepts Aube's view. Tillemont considers that they have not aU the characteiistics
of genuine " Acts." Bishop Lightfoot, in a long note in his appendix to the reign
of Marcus Aurelius, Ep. of S. Polycarp [Apostolic Fathers), suras up against them,
but does not consider it improbable that S. Felicitas was a real person, and that she
may have had a son or sons who were martyred.
On the other hand, very many recent scholars maintain their authenticity —
so De Eossi, Borghesi, Doulcet, Marucchi, and others. Allard, the most recent,
accepts them {Sistoire des Persecutions, vol. i., chap, vi.), and tianslates them at
length with copious notes in his history as a valuable genuine piece, illustrated
from De Rossi and others.
On the whole, the balance of evidence is strongly in favour of their general
authenticity. It is possible that they have been redacted in a later age, but probably
in the main they are absolutely a genuine piece. They are contained in the " Acta
Sincera " of Euinart.

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 193
what passed at the trial of the heroic mother and her
sons. Felicitas belonged, as we have said, to the higher ranks
of the society of the day ; she was a widow, famous in
Christian circles for her earnest and devoted piety. The
high rank and position which she occupied evidently gave
her considerable influence. A deputation from among the
Pagan pontiffs of Rome, well aware doubtless of the hostile
feeling of the Emperor towards the Christian community,
approached Marcus, and laid an information against FeUcitas
as belonging to the uiUawftil reUgion. They played upon
the Emperor's well-knoAvn superstition, dweUing upon the
Avrath of the immortal gods stirred up by this womans
impiety towards them; a Avrath which they professed to
be unable to appease. The Sovereign, acting upon this
information, directed the Prefect of the city to see that she
and her sons at once publicly sacrfficed to the offended
gods. From the name of the Prefect, Pubhus, which is
given in the "Acts," we are enabled to date the martyrdom
circa A.D. 162. This year, we know, was spent by the
Emperor Marcus in Rome.
The Prefect Publius summoned Fehcitas, and endeavoured,
first by gentle words, then by threats of a pubhc execution,
to induce her to sacrifice to the gods. FeUcitas refused, teUing
the magistrate that she was conscious of the indweUing of the
Holy Spfrit, who would defend her from being overcome
by the Evil One. "I am assured that whUe I Uve I shall
be the victor in my contest with you, and ff you cause me
to be put to death I shaU be stUl more a conqueror."
PubUus then said : " Unhappy one, if it is pleasant for
you to die, at least let your sons live."
"My sons," said Felicitas, "wUl surely live ff they do
not consent to sacrifice to idols. But ff they commit this
crime of sacrificing they AviU die etemaUy."
The day foUowing the Prefect took his seat in the Forum,
a place probably surrounding the Temple of Mars Ultor
(The Avenger), and summoned her sons to appear as accused
before him.

194 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
The first interrogation of Felicitas, due regard being had
to her exalted rank, Avas held apparently in private. But
now, as she had proved contumacious, her trial and that of
her seven sons was conducted in the open Forum. " Be
pitfful at least to your sons, these gallant young men, stUl
in the flower of their youth," said the magistrate to the
accused Christian lady. Felicitas, turning to her sons, bade
them, "Look up to Heaven, where Christ with His saints
is waiting for you, fight the good fight for your souls, and
show yourselves faithfiil in the love of Christ." Then the
Prefect PubUus ordered his attendants to strike her, sayiog,
"Do you dare in my presence to urge that the commands
of our masters (the associated Emperors Marcus and Verus)
shall be set at nought ? " Then, commanding that her sons
one by one should be placed before him, he addressed the
eldest, Januarius, offering him a rich and coveted guerdon
if he compUed with the command and sacrificed, but
threatening him Avith scourging Avith rods if he refused.
Januarius simply answered, " The wisdom of the Lord Avill
support me and enable me to endure alL" He Avas at once
scourged and led back to prison. The second, Felix, refused
too, saying, " We adore one God, to whom we offer the
sacrifice of prayers; never suppose that you AviU separate
me or my brothers from the love of the Lord Jesus Christ;
our faith wUl never be overcome or be changed by any of
your threats." To the third son, PhUip, Publius said, " Our
lord the Emperor Antoninus commands that you should
sacrifice to the all-mighty gods." Philip repUed, " They
are neither gods nor are they aU-mighty. They are but
vain, pitiful images, and those who shall consent to sacrffice
to them will risk an eternal danger." To SUvanus, the
fourth son, the Prefect spoke as foUows : " I see you have
agreed with your iU-starred mother to despise the commands
of the Princes (Marcus Antoninus and his colleague Verus),
and thus to bring about your ruin." " If," replied Silvanus,
" we were to fear a temporary death, we should be punished
with an eternal death, but as we know well what rewards
are prepared for the just, what punishments are reserved for

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 195
sinners, we can safely despise the Roman law when it comes
in conflict Avith the Divuie law. If we treat these idols with
scorn, and serve the AU-mighty God, Ave shall Avin eternal
Ufe." To the fifth of Felicitas' sons, Alexander, the magistrate
spoke as follows: "Think of your tender age, be pitiful to
your life, stiU on its threshold, act as your sovereign
Antoninus would have you act. Sacrifice to the gods and
become the friend of the Augusti"* The brave youth at
once answered, "I am the servant of Christ, I confess it
openly, I love Him from my heart, I am ever adoring Him.
Yes, I know I am young, but I have the wisdom of age so
I adore our God. As for your gods, they and their worshippers
alike will perish."
To the sixth son, Vitalis, the Prefect put the foUowing
question: "Perhaps you AviU choose to live, and wUl not
prefer dying ? " VitaUs in reply asked, " Who is it who
really chooses to live? The one who adores the true God,
or he who seeks the protection of a demon ? " Publius
then inquired, " What demon do you refer to ? " Vitalis
quietly answered, " All the gods of aU nations are demons ;
so too are they who worship them."
Martial, the seventh and last of the accused, was thus
apostrophised by the magistrate, " You are your own enemies^
you despise the ordinances of the Augusti (Marcus and
Verus), and you persist in your OAvn destruction." " Oh,"
cried Martial, " if you only knew what punishments were
reserved for those who worship idols ! But God stUl restrains
His anger from (crushing) you and your idol gods. All who
do not confess that Christ is the true God will go into
eternal fire."
The proces-verbal of the trial was forwarded to the
Emperor Marcus for his decision. This was probably done
because of the high rank of the accused, for as a rule
* This offer to the young Christian noble was a highly coveted distinction
bestowed now and again on persons of rank. The " Amici Augusti " (friends
of Augustus) possessed the right of access to the Imperial presence and a seat
at his table. It was reckoned a great distinction, and we find it inscribed
among the titles of honour on funeral tablets.

196 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the magistrate summarily condemned to death persons who
confessed that they were Christians.
The decision of the Emperor does not seem to have
tarried. The accused Avere placed in the hands of the three
officers whose duties consisted in the charge of the prisons
and of the arrangements connected with capital punish
ments. (Triumviri capitales,)
Januarius was sentenced to be beaten to death by whips
loaded with lead. The second and thfrd brothers were
doomed to a somewhat similar fate. The fourth was hurled
from a height, and so died. The three remaining brothers
and their mother, Felicitas, were decapitated. The punish
ment of Januarius and the second and third of his noble
brothers was somewhat unusual in the case of illustrious
Romans, but this last degradation in death no doubt was
intended as a stern warning to like offenders belonging to
the higher ranks of society.
The text of the "Acts" implies that the executions of
the martyrs were not aU carried out in the same place. It
is probable that the places of thefr sepulture were chosen as
near as possible to the scenes of the martyrdom. The State,
as a rule, was merciful to the friends of the executed and
usually gave up the bodies of those put to death to their
friends for burial. But in the case of the impopular Christians,
the violence of the mobs, as we have seen in the case of
Polycarp of Smyrna, sometimes destroyed these sacred rehcs;
hence the silence in the " Acts " as to the place of interment.
But the tradition of these sacred spots was faithfuUy kept
in the Roman Church, and in the Ust of the "birthdays"
(as the anniversaries of the day of their deaths Avere termed)
of the more famous martyrs, which Avere kept solemnly in
the first quarter of the fourth century, when Miltiades,
A.D. 311-314, was Bishop of Rome, we find four of the weU-
known cemeteries (or catacombs) specified as the places of
sepulture of Felicitas and her seven sons. This ancient
reference is reproduced in the several lists of the catacombs
containing tombs of famous martyrs usuaUy visited by pUgrims
between the fourth and seventh centuries.

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 197
Time, and the successive ravages by barbarian invaders
and others to which the catacombs have been subjected,
have removed all traces of the sepulture of six of the martyred
sons. But a broken portion of the inscription Sanct Fel
(icitas) has been unearthed in the spot designated by the
ancient documents as the place of the mother's sepulture,
leaving no doubt as to the perfect accuracy of the ancient
tradition.* But a far more striking discovery f by De Rossi in the
ancient catacomb of Prsetextatus on the Appian Way has
shoAvn us the tomb of Januarius scarcely changed, though
more than seventeen hundred years have passed since the
blood-stained remains of the eldest of the martyred seven
were tenderly and reverently laid to rest.
The catacomb of Prsetextatus, from many ancient references,
was known to be rich in historic memories ; and when part
of it was being carefully excavated, and the heaps of earth
and rubbish removed, a large and carefully decorated crypt
or cubiculum was uncovered, the peculiar masonry and decora
tions of which experts referred to the times of the Antonines ;
scratched in the plaster of a fast fading fresco of the Good
Shepherd on the waU wa,5 the foUowing uncouth inscription
containing these words and fragments of words : —
... MI EEPEIGEEI JANUAEHJS AGATOPUS FELICISSIM . . . MAETYEES.
(may januarius, AGATOPUS, FELICISSIMUS THE MARTYRS REFRESH [thE SOUL Of] . .)t
Agatopus and FeUcissimus were two martyrs, deacons of
Pope Sixtus IL, buried in the catacomb of Prsetextatus a.d.
258. The friends of some dead Christian interred at a later
period near the spot had scratched these words some tAVO or
three centuries after, invoking the protection of the three famous
saints for their dear dead one.
The invocation impUed that Januarius was buried in this
cubiculum. The inference was shown eventually to be absolutely

^ De Eossi, Pull, di Arch. Christ., 18G3, p. 21, 41-49.
t Ibid, 1-4.
X Ibid., pp. 2, 4, and see also Allard, Sist. des Pers., vol. i., chap. vi.

198 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
correct, for in a.d. 1863, as De Rossi was making further
investigation on the spot, he found some fragments of marble
on which, when put together, the following inscription could be
deciphered. It was the work of Philocalus, the artist of Pope
Damasus, A.D. 366-384, by whose reverent care so many of
the precious martyr tombs of the second and third century
were restored and marked :
BEATISSIMO MARTYRI
lANVARIO
DAMASVS EPISCOP
FECIT.
thus locahsing beyond doubt the site of the sepulchre
where the remains of Januarius, the eldest of the martyred
sons of Felicitas, were originally deposited.

section III. — THE PRISON LIFE BEFORE A MARTYRDOM.
For our sketch of the prison scene in the case of an
accused Christian, we have chosen perhaps the most beautfful
and graphic of aU the records which have come doAvn to
us of these martjrrdoms : the one contained in what is knoAvn
as the Passion of S. Perpetua.
The circumstances related in the " Passion " in question
took place, circa a.d. 202-3, some forty years later than the
martyrdom of Felicitas and her sons. The Emperor Severus
was on the throne, a Sovereign iU- disposed to the reUgion
of Jesus, in whose reign a long and bitter persecution of
Christianity raged in most districts of the Empire. The
scene of the martyrdom and of the events which preceded
it Avas the great city of Carthage, the capital of the province
of North Africa.
The " piece," the authenticity of which is supported by
contemporary authorities, is generally received by scholars
as a genuine* martyrology, largely the work of the heroine
of the story.
The " Passion " in the form Avhich we now possess is evidently
* See Appendix D.

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. iyi>
written by three hands. By far the largest part is the prison
memoir of Perpetua herself A smaU section containing
the relation of Saturus' vision in prison claims to have been
written by Saturus* himself It is Avoven into Perpetua's
narrative. A short introduction by the redactor, or original
editor, prefaces the memoir of Perpetua, and an account of the
martyrdom closes the piece. This touching nai rative of the
final sufferings of the little company was written in compUance
with Perpetua's request, made shortly before she suffered.
The immediate cause of the outbreak of persecuting fury
at Carthage seems to have been one of those frequent popular
disturbances in large cities excited by Pagan fanatics against
the Christian community.
The little company who made up the actors in the bloody
drama, the subject of the "Passion," consisted of Vivia
Perpetua herself, a young married lady of good family and
position, and Saturus ; two slaves, Revocatus and Felicitas
and tAVO young men, Saturninus and Secundulus.
The arrest of this little group of Christians, apparently
quite unconnected by any link or famUy bond with each
other, was due to the accusation of a delator, or informer.
They were hearers or pupils of Saturus, and the information
was probably laid against them OAving to a recent rescript
of the Emperor Severus sternly forbidding any Christian
propaganda. The accused at first were simply confined to
their own dwellings. They had not, when first arrested
received the rite of baptism. This, however, after the danger
of their position was recognised by them, was no longer
delayed. And Perpetua, we read, made a special request at
her baptism for strength to endure suffering. The prayer
was granted. The father of Perpetua, Avho was a Pagan, in
vain entreated his daughter to apostatise. The accused were
soon removed to one of the common gaols of Carthage,
where they were herded together with other prisoners in
close and dark cells.
* Saturus was a teacher of Carthage. He had been the instructor of
Perpetua iu the Christian faith, and suffered martyrdom at the same time as
Perpetua and her companions.

200 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM
It was the custom in Christian communities when an
arrest was made of any of their number, at once to send
deacons to the prison to comfort and assist the captives in
the faith. Two deacons, Tertius and Pomponlus, were appointed
for this duty, and they paid the gaolers to aUow the accused
some relaxations from the stern prison treatment. Among
other favours, Perpetua was allowed to have her child Avith
her. She tells us in her narrative how the prison now
became a pleasant abode. Her brother visited her too, and
congratulated her on the privUege she enjoyed as a sufferer
for the faith's sake, and suggested she should ask in prayer
Avhat Avould be the result of her captivity — would she be put
to death or set at Uberty ? Perpetua prayed earnestly, and
as an answer to her prayer she related to her brother how
in the night as she slept a vision had been vouchsafed to
her. She saw a great ladder, very steep, reaching up to
Heaven, and on the sides of the ladder were swords and
instruments of torture. A slip or a false step would at once
expose anyone who should attempt to ascend the steep ladder
rungs to being cut and maimed. At the foot of the ladder
crouched a huge beast Avhich she caUed a dragon.
Saturus, her teacher, climbed the ladder before her, and
from the top he called to her: "I AviU support you, Perpetua;
but beware of the dragon bituig you." She answered : " He
will do me no harm, in the name of Jesus Christ." She
fearlessly put her foot on the beast's head and climbed up
safely. At the top she found a vast garden, and in the garden a
white-haired shepherd milking his flocks; around him were
gathered many thousands of white-robed forms. The shepherd
looked up and spoke to her : " Thou hast well come, my child " ;
then he gave her a httle piece of curd which she received and
ate, and those who stood by said "Amen." She awoke Avith
the taste of something in her mouth she could not explain,
but it was very SAveet. Perpetua knew she had seen her
Lord, and that He meant her to understand that her
" Passion " Avas determined upon, and that there was no
prospect of release for her.

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 201
This and her subsequent visions in prison are the only
supernatural incidents in the narrative, nor need we question
thefr reality. Such dreams were by no means uncommon
in these supreme moments of martyrdom. Cyprian, for
instance, among others, relates what he saw in a vision Avhen
his martyrdom was near at hand. It is besides by no means
inconceivable that these visions of comfort Avere vouchsafed
now and again to the faithful witnesses in their bitter trials ;
and, indeed, what we deem purely natural causes might well
produce such dreams in the sufferers, who in their waking
moments had been dwelling on what they had heard or read
of Heaven,* living in a feverish state of expectation of death,
which they looked upon as the sure end of their trials and
troubles and anguish, and at the same time as the gate of
Heaven and eternal felicity.
There is no reason to doubt that Perpetua and Saturus,
Avho also teUs a strange dream which came to him as he
waited for death, truly and faithfully relate their OAvn experi
ences in the dreary Carthage prison.
The day of trial drew near. The father of Perpetua again
came to see his daughter in her hard captivity, and entreated
her as before to have compassion on his white hairs, remem
bering how in times past he had loved her best of all his
children ; he prayed her not to disgrace him now by dying a
public death of shame, beseeching her to think of her mother,
her brothers, her baby boy.
" I was very, very sorry for him," wrote Perpetua, " and I
tried to comfort him by teUing him God would decide the
issue for us all, for we belonged not to ourselves but to Him ;
but my father left me alone, very sad."
The pubUc trial soon came off. In the court the Procurator
Hilarianus presided in the room of the pro-consul lately
deceased. The Acts of the Passion are very brief here. They
simply relate the advice of the judge to Perpetua to have
pity on her grey-haired father and her baby boy, and to
* See Appendix D, where the impression left on their minds of such promises
as are contained in the "Apocalypse of S. John" and in other writings, such as the
" vShepherd of Hermaa " is referred to.

202 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
sacrifice for the safety of the Emperor. Perpetua refused.
Then the magistrate directly asked her whether she was a
Christian. " I am a Christian," replied the accused. Forthwith the
little group was condemned to the wild beasts, and the con
demned ones, aU joyful, went back to their prison.
The last scene, however, was delayed. The victims were to be
reserved for the public games in the Amphitheatre which were
fixed for the anniversary of the Csesar Geta, the Emperor
Severus' son. The prison lffe went on much as before with
the doomed companions ; they prayed much together. One
day as they were thus praying the name of Perpetua's little
brother, Dinocrates, suddenly occurred to her. Dinocrates
had been long dead. The child had been afflicted with a
maUgnant cancer in the face, which had proved fatal The
sudden remembrance of her little brother seemed to Perpetua
an intimation that she was accounted worthy to intercede for
him ; so she at once prayed long and earnestly to the Lord
for the dead child. In the night she had another vision.
We relate it in her own touching, simple language.
"I saAv Dinocrates coming out of a dark place where
there were many others. The chUd's face was sad, pale,
scarred by the fatal cancer which had been the cause of his
death. The death had been a sad one to witness.
"Between me and my brother lay a guff (space) which
was impossible to cross. Near Dinocrates there stood a
piscina (or tank) full of water, but the rim of the tank was
too high for a chUd to reach. Dinocrates was thirsty, and
kept stretching up to it as though he wished to drink. I
awoke, and understood at once that my brother was in
suffering." In the meanwhile the captives were removed into another
prison, and the conditions of thefr imprisonment became
harsher. Perpetua, however, kept on praying at all hours for
Dinocrates. As she prayed (no doubt again Avhile she was
sleeping), once more she saw her little brother; but now the
terrible cancer scar seemed quite healed; he appeared to have
been tenderly cared for, and seemed quite happy; the piscina

A CHAPTER OF MABTYBDOMS. 203
she had noticed in her first vision was lowered, and out of a
golden cup which never failed he drank as he pleased. " I
saw him now playing quite happily as children play. Then I
understood that he Avas released from punishment."*
As the day of the deadly combat in the Amphitheatre drew
nearer and nearer, crowds of Christians Adsited the condemned
in their prison, the guards on duty freely alloAving these
visitors to pass in and out. Amongst others, the father of
Perpetua kept coming, hoping still to induce his dear daughter
to recant. Perpetua relates another vision before the end came ; by
no means an unnatural one considering the fate that lay
before her, upon which she was continually brooding by night
and by day. She dreamed that the day of the combat had
at length arrived, and Pomponlus, the Deacon, who had often
visited her, had arrived to accompany her to the dread scene
in the theatre. He was arrayed in a white robe. He took
her to the place of combat and then left her, with the words,
'' Fear not, I am here with thee and suffer with thee." She
describes vividly her fighting Avith a hideous Egyptian and
his attendants ; she tells how a great form shod with shoes
of gold and silver, carrying a green bough on which were
golden apples, stood by. She was the victor in the sore
' Scholars differ as to what the special guilt of the little boy could have
been. The general opinion, however, is in accord, that he died without baptism.
The whole vision is interesting, partly from it being an evidence as to the teaching
at that early period of the importance of baptism, partly from the efiScacy of
prayer offered by the living for the dead. But it must be borne in mind, before
any rash deductions are drawn from this authentic and early record, how singularly
effective the prayers of those who were about to suffer martyrdom for the Faith
were esteemed by the Church in those bitter days of persecution. It by no means
foUows that in the opinion of the early Church the prayers of persons living
every-day lives would be equally eflicacious. The case, too, of the little boy's
sufferings is exceptional. If he were in a state of suffering owing to his having
died yet unbaptised, as Perpetua evidently believed, it was no fault of the poor
little feUow. That prayers, however, for the dead were offered by the early
Church during the first three centuries is indisputable. Innumerable inscriptions
on funeral tablets bear witness here, as also do prayers found in the oldest
Uturgies we possess. The blessing prayed for in the case of the departed is vague,
however, and is best summed up in the beautiful and expressive word, " rofri-
gerium " — refreshment {refrigeria ceterna).

204 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
conflict; the form that stood by gave her the green bough,
and she left the Amphitheatre with glory. "And I awoke,"
wrote Perpetua in her story, "and understood that it was
not with beasts but against the devil that I was to fight. But
I knew the victory was mine."
Woven into the beautiful tapestry of Perpetua's story
is a short account written by Saturus, the Christian teacher,
who was also condemned to the Anld beasts, of a vision
he saw when in prison with Perpetua and the others.
The story of his vision is Uke the recital of the dreams we
have been quoting from, simple, fervid, eloquent. It reads
true, every line of it. It was a striking, even a wonderful
experience, that of Saturus. We give a few extracts from
his words. " We " (Saturus and Perpetua, his pupil) " had
suffered and Avere no longer in the flesh. Four angels seemed
to bear us up, but we were touched by no hands, we ap
peared to be gently ascending in an eastward direction, and
before us lay a light incomprehensible. I said to Perpetua,
who was at my side, ' This is what the Lord promised us.
We have received the promise.' The four angels stUl bearing
us, we found ourselves in a vast garden (viridarium) of roses,
md of all manner of flowers. Four other angels Avere there
yet more glorious than the first four, who greeted us Avith
honour. We found there (in the garden) more martyrs known
to us who had been burned lately in the course of the per
secution, and we asked them questions, but the angels said,
' Come first and salute the Lord.'
"So we passed on and came to a place the very walls of
which were, as it were, buUt of transparent light, and the
angels who stood before the gate put white garments on us as
we went in, and Ave heard the hymn, ' Holy, Holy, Holy,' being
sung ceaselessly, and we saw One sitting all in white, with
the face of a young man. Four elders were sitting on either
side of Him, and behind Avere many other elders. All won
dering Avith admiration we stood before the Throne ; Iffted
up by the four angels, we kissed Him ; when we had kissed
the Lord the elders bade us go and play. (Ite et ludite — the
Greek version has ' go and rejoice.') I said to Perpetua,

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 205
Now you have what you longed for.' She replied, 'I was
glad when I was in the flesh, I am more glad now.' "
One of the group, the slave Felicitas, gave birth to a child
when in prison. In her condition she would not have been
aUowed to have been exposed to the wild beasts, and the
brave girl was sorely grieved at the possibility of being thus
cut off from " witnessing to death " with her companions. So
they all prayed Avith intense earnestness for her. Three days
before the day fixed for the Amphitheatre rhow, the slave
Felicitas, was delivered. One of the gaolers, as she suffered,
heard her moaning, and said to her, "If you cannot bear
these sufferings, how wiU you endure the rush of the wild
beasts in the arena, you scorner of the gods ? " " To-day,"
replied Felicitas, " I am enduring my own sufferings, but then
there avUI be another within me (my Lord) who wUl suffer for
me, because I shall suffer for Him."
They were no sombre group of gloomy fanatics, this
Perpetua and her companions, ever with a smile on their
lips, and a quiet half-humorous reproach for their guards
when they behaved more harshly than usual. They had no
dislike, no repugnance to the bright sunny life which pos
sessed so fair a setting in that beautiful North Afr-ican sea
board of the old historic Carthaginian land. In one of her
striking prison visions, where the heaven-Ufe plays so con
spicuous a part, Perpetua told her companion in bliss, as he
had been her companion in anguish, how happy she had been
on earth, though she was then far happier in heaven. It was
the intense reality of their faith which carried them all
through their sufferings, which nerved them to meet the
cruellest of deaths. It was no weariness of life which made
them so glad to quit it. It was simply that they would not
purchase life for an hour at the price of denying their Lord,
who they knew would meet His brave confessors after the
moment of the death agony, face to face. It was worth while
to suffer for that.
It was the custom the evening before the Amphitheatre
games for the condemned to be entertained somewhat liber-
aUy at the public expense. To this ghastly entertainment —

206 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
this death supper — many of the public were admitted as
lookers-on. A crowd of Pagan sightseers assembled in the
prison of Carthage where the Christians, who were to prove
one of the principal sights in the bloody games of the morrow,
were confined.
They thronged round the table where Perpetua and her
friends were sitting. " Is not to-morrow long enough," re
monstrated Saturus, " for you to feast your eyes upon those
you hate ? Smihng on us this evening as curious friends,
to-morrow you Avill be our deadly enemies." He was alluding
to the fierce thirst for the blood of the victims which usuaUy
possessed the spectators of those awful games. (The accuracy
of Saturus's onlook here was sadly verified by the behaAdour
of the spectators in the Amphitheatre when Perpetua and the
others were exposed to the beasts.) "Now mark weU our
countenances, that you may know them again at the Day
of Judgment." The half playful, half eamest words of the
Christian teacher who was to die on the day foUowing deeply
impressed many of the bystanders, some of whom eventually
became converts to the Faith they had been taught to hate.
What happened on the " morrow " is related by another, a
nameless Christian friend of Perpetua, who was speciaUy asked
by her to write down for the edification of others the story
of the long looked-for death struggle with the wild beasts.
It was "bound up," so to speak, in the Uttie volume which
contained the recital of Perpetua and the short bit by Saturus,
the whole under the title of " The Passion of Perpetua." The
same hand which wrote the Uttie preface tells us the story
of what happened in the Amphitheatre. He prefaces his
supplementary recital with considerable solemnity. It is an
admirable piece of composition, the work evidently of a trained
scholar, but of a scholar, some think, belonging apparently to
the Montanist school of Christian thought This, however,
is by no means proved. It has been seriously ascribed to
Tertullian* himseff.
* So Prof. J. Armitage Eobinson, who maintains that the whole character
of the composition points to Tertullian as its author ; and considers it " in the
highest degree probable that we havc in the beautiful ' Martyrdom ' a genuine
addition to the hitherto recognised works of the great master." — Texts and

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 207
The day of their victory dawned at last, and the condemned
procession marched from the prison to the theatre as though
the march was to Heaven ; cheerful, with beaming counten
ances, excited somewhat, but Avith feelings of joy rather than
of fear: the two women following their companions, Perpetua
serene, but with the gravity of a young matron, Felicitas pale
and weak owing to her recent suffering. At the Amphitheatre
gate the officials wished to vest the men with the dress of
the priests of Saturn, and the Avomen with the insignia of
the priestesses of Ceres, as the terrible show Avould gaia in
'dramatic picturesqueness if the chief actors in it Avere thus
arrayed. But the victims earnestly remonstrated against the
injustice of such a mockery.
Dying of their own free will because they would have no
part in idolatry, they urged it was an illegal act to force them
to put on vestments which belonged to rites they abhorred,
and for the refusal to share in which they were about to die.
The tribune in charge listened to them, and refrained from
this last hateful insult.
Perpetua kept singing Psalms and spoke not a word. The
men, when they passed before the seat of the Roman
magistrate, thus apostrophised him, " You are our Judge ;
•God will be yours." The people cried out that they should be
-scourged as a preliminary. This cruel request was complied with.
Then the wild beasts were loosed. Revocatus and Saturn
inus were attacked first by a leopard and eventuaUy torn by
a bear.* Saturus lived longest. The beasts at first refrained
from tearing him ; a wild boar which, it was hoped, would
crueUy gore him, even turned furiously on his keeper instead
of on the defenceless Christian ; a bear, when his cage was
¦opened, sulkily refused to come out. Saturus, for a brief
moment thus respited, in the interval spoke to one Pudens,t
Studies : The Passion of S. Perpetua, pp. 47-56 ; Cambridge, 1891. Other
modern writers, e.g. Mgr. Freppel and Allard, simply suggest that the nameless
.author of this part of the " Passion " belonged to the school of Tertullian.
* One of the little company of six, Secundulus, had died in prison.
t Allard believes this soldier to be identical with Pudens the martyr, who
subsequently suffered as a Christian in one of the numerous persecutions of that
.period at Carthage. — Sist. des Persecutions, iii., chap, iii., p. 130.

20 S EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
a soldier on guard, who, moved by his words and conduct,
had been kind and attentive to him in prison. "Be quick,"
said the fearless Christian, " and become a believer, for the
leopard " (which was about to be loosed) " wUl soon kiU me."
Saturus Avas no doubt referring to conversations which had
taken place in prison, and he longed to see the kindly soldier
a Christian before his death agony. While speaking, the
savage beast attacked him, giving him his death wound.
Bathed in blood, but apparently heedless of pain, Saturus
again spoke to Pudens. "FareweU," said the dying soldier
of Christ to the soldier of the Emperor ; " remember me."
And he asked Pudens for his ring. Pudens gave it ; Saturus
dipped it in the Ut'e-blood streaming from him, and returned
it. The martyr then fainted, and was dragged away into
the spoUarium outside the arena where the victims, if not
dead, were usually despatched.
We will turn to Perpetua and her companion, FeUcitas.
It had been decided to expose them in a net to be tossed
and gored by an infuriated cow. The crowd, touched Avith a
momentary feeling of compassion, cried out that these sufferers
need not be stripped of their garments, which was the usual
practice. Perpetua was attacked first, and tossed in the air.
She fell to the ground and in her heavy faU her light gar
ments Avere all tom, and her hair fell about her shoulders.
The sufferer's first thought was to adjust her tom tunic and
to fasten up her flowing hair ; then, although sorely hurt, she
tumed to FeUcitas, her " sister " in suffering, who, too, had
been tossed, and raised her up. Again the crowd was touched
with pity, and unwiUing to look any longer upon the torments
endured by the two brave Avomen, insisted on their being
removed from the arena. In the outer court of the Amphi
theatre Perpetua found a young Christian named Rusticus,
who had followed her to the games. The martyr was dazed
with pain and the fearful shock she had experienced, and
asked when she was to be exposed to the beasts. She had
lost all remembrance of what had happened to her, but in a
minute she saw her wounds, and the blood streaming, and her
torn dress, and the horror of her situation all came back to

FIR.MAMENTVM EST DOMIKVS TIMEHTIBVS EVM PSU»,

Septimio Sever-o et Caracalla Imtp
A PeRPETVA rl TELICITAS ctahj hrjlij/ okrfh cliLmiavti^y
B- VICTOR <•/ ZfPHERINVS Bomam Psmificcj -Huinnlitr ¦
C • LEONro ES t( BA S ILI0ES ntcunliir
D 'VIRGO Alcmnflnna iird:,rt- Uauam'r V

Iff/ cxtimmi/wi-

THE MARTYRDOM OF 8. PERPETUA.
From an Engraving by G. B. Cavaleiri in a volume, " BeclesiK Militantis Trimnphi," 15S3.

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 209
her ; yet she said to Rusticus, " Be strong in the Faith ; love
one another." But the pity of the spectators Avas short lived.
Even while she was speaking her stammering Avords of faith
and love, they shrieked again for the condemned wounded
ones to be brought back into the arena; after all they would
see them die !
Once more the victims Avere brought back, and in the
sight of the crowd thirsting for their blood, the officials,
whose duty it was to despatch those criminals who had not
been killed outright by the beasts, proceeded to complete the
ghastly work. Silent, motionless, they waited and received
the stroke of the executioner's sword. Saturus died first. A
young gladiator who was told off' to kill Perpetua, trembled
at his horrible task, and missed his stroke, and only wounded
her in the side ; she cried out, but in a moment, recovering
herself, guided the hand of her slayer and pressed the point
of the sword on her throat, and so died.
" It would seem," says the pitying narrator of the scene,
" that such a woman could scarcely perish save by the exercise
of her own wiU and consent."
The writer of the little account, which evidently was the
Avork of an eye-witness, with its harrowing details, with nothing
of the supernatural introduced, a simple plain record, well
Avritten, lucid and brief, here breaks into a noble peroration
only a few hnes long, beginning thus, "0 strong and blessed
martyrs ; 0 truly called and chosen into the gloiy of our Lord
Jesus Christ."
If the great TertuUian, Avho lived and wrote at Carthage
in the first years of the third century, was not the author of
the little introduction and of the recital of the last scene of
the martyrdom epitomised above, he Avas at least intimately
acquainted with the story ; and in his celebrated treatise " De
Patientia " draAvs the portrait of a " girl martyr," seemingly
from the life. " Was he not thinking of her whose one prayer
at her baptism had been at the Spirit's bidding for this very
brave patience ? Had he not in view the scene in the Amphi
theatre when the martyrs shake their heads at the Judge
whom God wiU judge, and the noble picture of Perpetua
o

210 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
herself, the bride of Christ, the darUng of God, with her
bright step and flashing eye, soon to find herself enjoying in
the spirit the beatific vision before the time, and only re
caUed to earth to taste of pain, and to point the clumsy sword
of the executioner to her OAvn throat?"*

SECTION IV. — MARTYRS OF LYONS AND VIENNE, CIRCA A.D. 177.
We have afready observed that there exists no arranged
and carefuUy composed history of the early progress of Chris
tianity. In the Acts of the Apostles, and in most of the Epistles
of the New Testament, are scattered notices of the rapid
spread of the new Faith. From the scanty reliques of the
Avritings of some of the chief teachers of the Gospel we catch
glimpses, more or less extensive, of the progress of the religion
in different great centres, especiaUy in Rome and Jerusalem,
in Ephesus and Smyrna, and in the Syiian Antioch; but for
the first century and a half after the Passion and Ascension
of the Lord, save in Rome, Jerusalem, and Antioch, and some
of the great sea-board cities of Asia Minor, we know httle of
the story of the propagation of the Faith. That its mission
aries, however, were fuU of zeal, and that their early work
was often wonderfuUy successful in other lands and centres,
we learn from various isolated records of events Avhich have
come doAvn to us — some of these records often bearing the date
of the last quarter of the second century.
Of these isolated records, one of the most interesting and
important reaches us from the province of GauL It is a
letter addressed, to use the words of the writer, " by the
servants of Christ dAveUing at Lyons and Vienne in Gaul
to those brethren in Asia and Phrygia having the same faith
and hope with us." The letter is of unquestioned authenticity,!
* Texts and Studies : The Passion of S. Perpetua. By Prof. J. Armitage
Robinson, Cambridge, 1891, p. 58.
f The text of most of the original letter is contained in Eusebius {S. E.,
V. i., 2, 3), and is also in Rufinus' Latin version of Eusebius' Sistory. It is
also aftei-wards referred to in the writings of Gregory of Tom-s, by Ado,
by Bede, etc.

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 211
and is of very considerable length. It relates the history of a
terrible crisis through which the Churches in that populous
district had just passed, and out of which, notAvithstanding
the awful trial to which a large group of some of their
prominent members had been subjected, they had emerged
unconquered and victorious.
The letter was written shortly after a.d. 177, when the
Emperor Marcus was reigning. Up to this time there is
absolutely no record of Christianity in Gaul, no sign even that
the news of the religion of Jesus had crossed the Alps into
the great Gallic provinces ; but this epistle lifts the veU and
breaks the silence which had hitherto rested over the Church
of the provinces of Southern Gaul, and from the detaUs
contained in the communication Ave find that a large and
flourishing community must have for many years before
A.D. 177 existed in these parts. In other words, we have
here in this contemporary record the earliest extant notice
of Christianity in Gaul, and the record in question bears
indeed a striking testimony to the vitality and to the careful
organisation of the Churches in this province.
Lyons, the scene of the persecution spoken of in the
letter, Avas perhaps the most important of the provincial
cities of the Western Roman Empire. Its commanding
situation at the junction of the rivers Sadne and Rhone
designated it as a great commercial emporium, and at the
time when Marcus was Emperor it was the civil and religious
metropolis of the many cities of the three Gallic provinces.
In common Avith other famous provincial centres, it was
•enthusiastically devoted to the Avorship of " Rome and
Augustus,"* recognising its connection with Rome and the
Empire as the source of its grandeur, its prosperity and
security. Alongside of the Pagan population of Lyons, Vienne, and
other south Gallic cities, had groAvn up, probably during the
last half of the second century, flourishing communities be
longing to the new Faith. We can in the light of the letter
* See the remarks on this devotion of provincial cities to the worship of
" Eome and*Augustu3 " in Chapter VII., § 3.

212 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
easily discern whence came the beginnings of these Christian
communities. Between Southem Gaul and the sea-board of
Syria and Asia Minor existed close and frequent communica
tion. The commercial relations were intimate, and there was
a constant passing to and fro from cities like Ephesus and
Smyrna to the chief commercial emporium of Gaul, Lyons.
Thither in the second century the story of the Gospel was
brought from Asia Minor. The fact of the Gallic Christians
now addressing their brethren in Asia Minor shows how close
Avere the ties Avhieh connected the Gallic and Asiatic Churches.
The Greek names, too, of many of the principal heroes of the
story point to the same conclusion.
Among these heroes, Pothinus, the aged Bishop of Lyons,
Avas conspicuous. Pothinus Avas more than ninety years old
when he suffered. Tradition speaks of him as a native of
Asia Minor; of two of the sufferers, it is incidentally stated
that one Avas from Pergamos, the other a Phrygian, whUe
nearly all of them bear Greek names. The most prominent
figure in the Church of Lyons and Southern Gaul, Avho, im
mediately after the events related in the letter, appears as-
perhaps the most distinguished personality in the Cathohc
Church, Avas Irena3us, Avho succeeded the aged martp Pothinus^
as Bishop of Lyons. Irenaeus had been a disciple of Polycarp,
and in our sketch of the Ufe of the great Bishop of Smyrna
Ave have afready quoted some of his reminiscences of his
revered master. Possibly owing to his absence from Lyons
at this juncture, Irenseus, in spite of his influential position
among the Christians of the province, Avas not one of the
accused whose story the letter contains. This letter we Avill
briefly summarise.
In the case of the persecution of Lyons, the exciting cause
was angry popular clamour, so common in the earlier years.
of the groAvth of the Faith. A great festal gathering was
arranged in the August of a.d. 177 at Lyons, the civil and
religious metropolis of Gaul. It Avas partly commercial ; a
large fair Avas being held to which traders came from a dis
tance; an imposing religious ceremony of Avhich the Temple
of " Rome and Augustus " was the central shrine, Avas part

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 213
of the festival; and public games in the Amphitheatre, as
usual of a bloody and cruel nature, Avere to be celebrated for
the populace, ever greedy of such amusements. The cry of
" Death to the Christians ! " was generaUy heard. The populace
insisted on a number of prominent and Avell-knoAvn Christians
being arrested ; well aware Avere these turbulent and factious
rioters of the doom which would almost certainly foUoAv such
arrests. By no means Avillingly, it would seem, did the Imperial
magistrates of Lyons yield to these popular clamours. As a
rule, the mob pressed for victims to be selected out of the
hated sect, the magistrates being generally reluctant to satisfy
them. Their reluctance seems to have proceeded from no
love for Christianity, but was simply based on reasons of
policy. Their statesmanlike uistincts told them that these
persecutions Avere, on the whole, dangerous to the established
state of things in the Empire, and rather advanced than
retarded the progress of the dangerous and proscribed sect.
If the accused Christians apostatised and publicly sacrificed
to the genius of "Augustus and Rome," or to any other of
the prominent gods of Rome, it was well. Thus a blow was
undoubtedly struck at Christianity ; it helped to discredit the
dangerously advancing religion. But if, on the other hand,
the Christians stood firm, and resisted alike blandishments
and threats, as was by far the more common result, then the
tortures and the horrible scenes which foUoAved enormously
helped the Christian cause. The martyr's death Avas not
only a victory for the poor brave sufferer; but Avas a public
demonstration of the earnestness and steadfastness, of the
intense silent faith, which lived among these stubborn adver
saries of Paganism and of Imperial idolatry.
The beginning of the Lyons persecution Avas unfavourable
for the accused. Ten of the arrested were terror-stricken at
what lay before them and consented to abjure their faith.
A fresh departure was made in this persecution ; a number of
slaves belonging to Christian families Avere threatened with
torture, and, thus terrorised, charged the Christians with all
manner of nameless' crimes ; the rage of the populace was

214 EABLY CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
StUl further infiamed by these accusations, none of which,
however, appeared to have been pressed, the baselessness of
such charges being too well knoAvn. Nothing, however, was
omitted in this wild tempest of persecution which might
induce recantation; but with the exception of the ten above
mentioned, no torments, no threats, seemed to have moved
any of the accused. They were scourged and exposed to Avild
beasts. Lions and tigers were not easily procured, and the
cost of importing them would have been too great for a
provincial city, even of the importance of the capital of South
Gaul. But bulls and dogs and wUd boars were used to gore
and injure the sufferers. This accounts for the appearance on
more than one occasion of several of the Lyons martyrs in
the Amphitheatre in the course of these games. They were
hurt and torn and bmised, but not kUled. If possible, the
tortures they endured Avere even greater than those of ex
posure to the deadly rush of a lion or a leopard
An apparently favourite and horrible device we read of in
this recital ; a red-hot chair Avas introduced and the accused
made to sit on it, the fumes of the roasted flesh giving fresh
pleasure to the jaded passions of the cruel spectators.
The heroism of the Lyons martyrs was not pecuUar to
rank or degree, or sex or age. The same splendid faith
lived in them all alike. Among their numbers were men of
good position and fortune. Deacons of the Church, the saintly
aged Bishop, the boy Ponticus, only fifteen years old, the poor
young slave girl, Blandina. This last, by her almost super
human endurance of long and protracted agonies, spread over
several days, has acquired a peculiar place of eminence even
among the tens of thousands who, in many lands, wiUingly
and joyfully gave up their lives rather than deny their Master.
The letter, with a charming frankness, teUs us how the Chris
tian mistress of Blandina feared for her little slave girl ; her
frail body, she thought, never could endure severe pain and
mortal sufiering, and in consequence she Avould be moved to
recant. But Blandina's mistress miscalculated what strength
the love of Christ Avould infuse into the delicate child-frame;
scourged, burnt, torn, Blandina uttered no complaint or moan.

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 215
only repeating again and again, " I am a Christian." The
savage servants of the arena, accustomed to these scenes of
blood and torture, confessed themselves astonished at the
girl's endurance of various punishments, any one of which, they
thought, would have suflaced to kill her. In the end she was
tossed by a bull several times, till all consciousness of suffer
ing was lost, and the pure heroic spirit of the chUd-martyr
had probably left the lacerated body before the sword of the
executioner completed the work of the bull.
But the noble example was never forgotten. It was the
after effect of such scenes as these that the Aviser and more
thoughtful of the Roman magistrates dreaded, when they
hesitated before sanctioning a general and public persecution.
Indeed, in the course of the Lyons trials the Imperial
magistrate sent a despatch to the Emperor Marcus for special in-
.structions ; since some of the accused, as we have seen, recanted,
Avhile others claimed the privilege of Roman citizenship, Avhich
would protect them from public exposure in the arena. The
answer came at once. The Roman citizens, if they persisted,
Avere to be simply decapitated, Avhile those who recanted Avere
to be at once set at liberty. The others, if they stUl refused
to sacrifice, were to be exposed to the horrors of the arena.
But as regards those who recanted, the tardy Imperial
mercy which ordered their immediate liberation came too
late. In prison, the little group who, overcome with fear,
had not been faithful unto death, had fallen under the influence
of the . brave confessors ; the conduct of these steadfast ones
in prison matched well with their behaviour in court. They
even refused the title of confessors in their beautfful humility,
deeming themselves unworthy of the high title of honour.
In the striking words of the letter of the Church of Lyons,
" They pleaded for all, they accused none, they absolved all,
they bound none, they prayed for their bitter foes, . . . they
arrogated no superiority over the poor backsliders." The
result of their conduct and loving advice was that scarcely
one among those who had recanted was found who would
accept the Emperor's clemency ; they Avell-nigh all preferred
rather to die with their brave companions.

216 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
In the long extract of this letter preserved in Eusebius
(H. E., V. i, 2, 3, 4), only a very few names of the martyrs
of Lyons are given, just those who were especially prominent
in the tragedy. " Why," asks the historian, " should we here
transcribe the list of those martyrs? Thefr names," he adds,
" may be learned if the epistle be consulted." They are, how
ever, given by martyrologists* who Avrote later, and no doubt
copied them from the original document which was stiU
extant. The numbers appear to have been about forty-
eight. The fury of the people, however, was not satiated by
the death of the noble victims. Thefr remains were savagely
burned by the mob and the ashes cast into the Rhone. Men
thought that by this destruction of the poor remains the
hope of the resurrection of the body, which had buoyed up
these obstinate Christians and had enabled them to meet
death even Avith joy, Avould be shoAvn to be mere foUy.
The persecution raged on with especial fury in Gaul for
many years, but the Acts of Martyrdom teUing the story of
the fate of many other confessors are not, Uke the letter we
have been using, contemporaneous. General tradition, however,
the authenticity of which we see no reason to doubt, places
the death of the eminent confessors, Avhose memory is stUl
enshrined in many of the great churches of this part of
France, in the later years of the Emperor Marcus; such as
S. Benignus of Dijon, S. Valentine of Tournus, S. Marcel of
Chalons, S. Felix of Sauliers, S. Symphorian of Autun
SECTION V. — ROME IN THE LATTER YEARS OF MARCUS.
After the long extracts from the letter relating the suffer
ings of the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne in Gaul, Eusebius
(H. E., V. ii) wrote as follows : " Such were the occurrences
that befell the Churches of Christ under the above-men
tioned Emperor (Marcus), from Avhich it is easy to conjecture
what was the probable course of things in the remaining
provinces." Now we have already given a typical instance of
the condition of things with the Christians at Rome at the
* The " Martyrology" of Jerome, Gregory of Tours, and Ado.

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 217
beginning of Marcus' reign, circa a.d. 162, in the picture
drawn from the Acts of the trial and martyrdom of S.
Felicitas and her sons. We will dwell for a brief space on
the position of Christians in the metropolis of the Roman
Avorld some seventeen years later, when the reign of Marcus,
the noblest of the Pagan Emperors, Avas drawing to an
¦end, circa a.d. 177-9.
Our picture here is based upon "The Acts of S. Cecilia,"
a document in its present form not older than the fifth
century, containing many manifest inaccuracies. These " Acts "
have generally been looked upon by critics as largely mythical
and not belonging to serious history. Late investigations,
however, and especially the discoveries of De Rossi in the
¦cemetery of S. Callistus, in a strange way confirm in substance
the accuracy of the recital in these " Acts," and Ave can now
with some confidence restore the " Acts of S. CeciUa " to their
primitive form. They give us a vivid picture of the condition
of Christians of the higher ranks of Rome in the last years
of Marcus. The original story which formed the basis of the " Acts "
was as follows : Cecilia, a girl of the highest rank, Avas married
to a young patrician. Valerian, Avho, Avith his brother, Tiburtius,
through her influence became devoted Christians. The State
policy at this period of persecution threAv every obstacle in
the Avay of separate interment for members of the Christian
sect who had suffered martyrdom. It was the passionate Avish
of Christians, as we know from the evidence of the Catacombs,
to preserve intact and separate from the heathen dead the
remains of their loved friends; the bodies of martyrs for the
Faith being peculiarly precious in their eyes.
The brothers Tiburtius and Valerian seem to have been
especially zealous in arranging for such interments. It was
.a well-known loving Avork of charity among the wealthier
members of the Christian community to provide sepulchres
for their poorer brethren. Not a few of the more ancient
•crypts or catacombs Avere in the first instance excavated beneath
the gardens of the vUlas of rich Christians. Busied in this
^ious work, they were denoimced by informers, were arrested.

218 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
and on their refusal to sacrifice to the gods were condemned
and beheaded ; and along with them an Imperial officer,
Maximus, who was converted by the noble brothers.
Cecilia caused the three martyrs to be interred in a crypt
belonging to her family in the cemetery or catacomb of
Prsetextatus on the Appian Way. CeciUa herseff was next
denounced and arrested, tried and condemned. The magistrate,
out of consideration for her exalted rank, condemned her to
die in her oAvn house in the Trastevere* district of the city.
We have many instances under the Emperors of the punish
ment of death in the case of persons of fortune and of high
birth being carried out in the houses of the condemned.
These Avere, of course, mostly political offenders. The sentence
Avas that she should be shut up in the caldarium, or room of the
wai-m bath of the house, and that the pipes should be heated
to such a degree as to cause suffocation
But after the expiration of a day and night CecUia was
found still alive. It needs no special miracle to explain
this, means of ventUation in the caldarium having been
no doubt arranged by her friends. A lictor was then ap
pointed to carry out the capital sentence by striking off her
head. This work seems to have been inefficiently performed, and
for two days she survived the wounds inflicted by the exe
cutioner, and Avas even able to speak words of encouragement
and consolation to her friends. To the bishop of the Roman
community, Urban, she is said to have made a present of her
house as a church. It has been a church ever since, and is
now the well-knoAvn basUica of S. CeciUa. Placed in a coffin
of cypress wood, in the attitude in which she expfred, she
was laid in one of the chambers of her own cemetery on the
Appian Way.
As we have observed, there are various inaccuracies in
the " Acts," due to the fifth century revision ; but in the
main the recital is evidently historical. For instance,
* This is the well-known name for that portion of Eome situated on the right
bank of the Tiber, the old city being built on the left bank. So on the " Trastevere "'
side was the Vatican suburb.

O s

UJ JS
I- t-

Plioto . Alinari & Cook, Rom'

MADERNA'S EFFIGY OF S. CECILIA.
Ill 111.'. Tn, slov.ru Biisilioa .M' H. C.'i-ili,i,

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 219
Urban,* the Bishop of Rome, is stated to have buried the
noble martyrs in a chamber near his own colleagues the bishops.
This is only partly true. De Rossi has indeed found the
grave of S. Cecilia in a sepulchral chamber only separated
by a slender wall from the famous "Papal Crypt" where the
bishops of Rome of the third century were buried. But Cecilia
was laid there before the Popes of the third century, in the
sepulchral area belonging to her noble house, which area
was shortly afterwards made over to the Church, and many
of the bishops of Rome were subsequently buried in it.
In the removal of a vast number of Christian remains
from the catacombs to the Roman Churches, circa a.d. 822,
Pope Paschal translated the body of S. Cecilia to her church
in the Trastevere district Avhich occupied the site of her
house. In the tradition f preserved, the martyr's body, wrapped
in the original robe, embroidered with gold, and stiU lying in
the same posture, was reverently placed with her cypress wood
coffin in a white marble sarcophagus beneath the altar of the
church. In the year 1599 Cardinal Sfondrati, in the course
of a restoration of the building, found two marble sarcophagi
beneath the altar. In the presence of Cardinal Baronius, the
weU-known scholar, the expert Bosio, and others, an examination
of the contents of these sarcophagi was made. In one of them
the body of S. Cecilia was found, still in the same traditional
attitude. The sculptor Maderna, who was one of the eye
witnesses when the sarcophagus was opened, has reproduced
in marble the figure of Cecilia as he says he saw her lying there.
The present altar now stands over the tomb, and the beautiful
statue of Maderna is beneath it. f
* The date of IJrban's episcopate was a.d. 223. There appears, however,
to have been another Urban, a bishop of some place unknown, who was
connected with S. Cecilia and her family. This Urban was buried in the
cemetery of Prsetextatus.
+ It is Pope Paschal who tells the story, as well as his contemporary biographer,
the continuator of the Fiber Pontificalis, Ed. Duchesne, tom. ii., p. 56. Allard, Sist.
des Persecutions, vol. i., ra., 2, and see Northcote, Roma Sotterranea, chap. iv.
J The preservation of the body of Cecilia is not by any means a solitary
example of what seems tobe a strange phenomenon. But is it not probable that
a skilful embalming took place after Cecilia's death ? Her exalted rank and
great wealth, and her high reputation among the Eoman Christians, would at

220 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
In the other sarcophagus the remains of three bodies were
found by Cardinal Sfondrati. Two of these had manifestly
been beheaded, whUst the skull of the third was broken, and
the abundant hair upon it had been eAudently thickly matted
Avith blood. It was as though the sufferer had been beaten
to death by the leaden scourges, not infrequently used as
instruments of capital punishment ; tradition, preserved in the
Liber Pontificalis, tells us that the three bodies of the martyrs,
Valerian CeciUa's husband, Tiburtius his brother, and Maximus
the Roman officer, had been translated from the Catacomb of
S. Prsetextatus to the church of S. Cecilia, by Pope Paschal.
The plain unvarnished account of the discovery of the
first resting-place of S. Cecilia by De Rossi, who spent long
years in his great Avork of investigating certain of the cata
combs, is, of course, too long for insertion. We will give,
however, a summary of it. Guided in his search by careful
study of the ancient Pilgrims' Itineraries, by notices in the
Liber Pontificcdis, and other documents, he came upon the
original place of sepulchre of the famous martyr. His de
scription is most exhaustive. He has traced the signs
still existing in that sacred crypt, of the A^eneration of pilgrims
stretching over several centuries. AU these pieces of evidence
— De Rossi's discovery of the place of the original interment ;
the account of Pope Paschal's Avork in connection with the
translation of S. Cecilia's body in the early years of the ninth
century ; the singular confirmation of the details of the work of
Paschal by the re-discovery of the tAvo sarcophagi, in the Basilica
of Cecilia in the year 1599, by Cardinal Sfondrati — have
justified us in citing the " Acts of S. Cecilia," the chief features of
which, accurate in all material points, are now fafrly estabUshed.
From these " Acts " thus supported, Ave have draAvn a pic
ture* of a group of martyrdoms to illustrate the condition of
aU events seem to suggest this. The recital of the finding of the body when
Pope Paschal translated the remains in the ninth century has all the appearance of
being a true narrative, and the accuracy of the story of the opening of the
sarcophagus by Sfondrati, eight centuries later, in the presence of such men as
Baronius, Bosio, and Maderna, can scarcely be questioned.
* " We have already acknowledged that the ' Acts of S. Cecilia,' as we now
possess them, are not genuine, and yet we have seen that in substance their
accuracy has been marvellously confirmed by all that has since been discovered.

A GHAPTEB OF MABTYBDOMS. 221
Christians of the highest rank at Rome in the latter years
of the reign of the Emperor Marcus.
The death of S. Cecilia and her friends closes, as far as
any pubhc records guide us, the tale of deaths for the Faith
during the days of Marcus, in the Imperial City. There is
little doubt that the examples we have given of these per
secutions at the beginning and end of the reign only too
faithfully represent the conditions under Avhich Christians
lived at Rome all through the reign of the noblest of the
Pagan Emperors ; the sword ever suspended above their heads,
and frequently falling, now on representatives of the patrician
order, like Felicitas and her sons, and Cecilia Avith her husband
and his brother, now on the trader, the freedman and the
slave, whose names are unwritten save in the Book of God's.
record of His own.
The number of martyrs at Rome in the various seasons
of persecutions was very great. In a corner of the Papal
Crypt, for instance, adjoining the burial chamber of Cecilia,
there is a pit of extraordinary depth, Avhere a tradition, pre
served in one of the ancient itineraries, speaks of 800 bodies
of these martyrs being buried together. If this tradition be
a true one, it refers probably to a fierce onslaught on the
Christian community in the reign of Marcus ; for the Papa.
Crypt only a few years later became a burying place of ex
traordinary sanctity, mainly reserved for the bishops of Rome„
and was not used any longer for ordinary interments.
The truth ia that the monuments discovered in the Catacombs and in the Tras
tevere Church almost enable us to restore the ' Acts ' to their primitive form. The
' Acts ' of S. Cecilia, as they have come down to us, cannot lay claim to any
higher antiquity than the fifth century, but recent discoveries have proved that
they are unquestionably true in all the chief features and in many even of their
minutest details." Dr. Northcote, chap, iv., in his account of Investigations of De
Rossi; see, too, De Rossi, Roma Sotterranea, ii., p. 145-6, 160-244, etc. ; Baronius,
Ann. Eccle., ad. ann., 821, 12, 19; Bosio, Sist. Passionis S. Oeeiliae, p. 155-170.
' ' Le recit des Actes (de S. Ceoile) contestable pour tout ce qui relfeve de^
I'imagination ou de la science historique du narrateur, mais exact dans les
circonstances materielles, qu'avaient transmises a I'ecrivain du cinquieme si&cle une
tradition precise ou des documents ecrits, ne pouvait recevoir une plus eclatante
confirmation." . . . . " Earement un document de cette nature a subi une epreuve
plus concluante, et en est sorti mieux justifie." KlhaA., Sistoire des Persecutions,.
vol. i., chap, vii., 2.

222

CHAPTER X.
AFTER THE ANTONINES.
SECTION I. — CHRISTIANITY AT THE CLOSE OF THE SECOND
CENTURY.
It was probably in the first or second year following the
martyrdom of S. CecUia that the great Emperor Marcus died.
He was followed by his unworthy son, Commodus, who in
herited none of his father's noble qualities. Indeed, he has
been not unjustly styled a gladiator rather than an emperor.
His historian teUs us how he pubhcly engaged in these
inglorious combats more than seven hundred times.* Yet,
strange to say, the general persecution of Christianity, which
raged, well-nigh all through the nineteen years of Marcus'
reign, although by no means ended, was much less severe and
was less general in the evil days of Commodus.
Indeed, Commodus had no fixed pohcy. With Marcus
the existence of the Christians constituted a real danger to
the prosperity of the Empire ; they were strangers to the
spirit of Rome and her gods; not traitors — no one could
accuse the Christians of treason to the Emperor and his
government — but standing aloof; having no share in the
ancient traditions upon which Marcus and those who thought
with him believed that the greatness of Rome was founded,
and on the maintenance of which, her future grandeur, nay,
her very existence as a world-empfre, depended. Therefore, the
* Commodus, in his singular and degraded passion for the Amphitheatre, was
a strong contrast to his father Marcus, who loathed these bloody and corrupting
spectacles and made various but fruitless efforts to do away with them. But the
fashion was too deeply rooted, and not even the aU-powerful wUl of the Emperor
could put an end to them.

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 223
philosopher Emperor alloAved, even enforced, their persecution
on principle. His son Commodus, however, cared little or nothing for
the ancient Roman traditions. So, in his time, the persecu
tion was intermittent; depending a good deal on the temper
and views of the powerful Imperial lieutenants who ruled in
the name of Rome in the provinces. There was, too, at the
headquarters of the Government a powerful infiuence at work
favourable to the religion of Jesus. Many of the courtiers
and office-bearers about the court were Christians ; and
Marcia who, though never bearing the title of Empress, was,
to aU intents and purposes, the wife of Commodus, and who
possessed vast infiuence with the Emperor, Avas a firm friend
of Christianity ; possibly, as some believe, herseff' a Christian.
All this, especially as time went on, helped the hated and
dreaded sect ; and so the position of Christians in the reign
of this weak and vaciUating Emperor gradually became far
less precarious than it had been under the rule of Marcus.
In his earlier years, however, before the palace influences,
and especiaUy the persuasions of Marcia, had been able to
arrest the bitter persecuting spirit which had for so many
years prevailed, we hear of these bloody attacks still harassing
Christian communities, notably in North Africa.
In that great and wealthy province, the religion of Jesus
had evidently groAvn up, as it had done in Gaul, Avith marvel
lous rapidity; striking its roots among the population far and
wide. We have absolutely no records which tell us of its
first beginnings, no story of the laying of the foundation of
the Faith; only at the close of the second century, when
Commodus and his immediate successors were reigning, we
find a large and flourishing Church established in Carthage
and the country districts, a Church already elaborately
organised. The first mention we come upon of this North
African Church is an account of a persecution to which it
was subjected in the first days of the reign of Commodus.
This onslaught took place at Madaura. We have no
details; only a few of the martyrs' names are preserved to
us, and those not Latin, but evidently belonging to men of

224 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the Punic race. Only a few days after — according to later
investigations, in the August of the same year, a.d. 180 — a
cruel persecution brought the Roman colony of ScUhum, in
North Africa, into some prominence. The more distinguished
Christians were brought to Carthage, were there formaUy
charged Avith professing the proscribed reUgion, and were
condemned and put to death, solely because they persisted
in refusing to swear by the genius of the Emperor. The
Proconsul Saturninus, following the pohcy pursued by so
many of the more statesmanlike among the higher magis
trates of the Empire, endeavoured to procure from them some
thing of a recantation ; and offered the group of Christian
ScilUtans a period of delay, thirty days, to consider if they would
not make up thefr minds to preserve thefr lives by the appa
rently easy process of swearing by the genius of the Emperor.
They were, however, steadfast, and in consequence suffered capital
punishment. On being summoned to swear by the genius of
the Emperor, Speratus replied, "I do not acknowledge the
sovereignty of this world ; I serve God, whom no man hath seen,
or can see with these eyes."
In the course of the official examination Speratus, being
asked what things (res) were preserved in thefr chest (capsa),
answered, " The books and the letters of Paul the just man."
The books were doubtless the Gospels, the well-known Christian
books. The " Acts " end Avith the Avords: "Thus all were croAvned
Avith martyrdom, and are reigning with the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit, through aU the ages of ages." The " Acts " of the
SciUitan martyrs* from which these extracts are made, are looked
upon as an unmistakably genuine piece, dating from about the
year 180. The names of the martyrs are given. There were
twelve in all. The words of one of them — Nartzalus — when he
heard his sentence, are worth recording : " Hodie martyres in
coelo sumus ; Deo gratias."
* AUard hus twrites of this document : " Des ' Actes ' comptes a bon droit
parmi les monuments les plus anciens, et les plus purs de I'antiquite Chretienne."—
Sist. de.i Persecutions, vol. i., p. 446. Compare also Texts and Studies in the
Appendix on the ScilUtan martyrdom {Passion of S. Perpetua), where, besides a
revised text of the "Acts," the editor. Professor Armitage Robinson, gives an
account of the various versions, etc., of these famous " Acts."

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 225
Before summing up the general state of Christianity at
the close of the second century, we would once more return
to Asia Minor, and briefly aUude to a foAv striking personalities
Avho considerably influenced the Catholic Church in the latter
half of the second century.
We have already noticed how pre-eminent among Christian
communities this great and important province — or, more
accurately, group of provinces — appears to have been in
literary, and not only in literary, activity in the latter years
of the first and during the first half of the second century.
This Avas natural, as it had been for long years the home of
S. John and of others of the Apostles and first teachers of
Christianity, Paul having laid the foundations of the famous
churches. There had lived and worked and written S. John
the beloved Apostle, Andrew and Philip of the TAvelve, and
at least one of the famous disciples of Philip ; the " other John,"
the Presbyter, Aristion, who had known the Lord, Papias and
Polycarp. From Asia Minor, once their home, had gone forth
into distant Gaul Pothinus, the Martyr-Bishop of Lyons, and
the famous scholar, afterwards his successor in the See, Irenseus.
To churches of Asia Minor five of the seven ever-memorable
epistles of Ignatius had been written, and a sixth of these
letters to Polycarp, one of their bishops. This region, too, as has
been accurately remarked, was " the hotbed of heresies and the
arena of controversies." After the death of Polycarp, circa a.d.
157, Asia Minor maintains its literary pre-eminence largely owing
to the indefatigable activity of a few great Christian scholars.
Of these, "Melito, Bishop of Sardis, perhaps holds the fore
most place. His work began before the middle of this century.
He addresses his apology to Marcus, circa A.D. 169-70, and
this, Eusebius tells us, was the latest of his many writings.
This scholar bishop, during a great part of his life, must
have been a contemporary of S. John's disciple, Polycarp,
and likewise of Papias, who had conversed with the disciples
of Christ. He was therefore a link with the past, connected
as he was with those who had seen and talked with the
Apostles of the Lord. Of his many writings, alas ! only a foAv
meagre but precious fragments remain.
p

226 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Another distinguished writer of this great province,
Claudius Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis, was a contemporary
of Melito, though a someAvhat younger man ; he too addressed
an apology to the Emperor Marcus. Of his numerous Avorks,
only two short extracts remain. A third and once famous
Church leader was Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, of whose
letter to Victor of Rome on the date of the keeping of the
Easter Festival, Eusebius has preserved a solitary but priceless
extract. Although there remains to us little more than the
shadow of once great names faUing on the page of Eusebius,
we can form from passing notices some idea of the vigour
and activity of the Asia Minor Churches in the last years of
the first and aU through the second century.
From Asia Minor early in the century, as we have said,
Pothinus went forth to the distant and important province of
Gaul — perhaps the most important of the outlying " Govern
ments" of Rome. As Pothinus was ninety years old at the
time of his martyrdom in a.d. 177, the tradition which suggests
that he was sent to Gaul by Polycarp of Smyrna is quite
possible. There are, hoAvever, many proofs, more trustworthy
than the comparatively late tradition connected with Potlunus,
which link the Churches of Southern Gaul with the Churches
of Asia Minor, and which indisputably tell us that the
former were the daughter Churches of the Asian communities
of which we have been speaking.
(1) Very close from remote times was the commercial
connection between the Western cities of Asia Minor and
Southern Gaul. It seems, therefore, natural to assume that
the flourishing Christianity of the sea-board cities of pro
consular Asia, Smyrna, Ephesus, etc., would foUow the usual
channels of commerce.
(2) The well-known letter, to which we have referred at
some length, giving the graphic picture of the sufferings of
the Christians of Lyons and Vienne in the persecution of
A.D. 177, Avas addressed to "the Brethren that are in Asia and
Phrygia." This shows the closeness of the ties Avhich connected
he Christians in Gaul with the Churches of Asia Minor.
(3) The most prominent Christian in the GalUc Churches

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 227
after Pothinus, the bishop, Avas Irenseus, who succeeded
Pothinus as Bishop of Lyons a.d. 178. Now this Irenseus,
we know, passed at least his youth in Asia Minor, Avhen
Polycarp was Bishop of Smyrna.
We have already, in our sketch of Polycarp, quoted Irenseus'
touching memories of his master. We may thus regard
Irenseus as a link between Gaul and Asia. His training in
Smyrna he never forgot, alluding to it on various occasions
in his writings, which have come down to us.
This disciple of the Smyrna Church in his later life
became the most illustrious bishop in Christendom. Of his
career we possess too few details to give any complete picture.
We hear of him in Rome, paying a long official visit to
the great Italian see; we can faintly trace his busy active
work during a someAvhat long tenure of the chief Gallican see
of Lyons. A rather late tradition speaks of him as a most
successful and unAvearied preacher of the Faith, as one Avho
ralUed round him in Lyons and the surrounding districts a
large and influential Church; dying, as Gregory of Tours tells
us, a martyr, somcAvhere about A.D. 197 ; but over this
martyrdom there hangs a doubt, as there is no mention of
it by Tertullian, or later by Eusebius.
That he hved to the end of the second century is, how
ever, certain. The traditions and teaching of the Asia Minor
Churches were faithfully preserved and taught in these
daughter Churches of Gaul, notably in respect of the date on
which the Easter Festival should be kept. Here Irenseus in
opposition to Rome and her bishop, foUoAved the practice of
Asia Minor, presumably derived from the teaching of S. John.
But though details concerning the years spent in Gaul
are wanting, as far as later ages are concerned, Irenseus avUI
ever live in his book, Avritten against those many Oriental
heresies, so common in Asia Minor, Avhich had naturally found
their way into the connected communities of South Gaul.
This book, a lengthy treatise divided into five books
" Against Heresies," is a great and important work. In many
respects it is the weightiest writing of the early Church
which has been preserved to us. The first tAvo books contain

228 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
a minute description and a criticism of various notable
heretical sects, both Gnostic and Ebionite* ; the remaining
three are an exposition of the doctrines of Christianity as
they Avere taught in the latter half of the second century in
all the Catholic Churches. From this writing we derive many
side-lights upon early Christian belief and practice, notably
a clear statement of the position which thoughtful Christians
occupied in the Roman Empire ; and of the duties and aUegi
ance Avhich they oAved to the Imperial Government accord
ing to the teaching of responsible leaders like Irenseus ; whom
Ave may fairly regard as the depository of the teaching of
Polycarp and of those great theologians and Avriters who
flourished in the second century in the Eastern centres of
Christianity in Asia Minor. In Irenseus' book we have also
a clear statement of the attitude of the Catholic Church,
circa A.D. 190-180, towards the Canonical writings of the New
Testament. Here it may be safely said that the authority which was
then attributed by the Christian communities of Asia and
Gaul to the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the
Epistles of S. Paul, several of the Catholic Epistles, and the
Apocalypse, falls in no respect short of the authority attri
buted to these books in the fourth or in the nineteenth
century. Irenceus places them on the same platform as he
places the Canonical books of the Old Testament, citing them
as Holy Scripture in the same Avay, and attributing them to
the respective authors whose names they bear.
When IrenfEus Avrote, in the last quarter of the second
century, these books of the Ncav Testament were evidently
universally used and looked upon as absolutely authoritative
in the Catholic Church; and this, Ave should bear in mind,
Avas the recorded practice of the Church Avithin a hundred
years of the death of S. John, and must have been so for at
least thirty or forty years before; for Irenseus clearly learned
his belief from Polycarp, Avho was himseff a disciple of S.
John. The general reception of the books of the New Testa-
* See Appendix F.

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 229
ment Canon Avas evidently coincident with the days when
men Uved who had talked Avith the Apostles of the Lord.
On the subject of the obedience of Christians to the
Imperial authority, he bases his teaching on the words of S.
Paul, who is singularly clear in his injunction of the duty
of Christians to submit themselves to all laAvful constituted
authority; Irenseus even quotes our Lord as one who paid
tribute to the Roman officials in the Holy Law. Irenseus
was a Millenarian, but so, in fact, were most of the Christian
writers of the second century. In very early days MiUenarism,
or Chiliasm, was inseparably associated Avith the Gospel itself.
It is found in Justin, in Irenseus, in Tertullian ; but although
Irenseus considered the Roman Empire as a temporary ar
rangement of Providence which would presently give place
to the earthly reign of Christ and His own, he never for one
instant allowed this " hope," or rather expectation, to interfere
with his teaching of the inevitable duty of unswerving loyalty
to the existing powers. He even dwelt upon the blessings of
the Roman power, as giving peace to the world.
The germs of the Creed of the Catholic Church can be
traced unmistakably in earlier writers, notably, as Ave have
observed, in the recently-discovered "Apology of Aristides,"
addressed to the Emperor Hadrian Avell-nigh half a century
before the writing of Irenseus. But it is in this great work
of the Bishop of Lyons that we find the earliest formulated
creed, which may be said to have formed the basis of the
Nicene Creed, put out after the "Peace of the Church" Avas
formally established by Constantine in the first quarter of the
fourth century.
The full title of Irenseus' master-work is " The Refutation
and Overthrow of KnoAvledge falsely so Called." It is more
commonly known and quoted by the shorter title,, "Against
Heresies." Its five books were composed and put 'out separ
ately, no doubt, as the busy active life of the great bishop
allowed him leisure. The composition was probably spread
over a number of years. The third book was certainly pub
lished before A.D. 190. The original Greek has not as yet
(a.d. 1901) been found, and the work, as we now have it, exists

230 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
only in a somcAvhat barbarous Latin version — made evidently
ia very early times, since Tertullian early in the third century
quotes it. The first book only, in the original Greek form,
is mostly preserved in the Avritings of Hippolytus (early third
century) and in Eusebius. Of the other Avritings of this
famous scholar bishop, we only possess the titles, and a few
precious extracts, notably the one from the Epistle to Florinus
(above quoted in our sketch of Polycarp), for which we are
indebted to Eusebius.
We have completed, in our chronicle of the early years
of Christianity, the last quarter of the second century. We
have been unable, as Ave stated in our earlier pages, to
present any formal history of the laying of the foundation
stories of the religion of Jesus of Nazareth; our authentic
materials have been too scattered and disjointed. There are
a few letters, some even of considerable length, written by
persons of high authority in the Church ; a few apologies or
defences of the noAv rehgion, a few absolutely reliable stories
of sufferings and death endured for the Faith's sake, a few
rare mentions of Christianity by Pagan Avriters, an imperial
rescript or tAvo bearing on the relations of Christianity and
the Empire, a certain number of inscriptions and religious
emblems in the ancient cemeteries of the Christians, a few
later redactions of the " Acts " and " Passions " of martyrs,
from Avhich, .Avith the aid of recent archseological discoveries
in the cemeteries or catacombs of Rome, we have disentangled
some trustworthy information.
But there is no definite or consecutive history. What
materials Ave possess avo have made use of, and Ave have been
able, from these scattered a'nd disjointed pieces, the authenticity
of Avhich is undoubted, to frame a story of the painful, anxious
growth of a community Avhich has since infiuenced the whole
story of the Avorld, Avhich after more than eighteen centuries
of existence is groAving still in numbers, power, and influence,
Avhich Avill never stop in its solemn, onward march until all
the kingdoms of the Avorld have become the Kingdom of
Christ and of God.
As the second century closed, the first stage of the great

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 231
ouAvard march had been reached. From the beginning of
the third century onwards, the vast numbers of the
Christians, their elaborate organisation, the position and
commanding ability of certain of their members, prevented
them from any longer doing their work and living their
lives in that comparative silence, secrecy, and obscurity
Avhich in many respects had hitherto been of such service
to them. At the end of the second century Christianity had become
a power in the Roman world. In its early homes it even
seemed that Christians were to be found in vast numbers — in
such districts, for instance, as pro-consular Asia, round Ephesus
and the neighbouring cities, and in Phrygia and in Cappadocia.
In Alexandria an important school for the teaching of Chris
tianity flourished ; in Italy and Greece there were many
converts. In Italy at that time as many as sixty bishops Avere
administering sees large and small. The Church of the capital
of the Roman Avorld Avas a poAverful and influential community
numbering its many thousands. In South Gaul we have
already spoken of an important and flourishing Church in
Lyons and the neighbourhood. We have seen, too, that in
the Avealthy and populous province of pro-consular Africa, a
Church highly organised and very numerous existed, Avith its
centre at Carthage. In the first years of the third century
we read of a Church Synod with some seventy bishops gathering-
round the Bishop of Carthage. Here, too, at this period
flourished one of the most famous of the early Christian
Avriters, Tertullian, many of whose brilliant and picturesque
writings have come down to us. From these we gather vast
stores of information concerning the Church communities,
their joys and sorrows, their dangers and persecutions, their
temptations and encouragements. One or two well-known
passages on the numbers and position of Christians from this
great writer deserve quotation. They are beyond question
coloured Avith the exaggeration of the orator and rhetorician ;
but that they are in the main true, and contain no fancy
picture of the state of Christianity circa a.d. 198-201, may
be fairly assumed ; for his buming words receive support from

232 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
similar assertions gleaned from the reUques of other Chris
tian writers. These all teU the same story.
In the course of his long "Apology," perhaps the best
known of his extant Avritings, we come upon the foUowing
passage, which dwells on the numbers and widespread
influence of the followers of Jesus :
" If we (Christians) desired to play the part of open enemies,
would there be any deficiency in strength, whether of numbers
or resources ? . . . We are but of yesterday, and we have
filled every place among you — cities, houses, fortresses, market
places, the very camp, . . . palace, senate, forum: we have
left nothing to you but the temples of your gods. . . .
Without arms, and raising no banner of revolt, but simply in
enmity with you, Ave could carry on the contest Avith you by
an Ul-willed separation only. For ff such multitudes of men
Avere to break away from you, and betake themselves to some
remote part of the world, why the very loss of so many citizens
would cover the Empire with shame ; nay, in the very for
saking, vengeance would be inflicted . . . you would be
horror-struck at the solitude in which you would find your
selves amid such a prevailing sUence, and that silence as of
a dead Avorld. You would have to seek for subjects to govern
you would have more enemies than citizens remaining."*
Again, in another treatise, the same Tertullian, speak
ing of the state of things at the end of the second
century, thus writes : " Day after day, iodeed, you groan over
the increasing number of Christians ; your perpetual lament
is that the State is crowded out (by us), that Christians are
in your fields, in your camps, ... in your houses; you
mourn over it as a misfortune that both sexes, that every
age, that all souls, are passing over from you to us."t
And this strange and marvellous growth of the new
religion was not confined to the countries occupying the
centre of the Roman world, where the new teaching had
taken firm root from the first days of the preaching of the
Lord and His Apostles — countries such as S}Tia and Asia
* Tert., Apology 37 (addressed to the rulers and magistrates of the Empire).
t Tert., Ad Nationes, i.

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 233
Minor, Italy and Greece ; but it had made a firm lodgment, as
we have seen, in great and populous outlying provinces, such
as in North Africa and in Southern Gaul — and even in lands
more remote than these, for we hear of Christianity in
distant Britain ; AvhUe Irenseus, writing in the last quarter of
the second century, appeals, as witnesses against the novelties
of the Gnostic heretics, to the traditions of the Churches even
¦of Spain and Germany.
SECTION IL — SEVERUS AND CARACALLA.
From our pictures of the inner life of the Christian Church
about the close of the second and earlier years of the third
-century, we must pass to a rapid survey of the Imperial
history of this period. Roughly, for the first 150 years of
its existence, the story of Christianity is the story of a
separate people: of something apart from the Empire. But
after the death of Marcus their numbers and influence brought
the Christians into daily contact with the Government in
Rome or in one or other of the provinces.
The story of the Church can no longer be kept quite
separate from the story of the Empire.
From the accession of Commodus to the accession of Con
stantine, a period of a little more than a hundred years, a
brief account of the political changes of the Government of
the Empire will be necessary, as the lines of the story of the
Church and the lines of the story of the State cross and re
press each other.
On the last night of the year 193, Commodus, the un
worthy son of Marcus Aurelius, perished in a palace intrigue,
.assassinated by members of his OAvn household; foremost
among whom was Marcia, who once loved him, and who in
everything, save possessing the official name, Avas Empress ;
to this Marcia we have already referred as the warm friend
of the Christian community. The conspfrators had seen
many of their friends and companions in the Imperial house
hold put to death, owing to the mad caprice of the wicked
and suspicious Commodus, and, naturally dreading a hke fate,
determined to forestall him.

231. EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
The conspirators persuaded Pertinax, a distinguis'hed senator,
to occupy the vacant throne. Their sudden choice was
speedily ratified by the Senate, who rejoiced to acknowledge
as Emperor one so distinguished. He had been a Minister
of Marcus, and in the course of a long and busy lffe had
successfully discharged the duties of many of the powerful
offices, military and civil, of the Empire. After a reign of
barely three months, before he had had time to justify his
sudden election, Pertinax was murdered in a military revolt
of the Prsetorian Guards, who formed the standing garrison
of Rome; with whom the newly-elected Emperor was un
popular, oAving to his strictness in enforcing discipline.
These powerful and insolent guards, numbering at this
time probably not more than some sixteen thousand men,
but perfectly trained and armed, feeling that they were in a
way masters of the metropolis, positively offered the Imperial
purple to the highest bidder. An elderly Senator, possessed
of great wealth, one Didius Julianus, only knoAvn in history
through the infamous bargain he concluded with the Prae
torians, for a brief period was reckoned among the Roman
Emperors. The election, however, of the Roman Guards, far
from being confirmed in the provinces, was pronounced null
and void by the three powerful armies stationed on the
frontier provinces of the Empire, each of which at once
saluted its own general as Emperor of Rome. Severus, the
commander of the Pannonian Legions — Pannonia with Dahnatia
was a vast region situate between the Danube and the Adriatic
— after a contest lasting some three years, eventuaUy suc
ceeded in overcoming his competitors, and was acknowledged
universaUy as Master of the Roman world. A native of North
Africa, Severus was a great and successfril soldier, and reigned
from A.D. 193 to a.d. 211, transmitting the Imperial succes
sion to his sons, CaracaUa and Geta; indeed, his famUy, Arith
but a brief interlude, occupied the throne until a.d. 235.
An eminent and trusted general, and owing his position
solely to his legions, he regarded the mighty Empfre over
which he ruled as his OAvn possession, to be held, as it had
been won, by the power of the sword; but in spite of th&

SEVERUS.
Bust from the Palatine Hill, Eome, now in the British Museum.

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 235
miUtary despotism of his reign, he occupies in the judgment
of posterity a very different position to that fiUed by many
of the tyrants Avho had preceded him. Though occasionaUy
harsh and cruel, he was on the whole a just and impartial
sovereign; and Rome, when once he was firmly seated on
the throne, enjoyed, under his miUtary rule, a period generally
of internal peace and prosperity.*
We have seen that in the days of Commodus, particularly
during the latter years of the reign, when Marcia, the favourite
of the Emperor, exercised great infiuence, the Christians of
the Empire enjoyed a period of comparative stiUness. Marcia^
if not a Christian herself, Avas very favourably disposed to
them, and largely, no doubt, OAving to her influence Avith
Commodus, not a few out of the Christian community occu
pied positions of power and influence at Court. For several
years after the accession of Severus to supreme poAver, this
state of things continued, and the military Emperor evidently,
during the earlier years of his reign, looked kindly upon the
sect which had been so harshly treated under his great
predecessor, Marcus. This period of " stillness " was enjoyed
by the Church until about a.d. 202, when a great change
for the Avorse came over her fortunes.
Tertullian, who was the contemporary of Severus, ex
pressly tells us (Apol. 35, ad. Scapulam 4) that in the Avars
of the Succession which Severus waged between a.d. 193 and
A.D. 197, no Christian of any note Avas found among the
adherents of his competitors, Niger and Albinus, the generals
respectively of the formidable Roman armies stationed in
Syria and Britain. Indeed, it seems that the general feeling
and probably the quiet influence of the Christians of the
Empire were in favour of Severus during that anxious period.
This would, partially at all events, account for the evidently
favourable disposition of the stern soldier-Emperor toAvards
* The great historian, however, summing up the events of Severus' reign,
takes a sombre view of the effect of his rule. After dweUing on the introduction
of a military despotism, and the setting violently aside many of the ancient
traditions of Eome, he concludes with these words : " Posterity, who experienced the
fatal effects of his maxims and example, j ustly considered him as the principal
author of the decline of the Eoman Empire." — Decline and Fall, chap. v.

236 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the Christians during the first ten years of his reign. But
it must be borne in mind, that kindly as were the feeUngs of
Severus towards Christians, no change was made in the
oppressive laws which existed; none of the fatal rescripts or
edicts of former Emperors were rescinded or even modified.
But the effect of the known goodwill of the Sovereign was
felt far and wide, and the provincial governors and magis
trates generally discouraged aU persecution and interference
with the widely-spread communities of Christians, whom the
Emperor, during the first half of his reign, was pleased at
least to tolerate, if not to favour.
At the very end of the century (the second) a change
began to pass over the Emperor's feelings and the policy of the
government with regard to the Christians, materiaUy affecting
the position of the many communities of the worshippers of
Jesus of Nazareth in Rome and in the provinces ; and very
early in the thfrd century the persecution seems to have
become general and even bitter.
It is not too much to say that one of the reasons which
largely contributed to this persecution was the provocation of
the extreme and austere party among the Christians them
selves. We shall dwell at some length on the teaching of
this school under such masters as Hippolytus of Rome and
Tertullian of Carthage.
There was always a large and hostUe section of the Pagan
population in every great centre of the Empire ; a section
made up of men who hated the foUowers of Jesus for various
reasons, some based on self-interested motives connected with
trades and industries Avhich suffered gravely under Christian
influences, some on motives connected with the ancient super
stitions of Rome, some on purely patriotic fears. A very small
spark would at all times kindle this latent hostility into
a blaze. The actions of the extremists among the Christians
were often eminently calculated to excite this hostUe section
of the population; popular tumults often compelled the pro
vincial governors and magistrates to take action against the
Christians when they Avould willingly have let them alone.
Such actions of the extreme party are vividly pictured

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 237
by Tertullian in his well-known treatise, De Corona Militis
( ' The Soldier's CroAvn "). The incident upon which this treatise
is based is a good example of the imprudent zeal which the
teaching of the extremists among the Christians had inspired
in many earnest though mistaken men ; a zeal, of course,
calculated to inflame the passions of the already hostile people,
who looked upon them as enemies of the State, and as opposed
to all established Roman customs. The incident, as related by
Tertullian, was as follows.
The Emperors — Severus and his son CaracaUa, who had
been associated with him in the Imperial dignity in the
year 198* — had directed a largesse to be distributed to the
soldiers in one of the North African mUitary centres. On
such occasions it was customary for the soldiers to appear
with crowns of laurel on their heads, the largesse being given
to celebrate some successful feat of arms lately performed in
one or other of the frontier wars, Avhich were ever being
carried on. On this particular occasion the soldiers, laurel-
croAvned, were marching past. " One of them," so writes
TertuUian in admiring language, " more a soldier of God,
more steadfast than the rest of his brethren,! who had
imagined that they could serve two masters, marched past,
his head uncovered, the useless laurel-crown in his hand.
Thus nobly conspicuous, all began to mark him out, jeering
at him from a distance, railing at him near at hand. The
murmur is wafted to the Tribune. . . . He puts at once the
question to him, ' Why are you so different from others in
your attire ? ' The soldier answers that he had no liberty to
wear the orown with the rest, and on being pressed for his
reasons, he declared, ' I am a Christian.' "
The oS'ender was conducted to the Prefects, and eventuaUy
taken to prison, where, to quote TertuUian's words, " crowned

* The exact date of this fiery and eloquent writing of Tertullian is much
disputed. The Erench scholar AUard gives as the most probable date, a.d. 198
(originaUy suggested by Gibbon). AUard ascribes the treatise Ad Nationes to
the same period, and the weU-known " Apology " to about the year 200-201.
t The words of Tertullian evidently imply that a number of these legionaries
were Christians.

238 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
more Avorthily with the white crown of martyrdom, he aAvaited
the largesse of Christ " (i.e. a martyr's death).
In a fine peroration the great Christian writer bids Chris
tians "keep for God what is His own, untainted. He wUl
croAvn it if He choose. Nay, then He does choose. He even
calls us to it. To him who conquers He says, 'I wUl give
you a crown of life.'" Then, after picturing the glorious
crowned ones, described in S. John's grand Apocalyptic Vision,
he says to Christians, " Look at those croAvns ; inhale those
odours; Avhy should you condemn to a little chaplet, or to
a leaf-tAvined coronal* the brow wliich has been destined for
a diadem ? For Jesus Christ has made us kings to God and
His Father. What have you in common Avith a flower which
is to die ? "
Such acts as that related above by Tertullian were doubt
less of no uncommon occurrence under the fiery, uncom
promising teachings of this extreme school ; and were emi
nently fitted to excite the fury of the Pagan populace, and
gravely to influence the procedure of the Imperial magistrates
in their dealings with Christians.
Statesmen might well argue that it was impossible to
ignore such overt acts of contumely directed against aU that
Rome prized and held dear. It availed little that the great
majority of Christians gravely disapproved such exaggerated
and useless manifestations as the one related, and praised so
very emphatically, in the De Corona Milit-is of TertuUian.
The few irreconcileables Avere too often regarded as fair
examples of the many ; and there is little doubt that the
teaching of the extremists, and its disastrous results, were
among the causes whch led to the bitter persecution that
•The wearing of these festal, or laurel crowns, was evidently regarded by
TertulUan and his stern, exclusive school of thought as a public concession to idol
-worship. In his strange though eloquent treatise on " the Crown " he shows that
no patriarch or prophet, no Apostle or preacher of the Gospel ever wore a crown.
The only crowned One who could be cited was Christ, and Sis diadem was com
posed of thorns. His readers had full permission to be crowned as He was ! On
the other hand he shows how the Eoman heathen deities were always represented
as wearing crowns. He instances Saturn, Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Bacchus, and
Hercules. (TH Corona, chaps, vii. and ix.)

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 239
broke out after the close of the second century, and Aveighed so
heavily on the Christian communities generally throughout
the Empire during the ensuing years.
But although a section — a party numerically small it is
true — had by their conduct gravely compromised the whole body
of Christians, and had made themselves painfully conspicuous
by their determined refusal to conform even in non-essential
particulars Avith the time-honoured customs of the State,
StiU it does not seem that this unwise conduct, this obstinate
behaviour of the extremists, Avas the only cause of the
change in the policy of the Emperor Severus in his dealings
Avith his Christian subjects. It was evidently something
deeper, something more far-reaching ; something Avhich fre
quently affected the Emperor and the statesmen Avho were
at the head of public affairs at this juncture.
It Avas the rapidly increasing numbers of the Christians,
drawn from all sorts and conditions of men, in the army
and in civil professions, their perfect organisation, their
strange and unexplained unity, Avhich struck Avith fears for
the present, and still more with apprehensions for the future,
the minds of Severus and the Pagan statesmen of his time ;
who were persuaded that the Aveal of Rome depended upon
the strict maintenance of the traditional uses and customs
which had helped to build up the great Empire. TertulUan
gravely, not boastingly, notices this enormous and unexampled
increase in the numbers of the Christian subjects of the
Empire when he speaks of the universal cry complaining
that the State Avas literally occupied, croAvded out,* by these
folk. Severus and his advisers felt that a neAv policy must be
adopted without delay towards these strange enemies who
had grown up in their midst, who had effected a lodge
ment in every city, in every village, even in the unconquered
army of Rome, in the croAvded homes of the poor, in the
luxurious villas and palaces of the rich, in the Senate, and
in the very household of the Emperor, whose numbers were
* "Obsessam vociferantur civitatem"; Tert., Apol. 1.

240 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
multiplyfrig with such alarming rapidity, and whose power
and influence undoubtedly were daily increasing.
The old edicts and rescripts proscribing this strange
religion, as interpreted by the magistrates of the Empire,
were manifestly insufficient adequately to check the rapid
increase of the converts to the new religion.
There is abundant testimony to the fact that a terrible
and general persecution raged in the earliest years of the
third century, and probably continued without intermission
all through the remafrider of the reign of Severus, who
died at York a.d. 211. Eusebius, writing in the first half
of the fourth century, thus begins the sixth book of his
" Ecclesiastical History" : " And when Severus raised a persecu
tion against the Churches, there were everywhere ia aU the
Churches glorious martyrdoms of the champions for rehgion,
but especiaUy were they numerous at Alexandria; to which
city, as to the noblest stadium of God, were brought the
most eminent champions from the Thebais and from all
Egypt, that by invincible patience under various torments
and divers sorts of death, they might obtain from God a
glorious croAvn." And again he writes a little further on
(H. E. vi 2), "at that time many thousands were croAvned
Avith martyrdom." Sulpicius Severus* specially mentions this
as a time of severe trial, styling it the sixth persecution. The
references in the words of Tertullian, a contemporary Avriter
and teacher, to the bitter sufferings of Christians at this period
are innumerable.
There is, hoAvever, some diversity of opinion among
scholars as to whether a new and more rigorous legislation
was adopted by the State in its deahngs with the noA7
numerous and poAverful sect, or whether the old machinery
of the earlier edicts and rescripts was made more effective.
Those who favour the former vicAv refer to the words of
Spartianus, one of the writers of the "Augustan History,"!
* Sulpicius Severus was a writer of Southern Gaul (Aquitaine) who
nourished circa a.d. 365-425 ; he is especiaUy known as a devoted disciple and
admirer of the famous Bishop of Tours, S. Martin.
t This history was the work of four, or perhaps, as somcisay ,of six writers. It
contains biographies of the Eoman Emperors from Hadrian to Carinus, who

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 241
who, in his account of Severus' progress through Palestine in
the year 202, mentions that among many other laws which the
Emperor promulgated was one which " forbade under grave
penalties that anyone should become a Jew, and the same law
Avas to be enforced in the case of Christians."* Spartianus
gives no further details here, but his words apparently
point to some fresh and sterner legislation; and as the cruel
persecution of the Christians immediately foUoAved, it may
be presumed that the persecution Avas embittered by some
fresh legislation.!
was assassinated in his campaign against Diocletian a.d. 285. The lives of the
Emperors before Hadrian have not come down to us. To Spartianus are attri
buted aU the biographies in the collection up to Alexander Severus. This work
was written in the times of Diocletian and Constantine, that is to say early
in the fourth century. The authors, including Spartianus, were probably
librarians or secretaries to eminent persons. Spartianus seems to refer to him
self as being a member of Diocletian's household. These biographies make no
pretension to Uterary merit, but are extremely valuable as a repertory of
facts. They record amongst other interesting detaUs many Imperial edicts,
rescripts, etc. As a whole they appear to be generaUy faithful and free from
any imputation of unfairness. The names of the other three writers of the
" Augustan History " are Julius Capitolinus, TrebeUius PoUio, and Flavius
Vopisous. The connection between these four writers is unknown. The
" Lives," written by Spartianus, are formaUy dedicated in the first part to
Diocletian, iu the latter to Constantine.
* " In itinere Palsestinis plurima jura fundavit, Judajos fieri sub gravi
poena vstuit, idem etiam de Christianis sanxit." — Spartianus : Severus, 17.
t AUard, Sistoire des Persecutions (1894), ii., chap, xi., considers the
words of Spartianus above quoted a very brief resume of an edict of Severus,
and that the words " Christianos fieri " possess a double sense, viz., " to become
or to be made Christians'' and "to make Christians." Thus the edict made
it at the same time criminal to be a Christian proselyte or to malce a Christian
proselyte ("les convertisseurs et les convertis"). The Erench scholar considers
that Severus and his advisers, dismayed at the rapid increase of Christians
in all parts ot the Empire, and recognising that the existing laws were totally
inadequate to stay the rapid and alarming propaganda of the new religion,
framed this new edict to which Spartianus refers, which struck sharply at all
attempts to proselytise as weU as at aU new converts to the Faith. Against
such the magistrates were authorised at once to proceed, without waiting for
any definite accusation, which was the old way of procedure against Christians
in accordance with the rescript of the Emperor Trajan. Professor Eamsay
(1897), on the other hand {Church in the Roman Empire, ix.), following
Neumann, considers that no proof exists that the Emperor Severus ever issued
any edict on the subject, and that the Emperor in question did no more than
answer by rescript questions on the matter of how to deal with Christians
addressed to him by provincial governors. Such answer by rescript from an
Q

242 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Alexandria, the great and world-renowned capital of Egypt,
is especiaUy noted by Eusebius in the above quoted passage as a
centre of this persecution. For some time it had been a famous
home of Christian teaching, and the persecution there was
evidently especiaUy hard. It seems probable that Severus, who
about A.D. 202 spent some time in this great Egyptian city, was
disturbed and alarmed at the influence exercised by the
brUliant and popular teaching of Clement, the head of the
famous Catechetical School of that city, whose lectures were
attended by vast numbers, including not only Christian students
but distinguished Pagans of both sexes. Hence many martyrs
suffered at this time in Alexandria, although the teaching of
Clement, whUe exaltmg the value of the witness of these
sufferers for the Faith, discouraged all presumptuous daring on
the part of Christians, and counselled them rather to avoid
than court danger.
In Rome and Italy documents such as " Acts and Passions ''
of martyrs connected with the persecution of Severus are
ahnost entirely wanting. The destruction of the Christian
archives, including any memoranda of proces verbaux of trials
and the like which could be discovered in the time of the
" terror " of Diocletian — a destruction, of course, naturaUy
more vigorously carried on at Rome, the seat of the Govern
ment, than in any other centre — accounts for this.* But recent
archseological investigations in the great catacombs of the
Appian Way partly supply the want of these lost documents.
The corridors and funereal chambers of the important
catacomb over which CalUstus the Deacon was appointed by
Pope Zephyrinus, and which apparently was largely his design
and to this day bears his name, show that sonfiething had
rudely and suddenly interrupted the regular plan of the
decorative and other works which were proceeding in that
famous subterranean cemetery. Evidently, new entrances and
Emperor markedly hostUe to Christianity, as was Severus evidently in the last
half of his reign, would naturally have the effect of encouraging persecution.
This animus on the part of the Emperor, as we have seen, had clearly
influenced the persecution of Christians in the reign of the Emperor Marcus.
* So De Eossi. Compare La Bibliotheca della sede Apostolica, 1884, p. 22, and
De Origine Bibliothecm sedis Apostolica, 1886, p. xvi., xxi.

AFTEE THE ANTONINES. 248
new passages were at that time contrived openfrig into neigh
bouring sandpits; narrow stairs were devised, the old communi
cation and flights of steps were partly destroyed or concealed.
Clearly these arrangements were made to facihtate escape for
the harassed Christians who might be tracked into the sacred
places, used especially in times of persecution as meeting
chapels for worship, and for the celebration of the Eucharist.
It appears that at this particular period, when the im
portant catacomb generaUy known as that of S. Callistus was in
process of being made and decorated,* interments were not
forbidden, but anything like assemblies of Christians for
reUgious worship was strictly interdicted. Everything points
to a vigorous persecution going on at Rome. Driven from
their customary meeting places in the city, the harassed
communities no doubt assembled secretly fri these crypts and
sepulchral chambers, which were more or less arranged for
this purpose. Tracked by the police of the Emperor into
these gloomy refuges, they sought to render them compara
tively safe by blocking up some of the corridors, by destroying
the usual staircases of approach, and by providing secret means
of egress when so tracked.
In the great pro-consular province of North Africa, ample
written materials are extant bearing testimony to the ravages
of the same terrible persecution of the Christian citizens of
Carthage and other North African centres.
Tertullian, Avriting of this troublous time, expressly speaks
of such raids as of common occurrence, and refers to them
thus: "We Christians are daily harassed, tracked out, sur
prised in our most secret assemblies." And again : " You
(the Government) are in the habit of making raids upon us
in our meetings and assemblies" (Ad Nationes, 17, and
Apologia, 7) ; and in his Avritings we possess many vivid
pictures of the trials and sufferings of the followers of Jesus
of Nazareth during these sad years.
To this time, the first years of the thfrd century, must be
* The identity of the masonry of the newly devised secret approaches, and
of the walls and obstruction in the corridors and chambers, with the original
work which belongs to the early years of the third century, has been estabUshed .

244 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
attributed the events so patheticaUy related Avith intimate
details in " The Passion of S. Perpetua."*
In the wide district generally knoAvn as Asia Minor, where,
as we have had already occasion to remark, the number of
men and women who professed the Faith of Jesus from the
earliest times was very great, the victims of the persecution
of Severus were numerous, but detaUs are lacking. The troubles
of Christians in these provinces especially were not a Uttie
increased by the rise and progress of the heresy knoAvn as
that of Montanus. The extravagance of these Montanists,
their resolute refusal to conform in any way to Roman customs
and practices, which they associated with idolatry, and their
habit of positively courting martyrdom, seemed often seriously
to affect the position of the quiet, earnest Christian folk,
and to bring them into useless conflict with the Imperial
authorities.! In the last years of his reign, so disastrous a period for
his Christian subjects, the great soldier-Emperor especiaUy
devoted himself to the metropoUs of the world. After some
seventeen centuries of wear and tear, of devastation and
invasion in Rome, mighty ruuis bearing the name of Severus
are among the more prominent features even in the city of
ruins. His great arch stiU dominates one end of the storied
forum, while a vast and shapeless pUe of remains on the
south of the hill of Imperial palaces marks the site of the
gorgeous house of Severus looking over the sad Campagna to
Ostia and the sea.
His building work in Rome was enormous ; palaces, baths,
temples, huge granaries, such as even Rome herself Avith her
magnificent record had never seen before, signalised the
closing period of his career. It was, as regards noble buUd
ings, the most briUiant period the world-capital had knoAvn.
And while new stately temples Avere rising, and ancient fanes
* See p. 237 supra.
t The position and tenets of the Montanists, in whose ranks were gradually
included many of the more rigorous and ascetic of the Christians of that time who
refused to share in the Ufe and pursuits of the ordinary citizens of the Empire, ave
described in Chapter XII., p. 326/;

Photo ; Alinari & Cook, Rome. IN THE PALACE OF THE C/ESARS.
Tin.' so-c;il]ril " .Sladiuiii "^moje pml'alily the Imperial Ganhii. The ruins are im'stly those of the Palace of Hr\(.'riis.

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 245
were being magnificently restored, while the grandest palace
among aU that marvellous group of palaces was being erected
on that hill where the " divine " Csesar dwelt, overlooldng the
immemorial Forum, the centre of all Pagan worship, the
Christians of the Roman community, as irreconcilable enemies
of the State, were being hunted down as they gathered in
silence and in secret for prayer and praise in the sombre
corridors and sepulchral chambers of their cemeteries beneath
the vineyards and gardens just outside Rome. As we have
already noticed, much of the work of destruction carried out
with the hope of concealing these meeting-places in the great
cemetery beneath the gardens which fringe the Appian Wa.j,
dates from the period of this persecution.
History relates one more campaign undertaken by Severus
in the far north of distant Britain, where the wild moun
taineers of Caledonia persistently refused to recognise the
majesty of Rome. Probably the worn-out Emperor under
took the conduct of this last war in person in order to re
move from the seductive pleasures of the capital his two
sons, CaracaUa and Geta. But the fatigue of the war was too
much for the toil-worn soldier ; for on his return from a suc
cessful campaign in Caledonia he expired at York, leaving
the tremendous inheritance of the Empire to his unAvorthy
sons. Among the many tragedies which stained the Imperial
purple, the story of the brother-Emperors, the sons and suc-
cessoijs of Severus, stands out conspicuously. Caracalla and
Geta hated each other, and the Roman world Avas soon
appalled at hearing that the younger brother, Geta, had
been assassinated at his brother's suggestion in his mother's
arms. The fears which were entertained by Severus that his
sons would prove themselves unworthy of their great inherit
ance, when he took them fr'om Rome on his last campaign
into Britain, were unhappUy too well founded. Little is
Imown of the younger, who was foully murdered, as we have
said, in a.d. 212, the year following Severus' death; but the
elder, Caracalla, ranks among the vilest of the Emperors.

246 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
In cold-blooded cruelty he even surpassed Nero and
Domitian. It is said that above twenty thousand persons of
both sexes, some of them of the highest rank, were put to
death early in his fatal reign under the vague charge of
having been friends of the murdered Geta. Gibbon does not
hesitate to style him " the common enemy of mankind."
The year after the death of Geta, CaracaUa left Rome
never to return to it, and spent the remaining four or five
years of his life in moving about through the various provinces
of his immense Empire; and in the course of his imperial
progresses " every province Avas by turn the scene of his
rapine and cruelty." He perished by an assassin's dagger
in A.D. 217, universally feared and execrated.
Historians have noted as a curious fact that in the long
line of the masters of the greatest Empire the world has
ever seen, those princes who were bom, so to speak, in the
purple,* with perhaps one or two exceptions, were detestable
tyrants, while the Aviser and better Emperors were aU of them
raised to the throne by adoption or by election. Among
the first Csesars, from Julius to Nero, a family connection
more or less close existed; and, Avith the exception of
Augustus, they were aU crime-stained tyrants. The Avise
Vespasian was elected, but of his two sons Titus died all
too soon, and Domitian was a monster of vice. Nerva,
Trajan, Hadrian, the tAvo Antonines, between whom no blood-
relationship existed, were on the whole great and generally
loved princes. But unfortimately, Marcus Aurehus Antoninus
was followed by his son, the execrable Commodus. After
Commodus came the " elected " Severus, who, although a
miUtary despot, takes rank among the emiaent Emperors
of Rome; but he was succeeded by his wretched son
Caracalla, who, as we have seen, too weU maintained the
unA'arying tradition of the character of the prioces born in
the Roman purple.
The question arises, how came it to pass that in the
* The French historian notices this fact in the succession of the Eoman
Empire, as being diflerent to our modern experience. In Eome, " C'est I'election
qui sauve, c'est I'heredite qui perd." Champagny: Zes Antonins, i. 1.

AFTEE THE ANTONINES. 247
Roman Empire, in the matter of the succession to the throne
a completely different experience presents itself from that
which we are accustomed to in mediseval and modern
times ?
Now it is in an hereditary throne that people find the
greatest security for the maintenance of internal peace and
prosperity. The idea of an elected sovereign is weU nigh
impossible; the experiment would be, by universal opinion,
too hazardous.* Many of the reasons for this curiously
different experience are not hard to find. The Roman Empire
was made up of various nationalities ; a loyal attachment
to an Italian family or djmasty, natural enough in Italy,
would find no place in Gaul, in North Africa, or in Syria.
But a deeper reason existed in the antecedents of the
sovereigns of the Roman world. The " elected " was chosen
for some distinguishing qualities, for some conspicuous
abilities; in many cases he had been a soldier, and when
called to rule Avas usually long past the age of youthful
passion and prejudice. Trained generally in the stem
discipline of a Roman place of arms, he brought with him
to the throne the virtues peculiar to the camp — courage,
endurance, self-restraint, and the habit of commanding. The
"born in the purple," on the other hand, was brought up
in the often enervating atmosphere of a Pagan court, sur
rounded from youth with obsequious flatterers, unaccustomed
to self-denial or self-restraint. The Roman Prince " born
in the purple," unhke the Prince of mediseval and modern
times, lacked in any education which he received that
Christian training which, since the religion of Jesus has be
come the religion of the Western world, forms so marked
a feature in the education of a Prince born to an hereditary
throne. The general persecution which weighed so heavily on
* In the Western world the great Powers of England, Germany, Eussia,
Italy, and Austria-Hungary have adopted generaUy the principle of an hereditary
sovereign. France, in late years, and in the new world, the United States, have
alone chosen another form of government altogether. The vast majority of
the less important countries — e.g., HoUand and Belgium — have foUowed the
same example in preferring an hereditary sovereign.

248 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the followers of Jesus in the latter half of the reign of
Severus, continued, but more languidly, during the early
portion at least of his successor, Caracalla's, rule. Probably
the deeper political or patriotic reasons which moved Severus
and his advisers to persecute were absent from the counsels
of the more careless CaracaUa. This Emperor is, however,
generally noAv credited with the passing of an edict which
had far-reaching consequences in the Empire, and which
evidently affected adversely certain of the Christian subjects
of Rome. The edict to which we refer extended the privileges
and responsibilities of the citizenship of Rome to dweUers
in the provinces, carrying therewith a great increase in the
taxation,* to Avhich provincials, who prcAdously did not possess
the rights of Roman citizens, were now Uable. It was for
this reason that this far-reaching edict was passed.
It curiously affected accused Christians, who, when charged
with the crime of " Christianity," had not infrequently pleaded
before the provincial magistrates their Roman citizenship, and
claimed the right of appeal to the supreme Imperial tribunal
of Rome, as, in fact, we see S. Paul did (Acts of the Apostles
xxii. 25-9, xxiii. 27, xxv. 10-12). This right of appeal was
also claimed by the Bithynian Christians Avhen accused before
Pliny the pro-prsetor, by the martyr Attalus at Lyons in the
persecution in the days of the Emperor Marcus, etc. But
after the edict of Caracalla we find in the various Acts of the
martyrs no more instances of such appeals.
The new edict gave a provincial official, if iU-disposed to
Christianity, increased power; for his decision in the case of
accused Christians was henceforth final. No Christian could
any more plead the special right of citizenship as a reason
for appeal in cases of condemnation.
* It was no doubt with the view of raising the Imperial revenue that this
change in the constitution of the Empire was made. When the privilege of
the Eoman citizenship was so indefinitely multiplied, the value natui-ally
became practicaUy nil. A citizen of Eome was liable to a special heavy tax
on legacies and inheritances, on the act of manumission of slaves, etc. Such a
tax imposed ou provincials (for as Eoman citizens they would henceforth be hable)
would of course largely increase the revenue receipts ; but in the long run it
would serve to undermine the old foundations on which the Empire was built up.

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 249
SECTION III. — FEOM CARACALLA TO DECIUS, A.D. 211 TO A.D. 249.
Gradually the long drawn out persecution ceased. After
the year 212 we find no more records of martjrrdoms in the
reign of Caracalla, and now for a long while the Church
enjoyed an almost unbroken peace. This period of " stiUness "
is said to have lasted some thirty-seven years, uninterrupted
save by the short outbreak of persecution under the rule of
the Emperor Maximinus.
Caracalla was assassinated by a centurion in a military
intrigue, a.d. 217, and for a few months the throne of the
Empire was occupied by an ambitious soldier, Macrinus, who had
fiUed the office of Prastorian Prefect. He, too, perished in an
obscure military sedition, probably fomented by a palace
intrigue, without leaving any trace of his short reign behind
him. The palace intrigues, under the guidance of Julia Maesa
(the sister of the Empress Julia Domna, the widow of Severus),
with the assistance of the legionaries of the Syrian army,
procured the succession to the Empire for Elagabalus, her
grandson. The close connection of the new Emperor with
the great Severus seems to have disarmed any serious oppo
sition, and Elagabalus was quietly acknowledged Emperor
A.D. 218. Elagabalus had been brought up and trained as
chief priest of the Sun-god of Emesa in Syria, and during his
reign of four years seems to have rated his position and
privUeges as a Syrian Pontiff higher than any titles of Imperial
majesty. His sorry distinction among the long line of Roman
Emperors was his exaggerated devotion to his Oriental god.
His reign was disgraced by nameless infamies, and by his
wild extravagances he offended and shocked aU that was
serious and patriotic in the Empire.* His one notable act
* The Eoman was speciaUy shocked at the action of this dissolute and
fanatical Emperor-priest, who, bringing the sacred black stone of Emesa, under
whioh form the sun was worshipped, with aU possible solemnity to Eome, pro
ceeded to group round this strange object of Oriental worship all that was most
holy and venerated in a Eoman's eyes, such as the sacred fire of Vesta, and
the shields of Maxs, with the view, as Lampridius says, " Eomanas .

260 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Avas the association in the supreme power of his cousin,
Alexander Severus ; of whom, however, he soon became jealous,
and would have destroyed him had he not himseff faUen in
one of those military seditions which were too common in
the powerful and turbulent army of Rome. Elagabalus had
reigned for about four years when he was assasshiated.
The Christian in the reign of Elagabalus was not merely
tolerated, he was even looked on with favour. The Christian
religion, coming from the East, was regarded Avith special
reverence by this fanatical Asiatic devotee. The God of the
Jew and the Christian he even deigned to admit into the
most sacred shrine of his Sun-god.
When Elagabalus (a.d. 218 to a.d. 222) feU, his cousin,
whom history knows as Alexander Severus, was at once recog
nised as sole Emperor. During his reign of thfrteen years
(a.d. 222 to A.D. 235) the stiUness enjoyed by the worshippers
of Jesus in the days of his unworthy predecessor and cousin, re
mained unbroken. The favour shoAvn to them by the haff-
crazy Emperor-priest was continued for more worthy reasons.
It was a quiet time indeed, such as had never yet been ex
perienced by the Christians. Historians are unanimous ia
the praise of the great-nephew * of the wife of Severus. None
of the Emperors who in succession sat on the throne of the
first great Csesar have a fairer record than he. Surrounded
by wise and prudent ministers, his whole thoughts, during
his too-short Ufe, were devoted to correct the abuses which
disfigured the Imperial administration, and to restore the
glories and fehcity of the age of the noble Antonines; while
every endeavour was made, though Avith only partial success
* Table showing famUy connection of Alexander Severus with the Emperor
Severus — Bassianus

A.D. 193-211. Severus (Emp.) = Julia Domna Julia Maesa

I ill
A.D. 211- CaracaUa (Emp.) Geta (Emp.) Soemias Mamaea
217. I I
A.D. 218-222. Elagabalus Alexander Severus (Emp.)
(Emp.) A.D. 222-235.

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 251
it must be confessed, to re-introduce something of the ancient
discipline and spirit into the mighty army which had come
to regard itself as the maker and unmaker of the sovereigns
of Rome. The beautiful character of this Emperor had been formed
with exceeding care by his mother Mamsea, the niece, as Ave
have said, of the Empress JuUa Domna. Mamsea some
believe to have been a Christian; she certainly Avas strongly
influenced by the words and writings of the greatest living
Christian teacher, Origen. Eusebius (H. E., vi. 21) thus writes
of this princess: "Mamsea, the Emperor's mother, a woman
distinguished for her piety and religion, when the fame of
Origen had noAv been everywhere spread abroad, so that it
also reached her ears, was very eager both to be honoured
with the sight of this man, and to make trial of his skUl in
divine things so greatly extolled. Therefore, when staying
at Alexandria, she sent for him . . . With her he (Origen)
stayed some time, exhibiting innumerable matters calculated
to promote the glory of the Lord, and to CArince the excellence
of divine instruction."
And yet it Avould be an error to imagine that this amiable
and earnest Alexander Severus was a Christian. He, too,
foUowing the example of such eminent Emperors and states
men as Augustus and Marcus, was firmly persuaded that the
stability of the Roman Empire in large measure rested upon
the maintenance of the ancient traditions; and these were
inextricably mingled with the old worship. So we find Alex
ander Severus and his ministers* very early in the reign
sending back to its original home in Syrian Emesa, the
black stone which was said to have fallen from heaven, with
its gorgeous setting of gems, which represented the Sun-god ;
and replacing in their ancient shrines the statues and im
memorial emblems of the old gods of Rome, which had been
moved therefrom by Elagabalus.
* Through the influence of Mamsea, his mother, the youthful Emperor, from
the first, was surrounded by a council of sixteen Senators, distinguished for their
experience and patriotism. Of these the most eminent was Ulpianus the great
Jurist, who afterwards perished in a military emeute, most unfortunately for the
Empire.

252 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
The young Emperor, so his historians teU us, in the
private chapel of his palace, among the images of his deified
Imperial predecessors, placed statues of others who he con
sidered had won a right to adoration. Abraham and Jesus
Christ were among these. One fact certainly remains un
challenged ; during the years of Alexander Severus' rule
the Christian lived unmolested. For nigh two hundred
years his position in the Empire had been, as TertuUian
curtly puts it, "non licet esse vos" (it is not laAvful to be
you). The historian* of Alexander Severus sums up their
position under that Prince thus : " Christianos esse passus
est" (He suffered men to be Christians). But although any
thing like a State persecution was unheard of in this time,
it is certain that the foUowers of Jesus were stiU occasionaUy
exposed to the danger of popular fury, which ever and again,
OAving to the causes, whether commercial, domestic, or patriotic,
on which we have dwelt, broke out against them.
It was in one of these tumultuous risings no doubt that
the notorious Bishop of Rome, CaUistus, perished. He avUI
come before us presently as the determined opponent of the
ascetic or rigourist party in the Church of Rome. CaUistus
was a great organiser, and was one of those who largeiy
increased and planned out that vast NecropoUs knoAvn as
the Catacombs beneath the suburbs of Rome, to one of
which, under the Appian Way, he has bequeathed his name
His death apparently took place in a popular uprising
against the Christians in a.d. 222-3.
But the Christians of the Empire, before many years had
passed, experienced a much ruder awakening from their
dreams of peace and quiet, than Avas occasioned by such
temporary outbursts of popular fanaticism. In the year
235 the Roman world was astonished and dismayed to hear
that the young Emperor and his mother, Mamsea, after some
thirteen years of wise and temperate rule, had been basely
assassinated in one of those disastrous mihtary revolts, of
too frequent occurrence in the Roman armies, AvhUe present
Avith the army of Germany in its camp ; and that the chief
* Lampridius, one of the writers of the " Augustan History.''

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 253
conspirator, Maximinus, a rude but renoAvned soldier of
barbarian extraction, his father being a Goth and his mother
an Alan, had been selected Emperor by the legionaries
composing this great frontier army.
The reign of Maximinus lasted less than three years ; the
soldier, who in the subordinate position of tribune of a
legion had won a high reputation for his admirable powers
of discipline and military administration, as Master of the
Roman world showed himself a monster of cruelty and
oppression. He was dreaded and feared by all ranks and
orders, but as long as the army, who admired the rough
commander Avhom they had advanced to the throne, main
tained their allegiance, he could defy in safety the hatred
and dread of the rest of the Empire. Through an insane
jealousy of his murdered predecessor, Avhose grace and learn
ing formed a strange contrast to his own rough, coarse
manners and lack of education, he hunted doAvn, proscribed,
and banished aU who were in any way associated with him.
Hence apparently Maximums' hatred of Christians, whom
Alexander Severus certainly tolerated, if he did not absolutely
favour them. For there is no doubt that, in the reign of
the late Emperor, there were many Christians in the Imperial
household,* Mamsea, his mother, being a Christian in all but
the name.
The persecution was directed first against the more promi
nent members of the Church. One of the earliest official
documents of the Roman Church, the so-called " Liberian
Catalogue" of a.d. 354, which reproduces in its earlier part
a yet more ancient document, teUs us how " At this time
(mentioning the Consuls of a.d. 235) Pontianus the Bishop
of Rome and Hippolytus the Presbyter Avere transported
into the unhealthy Island of Sardinia." Pontianus, when
banished, resigned his position to Anteros, and the Liber
* Eusebius' words are very definite here. " The Emperor Alexander
(Severus) . . was succeeded by Maximinus, who, inflamed with hate against
the House of Alexander, consisting of many believers, raised a persecution."
Eusebius, S. F., vi. 28. The "House of Cajsar," the "Domus Augusti," in aU
its wide-reaching signification, has been fully discussed above. See p. 36.

254 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Pontificalis tells us how he was tortured and scourged in
his exile and died. The bodies of Pontianus and Hippo
lytus were eventually brought back to Rome. Anteros only
lived a short time after his elevation.
The persecution of Maximinus was by no means confined
to Rome; for Origen relates how great were the sufferings
endured by the Christians of Cappadocia. We have records,
too, teUing of sufferings endured at Alexandria and in other
parts of the Empire. Origen's treatise, "The Exhortation,"
addressed to martyrs (ITpoTpeTrTf/co? et? Maprupwv), was Avritten
during the persecution of Maximinus.
One peculiar feature of this bitter feeling displayed by
the Emperor Maximinus against the foUowers of Jesus seems
to have been the unchaining of the evU passions of the
populace, among whom, as we have seen, many iU-wishers
to Christianity were always found, a hostile element never
difficult to arouse. Origen gives us a vivid picture of hoAv
this spirit of enmity was stirred up at this time. Several
disastrous shocks of earthquake had been experienced. The
great teacher is no doubt alluding to pro-consular Asia and
the neighbouring provinces of Asia Minor. The Pagan foes
of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus spread abroad the rumour
that all such unforeseen calamities as earthquakes, pestUences,
famines, and even wars were the outcome of Christian teach
ing, which urged the abandonment of the worship of the
gods, who by means of the earthquake, the famine, etc.,
avenged their insulted majesty. In this persecution of the
Christians Origen alludes especiaUy to the buming of their
churches.* Happily the sufferings of the Church in the evU reign of
Maximinus continued but a short time. During the two to
three years of his rule he never visited Rome; his cruelty,
however, and extraordinary avarice stirred up bitter animosity
in all parts of the Empire. The temples were stripped of much
of their wealth, and the very statues of the gods were melted
* Origen, Commentary on S. Matthew, 28. The churches which this writer
teUs us were burned at this time no doubt had been erected in the long period
of comparative stillness which had foUowed the death of the first Severus.

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 255
doAvn ; much of this sacrilegious plunder was distributed among
the soldiers. The Emperor was generally looked upon by all
outside the camps of the legionaries as a common enemy
of humanity. In the great pro-consular province of North
Africa, the universal discontent first took shape in the
form of a rebellion against the unworthy and hated Maxi
minus, and Gordian, the Pro-consul, an illustrious and wealthy
senator, was saluted as Emperor. With this Gordian, who
was over eighty years of age, his son was associated. Rome
and the Senate ratified the election of pro-consular Africa.
Their reign was, however, brief. For the forces at the
disposal of the Gordians were defeated by a band of
legionaries faithful to Maximinus, and Gordian and his son
perished: the son in battle, the father by his own hand
after the defeat.
The elder Gordian was an admirable example of a Roman
" grand seigneur." Descended on his father's side from the
Gracchi, on his mother's from the Emperor Trajan, he owned
one of those vast estates situate in Italy and Sicily, in Africa
and Asia, which have never fallen to the lot of any private
individual save to the members of these patrician houses of
the earlier days of the Empire. Besides his stately Roman
palace with its ancient trophies and gorgeous decoration,
once the dweUing of the great Pompey, his villa on the road
to Prseneste was celebrated for its splendour among a host
of similar beautiful houses. It contained, we read, besides
baths of rare magnificence and size, three stately halls, each
of a hundred feet in length, and a mighty portico, resting on
two hundred columns of rare and costly marbles. This great
noble was at once a writer and philosopher, a student of
Plato, and an imitator and passionate admirer of Virgil, the
patriot poet who sang the immortal glories and virtues of
immemorial Rome. This eminent patrician spent his life in
the enjoyment of the most pure and lofty tastes ; and yet
he thought it a righteous act to use his well-nigh countless
revenues in entertaining the people, when he filled the offices
of sedile or of consul, by repeated shows, month after month,
of the shameful amphitheatre games ; those games which

256 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
inflamed the minds of the populace with a passion for
blood and lust, and taught them to disregard human
sufferings and to hold cheap human life and happiness —
games in which three hundred to a thousand gladiators
fought! Such were the strange contrasts which filled the
lives of the noblest and most cultured of the Masters of the
world — of the men who for two hundred and eighty years
fought the life and death battle Avith that quiet, unresisting
sect who followed Jesus of Nazareth, who counted it the
highest honour to die for His IMame and then to he in
those long corridors of death adorned with the rough paiat-
ings of the Good Shepherd, and the symbols of a redeemed
soul and of a blessed Paradise Home.
But although the revolt of North Africa ended with the
defeat and death of the Gordians, father and son, the Roman
Senators, powerless in the face of the mighty armies of the
Emperor though they seemed to be, flinched not from their
determination to dethrone the detested soldier-tyrant Maxi
minus, and immediately invested two of the most worthy
members of their august body Avith the Imperial purple.
These were Maximus and Balbinus, patricians and men
of consular dignity. With these two they associated a thfrd,
a scion of the Gordian family, out of respect for the memory
of the princes who had just laid down their lives for the
State. The Emperor Maximinus, hearing of this revolt against
his authority, hurried from the banks of the distant Danube to
meet the forces raised by the Emperors chosen by the Senate.
For a brief time the issue of the war was doubtful, but
happUy for the fate of Rome the cruel tyrant was mur
dered as he Avas besieging the frontier city of Aquileia, by his
oAvn soldiers (a.d. 238). The joy of the Roman world at the fall
of the cruel and avaricious soldier was universal, but alas, Maxi
mus and Balbinus soon perished, assassinated by some soldiers
in a military tumult at Rome. The boy Gordian, however,
who, by the Senate, had been associated vdth them in the
purple, survived, and Avas universaUy acknowledged Emperor.
With the faU of the tyrant Maximinus the persecution of
the Christians ceased.

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 257
During the five or six years when the boy Gordian was
nominaUy Emperor (he was only nineteen years old when he
in tum was murdered), the Christians were not interfered with.
After a period of some confusion in the Government, an able
and distinguished minister, Timesitheus, came into poAver as
Prsetorian Prefect, and the young Emperor Gordian married
his daughter ; but once more the overbearing intrigues of the
all-powerful army put an end to the anticipation of a wise
and beneficent rule. Timesitheus, the minister, died suddenly,
not without the gravest suspicion that his end had been
hastened by poison, and the year foUowing Gordian the
Emperor Avas crueUy murdered with the consent, if not by
the direct command, of Philip, a successful and popular
general, whom the arbitrary AviU of the soldiery had raised
to the throne.
Again and again the historian of the Roman Empire has
to relate the sudden advent to supreme power of a miUtary
chief who, by his success in war and his skill in attaching to
his person the affection of the soldiers, had Avon the devotion
and support of the legionaries under his command. The great
Roman armies, mostly stationed in the frontier provinces,
were composed of men drawn not only from the various
provinces of the Empfre, but also largely recruited from the
barbarian hordes beyond the borders. This great mass of
trained soldiers was bound by but slender ties to the Senate,
who stiff wielded a nominal superintendence over the Govem
ment ; the ancient time-honoured traditions of Rome exercised
but Uttie influence over these armed and poAverful mercenaries.
Now it is the army of Germany, now the legionaries of Gaul
and Britain, now the soldiers of the force guarding the frontiers
of distant Asia, whom we find by their tumultuous election
exalting to the throne of the Empire some favourite general.
In this particular instance, the army of Asia chose an
Emperor knoAvn in history as PhUip the Arabian, who pos
sesses in our story of the fortunes of the early Church a
peculiar interest, for he is said to have been the first Christian
Emperor. PhUip's reign lasted from a.d. 244 to a.d. 249.
Little is known of the early years of this Philip, an Arab

258 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
by birth. We hear of him first in command of the Roman
force in the Persian campaign undertaken in the days of the
younger Gordian. When Timesitheus, the father-in-law of
the Emperor, died, Philip received from the young Emperor
the appointment of Prsetorian Prefect, and in the obscure
intrigues Avhich followed the death of Timesitheus,* PhUip
was saluted Emperor by the army, Gordian meeting with the
tragic fate so sadly common in the case of the sovereigns
not in favour with the turbulent legionaries. In this murder
Philip was apparently deeply implicated.
Immediately after his accession the new miUtary sovereign,
having concluded a peace with the Persians, set out for Rome,
passing Antioch on his way. A strange story is told of a
scene which, in the course of his joumey, took place in the
Syrian capital.
The Emperor, we read, was a Christian, and on the Easter
Eve of the year 244 he presented himself at the church at
the hour of prayer. The Bishop of Antioch, Babylas, who
subsequently received the honours of saintship, sternly refused
admission to the sovereign till he should have gone through
the appointed discipline of a penitent for some grave crime
which he had committed. Most probably this crime was his
complicity in the murder of Gordian. The story is told by
Eusebius (H. E. VI. 34), who speaks of the "many crimes
which he had committed," and adds that the Emperor is said
"' to have obeyed AviUingly, and to have exhibited a genuine
and religious disposition in regard to his fears of God."
Chrysostom repeats the story Avith more details, commentuig
on the conduct of Bishop Babylas, who he says " acted like a
good shepherd Avho drives away the scabby sheep lest it
should infect the fiock." t This same Babylas afterwards
* This is the minister who is styled Misitheus in Gibbon, chap. Tii.
Timesitheus is now generaUy accepted as the more accurate name.
t Considerable doubt is entertained by some historians as to the truth of
this strange story, but it must be remembered that it is told formally by
Eusebius, writing in the first quarter of the fourth century, and repeated by
•Chrysostom with more details, but with some confusion as to the exact date, at
the end of the same century (the fourth). It is thus improbable that Chrysostom
merely copied from Eusebius. We find it later, told in the Chron. Faseh.,

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 259
suffered martyrdom in the course of the persecution of the
Emperor Decius.
Orosius, the Christian historian (Century V.), speaks of
Philip as the first Christian Emperor, and dweUs on his
devotion to the Church; be that how it may, there is no
doubt that the Christian Church during his reign enjoyed a
time of perfect quietness, and was absolutely free ffom all
persecution. In his reign the secular games were celebrated at Rome
with extraordinary pomp, for the fifth time since the famous
representation by Augustus, a.d. 17, when Horace wrote his
well-known Carmen Seculare. The occasion, in the days
of PhiUp, was the accomplishment of th« full period of a
thousand years from the foundation by Romulus. Orosius,*
who Avrote about a century and a half after the days of
Philip, saw the hand of Providence in the fact of a Christian
Emperor of Rome being chosen to presidef over so memor
able a celebration.
It is, however, very doubtful if PhiUp ever publicly declared
himself a Christian, for the secular games, Avhich Avere
celebrated in the year 248, were accompanied with an
elaborate Pagan ritual. Mystic sacrifices were offered during
three nights on the bank of the Tiber, and a chorus ef
noble youths and virgins prayed in their religious hymns to
the immortal gods to maintain the virtue, the happiness.

where it is stated PhiUp's Empress was likewise repeUed from the church by
the Bishop. Allard, Sistoire des Persecutions (vol. ii., chap, vi.), accepts the story
as genuine, as does, apparently, Eenan, Marc Aurele (p. 586, Note 2), who cites
the conduct of Babylas on this occasion as a proof -of the important position held by
Bishops in the third century. Bishop Lightfoot {Ignatius, vol. i., p. 40-1) at sorae
length repeats the incident, and quotes the authorities for it, but gives no opinion
as to the authenticity or otherwise of the event in question.
* Orosius, a Christian writer, bom in Spain at the close of the fourth century,
was a pupU of S. Augustine and a friend of S. Jerome. His most celebrated
work, Sistoriarum adversus Paganos libri septem, was undertaken at the suggestion of
Augustine. It had once a wide circulation, and was translated and slightly
abridged by King Alfred of England, whose rendering of the work is still
¦extant. t " Nil dubium est quin PhUippus hujus tantse devotionis gratiam et honorem
ad Christum et Ecclesiam reportarit." {Orosius, Sist. vii. 20.)

260 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
and the Empire of the Roman people. There is no con
temporary record showing that the " Christian " Emperor
in any way decUned to share ui these ancient Pagan rites.
The framework of Roman society in the days of Philip
evidently remained unchanged in its exclusively Pagan
character ; on the buUdings and on the coins of the period
the Emperor is stiU styled the Chief Pontiff of the old
religion. Only one circumstance in the public life of PhUip seems
to point to any public acknowledgment of his profession
of Christianity. The Arval Brotherhood,* one of the most
ancient and distinguished of the Pagan sacred coUeges,
appears to have suddenly come to an end in this reign.
After the times of Gordian we find no mention on any
tablet of the acts and ceremonies of the Arvals. There is
still in existence a long series (some sixty-seven tablets in
all) of memoranda of the proceedings of this reUgious college
drawn up by themselves and engraved on stone or marble
tablets, beginning in a.d. 14 and extending to the time of
Gordian ; but then they cease. Among the twelve noble
personages who formed this exclusive Pagan brotherhood
during the time of the Empfre, the Emperor himself seems
to have been always included. Since, after an ahnost
immemorial history (for they date back to the legendary
period of Romulus)i the Arvals evidently had come to an
end in the reign of PhUip, it seems, at least, a probable
conclusion to draw that Philip himseff put an end to
this important Pagan association. The share which he, as
Emperor and head of the order, would have to take, as each
year came round, in the strange idolatrous rites of the
Arvals before the harvest, Avould be eminently distasteful to
one who had accepted the teaching of Christianity.
We have thus, in the sketch of the life of the first
reputed Christian Emperor — in which he appears now a
devout and even a penitent member of the Christian com-
* An account of the famous Pagan sacred confraternity has been already given.
with some details respecting their pecuUar rites, and the exalted rank of the
members. See p. 161.

AFTEB THE ANTONINES. 261
munity, now a worshipper, and a Chief Pontiff' of the
old gods of Rome — a notable but evidently not an unusual
example of the extreme difficulty in which a high official of
the Empire, who Avas a Christian, in the middle of th«
third century, was placed.
Such a man in the course of his duties found himself
mixed up with, positively hemmed in by. Pagan rites of
an immemorial antiquity, Avhich it Avas difficult, even
dangerous, to ignore ; for such an ignoring Avould signify a
breaking off abruptly with aU the storied past of Rome, a
past very dear and precious to not a foAV patriotic and serious
Romans. Some, possibly many, like PhiUp, seem to have adopted a
middle course, complying Avith certain of the more prominent
official requirements of Paganism, and generally ignoring the
less public fmictions when deeply coloured with idolatrous
rites and customs. Such men professed Christianity, which
they felt was true, but continued to hold their official position,
making such concession to old customs as they deemed
necessary. It may not have been, nay, it certainly was not, the noblest
choice of life, but we have simply to deal with history, and
to relate what actually happened.
At all events, while Philip reigned, the vast body of
Christians in the Empire were unmolested, and as a con
sequence of the " StUlness " they enjoyed, their numbers rapidly
increased. The reign of Philip, like the reign of so many of his
predecessors, was cut short in a mUitary revolt. The succes
sive murders of a line of Emperors had effectually destroyed
all feeling of loyalty in the Empire, and a sudden revolt of one
of the greater armies at any moment might make or unmake
the sovereign of the Roman world.
Such an uprising took place the year following the cele
bration of the secular games, in the army of Mcesia, a vast
province on the Danube, roughly corresponding with the
modern states of Bulgaria and Servia. Strangely enough,
Philip seems to have been unnerved at the intelligence of

262 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the military revolt in question. He appointed Decius, an
able administrator of Senatorial rank, to restore order among
the Moesian legionaries. But his emissary was saluted by the
revolted army as Emperor. In the short war that foUowed
Philip perished — it is uncertain whether in battle or by assas
sination — and Decius was at once acknowledged as sovereign
in his room, in the autumn of the year 249.
Orosius suggests that the Christianity of PhUip had raised
up many enemies among the Pagan party, and that his
sudden fall must partly, at least, be attributed to his marked
favour towards the dreaded reUgion.*
* TiUemont, Sist. des Empereurs, voL iii., shares in this conclusion of
Orosius, when he writes, " La foi de PhUippe fut malheureuse devant les hommes
et heureuse devant Dieu."

263

CHAPTER XL
THE CATACOMBS OF EOME.
SECTION I. — ORIGIN OF THE CATACOMBS.
It is now time to give some details of the inner life of the
Church, from the first years of the third century onwards.
In this picture, the wonderful city of the dead, usually
known as the Catacombs of Rome, requires a somewhat
detailed mention. We must paint with some care those vast
underground cemeteries which lie beneath the suburbs of
Rome, with their endless streets of tombs, and their countless
chapels, adorned Avith paintings, inscriptions, and roughly
sculptured designs, all throwing Ught upon the doctrines,
belief, hopes and onlooks of the Christians of the first days.
And this seems to be the place in our history marked
out for this special study. For in the very earliest years of
the third century, circa a.d. 202-3, these cemeteries, some of
which in their beginnings date back to the reign of Domitian,
and even of Nero, assumed a new and more prominent place
in the great Roman community.
Zephyrinus, Bishop of Rome, a.d. 202-218, formally placed
the great cemetery, which lay beneath the vineyards fringing the
Appian Way, under the special charge of his deacon, the
famous CalUstus ; Avho in the end became himself Bishop of
the Church in Rome, and by whose name the cemetery, Avhich
was greatly enlarged and adorned by him, became generaUy
known. Thus, in the earhest years of the third century this
great city of the dead passed out of private hands, out of
the control of individual members of the churches, becoming
part of the public property of the Christian community; and

264 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the general superintendence of these vast cemeteries and of all
the mighty network of meeting-rooms and chapels contained
in them, was henceforth vested in an important functionary of
the Roman congregation.
Care for the dead was a distinguishing feature of the early
Christian Church. Of this marked characteristic, the Roman
Catacombs form perhaps the most conspicuous example.
In the course of the thfrd century this sacred possession
of the Church was enormously developed; its dark corridors
and sepulchral chambers were the scenes of some of the
more striking events of the Christian story in Rome in the
days when persecution weighed heavUy on the Church.
From the earliest period of the existence of the Roman
community of Christians, as far back probably as the days
of the Apostles, the disciples of Jesus loved to adorn the city
of their loved dead with paintings, inscriptions, or carved
devices. Many of these are stUl to be seen, in spite of the
ravages of time, the havoc of persecution, the plundering of
barbaric raiders, in later days the weU-meant but weU-nigh
equaUy destructive operations of bishops of Rome in the
seventh and eighth centuries, who removed many thousand
bodies of martyrs and others to places they deemed more
secure and possessed of a greater sanctity. Some of these
corridors and chapels are uncovered each year. The paiatings,
sculptured devices and inscriptions, marred and defaced though
they are, constitute a simple and absolutely authoritative piece
of testimony to the faith and the hope of the behevers, which
gave them courage to endure aU their sufferings in the two
centuries and a half which elapsed between the martyrdom
of S. Peter and S. Paul and the epoch of the triumph of the
Church under Constantine.
Even the Pagans of Rome paid much attention to the
remains of their dead — the ashes, preserved in a funeral urn
when the body had been consumed on the pjnre. The wealthy
Romans loved to erect tombs on the borders of the highways.
The ruins of a long, apparently interminable, line of more or
less stately sepulchral buildings are stiU to be seen, on the Appian
Way and other great roads outside Rome. Round the chapel

THE GATAGOMBS OF ROME. 265
[celia memorice) which not infrequently must have been an im
portant buUding, were gardens carefuUy tended. In the chapel
the ashes of the dead were preserved in a funeral urn. These
roads, so lined with sepulchral buildings, were the popular
and fashionable resort of the Roman world, and the living
looked forward to the time when they, too, Avould rest in
these well-known spots, in the midst of familiar sights and
sounds. It was a strange and fanciful conception of a future
state to be spent, at all events for a time, apparently in a
dreamy, semi-conscious state. Sometimes these wealthy
Romans would buUd such a sepiUchre in the garden surrounding
their viUas. We find inscriptions on their tombs to this effect :
"In sarcophago in hortulis nostris secessimus" ("We are
in retirement in a sarcophagus in our own gardens ") ; or " In
ageUulis meis secessi " (" I am in retfrement in my own little
domain ").
The poor, who made up the vast majority of the Roman
world, of course made no pretensions to this luxury in death.
But they, too, from the smaU merchant or trader down to
the slave, made provision, if it were possible, for their " ashes.''
There were a number of associations and " guilds," to use the
mediteval term, among the less wealthy Romans, the large
majority of which were really burial societies, whose raison
d'etre was the provision of a fitting burial place for the ashes
of the members. They were commonly designated by a
religious title, such as, "The Society of the Cultores (wor
shippers) of Jove, Hercules, Diana," etc. Sometimes, however,
they were named after thefr founder or his family. Some of
these death guilds were comparatively wealthy, many of them
extremely poor. Their primary object was to erect a " Colum
barium," a building so arranged as to receive a number of
funeral urns, each containing the ashes of a departed member
of the guUd. In some cases, when the expense could be
afforded, a " sacerdos," or chaplaui, was provided for the
Columbarium, whose duty it was to perform the Pagan funeral
rites for each departed member of the guild. Not infrequently
a wealthy person came forward as patron and piously assisted
these poor communities in the erection and maintenance of

266 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
their Columbarium, sometimes even arranging and main
taining a garden round the building where the funeral urns
were deposited, and where on certain days the confraternity
would meet and enjoy a common meal together. The cost
of securing a niche Avith funeral rites in one of these Colum
baria varied considerably. A very small sum indeed yv&s
necessary in the case of the members of the poorer associations.
In some cases, three hundred, or even two hundred, sesterces
(rather less than £2 sterling) is mentioned as the amount
paid for this privilege.
The same desire to provide fitting resting-places for their
dead was even more pronounced among the Christians. But
Avhereas among the Pagan subjects of the Empire the body
was burned and only a handful of ashes, representing the
departed, was carefully preserved in a Uttie vase and deposited
often, though not always, in a separate sepulchre in the
case of the rich, or in a buUding (Columbarium) adapted to
hold very many such Uttie vases in the case of the poor;
among the Christians the body of the dead was never burned,
but was reverently wrapped in cloths, more or less costly
and so interred.
By the Roman law, land that was used for the purposes
of burial was especially protected. In this protection of the
State the Christian places of interment shared. The spot
Avhere a body was buried became at once, in the technical
language of the law, " religious," and was inalienable, secure
for ever from disturbance. A special ritual consecration,
which such a spot usuaUy received in the case of the
Pagans, threw a peculiar veil of protection over the garden
and any enclosure around the tomb or tombs or Colum
barium. Such ritual consecration, of course, was never sought
by the Christians, as it involved certain idolatrous ceremonies;
but this disadvantage was usually made good to them in
their case by some deed of gift or testament on the part of
tlie proprietor. Thus from very early times the graves and
the grounds immediately surrounding them, set apart for
burying the dead belonging to the Christians, were placed
under the protection of the law.

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From the early days of the formation of Christian com
munities the believers in Jesus shrank from sharing their
last resting places with Pagans. Their aversion to the usual
custom of burning the dead Avas an additional reason for
desiring separate places of interment.
In tracing the story of Christian interment, the Roman
Christian community may be taken as typical. In the first
century several Christians of fortune, arranging in the gardens
of their viUas or in some pleasaunce or vineyard belonging
to them, in the immediate neighbourhood of the city, a
tomb for the burial of members of their house, including
freedmen and slaves, would dig a few small sepulchral
chambers beneath, or close to, the family burying place. They
were thus enabled to offer to certain poorer brethren the
" hospitahty of the tomb," as it has been termed ; the peculiar
nature of the soil of the country around Rome being especially
favourable for such excavations. This was the beginning of
that vast system of underground corridors and chambers for
the reception of the Christian dead now known as the Roman
Catacombs. There is an admirable example of such an early
arrangement for the interment of the Christian dead which
stiU exists about two miles from Rome on the Via Ardeatina,
near the Appian Way. It is known as the Cemetery of
Domitilla. The original family tomb, erected probably before
the owner Avas converted to Christianity, was evidently a
gracious and ornate buUding. Behind it, beneath the
vines and gardens of the proprietor, there is a crypt of
considerable size, Avith long corridors and chambers ar
ranged for a number of the dead, much of the masonry and
ornamentation belonging to the last quarter of the first
century. There are other crypts or cemeteries on all sides of Rome,
evidently excavated on a similar plan, with gardens and
vineyards surrounding the tomb of some great and noble
Roman converted to Christianity, and arranged for the
reception of the many poor brethren who belonged to the
communities of Christians in the first and second centuries.
As for instance, the cemeteries of S. PriscUla on the Via

268 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Sal aria; S. Lucina on the Ostian Way; S. Prsetextatus on
the Appian Way, and several others; where the masonry and
decoration of the corridors and sepulchral chambers indicate
thefr date as between a.d. 160, or even earlier, and a.d. 200.
These early cemeteries, with their time-faded frescoes, their,
broken, partly ruined, fittings, supply much information
respecting the ritual and faith of the Roman congregations
during the century and a half upon which we have been
dweUing, and the countless loculi, the narrow closed-up
shelves where the dead were laid, give us some idea of the
great numbers of the believers.
The modern name of Catacombs was unknoAvn to those
Christian communities who, Avith enormous pains and labour
and with no httle skiU, planned and excavated these resting
places for their loved dead; nor was it heard of for several
centuries after these cemeteries had ceased to be used as
places of interment. The term " catacomb " is derived from
the Greek words Kara KVfi^r], the latter word signifying a
holloAv or valley (cf. CAvm, combe). The district on the Appian
Way near the weU-known tomb of Cecilia MeteUa, where tbe
ancient little basilica of S. Sebastian now stands, seems to
have been originally knoAvn as ad catacumhas ("The HoUow").
In the earlier part of the ninth century, partly owing to
the repeated barbarian raids, in the course of which these
cemeteries had been several times Arisited and piUaged, partly
owing to the destructive anxiety of certain of the Popes of
Rome, who had removed many of the bodies of the most
prominent saints and martyrs from their original resting
places to Avhat they deemed the more secure custody of
certain of the Roman churches, the famous subterranean
cemeteries gradually ceased to be an object of interest and
of pUgrimage, and became in time forgotten. All through
the Middle Ages, however, the one cemetery of S. Sebastian
remained still an object of reverence and subsequently of
pilgrimage, no doubt OAving to a persistent tradition that the
bodies of S. Peter and S. Paul had reposed in the smaller
crypt beneath the church for a period of years. The crypt
and little cemetery beneath S. Sebastian, from the district

Piioto : Mariani, Roi

SEPULCHRAL CHAMBER
ls!nown as oue of the

THE CEMETERY OF

CALLISTUS.

Chambers of the .Saeraun'iits." It dates from the Third Ceiituiy, and was probably
appropriated tu Presbyters aud Deaeons.

THE GATACOMBS OF BOME. 269
in which the church was situated, was known generaUy as
" Coemeterium ad Catacumbas."
Thus through the Middle Ages, among the shrines and many
objects of sacred interest which pUgrims to Rome from distant
lands loved to visit, the crypt or cemetery of S. Sebastian
" ad catacumbas " still maintained a prominent position.
Gradually the appeUation of "ad catacumbas" came to be
used for other similar underground crypts, not only in Rome
and the neighbourhood, but in other cities ; for instance,
we find the term used at Naples as early as the ninth century.
On the re-discovery of the great underground City of the
Dead at Rome, late in the sixteenth century, the popular
name of the catacombs was adopted for all the subterranean
cemeteries. But it must be borne in mind that it is after all
a curious misnomer, and was utterly unknown in its present
general signification in ancient times.
The extent of this vast system of subterranean corridors
and sepulchral chambers has been the subject of much specu
lation. Their most scientific explorer and historian, De
Rossi, enumerates as many as forty-three distinct ceme
teries in the suburbs of Rome ; this list he has largely
constructed out of ancient " itineraries "* and other trustworthy
records. Manj' of these cemeteries he has succeeded in
identifying, and some he has partially investigated, but only
partiaUy, for even in the case of the best known, large portions
are stUl " earthed up." This " earthing up " was the work
of Christians during bitter persecutions, probably mainly
carried out in the troublous periods of the thfrd and the
early years of the fourth century. In some cases, however,
little or nothing has been done by way of exploration by
modern men of science, the work of excavating being difficult,
dangerous, and very costly. Thus, anything like an accurate
estimate of their extent is as yet impossible. Various cal
culations have been made by experts, giving from five to
eight hundred miles as the probable extent of the galleries
lined with the remains of the dead. The number of inter
ments is also a matter of dispute : some scholars consider
* These are fuUy explained on p. 281.

270 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
that as many as six miUions of Christians sleep their last
sleep on the shelves of the dark corridors and in the sepulchral
chambers leading out of them, while others put the number
so low as two mUhons. When, however, it is remembered
that in many of the catacombs there are three or four or
more gaUeries, one excavated beneath the other, communicat
ing by means of short flights of steps ; that in each gaUery
there are five or six tiers of shelves; that on many of the
shelves tAvo, three, or even four bodies have been laid one
alongside the other ; that in the most thoroughly explored
catacomb, that of S. CaUistus, with its adjacent cemeteries,
there are some thirty-seven or forty miles of gaUeries; the
smaller numbers would scarcely seem an adequate estimate.
The soil of the country, which lies immediately round
Rome, Avas pecuharly adapted for these vast works of excava
tion, most of the early Christian Roman Catacombs being
hoUoAved out of a volcanic stratum technicaUy knoAvn as
the "red tufa granulare." This tufa was easUy worked,
besides being of sufficient consistency to admit of excavation
into galleries and chambers without any danger of coUapse,
its porous nature always aUowed any water quickly to draia
off from it, thus leaving the corridors, where the bodies were
usuaUy laid on shelves speciaUy arranged for this purpose,
dry and fairly wholesome. The shelves were dug out of the
tufa of the side waUs, and when the dead had been laid on
them the openings were hermetically closed Avith thick plaster,
or more commonly with slabs of stone or marble, on which
the name of the inmate was sometimes engraved; in some
cases with a little carved picture and a few words expressive
of love and faith and hope. These shelves were ranged one
above the other, and have been compared, not inaptly, to
the berths in a ship's cabin. Each shelf contained one or
more bodies according to its depth. This was the usual
arrangement of the corridors. The sepulchral chambers, of
which there are a great number leading out of the corridors,
vary much in size, and usuaUy contain one or more tombs
of greater importance.
Thus it was that the foUowers of Christ in the Eoman

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THE GATACOMBS OF BOME. 271
community Avere enabled to bury their dead by themselves,
without the defilement of heathen rites; avoiding, too, the
necessity of cremation generally adopted by the Romans of
the Empire. Cremation was smgularly abhorrent to the early
Christians, who were deeply imbued with the feelings of the
Synagogue out of which, in early years, not a few of them had
come. To these devoted followers of Jesus such a sepulture as
that provided in the catacombs which lay beneath the gardens
of the city suburbs, Avas inexpressibly dear, for it recaUed
Avith a strange accuracy the loved memory of the temporary
resting-place of their Lord. " In the place where He was
crucified Avas a garden, and in the garden a neAv sepulchre
. . . there laid they Jesus."
As time Avent on there were probably but foAv chambers
or corridors of these catacombs which were not hallowed by
containing one or more of the bodies of martyrs for the
Faith, more or less distinguished. The merciful laws of
Rome peculiarly facilitated this practice ; for the bodies of
those who had suffered capital punishment were, as a rule,
given up to the friends who might desire reverently to inter
their remains. Even the ashes of those who had been burned
by public sentence Avere allowed to be collected by those
who loved the dead, for subsequent interment. Very rarely,
and then only in cases of treason against the State, was this
last kindly office not allowed by the laws of Rome, ever
tender and respectful to the dead. It will be remembered
how readily Pilate gave up the body of the crucified Lord to
His friends. This gracious and humane custom of Rome in
the case of the dead who had suffered the extreme penalty
of the law, explains the well authenticated presence of so
many bodies of more or less distinguished martyrs in the
various subterranean cemeteries around Rome. To cite a few
well-known instances. In the cemetery of S. DomitUla we
find traces of the sepulture of S. Nereus and S. AchiUes;
in the Vatican crypt, along Avith other illustrious martyred
dead, lie the remains of S. Peter*; in the closed catacomb
* In Appendix B, at the end of this volume, wiU he found a short account of
the " Tomb of S. Peter, " and aJso Drei's plan of the part of the Vatican Crypt, where

272 EARLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
beneath the basUica of S. Paul outside the walls, a universal
tradition tells us, is the sepulchre of the martyred apostle of
the Gentiles; in the cemetery of S. CalUstus we find traces
of the sepulture of many Roman bishops of the third century,
several of whom we know were martjrrs; in the same great
cemetery the original tomb of the virgin martyr, S. Cecilia,
is now weU known ; in the catacomb of S. Prsetextatus, recent
discoverers have found the graves of S. Januarius and of
several other historic martyrs. In the cemetery of S.
Agnes was the tomb of the virgin saint; in the Ostrian
cemetery the tomb of S. Emerentiana, the martyr foster-
sister of S. Agnes, has been identified quite lately. Very
many other similar examples might be quoted; and these
hallowed graves are by no means merely traditional sites, but
portions of tablets, Avith inscriptions more or less perfect,
still remain, thus confirming very ancient traditions which for
so long a time have designated these spots as pecuharly sacred
The question has been raised whether these enormous
cemeteries of the Christian dead were ever used by the com
munities of Rome as places of religious assembly, or even of
refuge in times Avhen persecution Avas especiaUy active. There
is Uttie doubt that all through the second and third centuries
religious services, more or less frequent, were held in certain
of the larger sepulchral chambers on special days, particularly
on the anniversary of the dead Avho slept in the chambers
in question. It is also certain that in times of danger many
a hunted Christian — probably whole congregations — found a
temporary hiding place in the sombre labyrinths of one or
other of these subterranean burying-places.
SECTION II. — HISTORY OF THE CATACOMBS.
We can best divide the eventful story of the Catacombs of
Rome into four periods: —
The First extending from circa a.d. 50 to circa a.d. 202.
the remains of the great Apostle presumably lie. Drei was clerk of the works of S.
Peter's in the pontificates of Paid Y. and Urban VIII. ; his plan was published in
A.D. 1635.

THE GATACOMBS OF EOME. 273
The Second extending from circa a.d. 202 to circa a.d. 313.
The Third extending from circa a.d. 313 to circa a.d. 410.
The Fourth extending from circa a.d. 410 to circa a.d. 817.
After the last-mentioned date, a.d. 817, the catacombs
became graduaUy forgotten, and were ignored for a long
period, extending over some seven hundred and sixty years,
Avhen a chance discovery by some labourers of a cemetery
lying beneath a vineyard on the Via Salaria in a.d. 1578, in
the reign of our Queen Elizabeth, brought before men's notice
once more this wonderful City of the Dead; and since that
date the interest of scholars and explorers has, to some extent,
been aroused, and fitful and intermittent exploration works
have been undertaken in Avhat has been popularly, though
somewhat inaccurately, termed " Roma sotterranea " — inaccurate
because no crypt or catacomb was ever excavated beneath the
city proper.
The First Period — circa a.d. 50 to a.d. 202 — witnessed the
devoted and generous conduct of some of the wealthier brethren,
Avho provided graves, and exercised what we have termed
" the hospitality of the tomb " in the case of their poorer
companions in one common Faith by providing places of
interment in crypts and catacombs, excavated in the vicinity
of their oavu famUy burying places, beneath their gardens and
vineyards. These crypts, as time went on and the numbers
of the Christians kept increasing, developed insensibly; more
and more corridors and sepulchral chambers were perpetually
being excavated, and Avhen the limits of the property of the
original donor of the cemetery were reached, passages and
chambers Avere dug on a lower level, beneath the first level ;
thus, four, five, and in some instances six, storeys of these
corridors underlie the garden or vineyard Avhich was originaUy
devoted to this generous and pious use. In this way, a
cemetery, during the first hundred and seventy years which
followed the Ascension of the Master, would graduaUy grow
into that strange labyrinth of passages and chambers fiUed
with the dead, which we are in the habit of styling a catacomb.
Several weU-knoAvn cemeteries belong to this first period. The
dates can be determined with fair accuracy, partly from the
s

274 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
inscriptions found on some of the slabs which seal the shelves
on which the dead sleep, partly from the special style and
execution of the decorated portions.
Among the best-knoAvn catacombs which belong to this
early period (the first and second centuries), foremost must
be reckoned the crypt of the Vatican, where a very ancient
tradition teUs us the remains of S. Peter were laid, and close
to S. Peter a long line of martyred bishops of Rome who
succeeded him, reaching to Pope Victor, who was buried in
the Vatican cemetery a.d. 202. The successors of Victor were
interred in another place, of which we shall presently speak.
But there are no remains, properly so-called, of this most
ancient Vatican cemetery, it having been destroyed at an
early date, probably in the fourth century, to make room for
the foundations of the mighty basUica of S. Peter.
The present crypt of S. Peter, however, with the Confes
sionary of the great Apostle, occupies a portion of the site
of the ancient Vatican crypt. But an authentic record is
preserved of what was seen in a.d. 1626, when the works in
connection with the foundations of the enormous bronze
baldachino which now overshadows the High Altar of
S. Peter's were being arranged; and heru3e there is httle
doubt that the great Apostle's remafris are stUl in the spot
assigned to them by immemorial traditioa
Another most ancient crypt which a probably accurate
tradition points to as the restuig-place of S. Paul has also
been in great part destroyed, to make room for the foundations
of the basiUca of S. Paul, " outside the waUs." Some portions
of this ancient cemetery stiU exist, but in a ruinous condition.
These portions are knoAvn as the cemetery of S. Lucina or
S. CommodUla. But, although it is impossible for the present to investigate
closely these haUowed crypts of the Vatican and S. Paul fuori
muros, we have in perfect condition stUl other cemeteries of
weU-nigh an equal antiquity. The most notorious of these
are, bordering on the Appian Way, the catacomb of S. Domitilla,
the kinswoman, as some maintain, of Vespasian, with its
beautiful painted decorations, equal in artistic exceUence to

photo : Mariani, Rome.

SEPULCHRAL CHAMBER IN THE CEMETERY OF DOMITILLA.
ttliowiiiy ilie Dticoratiou of the First Century,

THE CATACOMBS OF BOME. 275
many of the Pompeian remains; the catacomb of S. Pratextatus,
with its touching memories of various martyrs buried there as
early as a.d. 162 ; the catacomb of S. Lucina, joined by under
ground corridors with the great cemetery known as that of
S. CaUistus. On another side of the city, on the Salarian Way,
lies the once famous cemetery now generally known as the Ostrian
Catacomb, but in early times usuaUy styled the "cemetery of
the Fountain of Peter," where an ancient tradition relates
that S. Peter used to baptise and to relate his memories of the
SaAdour — memories now enshrined in the Gospel of S. Mark.
To this Uttie list of very ancient cemeteries must be added
the catacomb of S. PriscUla, on the New Salarian Way, pos
sessing traditions which connect it with the Apostles in the
middle of the first century. It was said to have been excavated
in a garden belonging to Pudens, the disciple of S. Paul. The
character of certain decorations, still visible in this most ancient
catacomb, fuUy bears out the tradition of its being, in part at
least, contemporary with the Apostles.
The Second Period of the story of the catacombs may be
reckoned as extending from circa a.d. 202 to a.d. 313, the
date when the Peace of the Church was sealed by the famous
edict of the Emperor Constantine. It was in this second
period that the catacombs reached their fuU development.
We have seen that in this third century the Christians
enjoyed long seasons of comparative stillness after the time
of Severus. Then it was that the Church — we are speaking
especiaUy of the Roman Christian community — not only very
largely multipUed its numbers, but elaborately organised itself
In this work of organisation, the construction and management
of the cemeteries where the Christian dead were reverently
laid to rest, and which undoubtedly were used, even in times
of "quietness," for many solemn gatherings, occupied a
prominent place.
At the close of the second century it is probable that
the Church in Rome numbered some 50,000 souls. It is
evident that with such numbers dweUing in the Imperial
city — numbers, too, ever fricreasing — the primitive arrange
ments for the management of the cemeteries, so precious in

276 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the eyes of the early Church, would have to be recast. So
we find in the time of Pope Zephyrinus, about the year 202,
that CalUstus, the archdeacon who subsequently succeeded
Zephyrinus to the see of Rome, was specially entrusted Avith
the government of the clergy, and was set over " the cemetery."
The words are from Hippolytus, one of the most learned
Christian Avriters of that age. From this time (a.d. 202)
onward the mighty and ever growing subterranean necropolis
evidently passed out of the private hands of the original
donors and thefr descendants, and became the property of
the Church, which henceforward undertook its development,
management, and supervision. Calhstus greatly enlarged, if
he did not construct, the important cemetery knoAvn by his
name, arranging in it a special sepulchral chamber for the
bishops of Rome, in which, from this date onward untU
the Peace of the Church some 111 years later, most of the
Roman Pontiffs were interred. The discovery and identifi
cation of this crypt or sepulchral chamber of the thfrd-century
popes has been one of the most interesting " finds " of that
great scholar in the catacomb lore, De Rossi.
During the years of comparative "stiUness" in the first
half of the third century the cemeteries at Rome were
wonderfully developed. In many of them elaborate works
or ornamentation were carried out ; oratories, memorial
" cellse," dwellings for the Fossores and other officials of
the Church, were built above ground. No attempts at con
cealment or secrecy were made. But, as the century wore
on, darker days succeeded; the persecutions revived and
even grew in intensity as time advanced. The effect of
the troublous times on the works connected with the great
underground cemeteries of Rome was very marked. The
regular and elaborate plan of the ever-groAving corridors and
galleries was changed. A curious labyrinth of passages
succeeded to the well arranged system of straight corridors
Avith their many highly decorated chambers often arranged
for meetings and special worship ; secret approaches were
contrived; hidden stairs were constructed. Many of the
cemeteries were in part " earthed up " to prevent desecration.

THE CATACOMBS OF BOME. 277
The staircases leading to and from the many corridors were
in many instances destroyed. The buildings which in quieter
times had been erected at or hard by the entrances to the
cemeteries were abandoned and often pulled down. The
years which preceded the final Peace of the Church appear
to have been especiaUy a time of havoc and destruction.
Miles upon miles of corridors and sepulchral chambers were
closed up and filled with earth and dJbris, the approaches
to them being concealed and destroyed, and no human eye
has looked upon them since that terrible time. And in our
days the pilgrim to the Eternal City, who is curious to
trace out the work of the early Christian communities of
Rome, as he wanders through these strange streets of the
dead, which are now partiaUy opened, is constantly stopped
in this or that corridor by vast pUes of earth and rubbish
which have never been cleared away. A work of complete
re-excavation, intensely interesting and valuable to the archae
ologist and historian, would be enormously costly and, in
many cases, not a little dangerous, and would require extreme
caution. A little is being done in this direction it is true,
but progress here is slow.
The next, the Third Period in the story of the catacombs,
lasted from a.d. 313, the date of the final Peace of the Church,
until A.D. 410,* the year of the raid of Alaric the Visigoth,
when Rome was sacked.
After A.D. 313 the position of Christianity in the Roman
world was completely changed. There Avas no longer any
necessity for the catacombs. Privacy, complete separateness,
comparative secrecy were no longer requisite for interment
of the Christian dead. AU rites, whether for the living or
the dead, after a.d. 313, might be freely performed in the
light of day. Paganism was vanquished, and in aU its
varied forms was a fast dying religion. The Roman world,
outwardly at least, was largely Christian, from the Emperor
and his court downward through all the grades of society.
* Although this period lies outside the area of this work, a few words
on the subsequent history of these wonderful cemeteries ^is necessary to com
plete our sketch.

278 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
After the date of the Peace of the Church, a.d. 313, we only
find records of four or five fresh subterranean cemeteries
being excavated, and these of small size and of little im
portance. As the fourth century advanced, the number of
interments in any of the catacombs grew fewer and fewer,
and before the century closed had virtually ceased. Many
basUicas or churches of various sizes were erected over the
ancient cemeteries, and the dead were usuaUy laid in open
areas around these sacred buildings.
During this century, the fourth, a deep reverence began to
grow up in men's minds for the buried cemeteries of the
past. It was in these dark corridors and Ughtless chambers
that their Christian forefathers had been laid to sleep, the
brave pioneers of the Faith, men who had confessed their behef
in Christ under cfrcumstances of extraordinary difficulty and
often of extreme danger. There, too, slept not a few of the
noble company of martyrs, men and women, who had posi
tively laid down their lives for the Faith. Those catacombs
which, in one or other of their sepulchral chambers, held
the graves of the more conspicuous of these confessors, were
the especial objects of reverence among the Christians of the
new age of "Peace." This not unnatural feeling of tender
homage was voiced by Pope Damasus, who ruled the Church
of Rome from a.d. 366 to a.d. 384. Damasus wiU ever be
remembered in the aimals of the Church for his countless
works of skilful and reverent restoration of portions of the
Avrecked and desecrated catacombs which had suffered so
severely in the later persecutions. Many were the ruined
tombs of the most conspicuous saints and martyrs restored
by him. To this day fragments of the beautifuUy engraved
slabs, the work of his chief artist, Philocalus, are constantly
coming to Ught and assisting scholars Uke De Rossi to identify
especiaUy sacred spots in these, too often ruined, cemeteries.
Pope Damasus not only restored and put in order many of
the shrines and sepulchral chambers, but he rebuUt the
destroyed staircases in many places and rendered it possible
for the pilgrims from far distant countries in his own day
and for several generations foUowing to visit spots famous

THE GATACOMBS OF BOME. 279
for deeds of endurance and patient bravery on the part of
knoAvn and unknown martyrs.
An enormous extent, however, of " earthed-up " and other-
Avise wrecked corridors and chambers remained untouched
by Pope Damasus, and indeed have nevef been touched by
mortal hand since the troubled days of persecution.
The Fourth Period in the story we reckon from a.d. 410,
the date of the raid of the Visigoth Alaric. This was the
first barbarian occupation of the Imperial City, and this
fourth period covers some four hundred years, closing
about A.D. 817, when, owing to events which we shaU very
briefly sketch, public interest in the catacombs altogether
passed away.
One striking result of Pope Damasus' loving work of
Bestoration in the more famous spots ia the great underground
cemeteries was to bring prominently before the eyes of the
various strangers and pilgrims, many from distant countries,
to the immemorial city, the memory of the brave Confessors
of the Faith which the world of Rome now generaUy acluiow-
ledged. The restored shrines of the catacombs in fact became
the principal objects of pilgrimage; guides and itineraries for
visiting them were composed. Fragments of some of these have
come down the stream of time to us, and have proved of
the greatest service to De Rossi and other scholars of om*
day. The haUowed sites, however, were grievously interfered
Avith, even recklessly injured, and in many cases rifled of
thefr contents, in the course of the successive raids and
invasions to which Rome and Italy were subjected by barbarian
enemies. Among the more destructive of these we would
specify the raids of Alaric the Visigoth in a.d. 410 ; that of
Vitiges, another Gothic chieftain, in a.d. 537, who apparently
singled out the catacombs as especially the object of his
passion for destruction; and lastly that of Astolphus the
Lombard in a.d. 756.
It was, of course, the hope of coming upon gold and
gems which stimulated the various hordes of barbarian raiders
to ransack the catacombs, knowing, as they did, how precious

280 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
these ancient shrines were in the eyes of the Christians.
But, strangely enough, in some instances, and in the case of
the Lombard Astolphus, the idea of procuring the sacred
reUcs of the remains of the dead, either for themselves or
for the more sordid purpose of selling them, seems to have
been the motive.
Some of the bishops of Rome, too, unconsciously of course,
in attempting to repafr the mischief done by barbarian
spoUers, irreparably injured the old paintings and sculptured
work by overlaying them with their new designs and orna
mentations ; and in the ninth century these prelates com
pleted the work of havoc and spoliation by translating a vast
number of remains from those portions of the catacombs
which were stiU open, to various churches in Rome. They
pleaded as the excuse for this strange act of sacrUege the
greater safety of the churches in times of confusion and
piUage. There is, for instance, an inscription in the ancient
church of S. Prassede which tells how, in a.d. 817, two
thousand three hundred bodies were removed to this church
from the catacombs by Pope Paschal I. Vast numbers of
bodies were removed at this period from their original resting
places in the ancient subterranean cemeteries to the churches
of S. SUvestro, S. Martino, and the Santi Quattro Coronati
Among these strange translations of remains of the dead from
the catacombs we read of twenty wagon loads of bones
being removed to the Pantheon. These wholesale removals,
or translations, on the part of the bishops of Rome; the
destructive work of ransacking and piUaging repeated by
successive hordes of raiding barbarians, Goth, Vandal,
and Lombard; are more than sufficient to account for the
innumerable empty and ruined graves which, tier upon tier,
line the corridors and sepulchral chambers on aU sides in
the various catacombs into which the modern pUgrim and
student is able now to penetrate. There stUl remains, however,
an enormous burying ground, lying beneath the suburbs of
the immemorial city, yet covered up, securely protected by
masses of earth and debris.
The catacombs available for the visits of strangers and

THE GATACOMBS OF BOME. 281
pilgrims being thus, before the years of the ninth century
had run their course, stripped and desolate, lost in the eyes
of the many visitors to the Eternal City their peculiar charm.
The precious relics of saints and martyrs, even the remains of
the rank and file of the Christian dead, had largely disap
peared. So it came to pass that, the special interest being
gone, the very existence of the catacombs was gradually for
gotten. Besides, for some two hundred years mankind,
harassed by perpetual Avars, by anarchy and confusion, was
too wretched to devote much time to pilgrimages. And,
when in quieter times the old fervour and zeal for visiting
sacred shrines and holy places awoke again, the catacombs of
Rome, once so cherished and revered, had ceased to be
even " a memory." A dense cloud settled down upon them
— a cloud which never lifted for some seven hundred years.
The chance discovery of some labourers digging in a vine
yard in the Via Salaria, in the year 1578, to which we have
already aUuded, brought to light one of the ancient cemeteries,
with its curious paintings, its strange sculptures, its pathetic
inscriptions, its seemingly endless corridors, lined with (mostly)
empty graves. The Avorld of Rome then came to know that
a marveUous unexplored City of the Dead lay beneath its
feet ; old records were investigated, ancient itineraries* and
pilgrim guides were searched into, and the forgotten story of
the past once more was read and studied.
* Of these " Itineraries " or local guide hooks to the Sanctuaries of the City
of Eome — where the catacomhs as they existed in the seventh century are described —
we possess several ; perhaps the oldest is a MS. bound up accidentally with the
works of Alcuin, Charlemagne's Minister of Education ; internal evidence shows
that this ;' Itinerary" was written on the s^ot, circa a.d. 625-638. This guide
book was completed before the wholesale translations of the bodies bj' certain of
the Popes had begun.
Another " Itinerary " is contained in the works of WiUiam of Malmesbury,
who wrote at the end of the eleventh century or beginning of the twelfth. But the
"Itinerary" is plainly copied from a document written some foar or five centuries
earlier. A MS. at Einsiedeln (Switzerland), published by MabiUon in 1685, contains
another of these curious ancient " guide-books " to Rome. The date is ««» a.d. 750.
These " Itineraries," or guide-books to the Eome of the seventh and eighth
centuries, have been of the greatest assistance to De Eossi and his fellow-scholars in
their exhaustive work of exploration and identification of the catacombs.

282 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
We have already spoken of the "find" of a.d. 1578 and
what sprang from it; and thus a new chapter bearing on the
story of the early Church, when Christianity was a for
bidden religion, Avas added to the somewhat scanty material
out of which the tapestry of such a history as this is woven.
It is a chapter Avritten on marble and on stone — its genuine
ness no lynx-eyed critic wUl ever dare to question.

SECTION III. — ART OF THE CATACOMBS.
The present state of grim desolation which the accessible
portions of the catacombs exhibit, by no means gives an
accurate idea of their appearance when they were in daily
use. The interminable corridors were then neatly finished and,
in some cases, adorned with elaborate ornamentation. The
graves with their many tiers, which now so often are yaAvn-
ing and ghastly apertures — some quite empty, some stiU con
taining a few mouldering bones — were then all hermetically
sealed. In many cases, though evidently not in all, the
covering slabs were inscribed with the names of the tenants,
and often in addition Avith a few pathetic words, expressive
of Faith, Hope, and Love ; some, too, were adorned Avith
rough though striking emblems of the Eaith, such as the
monogram of Christ and the palm branch. Leading out of
these mUes and miles of grave-Uned corridors are a vast
number of compartments of various sizes, the mortuary chambers
evidently of the more wealthy and important members
of the Christian congregations of Rome. These were often
more or less richly decorated. The roofs are often painted;
the sepulchres are adorned Avith both paintings and carved
work in marble and stone. The marble work has weU-nigh
all disappeared ; but the paintings on the tombs, the walls,
and the roofs of the chambers, in many cases remain, though
sadly disfigured and faded; and these symbolic ornaments
can StiU, in many instances, be deciphered by experts and
scholars. These dim, blurred paintings, these remains of

THE GATACOMBS OF BOME. 283
inscriptions, enormously enhance the importance of the
vast cemeteries as a piece of history, and as a record of the
theological belief of the Roman Christians during the two and
a half centuries which immediately followed the Ascension of
the Blessed Redeemer. For these painted and carved records
date in some instances from the days of the Apostles ; they
carry on the story of the belief of the Christian community
of Rome aU through the second and third and the early years
of the fourth centuries of our era.
It is intensely interesting. It is even of the greatest
importance to us to be enabled thus to catch sight of the
Christian tone of mind, of Christian thoughts, hopes and ex
pectations during the long drawn out period of danger and
often of bitter persecution — a period which can never be
repeated. No written records, however weU attested, of this
momentous time can be compared with these, for no
redactor of a later age has touched them up, corrected them,
read uito them the thoughts of a later generation. The men
of the first, second, and thfrd centuries painted their thoughts
on the ceilings and waUs of these sacred chambers of their
dead, and carved them on the marble and plaster slabs that
covered up the graves. Thefr work remains to this day,
though sadly disfigured; and we can there stUl read the
simple, true story of their belief, their faith, their sublime
hope. When any restorer, such as Damasus in the fourth, and
the Popes of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, has
meddled Avith and added fresh enrichment to the old works,
the hand of the "restorer " is at once plainly visible. The
style and execution directly betray the period ; no mistake
is possible. We wUl give a few of the leading features of the story of
the paintings and inscriptions which unmistakably belong to
the artists of the first three centuries. First and most
prominent in all the paintings, in the inscriptions and carvings,
is the thought of Death. But it is no sombre idea of death —
it is death as a friend. Again and again the early Christian
artist pictures the spirit of the Christian when released from

284 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the body finding itself in a garden* — the garden of the
Blessed. In these gloomy, usually lightless cr3rpts, it seems
a strange but exquisite conception, this constant reproduction
of the garden imagery. In the cemetery of Domitilla, one of
the earliest of the Christian burying places, we find a beautiful
representation of a vine mingled with flowers tAvining over
the walls and ceilings.
In these most ancient gaUeries of Christian art we find a
considerable variety of subjects chosen by the artist or sculptor.
-But there are two figures which appear again and again. They
are to be met Avith in the frescoes which adorn the most
ancient sepulchres — sepulchres which must date from Apostolic
times; for instance, amidst the charming confusion of vines
and floAvers of the Domitilla and Lucina cemeteries of the
first century. They are reproduced, too, very frequently in
the rougher and less artistic paintings of the catacombs of
the thfrd century. These are the famiUar figures known
as the "Orante" and the "Good Shepherd." The name
usuaUy given to the first of these tells its story: it is the
"praying one." In almost all cases the figure is in the same
attitude; the gaze directed upwards, the arms outstretched as
though in prayer. The " Orante " is evidently asking God for
something, or else thanking God for some mercy already
received. In the vast majority of cases the "Orante" is drawn
as a female figure, but there are exceptions when the "praying
one " is pictured as a man. The attitude of the figure is
always the same, only the dress is varied. What now does
this favourite figure represent ? The Blessed Aargin has been
often pressed upon the student as its subject, but absolutely
Avithout any sohd basis for the hypothesis. The Church has
been suggested, but such a vague and impersonal reference
* In Eome the usual expression for the City of the Dead was "Coemeterium"
(cemetery), a sleeping place. In North Africa it was termed "area." This word
was also used in some parts of Italy. In many localities, though, the favourite
name was " Hortus," a garden. This word we find used at MUan, for instance, and
at Salona and other places. We remember the word in the Gospel of S. John ;
" Now in the place where He was crucified was a garden, and in the garden a
new tomb." No doubt the favourite appeUation of " garden," applied to the
resting-place of the dead, is a touching memory of S. John's words.

Photo : Mariani, Rome,

AN ORANTE.
Fiom a gruiiii nf tlie "Bk'ssrd" in the Cenietury of S. Snter (Tliird Century).

THE CATACOMBS OF BOME. 285
would convey little to the devout mourner or worshipper of
the first three centuries. Better far, and in its way more
probable and suggestive, is the theory which finds in this well-
known figure a symboUcal representation of the soul of the
dead one lying in the rock tomb within, praying for Divine
help and refreshment in the new and changed condition of
existence after death, or else, possibly, interceding as a blessed
and pardoned spirit for those stiU on earth. For we find
among the catacomb inscriptions many entreaties for such
prayers addressed to the soul of the departed by those left
behind still to struggle and to toil on earth ; such as, " Live
in peace and pray for us " ; " May your soul be happy in God ;
pray for your sister." The " Orante " is pictured in various
combfriations — now alone, now in the company of the Good
Shepherd. The "Orante" figure as the symbol of the soul of the
departed, surAdving the art of the very early ages, reappears
occasionally in mediaival times, but in a somewhat altered
form — as a small and delicate figure emerging from the corpse.
A weU-known representation of the death of the Blessed
Virgin, for instance, shows our Lord standing close by the
form of the dead Mother, and holding in His arms, as one
would a little child, her soul, robed and crowned under the
form of a tiny graceful figure. This was a not uncommon
subject for sculpture in wood and stone in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries.
The other figure which we find so often repeated in the
catacombs is the gracious form of our Lord, represented as
the "Good Shepherd." This may be considered as the
favourite picture in the Roman City of the Dead. Innumer
able examples occur on the ceiUngs of the numerous
sepulchred chambers leading out of the corridors, on the
slabs of marble, stone, and plaster which close up the graves,
or as forming the centre of the decorations which encircle
the more important tombs.
It belongs, this figure of the Good Shepherd, to no one
period, to no special subterranean cemetery, but it is found
again and again on the tombs of all catacombs ahke of the

286 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
first century and of the third. The beautiful and touching
figure now appears as the watchful and loAring Shepherd
tenderly caring for His sheep ; now is draAvn or carved
bearing a sheep wounded or wearied on His shoulders, not
unfrequently even Avith a goat in His arms — a particular
reminder that " the lost," as men would too often style their
brothers and sisters, are stiU the object of thefr Master's
love and pity. The last is a strangely winning feature of
the catacomb teaching.
Included in what may be described as the Pastoral group
of sepulchral figures, a group we find so often repeated in
one form or other, are sheep and lambs, now feeding close
to, now simply gazing at, the Good Shepherd ; some seemingly
careless, more, however, attentive to the voice and gestures
of the Shepherd. The mUk-paU found in certain of these
pastoral pictures, sometimes standing between the lambs)
sometimes borne by them, has been, with great probability,
interpreted as a Eucharistic symbol of the heavenly food
provided by the Shepherd.
On the slabs of stone or marble or cement which close
the graves, where no space exists as in the larger tombs
for the figures of the Shepherd or the sheep, or on the
decorated ceilings of the sepulchral chambers where the
more important graves are found, is often engraved a httle
palm branch, symbol of the victory over the grave; often
also a dove or a pair of doves takes the place of the " Orante,"
as the symbol of the soul freed from the body. Other
symbols of the Faith are graven on many of the slabs, such
as a ship at anchor, and especially a Fish in various forms,
this last being a mystic representation of the Saviour, of
whose titles the initials are the Greek letters* which spell
the word lx6vi> (fish). These are some of the more striking
and favourite subjects. The catalogue could, however, be
greatly enlarged.
The inscriptions carved on the tombs claim a few words
even in so brief a study of this important but little known
* Jesus Christ God the Son Saviour.
l-tjiTovs Xpia-rhs &shs "^Ihs ^tcTTjp.

THE GATACOMBS OF BOME. 287
chapter of early Christian history. Besides the name of the
departed on many of the slabs covering the graves, we find
innumerable simple expressions of love and perfect faith and
confidence as to the state of peace and blissful rest enjoyed
by the Christian dead, such as " She sleeps " ; " Aurelia, our
very sweet daughter, refresh thyseK among the holy spirits " ;
" In peace " ; " Everlasting rest of happiness " ; " Breaking
the bonds of the body, he rejoices among the stars"; "Rest
ing AveU in peace " ; " CaUed away by angels " ; " Thou restest
in peace, incomparable wife"; "He went to God"; "Be
refreshed with the souls of the righteous " ; " Thou dost
repose for ever from care " ; " Pretiosa went to her rest, a
handmaid of God and Christ " ; " He sleeps but lives " ;
" To the most sweet and innocent Julia ; Her mother hoping" ;
" The sleeping place of Aurelia Martina " ; " She departed,
desfring to ascend to the Eternal Light of Heaven " ; " Here
sleeps in the sleep of peace the sweet and innocent Severianus,
whose spirit is received into the light of the Lord " ; " Refrain
from tears, my sweet daughter and husband ; believe that
it is forbidden to weep for one who lives in God." These
are just a few of the inscriptions gathered almost haphazard ;
but they seem to show how deep was the spirit of calm joy
breathed by these Christians of Rome in the early days ;
they indicate how general was their intense Faith, their
serene hope. Death was, indeed, welcomed in these Christian
communities as a friend.
These men and women, when they carved their brief
messages of hope and trust upon the graves of their loved
dead, never dreamed of handing on to coming generations
any special teaching respecting dogma. The voices of the
serious disputes which arose after the date of the Peace of
the Church (a.d. 313) were not audible here where the
Christians of the first ages so often wept and prayed. But
from the simple catacomb epitaphs we gather how firmly
they held to the great truth of the Godhead of the Redeemer,
a truth for which, as we have seen from the proces verbaux
of the martyrdoms already quoted in this history, they gladly
died. We come often upon expressions such as : " In the

288 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Lord God Christ " ; " Sacred to the great God Christ " ; such
an epitaph as : " Mayest thou live in the Holy Spfrit," tells
us that the Roman Christians taught, too, the behef in the
Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.
On the whole, we gather from studies in the catacombs
that the hearts and minds of the disciples of the Lord during
those first three centuries were so aflame with love for the
Lord Jesus, so filled with His engrossing personality, that
there Avas little place for anyone or anything which did not
bear directly upon His Person and His redemptive work.
Hence the compa,rative rarity of any pictured representations
of the blessed Virgin* and the disciples of the Lord. With
these early members of the Church of Rome Christ was all
in all. The circumstances of their Ufe, thefr precarious
tenure of that life, the frequent bitter persecutions, the fixed
idea that death was, after aU, to be earnestly desfred, as the
entrance to the true hfe, coloured all their thoughts, and
inspired their art — what we have termed "the art of the
catacombs." They loved to think of thefr Lord as the Good
Shepherd, and of themselves as His sheep gathered out of the
world ; and they rejoiced to think of their future eternal
home under the imagery of a garden, where the Good Shep^
herd would Avelcome and tenderly care for His oAvn
Very marked was the change in Christian art ui the age
which immediately foUowed the Peace and the triumph of
the Church in a.d. 313. In the basihcas which speedUy arose
over or in the immediate neighbourhood of the catacombs
after the first victory of the Church under the influence, of
the Emperor Constantfrie, the sacred pictures and sculptures
were no longer confined to what has been graphicaUy termed
the alphabet of early Christian art, the figure of the Good
* The Virgin and Child are delineated in a certain number of instances, bnt
generally with the accompanying figures of the Magi or Wise Men with their
ofiterings ; and in these instances the Holy Child is the central figure of the group.
But these pictures, after all, are few in number. Certain sacred Hebrew subjects
are not unfrequent, such as Daniel in the lions' den ; the temptation of Susanna;
the trial of the three children in the furnace ; Jonah and the great fish ; the latter
being by far the favourite subject among the Sebrew memories, doubtless owing
to the reference made to it by our Lord.

Photo : Mariani, Rome. GROUP OF THE BLESSED IN PARADISE.
From a Fresco in the Cemetery of S. Soter (Third Century). The tombs are of later date than
the Fresco of the *' Blessed."

Fhoto : Mlinari au ooo^, Home. THE GOOD SHEPHERD.
From a small Ma r bh; Statue of the Second or Tliird Century, now in the Lateran. It lias the
characteristic features of the oldest type of Citaceinb " Shepherd."

THE CATACOMBS OF BOME. 289
Shepherd, the sheep, the lambs, the goats, the quiet garden
of the Blessed, the " Orante," the dove, the fish — all these
images and symbols in large measure pass out of sight. In
the grander paintings, in the rich mosaics produced in the
new era of the Church's victory, the visions of the Apocalypse,
the mystic revelation of S. John, rather than the Gospel
story, supply the imagery. The Good Shepherd is replaced
by the noble and gracious figure of the Christ in glory, of the
Christ as Judge and King. It is ever the triumphant Christ
rather than the Shepherd-Christ who is now depicted. It
is the Lamb of the Apocalypse — " the Lamb as it had been
slain," the Lamb bearing the Passion marks stiU; but now
represented as crowned with glory and enthroned, adored by
all that is greatest and noblest in Heaven as on earth.

290

CHAPTEE XII.
INNER LIFE OF THE CHURCH.
SECTION I. — ROME ; HIPPOLYTUS AND CALLISTUS.
After the death of Clement, about the last year of the
first century, for nearly a hundred years we hear little of the
Church of the Metropolis of the Empire. The shadow, and
only the shadow, of the names of its bishops falls upon the
page of the historian Eusebius. Even tradition is well-nigh
silent as to their life story. Brief mentions are made of a
visit of Polycarp in the middle of the century, when the
veteran Bishop of Smyrna conferred with Anicetus of Eome,
of a residence in Rome of Irenaeus, the famous GaUic scholar
and writer, subsequently Bishop of Lyons. Of the duration of
this visit we know nothing. These scanty references together
with the " Acts " of S. Felicitas and her sons, which tell us
something of the trials and sufi'erings of Christians in the
days of Marcus, are the best authenticated notices connected
with the Church in Rome that we possess. But that the
Church in Rome during this period was growing in numbers,
was perfecting its organisation, was planning and gradually
excavating its mighty City of the Dead beneath the suburbs
of the Metropolis, is clear from what we find in contemporary
writings, dating from early in the third century.
In the last years of the second century began the famous
disputes concerning "church discipline," on which we are
about to dwell at some length ; disputes which more or less
affected the whole of the Catholic Church, and determined in
great measure the attitude which the Christian communities
everywhere were to assume in their relations with the society

INNEB LIFE OF THE CHUECH. 291
of the Empire. About this time, the close of the second
century, the Roman community possessed perhaps the pro
foundest scholar and thinker in Christendom. This was
Hippolytus, generally styled Bishop of Portus.
Hippolytus seriously disagreed with the policy of the
Bishop . and governing body of the Roman community in the
matter of Church discipline ; and his opposition here gravely
affected that all-important question, daily pressing with greater
insistence upon the fast growing body of Christians, of the
general relations of Christianity to the society of the Empire.
The Roman theologian was supported in his austere views by
another writer and teacher of the highest rank in another
powerful Christian community. This was Tertullian of
Carthage. These two eminent men, the Roman and the
African, were by no means alone in their contention respecting
the alleged laxity of discipline prevailing in the Church in
those days, a laxity which included certain concessions to the
Pagan society around them.
The severer and more austere policy of Hippolytus, Ter
tullian, and their school was finally rejected by the Church
of Rome ; and the views of Zephyrinus and Callistus, suc
cessively Bishops of the Church of the Metropolis, in the
end prevailed, and determined generally the attitude of the
Catholic Church to the Empire.
But the powerful advocacy of these two eminent dissidents,
as contained in their many writings, some of which have come
down to us, although it failed to influence the policy of Rome
and the majority of the Churches, was by no means thrown
away. These men have left their impress upon the Church,
and their noble, if at times curiously exaggerated, views have
in all ages strongly infiuenced and coloured the hves of not
a few devoted toilers for God.
This section of our history will be devoted to the great
dispute which had so far-reaching an influence upon the
future of Christianity.
We learn much respecting the inner life of the Church
in Rome as it existed in the reign of the Emperor Severus,
in the last years of the second and early years of the third

292 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
century, from one oi those strange " finds " which now and
again so marvellously assist the chroniclers of the early
days of Christianity.
In the year 1842 an anonymous MS. of the fourteenth
century was brought by a learned Greek in the employment
of the French Government to Paris from a monastic hbrary
on Mount Athos. On examination it was found to contain
the continuation of a fragment entitled PhUosophumena,
printed in the Benedictine edition of Origen's works, and gener
aUy considered as one of his writings. Certain scholars, however,
had already questioned Origen's authorship of the fragment.
The University of Oxford printed the newly discovered MS.,
and it was at once seen to be a literary treasure of rare
value. Scholars pronounced it to be, not a work of Origen,
but a long lost writing of Hippolytus, a famous writer and
teacher of the closing years of the second and earlier years
of the third century. It was of considerable length, and was
divided into ten books, the second and third of which were
stiU missing. Its title was " The Refutation of aU Heresies."
Books V. and X. are, perhaps, the most important, as a piece
of history, and contain an interesting and valuable account
of the early heresies, composed by a great scholar, who may
be termed a contemporary witness of many of the things
about which he was writing. The value of such a testimony
can scarcely be over-estimated ; for Hippolytus was a well-
known and often quoted teacher, and a disciple of Irenaaus.
The tenth book of the "Refutation" is a summary of the
whole work, and contains besides an exposition of the leamed
writer's own religious opinions. As we have said, Hippolytus
and his works were very widely known and highly esteemed
in ancient times. To give a few instances out of a long
catena of patristic references, Eusebius and Jerome in the
fourth century speak of him, Epiphanius (fourth century) in
his great work on Heresies largely borrowed from him, and
Photius (ninth century) in his marvellous epitome of ancient
Greek literature, describes with some detaU a yet earher and
shorter work of Hippolytus on heresies. He has been well
described as one "who hnked together the learning and

INNEB LIFE OF TIIE GHUBGH. 293
tradition of the East, the original home of Christianity
with the marvellous practical energy of the West, the scene
of his own hfe's labours ... He was besides in his time, as
far as we know, the most learned man in the Western
Church." For our present work the importance of the comparatively
recently discovered writing of the great scholar Hippolytus
consists not in his elaborate and learned history of the many
heresies more or less connected, though many of them but
remotely, with Christianity, but with the strong side-light
which his great treatise throws upon the inner life of the
Italian Church with which he was especially connected.
He dwells with peculiar insistence upon a bitter feud
which apparently raged for some years in the Roman com
munity, and in his description of it he incidentally shows us
how far-reaching was the influence of Christianity on Roman
society before the second century had yet run its course.
It is, of course, saddening for those who fondly picture to
themselves the Church of the first and second centuries as
a Church of saints, without spot or wrinkle, to hear of bitter
enmities and fierce wranglings in the very centre of her
blessed activities; to be compelled slowly and painfuUy to
disentangle the confused threads of the over-coloured narrative
of one of the principal disputants. But the truth must be
told, and it must be confessed that in the laying of the early
storeys of Christianity light ever alternated with darkness.
Then, as now, human passions, jealousies, short-sightedness,
sadly interfered with the building of the City of God. It
was a strange sight indeed, under the very shadow of the
sword of persecution which then hung over the Churches of
God, ready to faU at any moment ! AU through this eventful
story, the special incidents related of this or that individual
teacher or confessor, of this or that lonely community —
incidents on whose authenticity no shadow of doubt rests
— have been only examples or instances of what was taking place
in many another Christian centre. So also here, what was taking
place on the larger and more prominent stage of Imperial
Rome no doubt often took place in less pubhc and notorious

294 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
centres. The troubles of Rome, of which Hippolytus teUs us
were not peculiar to the great Church of the capital.
The story of these Roman dissensions, grievous though
they doubtless were to the sorely tried Christian persecuted
ones, is very suggestive for us who read it after all these cen
turies of anxiety and disappointment, of baffled hopes and
weary expectations, but on the whole of real progress. First
and foremost it reminds us that our Lord and Master has
ever worked on earth with poor and often faulty instruments,
and yet that these, in the long run, do His work — as then, so
now. With no uncertain voice it tells those among us often
disappointed and discouraged at the grave cleavages and sharp
strifes which still divide Christian folk on earth, which set
church against church, communion against communion, family
against family, that it was ever so from the very beginning,
when the sharp dissension between Paul and Barnabas separated
men who had seen the Lord, and even heard His voice; that
it was so in the days of Hippolytus, so near, as we have seen,
to the men who had learned their lessons from a Polycarp
and a John. And it teUs us too, singularly enough, as far
as we can judge from the very words of Hippolytus himself,
that Hippolytus, the most leamed of living Christian teachers,
was, on the whole, in the wrong.*
The story of the feud is as follows (we give it from Hip
polytus' own narrative, contained in his recently discovered
" Refutation of all Heresies," Book IX., Chap. VII). In the
reign of the Emperor Commodus, Marcus' son and successor,
there lived in Rome a Christian slave named Callistus. His
master was one Carpophorus, also a Christian, and an official
in the Imperial palace. Apparently Callistus was an able
business man, for Carpophorus entrusted him with money,
and set him up in business as a money-changer and banker.
In this caUing he evidently for a time was successful ; for many
* Tet even here modern scholars differ. For instance, Dean Milman of
S. Paul's {Zatin Christianity, Book I., Chap. I.), a generally fair historian,
considers Hippolytus was on the whole in the right, and that his adversary
CaUistus was an ambitious intriguer. This eminent scholar and thinker in
this case seems to have lost sight of the great questions upon which this con
tention was really based, in which Hippolytus was clearly in error.

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 295
Christians and others were in the habit of depositing money
with him. Then came on a period of difficulty, and Callistus
lost aU his capital and, fearful of his master's anger, attempted
to fly ; but was arrested at Portus and brought back to Rome.
The angry Carpophorus at once dispatched his unlucky slave to
the "pistrinum," or prison where refractory slaves were sent
for punishment by their masters. How terrible was the fate
of a slave thus punished we learn from a weird description by
a contemporary writer, Apuleius. " Ye gods ! what men I saw
there, their white skin cut about with the lashes of a whip,
and marked as if with paint ; their gashed backs hung over
with the tatters of their jackets, rather than covered; some
of them wore only a small girdle round their loins, in all of
them their naked body could be seen through their rags.
They were branded on their foreheads, their heads were half
shorn, on their feet they wore iron rings, their pallor was
hideous, their eyelids were as it were eaten away by the
smoke and vapour of the dark atmosphere, so that they
scarcely had the use of their eyes any more." After a time
Carpophorus had him released on the prayer of some pitiful
Christian, who persuaded him that some of the lost money
could be recovered by Callistus from parties who were in debt
to him. These parties were Jews, who, evidently indignant
with Callistus when he tried to collect his debts, accused him
to the Prefect of the City, alleging that he had made a tumult
and had disturbed them in their synagogue. The Prefect, too
readily believing any accusation against a Christian, condemned
the unhappy CaUistus to the unhealthy mines of Sardinia.
From these mines he was eventually released, with many other
Christian sufferers, owing to the good offices of Marcia, the
favourite of Commodus, who was kindly disposed to the
Christians — possibly a Christian herseE Callistus then dwelt
at Antium, where he was assisted by Victor, who was Bishop
of Rome, a.d. 192-202.
This sad tale of slavery, misfortune and suffering is related
by Hippolytus, who, it must be remembered, was CaUistus'
bitter foe. Much, apparently, is omitted, for there was evi
dently something in the slave's Ufe very striking, something

296 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
that marked him out as especially capable and able, more
sinned against than sinning ; for we find the next Bishop of
Rome, Zephyrinus, who succeeded Pope Victor in a.d. 202,
sending for Callistus from Antium, and conferring on him
high and responsible office in the Christian community of
Rome. Pope Zephyrinus, "to his own great misfortune," writes
Hippolytus, appointed CaUistus " over the cemetery," and
entrusted him besides with the direction and supervision of
the Roman clergy. Zephyrinus, too, is depicted by Hippolytus
as a man of little education, ignorant of ecclesiastical law, and
even covetous. Upon the death of Zephyrinus, Callistus was
elected by the clergy Bishop of Rome, a.d. 219. Hippolytus
thus curiously writes of the great promotion of the former
slave, who had suffered so much and such grievous things in
his earlier life : " He beUeved that on Zephyrinus' death he
(Callistus) had attained the goal at which he had aimed." No
doubt by his wise administration of the cemetery and the
burial of Christians, and by his skill and tact in the direction
and supervision of the clergy to Avhich the late Pope had
appointed him, he had won the respect and love of at least
the majority of the numerous body consisting of presbyters,
deacons, and the inferior orders of sub-deacons and others
who made up the official ranks of the Roman Church.* Such
is the strange and somewhat painful story with wliich Hip
polytus prefaces his account of the grave differences which
arose between the newly elected Bishop of Rome, Callistus,
and himself One point more, however, must be briefly touched
upon before we dweU upon these differences, the recital of
which throws so much Ught upon the practice and teaching of
the Church at the beginning of the third century. What
•office or position was it which this Hippolytus held in the
Catholic Church ?
* Dr. DbUinger {Sippolytus and Callistus, chaps, ii.-vii.), basing his calcu
lation upon a weU-known summary of the number of clergy and churcli
dependants given by Cornelius, a.d. 250. Eusebius, S. E., vi. 43, considers
that the organised Church of Eome about this time numbered some fifty thousanu
souls. This calculation of Cornelius was made some fifteen years after tie
death of Hippolytus.

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH 297
He describes himself as "a bishop;" he is also generally
so styled by all the ancients who refer to his teachings and
writings, as for instance by Eusebius and Jerome. But
strange to say no one among the comparatively early writers
mentions his diocese. Among the Greek and Oriental Churches
a common tradition existed that Hippolytus was Bishop of
Rome. But then the earliest Eastern author who can be
quoted here wrote at Constantinople circa a.d. 582, that is
to say late in the sixth century, and Hippolytus lived in
the first quarter of the third century. In the seventh and
eighth centuries this opinion was apparently a common one
in the Eastern Church.
A still more general tradition placed the see of this
famous writer at Portus, a harbour situated on the right arm
of the Tiber, which eventually superseded the more ancient
Ostia as the harbour of Rome, the port of Ostia becoming
graduaUy blocked with sand ; but here again the tradition
which made him Bishop of Portus is an Oriental one, and
does not appear in any writing earlier than circa a.d. 630.
The testimony of Eusebius, who wrote much earlier,
circa A.D. 325, is interesting. Eusebius, who flourished within
some eighty years of Hippolytus' death, simply confesses his
ignorance. Hippolytus, he says, "was a bishop somewhere
or other." Jerome, writing about half a century later than
Eusebius, confesses that he has "not been able to find out
the city" of which he was bishop. Among eminent modern
scholars, Dollinger, at considerable length, argues that he
was a schismatical Bishop of Rome, in fact the first anti-Pope.
Bishop Lightfoot, with considerable ingenuity, maintained that
he never held any definite see, but was simply bishop in
charge of the various shifting nationalities represented in
the busy Roman harbour of Portus, and was appointed to
the charge by Pope Victor, who preceded Zephyrinus in the
see of Rome.
The question of the site of his bishoprick, which has been
much debated, wiU probably never be definitely answered
now. Rome, however, it is certain was the scene of his
activities for many years. This would fit in with either of

298

EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.

the above mentioned hypotheses of -the German and the
Enghsh scholars. Round the complete life story of this
great theologian and writer, however, rest clouds of uncertainty
and doubt. What is absolutely certain is that during a
considerable portion of his life he was the Roman leader of
the party of rigorous unbending severity, in open opposition
to the policy of the Catholic Church which aUowed to
Christian converts a certain liberty in their actions, and
encouraged them to share, to a considerable extent, in the
public life around them. The first friend and patron of
Hippolytus was Pope Victor, whose rule was coterminous
with the last decade of the second century. Zephyrinus
succeeded Victor, and during his reign over the Roman Church
of nearly seventeen years Callistus appears to have been
his adviser and minister. The approximate dates of the
Popes or Bishops of Rome of the period are as foUow:

Pope Victor ...
„ Zephyrinus
„ Callistus
„ Urban ...
„ Pontianus
„ Anteros ...
„ Fabianus
„ CorneHus
„ Lucius ...

A.D.192
202
219 222
223
230235
236
250251 252

During the pontificates of Zephyrinus and Callistus, a.d. 202-
222, the deadly feud we are aboAt to speak of raged between
the great scholar Hippolytus and the two Popes, largely
on questions connected with discipline, although questions
on the Trinitarian doctrine also divided them for a time.
During the pontificate of Urban, who succeeded Callistus
as Bishop of Rome, we hear no more of the feud. It is
possible, after the passing away of the two men Zephyrinus
and CaUistus, that Hippolytus ceased from active opposition
to the recognised policy of the Church, and devoted himself
exclusively to his scholarly work. This pontificate of Urban,

Photo : Alinari & Cook, Rome.

S. HIPPOLYTUS.

A Marble Statue attributed to the Tliird Century ; found iu lo.'.l, much mutilflted, ,
and without tlic head, near the Cemetery of Hippolytus (Rome), a list of wliose
works is inscribed on the chair. Now in the Lateran.

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH., 299
A.D. 223-230, was a time generally speaking of perfect still
ness for\ the Church. The Emperor Alexander Severus was
reigning, and though not a convert himself was ever most favour
ably disposed to Christianity. In this period Hippolytus,
then an old man, put out his most famous works, one of
which, the " Refutation of aU Heresies," we have been speaking
of as lately re-discovered, and which as throwing a flood of
light upon the organisation and teaching of this early
period has been well described as having laid these latest
generations of Christians under the deepest debt of gratitude.*
At length the long, laborious, and troubled life of the great
scholar was closed by banishment and death. About the year
230 Urban was succeeded by Pontianus as Bishop of Rome.
In A.D. 235 Alexander Severus was murdered, and was succeeded
by the Emperor Maximinus, a fierce, rough soldier, who reversed
the policy of Alexander Severus, and during his brief tenure
of the Imperial power bitterly persecuted the Christians.
Pope Pontianus was banished to the unhealthy island of
Sardinia. With Pontianus Hippolytus was also sent to the
dread Sardinia mines, and there both Pope and scholar,
according to some accounts, died very soon. Of the circum
stances of their death we know nothing for certain. Their
bodies were, however, brought back to Rome. Pope Pontianus
was laid in the Papal Crypt, a chamber of the cemetery of
CaUistus on the Appian Way, and Hippolytus was buried in
another Christian cemetery on the Tiburtine Way, not very far
from the famous Prsetorian Camp, hard by the spot where
subsequently arose the great basilica of S. Laurence.
The exact dates are a little confused. An ancient tradition,
however, tells us that the two martyrs were deposited in their
several resting-places on the self-same day, viz. the Ides of
August, A.D. 236, and this traditional date is the one gener
aUy accepted.
In the year 1551 a mutilated statue was discovered in
the place where originally the sanctuary of Hippolytus had
been buUt. The head of the statue was missing, and there
was no name to identify it, but on the back and sides of the
* Bishop Lightfoot, Clement of Rome, vol. ii., p. 437.

300 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
chair, in which the figure sits, was engraved a list of writings
known to have been the works of Hippolytus. On one side
of the chair is inscribed a calendar for determining the Paschal
full moon. No doubt rests upon the universally received
assumption that the statue is a figure of Hippolytus. It is
considered to be the oldest marble statue of Christian work
manship, and probably belongs to the first half of the third
century. We have no knowledge of any simUar mark of
respect ever paid to any bishop or eminent teacher in the
first few centuries.*
Testimonies from ancient writers to the widespread influ
ence of Hippolytus and his works have been already briefly
referred to. After his death he was the recipient for a long
period and in various lands of many posthumous honours
besides the dignity of saintship in the Church where he
laboured for so many years ; a dignity which, however, he
shares with not a few whose claims to it are perhaps some
what questionable. Pope Damasus, a.d. 366-384, the great
restorer of the Roman sanctuaries, found a smaU chapel con
taining the remains of the eminent writer and scholar, which
he enlarged and beautified. In the last years of the fourth
or very early in the fifth century, the Spanish Christian poet,
Prudentius, devoted some two hundred and forty-six lines in
his series of fourteen poems in honour of various martyrs
(the Peri Stephanon liber) exclusively to Hippolytus. But
when Prudentius wrote, legendary history had aheady gathered
thickly round the memory of the scholar-martyr, and the
details he gives us are quite unreliable. Historically, the
only value of Prudentius' poem is to show how magnificently
the shrine of Hippolytus was adorned in his, Prudentius', days
— end of the fourth century. The cult of the famous teacher
was then evidently at its zenith.
In the barbarian raids of the following centuries the shrine
and basilica of Hippolytus seems to have suffered severely.
Pope Paul I., between a.d. 757 and a.d. 768, amongst other
precious relics is said to have translated the remains of
* This celebrated statue is now in a prominent position in the Lateran
Museum ; the head and upper part, which were mutilated, have been restored.

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 301
Hippolytus to the Church of S. Silves tro in Capite (so called
from the head of S. John the Baptist, which has ever been
its most precious relic*). Curiously enough, another transla
tion of the body of Hippolytus is related to have taken place
under Pope Leo IV., a.d. 847-55, to the Church of the Quattro
Coronati on the Ccelian; and yet a third translation of the
honoured remains under Pope Honorius III, circa a.d. 1216,
to the neighbouring basilica of S. Laurentius is chronicled in
trustworthy records. These stories of successive translations,
and of different churches, each possessing the body of the
saint, are probably due to the not uncommon practice of
calling any limb or portion of the saint " the body '' — a custom
responsible for not a little confusion in many cases.
These successive mentions of the translation of the remains,
or more probably portions of the remains, of Hippolytus, in
different ages to important Roman churches by no means
exhaust our records of the enduring respect shown by the
Catholic Church to the memory of one of the earliest and
greatest of her theologians.
In the pontificate of Siricius, a.d. 384-98, another memoria
or chapel of the holy martyr Hippolytus is known to have
been erected among the buildings of the famous church and
monastery of S. Pudentiana. In Portus, the harbour of Rome,
with which important maritime centre the name of the great
scholar, as we have mentioned already, is closely connected
as bishop, the tower of an ancient church bearing his honoured
name can still be seen rising above the desolate and lonely
Campagna. Beyond the confines of Italy even we can find traces of
the ancient reverence paid to the famous Italian scholar. In
Aries, the ancient city of Southern Gaul, there is a church
of great antiquity dedicated to him. Nor is this the only
relic of the honours shown him in the GaUic province ; for in
the north, among the sacred treasures of the royal and illus
trious abbey of S. Denis, close to Paris, for a long period
portions of the body of Hippolytus were venerated under the
* The writer believes that this famous relic of the Baptist has been of late
years removed to the Vatican for greater security.

302 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
name of S. Bilt. Even in distant Cologne, on the Rhine, the
Church of S. Ursula claims to possess other relics.
We are brought into very close touch with this far back
time when Hippolytus and CaUistus lived, by the recent dis
coveries of De Rossi in the catacomb named after the latter.
It wiU be remembered that Pope Zephyrinus appointed his.
friend and adviser Callistus over "the Cemetery." Now we
learn from the Liber Pontificalis and from various other
sources that the earliest successors of S. Peter, with rare
exceptions, were laid near the body of the blessed Peter in
the Vatican crypt. But very early in the third century a
special chamber was prepared, evidently with extraordinary
care, by CaUistus under the direction of Zephyrinus ; and in
this sacred chamber a long line of Popes were laid to rest.
De Rossi, in the course of his excavations in that catacomb,
came upon an exceptional number of "grafiSti"* or rough
inscriptions carved by early pilgrims to these shrines; and
recognised at once that he was on the threshold of a very
special sanctuary of the ancient Church. This was the Papal
crypt on which for many centuries no eye had looked. It
was in a state of utter ruin and disorder ; but the remains ot
beautiful and costly work were there, traces of the reverent
care with which several generations of the ancient Church
had adorned the sacred chamber. A few partly shattered
gravestones found among the ruins and the broken debris
revealed to the great scholar the cause of this evidently
long continued veneration on the part of the pilgrims of
early times.
On these scarred and mutilated slabs, each of which had
once closed the niche where a body had been laid, De Rossi
found the historic names of Popes Anteros and Fabianus, of
Lucius and Eutychianus, successively Bishops of Rome. On
* These " graffiti " are little more than rough soribblings of names of these
early visitors ; sometimes the names are accompanied with a few words of
prayer for those they loved best. They fancied, did these pilgrims, that a prayer
carved in such a place hard by the sepulchre of a saintly person, such as a
martyr, would be peculiarly eiEcacious. The presence of a number of these
ancient pilg-rim " graffiti " on the walls is a aure index that a specially hallowed
shrine is close by.

Photo: Anderson, Rome.
THE PAPAL CRYPT, as first discovered by de rossi.
Cemetery of S. Callistus (Third Century).

Photo : Mariani, Homi-. THE PAPAL CRYPT
IN THE TIME OF POPE DAMASUS (fOURTH CENTURy).
Accordiug to De Rossi's Restnration.

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 303
the stones of Anteros, Fabianus, and Eutychianus the title
Episcopus (Bishop) foUowed the name, and the yet prouder
title of martyr was added to the name of Fabian. Anteros
and Fabianus were contemporaries of Hippolytus. De Rossi
has no doubt that these four broken stones were the original
tombstones of the third century Popes whose names they
bear.* In this chamber of undying " memories " it is recorded
that Zephyrinus also was buried; not so Callistus, who was
interred in a cemetery in the Trastevere quarter, near the
spot where he suffered martyrdom in a popular tumult.
Urban, who succeeded Callistus, Pontianus, Anteros, Fabianus,
Lucius, Eutychianus, and probably others, were all buried
in this sacred chamber. The graves of other famous third
century Popes have been identified in different parts of the
vast subterranean area occupied by the great cemetery or
catacomb of the Appian Way.f
The charges which Hippolytus brings against the acts of
Pope CalUstus during his government of the see of Rome
are specially important and interesting to the Church
historian ; for they, as it has been said, give many particulars
respecting the inner life of the Christian Church in the first
years of the third century.
Within the same decade" as Hippolytus, i.e. the closing years
of the second and the opening years of the third centuries, the
briUiant and eloquent Tertullian, at great length and with
much detail in his " Apology " and in various other treatises
and "studies," covers much of the same ground and makes
very similar charges against the current Church policy of the
age. TertuUian's pictures, to which we shall presently revert,
are drawn from Christian life in Carthage and the wealthy
and populous pro-consulate of North Africa. Hippolytus, of
course, founds his strictures on the government and management
of the Christian Church in his age and time, on his own
* These historical slabs, carefully repaired, have been replaced on the walls of
the Papal Crypt.
+ Hippolytus, whose body was also brought back to Eome with that of
Pontianus, was buried, as we have seen, in another cemetery on the Tiburtine Way,
on the same day that Pontianus, also Bishop of Eome, was laid in the Papal Crypt
of the cemetery of Callistus.

30J, EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
personal experiences of the great Christian community at Rome
and in the immediate neighbourhood of the Imperial city.
One of the leading accusations of Hippolytus charged the
Bishop of Rome, CaUistus, with being the first who had
publicly proclaimed the principle of the possibility of the
Church granting absolution of all sins, even of the gravest
character. The arrangements which Callistus had made on
the subject of absolution were evidently not transitory but
lasting, as Hippolytus speaks of them as still in force circa
a.d. 230, some seven years after the Bishop's death.
The question of a reconciliation of sinners with the Church
had already been mooted in the Roman community ; the pre
decessor of CaUistus, Pope Zephyrinus, having mitigated the
original strict penance discipUne by declaring that even those
who had been guilty of the grave sins of adultery and idolatry
might again be admitted to communion after performing
public penance. It appears that a further movement in the
direction of leniency took place after the Decian persecution,
circa a.d. 249, and the principle of not shutting out from
communion for ever those who had lapsed in the days of
trial was admitted.
From letters written from Rome to Cyprian of Carthage,
circa a.d. 250, we find that the severe discipUne of earher
days had been considerably modified, in accordance with the
policy so hateful to Hippolytus and TertuUian and the school
of the Rigorists. Callistus, however, and in a measure his
predecessor and friend. Pope Zephyrinus, were probably the
first who publicly urged this; the principle which was
eventually endorsed by Cyprian was first formally recognised
at Rome, and a hope of re-admission to the Church was held
out even to those who had sinned most grievously.
But even before Callistus and the Roman community
publicly affirmed the Church's willingness to receive back
into her fold grievous sinners if they repented, this milder
disciphne had found advocates; for we find Dionysius of
Corinth, circa a.d. 169, writing to Christian communities in
Pontus, urging that all who had in any way been regarded as
heretical, or had committed any crime whatever, ought to

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 305
be received again into the fold if they turned again to the
Church, thus gravely condemning the idea of perpetual
excommunication. In this as in other matters, as we shall see, Callistus and
the Roman Church adopted a liberal and generous policy,
but one which was by no means universally followed; since
from the canons of the Council of Elvira (lUiberis), a very
important assembly held scarcely eighty years after Callistus'
death,* we see that the Spanish Church stiU held to the
principle of perpetual excommunication in the case of certain
grievous sins.
Hippolytus further charges Callistus with sanctioning the
ordination of men who had been married twice or thrice to
the higher ranks among the clergy, including here bishops,
priests, and deacons. The words of S. Paul in 1 Tim. iii. 2-12,
and Titus i. 6, have been in all ages variously understood.
Origen, however, circa a.d. 230, writes that it was the rule
that a bishop, a presbyter, and a deacon (and he adds a widow,
referring, of course, to the " office bearing " widows of 1 Tim. v.
.'^-lO) should not, when ordained, have married a second time.
TertuUian's express reference to the custom in the same period
tells us that this was generaUy the ecclesiastical rule. But
it is clear from TertuUian's words that exceptions had been
not infrequently made, especially in cases where the second
marriage had been concluded before baptism.
Dr. Dollinger (Hippolytus and CaUistus, chap, iii.), in
the course of a lengthy dissertation on the disputed question,
weightily remarks with reference to these charges brought
by Hippolytus and Tertullian against the practice of the
Catholic Church of the time, that " the difi'erence was evidently
made between second marriages contracted before and after
baptism, and that several were made bishops in spite of the
double marriages, because it was thought their stain might be
overlooked as something belonging to the heathen period of
their life." This concession was not, however, recognised by
stricter teachers like Hippolytus and Tertullian, the latter of
* The exact date of this Council is disputed. That usually given is 302-3 ;
but the true date is probably a few years earlier.
U

306 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
whom asks contemptuously : " Being a digamist dost thou
baptise ? Being a digamist dost thou make the offering ? "
(De Exhortatione Castitatis, 7).
But the dispute concerning the propriety of second mar
riages for the clergy, as time went on, was submerged in the
far more important and hotly contested question. Was marriage
at all to be sanctioned for the clergy of the Cathohc Church ?
Outside the recognised paramount importance of the need
of guarding pure and unadulterated the great fundamental
doctrines of Christianity, the necessity or the non-necessity of
insisting on the celibacy of the clergy has perhaps exercised
the minds of practical theologians more than any other question
in the general administration of the Church. From the early
years of the third century, down to our own day and time, the
question has agitated and disturbed the Church. Since the
period of the Reformation the Western Church has been
formaUy divided on the question. In the Roman Communion
the decision of the Council of Trent forbidding sternly aU
clerical marriages is accepted. In the Protestant communities
absolute freedom on the point is conceded. Among the last-
named there is, besides, no rule, written or implied, existing
on the subject of digamy in the case of the clergy.
Hippolytus, the subject of our present study, was the first
(TertuUian probably writing a very few years later) who for
maUy inveighed against the principle of clerical marriages.
His words are very strong. "Callistus," he says, "ordered
that if a cleric married he was to remain among the clergy,
just as if he had commented no offence." During the previous
century and a haU nothing formal apparently was taught
on this subject. What little is said in the New Testament
distinctly recognises marriage as honourable and legal for aU
Christians without distinction, for the office-bearer in the
Church as weU as for the ordinary layman. Alone in that
mystic passage in the Apocalypse (Rev. xiv. 4) does any hint
appear that a higher excellence in the case of celibates was
recognised in the courts of heaven.
In the early Christian writings very little respecting mar
riage appears, and when any reference is made it is simply to

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 307
repeat the New Testament advice (as Hermas, Comm. IL, iv.,
1), or to warn men not to boast of any such austere way of
life and thus to exalt themselves above others (see Ignatius in
his letter to Polycarp, C. 5).
Again we have in very early times some distinct mentions
of bishops and presbyters who were married, e.g. by Polycarp
(early second century), by Cyprian (first half of second
century), by Eusebius, quoting from what happened in the
Decian persecution (first half of the third century), and in
the Diocletian persecution (some half century later). Clement
of Alexandria besides speaks of Peter and Philip, the Apostles,
as married.* There is, however, no doubt that very soon
an exaggerated esteem for the celibacy of the clergy made
its appearance in the Church. This undue reverence for
the unmarried state can be largely traced to the teaching
of the Gnostics in the second century, and somewhat later
to the doctrines of the Montanists. Various decrees of early
Councils opposed or attempted to mitigate these ascetic
innovations. Of these, the action of the Council of Nice,
A.D. 325, is the most memorable. But in spite of these
attempts to relieve the clergy of the heavy burden which
the sterner and more ascetic teachers, such as Hippolytus
and TertulUan, insisted upon imposing upon their brethren,
the principle of clerical celibacy in the Western Church
steadily gained ground. Again and again in all countries
in the West ecclesiastical history is never weary of calhng
attention to the frequent revolts and numberless evasions
on the part of the clergy who would not submit to the
harsh law of the Church ; but revolt and evasion, though
repeated a hundred times, were of no avail. The responsible
heads of the Church, with scarcely an exception, followed
the lead of Hippolytus and Tertullian ; to this long hne of
noted Church leaders all through the Christian centuries
the principle of clerical celibacy was the keystone of the
Church's influence and power. The ecclesiastical, or, as it
was more generally termed, the sacerdotal, order must know
* Bingham, Chr. Antiq., Book IV., Chap. V., Sees. 4 and 5, enumerates
various examples and gives the references.

308 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
neither nation nor famUy. It must be separated from all
common human sympathies, interests, affections. It must
own no ties or obligations save those of the Catholic Church.
It was a grand, even a magnificent, conception, but to those
who look on the work of the Catholic Church from a different
standpoint it was a conception erroneous and misleading.
Towards the end of the eleventh century, in the course of
the great revival of religion which belonged to that period,
the principle of clerical celibacy was most positively enforced
under the authority of the famous Hildebrand (Pope
Gregory VIL), and from that time untU the Reformation of
the sixteenth century, was sternly and rigidly required all
through the Western Churches. In the East this principle
of clerical celibacy was never pressed with the same inflexible
rigour, and to this day, while forbidding marriage to her
bishops, her changeless Church allows her presbyters to
marry.* Another of Pope Callistus' actions in the matter of Church
discipline, which had far-reaching consequences, was strangely
enough vehemently complained of and opposed by Hippolytus.
The laws of the Roman Empire, it is yfell known, placed an
insurmountable barrier between freemen and slaves, and the
marriage laws which forbad any legal union between a free
woman and a slave were very stringent. Such marriages,
already forbidden by the Julian and Papian law, were declared
null and void by the Emperors llarcus and Commodus.
Now Callistus granted ecclesiastical sanction to such unions
in the case of believers. Hippolytus argued that such Church
sanction, that such a granting of the Church's blessing to
* In this necessarily brief sketch of an aU-important principle, of which
Hippolytus was perhaps the first ofiScial exponent, we have not mentioned
Monasticism, which in the West did not make its appearance for more than
a century and a quarter after Hippolytus had passed away, being somewhat
earlier in its development in the East. But it was the teaching of Monasticism,
which as time went ou was gradually wrought into the general feeling, lay
and clerical, that rendered possible the enforcement of the stern law of celibacy
upon all the official and responsible ministers of religion. Monasticism, it
must be remembered, admitted almost to its full extent the Manichean tenet
(the child of Gnosticism) of the innate sinfulness of all sexual intercourse as
partaking of the inextinguishable impurity of Matter.

INNEB LIFE OP THE GHUBGH. 809
unequal marriages, was equivalent to an invitation to un-
chastity. It is diflicult to understand by what reasoning
the great ascetic teacher came to such a conclusion.* Its
effect really was in some measure to break down the walls
which existed between slaves and free persons in the Empire.
Henceforth in the Roman Empire there existed a vast society
in whose ever-increasing ranks freemen and slaves were to
be equals. In the society of the Christian Church the highest
ecclesiastical oflices were now and again conferred upon slaves
and freed-men, as was the case with Callistus himself
It seems from Hippolytus' language that Pope CaUistus
was the first, certainly the first among Roman bishops, who
ruled that the Church's blessing might be given to these
marriages between the two classes of slaves and free. The
moment when this great movement in the direction of the
overthrow of slavery was adopted by the Church, was the
time of quietness which set in after Severus' death, wheu
for a considerable period the Church was comparatively free
from persecution. That such a startling innovation upon
the ancient marriage customs of the Empire was considered
desirable and practical by the rulers of the Church is a
striking testimony to the rapid progress of the new religion
in all ranks of Roman society.
It is from Hippolytus' writings that we derive our know
ledge of the earliest developments of the SabeUian and Patri
passian heresy, a heresy which grew up at a very early date
in the heart of the Catholic Church. In some of the writings
of the earliest Fathers, notably in Ignatius, we come upon
expressions dealing with the Persons of the ever blessed
Trinity which would scarcely have been used in the clear-
cut definitions of the theology of the next century, the age
of Councils, by men like Athanasius. Some of these expres
sions were probably, in the first instance, unduly pressed, and
hence the strange views which were developed into what is
termed SabeUian or Patripassian teaching.
* It is possible that he feared that, where the State recognised no validity
in the union and no legitimacy in the offspring, there would be a perpetual
inducement to set at naught the ecclesiastical bond.

310 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
This widespread form of erroneous doctrine arose in the
last years of the second century. Its first public teacher was
Noetus of Smyrna. A disciple of his, one Epigonus, brought
the doctrine of Noetus to Rome in the pontificate of Victor,
A.D. 192-202. Alongside of Epigonus, Praxeas, another able
teacher of the same school, worked for a time in the metropohs.
When Zephyrinus was Pope, a.d. 202-18, Cleomenes, the
disciple of Epigonus, was looked upon as the chief of this
school of thought in Rome; with Cleomenes the famous
SabeUius was associated. This last gave his name to the sect
of SabeUians, or Patripassians as they came to be caUed.
SabeUius was by birth a Libyan of the Pentapolis, who had
taken up his abode in Rome. Hippolytus gives us a clear
description of his curious doctrine. Epiphanius, who died
A.D. 403, and Theodoret, who died ad. 456, both of whom
also discuss it, evidently mainly derived their knowledge of
this heresy from the great Roman theologian of whom we
are speaking. The teaching of this heretical school was as
follows :
" The one supreme God is originaUy, or in so far as He is
called Father, invisible, passionless, immortal, uncreate ; but
on the other side, as Son, by His own wUl and free self-
Umitation, He became man, was born of the Virgin, suffered
and died, and accordingly is caUed ' Son ' only for a certain
time and only in reference to that which He experienced upon
earth. The Son, or Christ, is therefore the Father veUed in
the flesh, and we must certainly say that it was the Father
Himself who became Man and suffered."*
Hippolytus was an uncompromising opponent of this
SabeUian teaching, and his fervid refutation led him into some
extreme and somewhat exaggerated statements which enabled
his enemies, who were many, to accuse him of being ditheistic ;
that is of teaching erroneously that alongside God there was
a second God brought into existence, viz. the Logos or Son.
It was really a baseless charge, but the rancour of theological
disputes, even at that early date, led men to seek out and
to find heresy even in the doctrine of the Church's noblest
* Compare Dollinger, Sippolytus and Callistus, Chap. IV., Sec. 1.

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 311
teachers. And, indeed, Llippolytus courted such accusations
by the bitterness with which he persistently attacked Popes
Zephyrinus and Callistus, whom he charged, if not with sharing,
at least with sympathising with the errors of SabeUius.
But Pope Callistus we know excommunicated SabeUius
as a teacher of false doctrine. There is no doubt that in
these early disputes the Catholic Church was on the side of
Callistus, and that his teaching and definitions on the subject
of the Divine Personality of Christ, in preference to what was
advanced by Hippolytus, were maintained in the influential
Roman communities. Indeed, from Hippolytus' own work it
seems that the teaching of Callistus on this abstruse subject
avoided two errors, that of SabeUius on the one side, who
confuses the Father with the Son, and the exaggerated ex
pressions of Hippolytus on the other, who while combating
the heresy of SabeUius occasionally seems to suggest separa
tion of the Logos from God. It wiU be useful, however, in
this little account of an early theological dispute in the
Catholic Church, to see what was the doctrine taught by
Popes Zephyrinus and Callistus, which we maintain was the
doctrine of the Catholic Church in the first half of the third
century, on the subject of the Divine Personahty of the second
Person of the Trinity. Zephyrinus, advised by Callistus, came
pubhcly before the congregation and made this confession of
faith, "I know but one God, Jesus Christ, and besides Him
I know no one that was born and has suffered." About fifty
years later the confession of Pionius and the martyrs of
Smyrna in the Decian persecution (circa a.d. 250) was to
the same effect. We will give the words of these famous
confessors from the " Acts " of their martyrdom.* Pionius
and his companions being asked, "Whom do you worship as
God ? " replied, " The omnipotent God who made heaven and
earth, and aU that they contain, whom we know through
His Word Jesus Christ." Then when Asclepiades, one of
Pionius' companions, was interrogated, " Whom do you worship
* The " Acts " of Pionius of Smyrna, and his companions, circa a.d. 250, is
considered an historical document of the highest value. (So Bishop Lightfoot and
AUard.)

312 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
as God?" he answered, "Christ." The judge then said,
" AVhat, then, is that another ? " " No," said Asclepiades, " It
is the same whom they (his companions) had confessed a
little while before." When they were interrogated again at
the altar of the heathen deities and again confessed that they
believed in the God who made the world, the judges asked,
" Are you speaking of Him who was crucified ? " Pionius
rephed, " I speak of Him whom the Father sent for the salva
tion of the world."
It was thus that the Church of Rome which, to use
Dollinger's words, "by its superior grandeur, antiquity, and
dignity formed the centre of the whole Christian world, to
which all directed their eyes, with which all held com
munion and intercourse," ivithout, however, asserting* any
special claim to enforce obedience from other Churches, slowly
formulated the great doctrinal definitions of the Divine
PersonaUty of Christ, which in the next century, the age of
great councils, were expressed in the great Cathohc creeds
and expounded in treatises by Cathohc theologians such as
Athanasius. To sum up, Hippolytus, the learned Roman theologian,
in the first instance, argued against and combated the
SabeUian errors. In his zeal to refute what was undoubtedly
false teaching he went into the other extreme, and the Popes
Zephyrinus and Callistus, viewing his definitions as dangerous,
corrected them ; and their exposition of the doctrines of the
Divine Personahtj" of the Son, adopted by the Roman Church,
was virtually identical with the language used by prominent
martyrs of the Faith, such as Pionius of Smyrna and his
companions about fifty years later.
The comparative reticence we have before noticed in early
Christian theology in the matter of the Divme Personality of
the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity is very marked in
the works of Hippolytus. This great scholar and divine, who
taught in Rome roughly from a.d. 190-230, gives to this
article of faith exactly the same kind of testimony as did
* The haughty claim of Stephen, Bishop of Eome, to a general supremacy in
his controversy with Cyprian of Carthage, was advanced about half a century later.

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 313
the yet earlier Christian writers. They bear witness to its
truth, but at the same time they dwell but little upon it.
Now Hippolytus has been charged by students of his earlier
long-known writings with ascribing no Personality to the Holy
Spirit ; and the newly discovered great work we have been
speaking of apparently bears out this contention, for no
mention of the Holy Spirit occurs in the summary of doctrine
in his Tenth Book. StiU that Hippolytus did hold and
teach the Divine Personality of the Third Person is clear
from a passage in his treatise against Noetus of Smyrna, one
of the reputed founders of the Patripassian heresy. These
words are clear and most definite, and run as follows : " By
means of the incarnate Logos we recognise the Father, we
believe in the Son, and we adore the Holy Ghost." And
again he writes: "The Father has put all things under
Christ, excepting Himself and the Holy Spirit."
SECTION II. — CAETHAGE: TERTULLIAN.
Thanks to the discovery of the writing of Hippolytus, Ave
have learned much of the inner life and activities of the
Church in the Metropolis of the Empire circa a.d. 200-225.
We possess for the same time ample testimony to the influence
and work of Christianity in another part of the Empire in
the teaching of a powerful Christian writer of the great
province of pro-consular Africa.
At this period internal dissensions and controversies, similar
to those which, as we have learned from Hippolytus, were then
agitating the congregations of Rome and central Italy, were also
disturbing the peace of the Carthaginian and North African
communities. There were evidently in the teeming, busy Christian life
of the early years of the third century two parties fiercely
contending for their own special views of government, of
organisation, and of discipline — Rome and Carthage, those
great centres of population, being no doubt representative
Churches. What was going on in these capitals of Italy and
North Africa, on a smaller scale was going on in Lyons and

314 EABLY CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Ephesus, in Antioch and Alexandria. We will here speak in
some detail of TertuUian's evidence, not only ample and
varied, but provided by a great scholar and a conspicuously
earnest and able man. When we have summarised some of
his testimony we wUl endeavour to show how it came about
that these grave disputes on Christian discipline and organisa
tion arose at this particular juncture.
TertulUan has been accurately described as the contem
porary of Hippolytus. Born somewhere about the middle
of the second century in North Africa, in his early years
he was trained as a Pagan, and for some time appears to
have been active and even conspicuous as a jurist at Rome.
The date of his conversion to Christianity is uncertain. But
it seems probable that the turning point in his career can
be dated between a.d. 190 and 195. In a.d. 197 we find
him settled at Carthage, where he became a presbyter of
the Church. His Uterary activity as a Christian writer and
teacher lay mainly between a.d. 197 and a.d. 230 or there
abouts. In A.D. 202-3 he became persuaded that the Mon-
tanistic preaching in Phrygia was the work of God, and from
this date more or less his teaching and writings were coloured
with some of the Montanistic errors. His strong bias in
favour of an extreme asceticism to be observed by earnest
Christians no doubt largely influenced his subsequent ad
vocacy of those Montanistic doctrines whose austerity was
their central feature.
He was a writer of rare originahty and genius, a keen
observer, a vivid word-painter, but often passionate and
exaggerated in his exhortations and rebukes. He ranks
among Christian scholars as a profound scholar and thinker,
an indefatigable and laborious student, gifted with splendid
eloquence and intense earnestness. It may well be conceived
that, in spite of his grave errors and mistakes, his influence
upon the Church life of his day and time was enormous.
His style has been picturesquely described, and with some
justice, as "Dark and resplendent as ebony"; and "in some
respects," it is added, " his life and work had something in
common with that of the Apostle S. Paul."

INNER LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 315
Evidently the same feeling was working in Tertullian at
Carthage as actuated Hippolytus in Rome; a persuasion that
the Church in the persons of its responsible leaders had left
its first love, and was sanctioning a more lax and easy way
of living than had been set forth as the pattern life by the
Apostles and the teachers of the first hundred years of the
existence of Christianity as a religion and a life.
Many of the very same innovations in discipline and
conduct which Hippolytus tells us had been introduced in
the course of the pontificate of Zephyrinus at Rome imder
the influence of his adviser Callistus, we find more or less
dwelt upon, only with increased elaboration of detail, by the
Carthaginian teacher.
But it is the hard and austere way of life which TertulUan
and his school prescribed as the only way which a Christian
ought to tread which especially calls for mention here. The
aspect of Christian society was very different when TertuUian
and Hippolytus taught to what it had been a hundred years
before when Ignatius lived and suffered, when a Polycarp
ruled the Church in Smyrna, and an Irenseus as a young
man listened to his words.
The Christian communities in important cities were no
longer largely made up of the poor or small traders, of
freed-men and of slaves, with a sprinkling of the nobility,
and with perhaps here and there a wealthy patrician and a
senator. Such humble folk could well busy themselves in
their modest avocations, could live as it were in retirement,
could separate themselves from pubhc rejoicings in which
idolatrous ceremonies were largely mixed up, could keep
aloof from municipal and public affairs. But as the second
century wore on the communities began to include in their
roU of members aU sorts and conditions of men, from the
lowest to the highest. TertuUian's own memorable statement,
already quoted, was no mere piece of rhetoric, but told a
plain fact. " We (Christians) fill the cities, the houses, the
fortresses . . . the Senate and the Forum, the palace of
the Prince, we are found among the municipahties, among the
civU servants of the State, in the very camps of the armies."

316 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
New ideals must surely be set forth, new rules for the
Christian life, a different code of restrictions must be laid
down, for such a wide-spread society as that which TertuUian
so vividly portrayed. What were aU these Christians to do
amidst such environments ? How were they to conduct
themselves in the Senate, in the palace of the Csesars, in the
Forum where laws were administered, in the municipal councils
where the affairs of the City were discussed and arranged ?
It was especially in aU public and municipal business, so
largely and generaUy shared in by the Romans of the Empire
in the provincial cities as well as in the metropolis, that these
difficult questions came painfuUy to the front. It was in
all the acts of official life that the Christian was so sorely
tried. The old Roman religion was apparently inextricably
mixed up with pubhc business, and Roman reUgion of course
meant idolatry. The magistrates were perpetually bound to
ofler sacrifices, to invoke the aid of the invisible gods, to be
present at ceremonies in which the worship of the genius
of the Emperor and one or other of the national deities
formed a regular and necessary part of the ceremonial. And
the revival of Paganism under the Empire, dating frbm the
days of the great Augustus, accentuated this idol-worship,
this perpetual association of religious ceremonies with all state
and official proceedings. In the second century Christians
largely stood aloof for these reasons from all pubhc duties
and aU public services.
We have seen already how conspicuously loyal to the
Emperor and the Government were the foUowers of Jesus.
By word and act they were the most obedient, the most
submissive of subjects. They prayed constantly for the
CoBsar, in the closet as in their assemblies for divine worship;
they obeyed without murmur the regulations and ordinances
of his government. They were never numbered among the
frequent turbulent disturbers of the established rule; indeed
they regarded the majesty of the Empire as the surest
earthly guarantee of public peace and security. In the
frequent revolts in the provinces no Christian ever took
part. Among the followers of the various pretenders to

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 317
Imperial rank who from time to time arose in different
parts of the Empire no Christian was ever found.
In the authentic proces verbaux of the trials of accused
Christians, in the Acts and Passions of the Martyrs which
are accepted as genuine and undoubted pieces, very rarely
if ever is a disloyal word reported to have been uttered by
the Christian sufferers in the course of the harsh and often
cruel interrogatory. Only one charge which seemed to touch
the fringe of disloyalty to the State could not be answered.
There is no doubt but that the followers of Jesus of Nazareth
for a considerable period shrank from any sharing in public
duties. Imperial and municipal. This abstention was a well-
known accusation often thrown in the teeth of the Christian
Romans, and one that could not be easily refuted. They
were reproached with being a useless folk, taking no part
nor share in any public business. How could they — as
such a sharing involved idolatry in a hundred forms ! It
was a common term used for them, "the useless folk," an
ingenious play upon their name of Christian a-^prja-rot (Achrestoi)
or the Useless Ones.
And as time went on the grave difficulty increased with
their numbers, and the higher social position of the converts.
As the third century dawned a climax was reached, and the
chiefs of the Christian sect had to face and to solve a formid
able problem.
Two parties seemed to have been formed, each adopting
a different policy, the one endeavouring to make it easier
for the follower of Jesus to bear his part in the ordinary
life of a citizen, the other uncompromising, stern, harsh,
refusing to make any allowances, rigidly rejecting any idea
of compromise. Men like Zephyrinus, the Bishop of Rome,
A.D. 202-219, and Callistus, his minister and subsequently his
successor, a.d. 219-223, seem to have represented the party
of moderation and compromise. Hippolytus of Rome and
Tertullian of Carthage are types of the more stern and unbending
teachers, who pressed upon Christians the duty of a complete
and total separation from the ways and pursuits of ordinary
public and civic life.

318 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
We have spoken of Hippolytus. From Tertullian, how
ever, we can gather still more of the teaching of these
uncompromising and in many respects unpractical Christians.
He deals with well-nigh aU classes of citizens and their occu
pations, dwelling with some detail upon arts and crafts.
Especially in his treatise on " Idolatry," he naturaUy inveighs
against the artists who fashioned the idols. But in his
invective he travels beyond the mere fabrication of the
images directly designed for worship in the temples and
shrines, and condemns aU the ornaments and adornments
intended for the houses of the rich, if in any way they were
connected with the stories and legends of the gods. The
artists and architects, the very workmen in their service, are
all included in his sweeping condemnation. No true Christian
could be included in their numerous class, for fear lest any of
their handiwork should be connected with subjects bearing
upon the popular idolatrous mythology of the Empire. But
the stern purist, not content with his charge to avoid the
popular arts and crafts, condemns aU commerce, all trading,
based as he conceived it to be upon greed and covetousness.
He goes further still in his rigorous catalogue of unlawful
ways of life. The office of a teacher in a pubhc school is
one that no Christian ought to hold. Such a teacher in the
course of his instruction will be compelled to expound to
the young the fables of the gods of Rome, the attributes of the
deities, their genealogies, and their supposed powers. Curiously
enough in another writing he suffers the young to frequent
these public schools, though he forbids the Christian to take
any part in the instruction supplied there.
On the question of amusements he is most severe. The
passion of the Roman of the Empire for games is weU known
The theatre, the circus, the gladiatorial games, entered into
the life of all classes and orders. No follower of Jesus must
be seen at any such exhibition. AU are ahke forbidden.
In the tract De Spedaculis he tells with great force the
story of an exorcist commanding an unclean spirit to quit
the body of a believer, and asking the demon how he dared
enter into the body of a servant of God. The evU spirit

INNEB LIFE OF THE CHUECH. 319
replied, "I found the servant of God in my own home," i.e.
in the theatre.
A yet graver point was decided by this representative
teacher of the purist Christian school of the early years
of the third century. He discusses whether it were possible
for a Christian man to undertake any public function or
office connected with the State, and repUes: "Yes, it would
be possible to accept a magistracy if this could be done
without offering sacrifices, or having anything to do with the
temples of the gods ; such a position might be accepted if it
did not besides involve condemning accused citizens to prison
and to torture." On the whole Tertullian emphatically decided
against the possibUity of a true Christian assuming the responsi
bUitles of a public functionary.*
Among the stern precepts put out by the extreme school,
of which we are speaking, among these forbidden ways of
life so eloquently denounced by the great master Tertullian,
it wUl be especially interesting to see what he says of the
soldier's career. Could a Christian serve in the army of which
Rome was so proud, whose splendid successes had won her
the sovereignty of the largest part of the then known world,
whose discipline and courage continued to expand and protect
her enormous frontiers ? Here, again, TertuUian's warning
words addressed to that influential section of the Church of
which he was the most distinguished teacher, incidentally tell
us how widespread was the Christian sect at the beginning
of the third century. The Roman army, circa A.D. 200, was
full of Christians, "We are of yesterday, and we have filled
. . . your camps." "Along with you we fight" (Apol.
37, 42). The opening section of the famous treatise De
Corond incidentally implies how very numerous were the
Christian soldiers serving in the third or Augustan Legion.
Were aU these Christian soldiers of Rome in the wrong ?
Was mihtary duty incompatible with the Christian profession ?
TertuUian decides that such a way of life was wrong for a
* This is weU summed up in his words : " Nobis nulla res magis aliena quam
publica " (" There is nothing that can be conceived more aUen to a Christian than
being involved in public duties"). — Apologia, 38.

320 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Christian ; but his words here are less violent than the ex
pressions he uses when he inveighs against other pursuits
which he considered were unlawful for the followers of Jesus.
" Shall it," he says, " be held lawful to make an occupation
of the sword, when the Lord proclaimed that he who uses
the sword shall perish by the sword ? And shall the son of
peace take part in the battle when it does not become him
even to sue at law ? " (De Corond, 11).
But here again the opinion of the Catholic Church was
against the rigorous school whose opinions Tertullian voiced.
As a whole the Church of the third century leaned upon the
temperate words of John the Baptist, speaking to the soldiers
of Rome (S. Luke iii. 14). It referred to the favourable
judgment passed upon the centurions of the great army (S.
Luke viL 1, 10, and Acts, Chapter x.), and it remembered
the general kindly mentions of soldiers in the Gospels and
Acts, and so never discouraged Christian men from foUowing the
standards of the Empire.
In times of persecution TertuUian expresses very strongly
what in the eyes of his school was the duty of Christians —
anything like evasion, concealment or flight he considered
argued culpable weakness. But, on the other hand, the pohcy
of the Church largely discouraged everything which could be
construed as bravado, or useless exposure on the part of
believers. Indeed, in certain cases money was given by in
dividuals to the police authorities with a view of staying per
secutions. Such acts were most strongly deprecated and con
demned by TertuUian's school, to whom, indeed, martyrdom
was rather to be courted than shunned.
Thus complete separation on the part of the Christian
communities was urgently pressed by the extreme school of
Christian thought. To carry into effect their rigorous precepts
everything must be given up ; if necessary, poverty must be
accepted, rank and position forfeited. Even the customary
public courtesies must be abandoned; when, for instance, a
frontier victory of the Emperor and the army, in one of the
perpetual Avars which Avere being Avaged by the Empire, was
announced in Rome or in a provincial city, it Avas the custom

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 321
to illuminate and to adorn the houses with flowers. No Chris
tian must share in this seemingly innocent courtesy to the
Sovereign and his legionaries, for such simple rejoicings would
seem to imply a homage to the gods of Rome. Thus the gulf
between the Christian subject of Rome and the ordinary
citizen would be constantly widened, and the ill-feeling with
which the votaries of the religion of Jesus were generally
regarded among the populace would be constantly deepened.
Counsels of moderation, such as S. Paul gave in such
writings as 1 Cor. vui., were explained away. Examples such
as Daniel and Joseph in the Old Testament history, who hved
without giving offence in a court where idol-rites formed part
of the State ceremonies, were set aside. The separation must
be complete. In the family life, in public Ufe, in trade and commerce,
no modus vivendi was possible in the eyes of this stern and
rigorous school, which asserted itself so powerfully in the
early years of the third century. "Fast," Avrote the great
rhetorician in his fiery zeal, " because fasting will train your
body for martyrdom, your skin wiU be strengthened to bear
the iron nails ; when your blood is weU-nigh exhausted you
wiU bleed the less beneath the scourge." "Dread," so he
apostrophised the Christian women, " marriage and maternity ;
how AriU children profit you, since you must leave them as
you go to the executioner, since their longing and your prayer
must be that God should take them soon to Himself ? " And
again, " Accustom your limbs rather to fetters than to brace
lets of gold : on that neck of yours now encircled with chains
of pearls and emeralds, leave a spot where the sword of the
hctor can faU. The age for Christians is no golden age.
The robes which the angels are bringing you, remember, are
the robes of martyrdom." * Life, in the eyes of these grave
ascetic teachers, Avas coloured by the thought of a bitter per
secution ever close at hand. And persecution to these zealots
seemed always to be desired rather than to be dreaded.
* See the treatises of TertuUian, De Jejunis, 12 ; and Ad Uxorem, 1, 5 ; De
Cultu Feminarum, 11, 13. In these quotations the paraphrase of Champagny (Xes
Antonins, viii.) has been mainly foUowed.
V

322 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
But wiser and more temperate counsels on the whole pre
vailed in the Church. At Rome the policy of the community,
guided by such bishops and teachers as Zephyrinus and
CaUistus, tended to bridge over the chasm which yaAmed
between the Christians and the Empire ; and the circumstances
of the time which we shall presently consider, aided them in
their endeavours. The poUcy of the rigorous school of such
earnest and devoted though fanatical men as Hippolytus and
TertuUian found no place in the teaching of the Cathohc
Church. A little later, but before the middle of the century
(the third), we find such a great and revered bishop as Cyprian
of Carthage even vrithdrawing himself for a season from the
scene of danger ; although when he judged that the time
was come when an example of fearless courage was needed,
he returned to his post of danger and duty, in the fuU
consciousness that such a retum in his case involved certain
death. And it wiU be seen on careful examination that the cir
cumstances of the time were pecuharly favourable for the
development of the policy of the moderate Christian leaders
who in good earnest sought for a possible modus vivendi for
Christians in the Empire ; for the party of common sense who
longed for an opportunity of doing their duty to the State as
weU as to God. These teachers wished to see their flock good
patriots as weU as good Christians. No fundamental principle,
of course, must be given up, no real concession to idolatry
must be made ; but, on the other hand, no rash protests must
be advanced, no impossible exclusiveness must be claimed
Where it was possible, the common Ufe of ordinary citizens
must be shared in, and the common duties of citizenship must
be discharged by the foUowers of the Crucified.
For the first and second centuries such a rule of life was
impossible. During this period a well-nigh ceaseless perse
cution of Christians was maintained by the Government. Up
to the time of Nero the Church grew up in sUence and in
profound obscurity. From a.d. 64, the date of the cruel Neronic
persecution, for weU-nigh one hundred and thirty years, the
attitude of the Government tOAvards the Christian was one of

INNEB LIFE OF THE CHUECH. 323
persistent hostility. During these years there was never any
real cessation of persecution. In some part or other of the
Empire it was ever raging ; over the votaries of the proscribed
religion the sword was ever hanging suspended. The first
considerable interval of general stUlness was enjoyed by
Christians from the middle of the reign of Commodus to the
middle of the reign of Severus, roughly from a.d. 186 to
A.D. 202, some sixteen years. Then in a.d. 202 bitter perse
cution began again, raging for some nine years, more or less
in all parts of the Empire. When Severus died in a.d. 211,
a .long time of stiUness set in, and for some twenty-four years
the Christians enjoyed general immunity from aU harrying;
indeed, they were treated even vdth favour. Then the Emperor
Maximinus reigned between two and three years, which were
again a period of unrest and persecution. Then after another
twelve years of stillness a terrible reaction set in — the reaction
which Christian annalists paint in lurid characters under the
well-known name of the Decian persecution. Decius was
Emperor from a.d. 249 to a.d. 251. This resumA of the periods
alternating between persecution and stiUness brings us to the
middle of the third century.
Thus it AviU be seen between a.d. 186 and a.d. 249 the
Christians hved for well-nigh fifty-two out of those sixty- three
years comparatively unmolested ; often, indeed, as we have said
looked upon with some favour. In the earlier years of the
first Severus (a.d. 193-211) there were Christians not only in
the Imperial palace, but also in the Senate; and during the
reign of Alexander Severus (a.d. 222-235) the Imperial house
hold was largely composed of Christians. The instructions of
the great Alexandrian teacher Origen were welcomed by
persons of the highest importance in Rome as in the provinces.
The Emperor Philip (a.d. 244-249) was even said to have been
baptised into the Faith, and in these quiet years many pubhc
functionaries were openly Christians.
Encouraged by these periods of quiet, periods which now
and again showed signs of even something more than toleration,
the responsible leaders of the Cathohc Church, seeing in this
changed aspect of public feeUng towards Christianity "the

324 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM
finger of God"* sought how they could in laAvful matters
promote the groAvth of this kindUer disposition towards them
displayed by the State.
Severus (a.d. 193-211), some time before the close of the
second century, published a law enabling the Jews to hold
the office of decurion without taking part in any of those
sacred functions which belonged to the ceremonial department
of the municipal office in question if such sacred functions
were repugnant to the principles of their Faith. Now there is no
certain proof, it is true, of the promulgation of a law setting forth
such a formal exemption in the case of the Christians, but it
is clear that such an exemption practicaUy did tacitly exist,
and that in the third century, in such periods of marked stUl
ness as characterised the reigns of Alexander Severus and of
PhiUp, and the earher years of the Emperor Valerian, the
Christian believers might hold offices connected Avith the
Imperial court, or occupy magistracies and appointments
belonging to municipahties, Arithout being compeUed to share
in any public function of an idolatrous character. It must
be remembered, moreover, that these periods of stiUness for
the Christian population of the Empire occupied considerably
more than half of the third century. Origen's f testimony is
very decisive here when he speaks of Christians not avoiding
or shirking the common public duties of life. TertuUian's
words recently quoted, although rhetorical, are to the same
effect. But the third century was no golden age for Christians,
although they enjoyed long periods of comparative immunity
from harassing persecution. We have already computed
that during at least twenty-five years bitter persecution raged.
This was continued, though not throughout the whole Empire,
during some ten or eleven years of the fourth century, while
the final period of the war of Paganism against its A'ictorious
adversary,! which lasted some fourteen or fifteen years, and
* " Origen, for instance, refers to these periods of cessation of aU persecution
as owing to the direct interposition of Goi {Contra Celsum, iii. viii.); God thus
preventing the utter destruction of the Christian people.
f Origen's Contra Celsum, viii. 75.
X In the earlier years the persecution was mainly confined to the army.

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 325
is generally known as the Diocletian persecution, claimed
perhaps more victims than had any of the previous onslaughts.
It was the final attack, but it was at the same time the
most determined and terrible.
It seems strange that these fierce persecutions should
have arisen in an age which had witnessed long periods of
stiUness, showing that there was a possibility of the Pagan
Empire and Christianity existing, so to speak, alongside one
another, so long as a spirit of mutual forbearance existed, so
long as a wise toleration was displayed by the Imperial
government of a religion whose professors again and again
had shoAvn themselves the most loyal and peaceful of subjects
and citizens.
But the truth was. Paganism was stronger as a creed
than later generations have beUeved. Superstition wide-spread
and deeply rooted Uved on in quarters where it is difficult
to credit its existence. In the age of the Antonines we have
seen that the best and wisest among the Romans seem
firmly to have beheved in dreams, in oracles, in soothsayers,
in diviners, in all the strange and curious mechanism, so to
speak, of the Pagan system. It is scarcely possible to doubt
that the wisest and best of the Pagan sovereigns, the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, was a firm believer in these
strange mysteries of an old and dying religion, and Avas
superstitious to an extreme degree. And if Marcus was an
earnest beUever in these things, it is surely not difficult to
understand ¦ that men far inferior, to him in ability and
learning were in their day slaves to the same curious and
deep-rooted superstitions. We have to remember that it was
an adept in the occult sciences who persuaded the Emperor
Valerian in the middle of the third century to proscribe
once more the Avorshippers of Christ, while the awful
persecution of Diocletian in the first years of the fourth
century was the result of the pleadings of the men who
inspected the sacred victims oflered at the shrines of the
ancient deities of Rome.
With this spirit of superstition stiU living in the Empire,
ready ever to break out into open action, it is not difficult

326 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
to account for the sudden outbreaks of a fierce persecution,
which we shaU meet with now and again in the last hundred
and thirteen years of our thrilling story.
In close connection with these troubles in the inner hfe
of the Church of Rome, and in some measure of the Church
of Carthage also, troubles which were doubtless not peculiar
to these two most important centres, was a heresy which
threatened to divide the Church into two opposing camps
at a most critical period of her history — ^viz. circa a.d. 177
— a.d. 220 — ^when struggUng Christianity was carrying on a
life and death contest with Paganism. This heresy was
named Montanism, after its founder, the Phrygian Montanus.
The troubles which, as we have seen, so gravely disturbed
the Church of Rome were very real; they arrayed profound
scholars and theologians of blameless hfe and of the highest
reputation, such as Hippolytus and TertuUian, against ex
perienced prelates like Zephyrinus and CaUistus of Rome,
who were supported by all the organisation and power, and,
if we may use the later expression, by the pubUc opinion
of the Catholic Church.
These troubles arose from the changed conditions, notably
from the numbers and social position of the Christians, who
Avere now largely recruited from those classes which would
naturaUy participate freely in public Ufe. Hence the problem :
Were Christians to "come out from the world," to aim at
the formation of a Uttie society of exclusive rehgious devotees,
or were they to go on to a world-wide mission by more or
less adapting themselves to Roman society, its ways, its laws,
its customs ?
Now the Church, face to face with this new and changed
position, chose the second alternative : to use the graphic
language of a modern scholar, " She marched through the
open door into the Roman State, and settled down there
for a long career of activity, determining to Christianise the
State along aU its thoroughfares by imparting to it the word
of the Gospel, but at the same time leaving it everything
except its gods." But to do this the Church in some way
had to abandon its old disciplme and primitive severity, its

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 327
ancient apostolic simpUcity. And although the Christian
community and its responsible rulers adopted this altered
pohcy there were in its midst not a few " holy men of heart,"
devout scholars and deep theologians, who resented bitterly
the change of policy, and with all their power opposed it
and set themselves against it. This we have seen in Rome
when Hippolytus preached and vrrote against the movement,
Avhich he, and men who thought like him, deemed secular,
retrograde, or, to use a modern term, opportunist ; and in
Carthage we have sketched the working of a similar move
ment, where TertuUian, with yet greater vehemence and
ability, protested against this laxer teaching and practice.
The contest between the men who mourned over the decadence
of primitive Christianity, and the men of the new school,
Avas being carried on fiercely at Rome and Carthage as the
second century was expiring, and was continued in the first
decades of the third.
A good many years before these dates there had arisen
in the western districts of pro-consular Asia, in the province
of Phrygia, a sect of Christians urging a more exacting standard
of moral obligations than was beginning to be observed in
the Catholic Church, especially with regard to marriage,
fasting, and martyrdom ; and at the same time, in the person
of its founder, Montanus, advancing strange claims to the
possession of a special prophetic inspiration, in the sense in which
prophecy was understood in apostolic days. The headquarters
of the sect were the small and little known Phrygian towns
of Pepuza and Tymion. Besides Montanus himself, only two
women named Prisca and MaximiUa seem ever to have
asserted that they were endowed with prophetic gifts. They
professed to utter the direct commands of the Holy Spirit,
and the principal burden of their revelation was the necessity
of a more strict and holy life. Montanus appeared on the
scene about the year 156, when Antoninus Pius was reigning;
but for some twenty years his movement was confined to
Phrygia and the neighbouring districts.
After A.D. 177 Montanism, as it was caUed from its
founder, began to spread over a much wider area, and atten-

328 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
tion became gradually attracted to its claims and to its
teaching. There is no doubt that the urgency with which
the Montanists preached the imperative duty of a severer
life won to their ranks in different countries many eamest
souls who were utterly dissatisfied with the laxer discipline
of the CathoUc Church, and disapproved of the new policy
which was gradually being adopted by the Church of Rome
and other great communities. It was the ascetic preaching
of the Montanists which at first won them adherents rather
than their pecuUar beUef in a new and special outpouring
of the Holy Spirit.
On the other hand the strange and novel doctrine con
cerning a special and fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit
upon Montanus and his two female friends no doubt
seriously weakened the cause of the rigorists — the party
which set itself to oppose what they deemed the secularisation
of the Church — by causing their views to be associated
Avith the Montanist heresy. There was, in fact, no neces
sary connection. Hippolytus, for instance, one of the most
earnest of those who set themselves to denounce the new
departure in Church policy, in his famous work "On
Heresies," speaks with profound contempt of Prisca and
MaximiUa, the Montanistic prophetesses, whom, as he
said, the Montanists magnified as above the Apostles; and
he terms the majority of their books as fooUsh, and then
arguments as worthy of no consideration ("Refutation,"
Book VIII. 12, and X. 21). TertuUian, mdeed, adopted
the fuU teaching of Montanism far on in his career as a
teacher, but only when he found- that the chasm was broaden
ing every day between the old Christianity to which his
soul clung, with its primitive severity, its resolute refusal to
share in anything connected \rith the Ufe so inextricably
mixed up with the Pagan associations around, and the new
Christianity which more or less accommodated itself to the
life of the Empire.
The Catholic Church, however, as a Church, unswervingly
opposed Montanism. ApoUinaris, Bishop of Hierapohs, an
eminent theologian and a voluminous writer of Asia Minor

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH 329
in the last quarter of the second century, wrote strongly
condemning their errors. Indeed, the universal acceptance
by the Cathohc Church of the canon of the New Testement
before the close of the second century, an acceptance which
rigorously excluded aU other Avritings from the inspired
volume, was sufficient to brand as a deadly heresy any
teaching respecting a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit,
no hint of which appears in the inspired pages.
But, as we have remarked, Montanism for a compara
tively brief period was a power chiefly in consequence of
its protest against what may be regarded as secularism in
the Church, a departure from the old paths of primitive
Christianity. Besides its influence in Asia Minor and Africa,
in Gaul, too, it evidently had made a lodgment. This much
we learn from the sympathetic letter addressed to Eleutherus
(Bishop of Rome, a.d. 176 to a.d. 192) by the GaUican con
fessors, who, without expressing a definite opinion as to the
truth of the Montanistic claims, yet considered that com
munion should be maintained with the Asian zealots.*
In Rome, at one time late in the second century, accord
ing to Tertullian, there was clearly a disposition in the official
Church, if not to recognise the claims of Montanism, at least
to consider them favourably. Praxeas, however, who is
charged with introducing from Asia the SabeUian heresy
respecting the doctrine of the Trinity, succeeded in inducing
the Roman bishop to withhold his letters of conciliation to
the churches of Asia and Phrygia on the question. The ex
pressions of the great African master here are interesting.
" For after the Bishop of Rome " [either Eleutherus or Victor]
"had acknowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus, Prisca,
and MaximiUa, and in consequence of the acknowledgm«t
had bestowed his, peace on the churches of Asia and Phrygia,
* The words of the GaUican confessors in their letter to Eleutherus were :
" Montanus (and others) were esteemed by many for their gifts (as there were many
other wonderful powers of divine grace yet exhibited even at this time in difEerent
churches) ; they created the belief with many that they also were endued with
prophecy. " For these " they negotiated, as it were, for the peace of the Churches ''
with Eleutherus, and also with the brethren in Asia and Phrygia. — Eusebius :
S. E., V. 3.

330 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
he (Praxeas), by importunately urging false accusations against
the prophets themselves and their churches, and insisting on
the authority of the bishop's predecessors in the see, com
pelled him to recaU the pacific letter which he had issued."
(TertulUan, Adv. Praxean, cap. I.)
There is no question but that Montanism was the most
dangerous heresy as regards the peace of the Church which
had arisen in the first century and a half of its existence.
The various Gnostic heresies, it is true, were more far-reaching
and probably affected greater numbers in the great centres of
population. But the Gnostic heresies, as far as we are ac
quainted with them, were not Christian — were altogether out
side the pale of the Catholic Church. Montanism, on the
other hand, arose in the heart of Christian communities, and
in its burning advocacy of the old strictness and austerity of
primitive Christianity, awoke deep sympathy in the hearts of
many of the most eamest followers of Jesus, in spite of its
strange delusion respecting the message of the new prophecy.
With the exception of this grave delusion it does not
appear that on great doctrinal questions there was any real
difference between the Cathohcs and the Montanists, although
Hippolytus ("Refutation," x. 22) charges them Anth hold
ing Patripassian opinions. It would be difficult, however,
vdth our present knowledge, to brand them on this account
Avith holding any definite error, for the language at this
period on the subject of the Trinity was often loose and un
guarded. But the views of Montanists on the new prophecy were
amply sufficient to warrant the stem rejection which the sect
met Avith at the hands of CathoUc teachers. Montanism, after
an existence of some fifty years, was graduaUy stamped out.
It produced no more inspired prophets or prophetesses when
Montanus, Prisca, and MaximiUa had passed away; and after
the first decades of the third century very little is heard of it.
Only in Phrygia and its neighbourhood, the land of its nativity,
did it hold its ground. In these districts Montanistic com
munities are heard of as late as the fourth century. With
the exception of TertuUian no considerable writer or theologian

INNEB LIFE OF THE CHUECH. 331
appears in its ranks, and the adhesion of TertulUan in his
later life was gained no doubt largely owing to the uncom
promising stand of the Montanistic teaching against the new
and laxer policy of the Church.
SECTION III. — ALEXANDEIA : CLEMENT AND OEIGEN.
Theee were two great cities in the Roman Empire of the
second and third centuries of the Christian era which, from
their opulence, the number of their inhabitants and their
general commercial importance, occupied a position only second
to Rome itself The one was Alexandria, the capital of Egypt,
the other Carthage, the chief city of the wealthy and populous
province of North Africa. There is no doubt that in the
first days of Christianity the religion of Jesus penetrated into
these great centres of population. But it is only in quite the
latter years of the second century that their churches came
to occupy a prominent position.
In both these cities at that period arose teachers who
attained extraordinary prominence among aU the leading com
munities of Christians.
Alexandria was the emporium through which the trade
of Egjrpt, Arabia, and far-away India largely flowed on its way
to the capital and the Western provinces of the Empire. In
the days of the earUer Emperors it was said to contain as
many as three hundred thousand free inhabitants and an
equal number of slaves. Tradition ascribes to S. Mark the
introduction of Christianity into the Egyptian capital, which
subsequently became the cradle of Gnosticism, and the centre
of its strange philosophical speculations.
There is, however, Uttie to show that Christianity spread
among the native Egyptians, in what would now be termed
the "hinterland" of the great city, before the latter half of
the third century; we have leamed in late years much about
the condition of Egypt under the Empire, but all that has
come before us serves only to confirm the weU-knoAvn picture
of the historian of the Decline and Fall. " The progress of
Christianity was for a long time confined Arithin the limits of

332 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
a single city, and tiU the close of the second century the pre
decessors of Demetrius (Bishop of Alexandria, a.d. 189) were
the only prelates of the Christian Church. . . . The body
of the natives, a people distinguished by a suUen inflexibihty
of temper, entertained the new doctrine with coldness and
reluctance, and even in the time of Origen it was rare to meet
Arith an Egyptian who had surmounted his early prejudices in
favour of the sacred animals of his country. As soon, indeed,
as Christianity had mounted the throne, the zeal of those
barbarians obeyed the prevailing impulsion ; the cities of Egypt
were fiUed with bishops, and the deserts of the Thebais swarmed
with hermits." *
In the city of Alexandria existed a catechetical school,
dating, some think, from the days of S. Mark. The school,
after the middle of the second century, assumed a position of
considerable importance as a seminary of Christian instruction,
and its mastership was held by a succession of eminent men,
Avho spread its fame into distant countries.
The first of these distinguished teachers was Pantsenus,
whose teaching work in Alexandria seems to have begun
somcAvhat before a.d. 186. Of this Pantsenus we know httle
beyond the high testimony paid him by his pupil and successor,
Clement, who, after enumerating the great teachers at whose
feet he had sat, refers to Pantsenus in the foUowing remarkable
terms : " When I came upon the last (he was first in power),
having tracked him out concealed in Egypt, I found rest. He,
the true, the Sicihan bee, gathering the spoU of the flowers of
the prophetic and apostolic meadow, engendered in the souls
of his hearers a deathless element of knowledge. WeU they ''
[the teachers whom Clement had listened to], "preserving the
tradition of the blessed doctrine derived directly from the
holy Apostles Peter, James, John and Paul, the son receiving
it from the father (but few were like the fathers), came by
God's will to us also to deposit those ancestral and apostolic
seeds." t
* Gibbon, Decline and Fall, xv.
t Clem. Alex. Stromata, Book I., Chap. I., and see too Eusebius, S. E., v. U.
Eusebius says that Pantasnus was also expressly mentioned by name by Clement

INNEE LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 333
The second of the great masters of the Alexandrian school
Avas the famous Clement, whose words have just been quoted.
Clement's life story, beyond the fact of his having foUowed
his master, Pantsenus, in the headship of the Alexandria school,
is almost a blank, save for what we gather incidentally from
his surviving writings. He teUs us that he spent his earUer
years in search of wisdom, that he was the pupU of various
eminent teachers, but that it was in Pantsenus' teaching that
at last he found rest. He was driven from his work in the
school at Alexandria by the persecution of Severus early in
the second century, and tradition speaks of his dying about
the year 220. But although the details of most of his Ufe
are unknown, he has left behind him many Avritings, very con
siderable portions of which we stiU possess. These works of
his were widely read at the end of the second and through the
third centuries, and they exercised a great, even a lasting,
influence on the Catholic Church.
It was Clement who really introduced into Christian
teaching the study of heathen philosophy. Justin Martyr,
about a quarter of a century earlier, had in some measure anti
cipated him here in the view that a Christian training by no
means excluded the study of the great masters of antiquity ;
but the reading of Justin was altogether on a much narrower
scale than that of the great Alexandrian master. It may be
generally assumed that, prior to Clement, Christian teachers
viewed aU the great philosophers with disUke, and looked on
their writings as opposed to Christianity. Clement took a
broader and truer view of the great Greek masters, and
urged that in them might often be found glimpses of the
truth; that, in fact, the noble Greek philosophy was the
preparation of the Greeks for the full revelation of Christ.
It may be said that Clement and his successor, and in some
respects his disciple, the yet greater Origen, did for the schools
in the Sypotyposes (or " Institutions "). This work, however, is lost ; but Eusebius
especially refers to the above-quoted passage from the Stromata, which he believes
refers to this Pantsenus.
Eusebius, S. F., v. 10, also, but somewhat vaguely, speaks of Pantsenus having
undertaken a missionary journey to the nations of the East, travelling as far as
the "Indies," and subsequently returning to Alexandria.

334 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of Christianity what Zephyrinus and Callistus and their fol
lowers did for practical Christianity. The latter broadened
immensely its sphere of action, the former did the same for
its sphere of study, thus elevating Christianity from a posi
tion which there seemed some danger of its occupying,
as the religion merely of a devoted but narrow and ex
clusive sect, and enabling it to become the religion of the
world. Clement has been well represented as seeking the truth
from whatever quarter he could obtain it, beUeving that aU
that is good comes from God, wherever it be found. His
orthodoxy in deep fundamental questions, as far as it went,
has never been fairly impugned. He believed in a personal
Son of God, who was the Reason and .Wisdom of God, and
distinctly taught that the Son of God became incarnate.
This true scholar was a voluminous writer. His three great
Avorks— (1) "The Exhortation to the Heathen"; (2) "The
Instructor or Psedagogus " ; (3) " The Stromata or MisceUanies "
(UteraUy "The Tapestry") — we possess, complete or nearly
complete. They form a series, and are the largest and perhaps
the most valuable early Christian remains which have come
down to us, dating, as they do, oiUy a Uttie more than a
century after S. John's death. There is a long list of other
treatises and works by Clement given us by Eusebius and
Jerome, but with the exception of the treatise or more
probably the sermon, " Who is the rich man that is saved ? "
and a few fragments, these are aU lost. It is noteworthy
that all the Books included in the Canon of the Old Testa
ment, save Ruth and the Song of Solomon, are quoted as
authoritative in his extant works. In the New Testament
Canon he refers to and quotes from all the Books of the
Canon, Avith the exception of Philemon, the second Epistle
of S. Peter, and the Epistle of S. James.
The third of the famous teachers of the Alexandrian
Catechetical school was, in aU respects, a more distinguished
theologian and thought leader than either of his eminent
predecessors. Origen holds a unique place among the Christian
teachers of the first three centuries. Unlike either Pantsenus

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 335
or Clement, the story of his stormy and chequered career is
fairly weU knoAvn.
Born at Alexandria somewhere about a.d. 185, of Christian
parents, at an early age he Avas placed under the tutelage
of Pantsenus or Clement. His father, Leonidas, suffered
martyrdom early in the third century, and the young Origen,
who had displayed extraordinary talents and powers of work,
Avas soon placed by the Bishop of Alexandria Demetrius
at the head of the catechetical school in his native city.
But although thus early a prominent teacher, he remained
stUl an indefatigable student, not only of Christian lore but
of the principal Greek writers. He devoted himself besides
with great ardour to Hebrew studies. An apparently true
tradition speaks of his ascetic, devoted life. His fame as a
teacher and a profound scholar soon spread far beyond
Alexandria, which, however, remained the principal scene of
his literary activities for some twenty-eight years, though
he undertook many journeys to Rome, Syria, Arabia, Palestine.
It was in this period of his career that he was summoned to
visit Mamsea, the mother of Alexander Severus, who became
subsequently Emperor, to instruct her in Christianity. He
remained with this iUustrious lady some time, " exhibiting,"
as Eusebius (H E., vi. 21) teUs us, "innumerable illustra
tions of the glory of the Lord, and of the excellence of divine
instruction." It was about a.d. 228-30 that the real troubles of Origen's
life commenced. A bitter feud sprang up between Bishop
Demetrius and the world-renowned scholar. Many students
of the period somewhat reluctantly see in the hostUity of
the bishop a restless jealousy of the briUiant writer and
teacher ; they are probably accurate in their conclusions,
but at the same time Origen's apologists are compelled to
recognise in him a want of subordination, and at times even
an iU-balanced zeal; nor can his warmest admirers always
defend his theological opinions, which not infrequently took
the form of wild and somewhat baseless speculations. The
powerful bishop procured his banishment from Alexandria,
so long his home, and even his deposition from the status

336 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of a presbyter, to which office he had been ordained by the
Bishops of Palestine. Henceforward we find Origen hving
under the ban of the Alexandrian Church, and indeed of
many other important communities influenced by Alexandria.
He now took up his abode at Csesarea, where he organised
a school of divinity, the reputation of which, under his match
less teaching, was said to rival that of Alexandria. In his
later years we hear of him in correspondence with the so-
called Christian Emperor PhiUp, and his Empress. But it
was a mournful evening to the Ufe of the great and famous
scholar, and a poor guerdon after aU to live on thus con
demned, and viewed with suspicion, if not vdth positive
dislike, by a very considerable portion of the CathoUc Church,
for which he had laboured for so many long years vrith such
tireless devotion and conspicuous success. He was subse
quently arrested and maltreated by the Pagan authorities in
the Decian persecution; dying not long after the persecution
had ceased, about the year 254, at Tyre, where his grave
was still pointed out in the Middle Ages.
In some respects Origen was a foUower of Clement, his
teacher and predecessor in the headship of the catechetical
school, inasmuch as he was a profound student of the great
Greek philosophers. He even composed an important work
in ten books, of which oiUy fragments remain, in imitation
of, and bearing the same name as, the famous Stromata
of Clement. During a long Ufe of ceaseless work Origen
put out, so Epiphanius teUs us, as many as 6,000 volumes,
but to reach anything like this amazing number (which is
probably greatly exaggerated) every treatise, large and smaU,
every homily must have been reckoned as a separate volume.
Jerome, too, who at one time was a strong admirer of Origen,
says, " He Avrote more than any individual could read."
Perhaps the greatest of his literary achievements, and one
to which the friends and foes of the great Alexandrian must
unite in awarding unstinting praise, was his noble work in
criticism. He spent large portions of more than twenty
years in attempting to provide a complete revision of the
text of the Septuagint (Greek) version of the Old Testament

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 337
Scriptures. It is said that his studies in Hebrew were under
taken to qualify himself for this task. Large sections of this
work have been preserved, but the bulk of his notes and
texts, contained, it is said, in forty or fifty volumes, has
perished. It is supposed to have been burnt in the library
of Csesarea when that city was taken by the Arabs in a.d.
653. This scholarly and careful effort in Textual Criticism
was far in advance of anything undertaken in the Christian
Church for centuries after Origen's death.
Although the extant works of this most eminent teacher
are numerous, they bear no comparison to the number of his
lost writings. The enormous mass of his compositions may
be roughly divided as follows :
(1) His Textual studies, perhaps the most important of all,
of which we have already spoken.
(2) His Apologetics. Origen's principal work in this
department of theology, Avith which we are acquainted, is his
book "Against Celsus," written at Csesarea far on in his life,
when Philip, the so-called Christian, was reigning. This im
portant composition we possess in its entivetj. The writing
in question is considered, by many scholars, as the great
apologetic work of Christian antiquity. It bears the mark of
Origen's profound studies in ancient philosophies which clearly
coloured much of his more speculative theology. It has been
well said that his argument is most effective " when he appeals
to the spirit and power of Christianity as an evidence of its truth."
(3) His exegetical labours. These extend over the whole
of the Old and the New Testaments, and consist of Scholia,
short notes largely grammatical ; of Homilies, or Expositions ;
and of more or less elaborate Commentaries. Very few of all
these have been preserved in the Greek originals, but we
possess many Latin translations of portions of them.
It is in this department of his vast work that this true-
hearted toiler for God excited much of the animosity which
has in all ages pursued him. It was no doubt a dangerous
principle, and one that admitted of much perilous exaggera
tion to affirm, that things written in Holy Scripture which
offended his exegetical sense, might be fairly looked upon as
w

338 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
allegories. Of this danger, however, he evidently was sensible
when (De Principiis, iv., i. 19) he wrote the foUowing words :
"Let no one suspect that we do not beheve any history in
Scripture to be real, because we suspect certain events related
in it not to have taken place ... we are manifestly of
opinion that the truth of the history may and ought to be
maintained in the majority of instances." This whole section
of the De Principiis deserves careful study by both the
friends and foes of the famous Alexandrian master.
(4) Of his dogmatical Avritings only one important work
has come doAvn to us, the Ilepl 'Apxwv, or "Fundamental
Doctrines," and that m the Latin translation of Rufinus, the
translator of Avhich has in many passages taken upon himself,
as we know, to alter and " improve " upon the original The
Greek version which Origen really wrote has perished ; only
a few fragments have been preserved. It is from these mainly
that it has been ascertained that Rufinus has in various
places altered the original. The Stromata, above refeiTed
to, has perished, save for a few fragments.
In great essentials Origen was generally a Cathohc teacher ;
he held that Christianity was a practical and rehgious saring
principle, and he pressed home to the hearts and heads of
men that simple faith was sufficient for the renewal and
salvation of man Later, in times of bitter controversy, both
the Catholics and the Arians appealed to his teaching; but
the inferences of Arius in respect to his Christology were
distinctly unfair. It has been weU said that "a mind so
speculative as that of Origen, and so engrossed Arith the
deepest and most difficult problems of human thought, must
sometimes have expressed itself in a way hable to be mis
understood." It must, too, in forming any judgment on
Origen's statements, be ever borne in mind that "when he
lived and taught, no General Council had yet been held, to
formulate in clear-cut language the teaching of the Catholic
Church upon any of those great questions of theology which
convulsed the Christian world during the two centuries, the
fourth and fifth, which followed the century in which the
Alexandrian master thought and wrote."

INNEB LIFE OF THE GHUBGH. 339
There is no doubt that Origen gave grave offence to serious
theologians in his own day and in subsequent times, rather
by his isolated propositions than by his statements regarding
great Catholic doctrines. Some of these isolated propositions
from their very strangeness and novelty acquired a wide
notoriety, and, unfortunately, it is by these often somewhat Arild
speculations that Origen is best known. Those who, not
unrighteously, condemn these as purely speculative, as outside
if not contrary to Scripture, forget the real and massive work
of the great master's life, a work simply unique in the story
of Christendom. Textual critic, grammarian, exegete, homilist.
Christian apologist, teacher of the highest theology, Origen
was all these. From the days of the divinely taught Apostles
of the Lord no Christian scholar had arisen comparable to
him. In the long ages which have elapsed since "the pass
ing " of the Great Teacher, it Avould be hard to find his peer.
Among the most noted of the speculative propositions —
unheard of in those Holy Scriptures which Origen loved so
weU — which have been condemned by Catholic Chris
tianity, and are esteemed by many as blots upon the white
record of his blameless scholar Ufe, are his curious
doctrines respecting the pre-existence of souls, and his
teaching respecting punishments, which he held to be
merely corrective, being ordained in order that all creatures
may be eventuaUy restored to their original perfection. No
condemned soul, according to Origen, was without hope,
although thousands of years of torment might elapse before
the suffering to which the soul was condemned had vrrought
its cleansing effect.
There is no doubt, however, that the unmerited perse
cution he underwent during the later years of his life, which
separated him from the communion of his own Church of
Alexandria and of other influential churches, placed him in
a false position, and opened the door to much of the subse
quent onslaught on his reputation. During the latter years
of his Ufe Origen was clearly under the ban of the larger
portion of the Catholic Church — unfairly it seems, but the
fact still remains.

340 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
After his death his orthodoxy, rightly or wrongly, was
very soon widely impugned; but as early as the fourth cen
tury his memory found many able and zealous defenders,
amongst them the famous historian Eusebius, and even the
great Athanasius. Nor were these true scholars and divines
by any means alone in their generous advocacy of Origen's
claim to CathoUc reverence.
But after all they were in the minority. In the West
the famous and widely-read Vincent of Lerins, in the first
half of the fifth century, spoke of Origen as a warning and
example, in his well-known Commonitoriuvi, pointing out
how even the most learned of Church teachers might
become a misleading light. Even the school of Alexandria,
although, perhaps unconsciously, profoundly influenced by his
writings, repudiated the greatest of her sons, and the Church
of Antioch followed suit. In the year 553 Justinian and
the fifth (Ecumenical CouncU of Constantinople anathematised
the teaching of Origen.
In modem times, far removed from an age when jealousies
and prejudices unfavourably affected the Church's estimate
of his powers, both Romanists and Anglicans have come to
entertain a broader and nobler conception of the greatest
of the Church's scholar-writers of the first three centuries.
They do not attempt to condone his errors, but they unite
in acknowledging the mighty debt which the Catholic
Church of all ages owes to the great Alexandrian. For
instance. Bishop Bull, who Arill ever hold a high place,
perhaps the highest, among our Anglican divines, defends
his general orthodoxy; Avhile TiUemont, "the sure-footed"
historian of Port Royal, whose matchless erudition is one
of the household words of all fair-minded Cathohcs, Roman
and Anglican alike, whose praise is justly in all the Churches,
dares to say in the face of ancient condemnation and jealous
misrepresentation, " that although such a man might hold
heretical opinions, he could not be a heretic, since he Avas
utterly free from the spirit which constitutes the guUt of
heresy.''

341

CHAPTER XIII.
FEOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN.
SECTION I. — CAETHAGE: CYPEIAN.
Caethage in the first half of the third century of the Chris
tian era, Herodian tells us, was in population and wealth
the equal of Alexandria and second only to Rome. The
great city had a wonderful history; it had long disputed the
sovereignty of the Mediterranean seaboard Arith Rome, and
after a contest, which more or less went on for a century,
was completely defeated, and in the year 146 b.c. was burned
and utterly desolated. It was said that in the hour of its
ruin it contained 700,000 inhabitants. Under Julius Csesar
and Augustus it became once more an important and flourish
ing city and a mighty emporium of commerce. Its rare beauty
gave it an especial distinction among the great homes of
wealth and industry of the old world. "Faintly we may
picture to ourselves a material something not whoUy unlike
what Carthage was. Scarcely any city yields so many scenes.
The streets gathering themselves in unique symmetry to the
feet of sudden steeps and many tinted marble heights. Or
opening full on the ghstening quays and the breathless
harbours, graceful hiUs about it crowned with shrines and
villas . . . the vast lake where navies of commerce and of
pleasure rode close to the streets, severed by a thread from
the open sea, mountain crests in snow watching from the
distance, through all and over all that keen light and intense
blue of Africa."* But the city, literally matchless for beauty
* Archbishop Benson : Cypria^^Introduction. " The beautiful gardens
and shady, woody pleasaunces of the wealthy nobles and merchants of Carthage
stretched for miles outside the city, unmatched even at Eome."

342 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
and wealth, has experienced the strangest vicissitudes. It
arose, perhaps, grander than ever during the Empire after
its utter destruction in the Punic Wars. It was Avrecked and
desolated again by the Vandals under Genseric in the year
439 ; and in the last years of the seventh century " whatever
yet remained of Carthage was delivered to the flames by the
conquering Mohammedan Arabs . . . The very ruins of
Carthage have perished, and the place might be unknown
if some broken arches of an aqueduct did not guide the
footsteps of the inquisitive traveller."* Of material Carthage,
writes the last scholarly biographer of S. Cyprian, we have
less knowledge than of any great city. " Carthage has been
learnedly rebuilt in the air, its temples and streets mapped
and raised, but all are as visionary as a mirage."
In this magnificent city, and in the prorince of which it
was the centre, before the middle of the third century a
flourishing branch of the Christian Church existed, consisting
of many communities, and evidently elaborately organised.
Sixty-six bishops met Cyprian, the MetropoUtan, at the
Council held in Carthage in a.d. 253. In the Cyprianic papers
it is said that the names of as many as a hundred and fifty
African bishops occur, f
A striking fact is noticeable in connection with this North
African Church. It was here, not in Rome and Italy, that
Latin Christianity and literature first arose, here that the
earliest of the Latin versions of the New Testament Scriptures
was made. WhUe the Christian Church at Rome was still
Greek, a Church largely made up of foreigners resident in the
great capital, in Carthage the Roman and Latin speaking
population was in great measure Christian. No tradition has
reached us of the date when the rehgion of Jesus was first
introduced into this important prorince of the Empire.
Augustine suggests, when speaking of the names by which the
two Sacraments were knoAvn in Africa, " Salus " and " Vita,"
* Gibbon: Decline and Fall, chap. li. For a glowing picture of ancient
Carthage compare Salambo, by Gustave Flaubert.
t Archbishop Benson : Cyprian, Introduction. And of all these bishops not more
than one appears to possess a Punio name, the vast majority are Latin names.

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 343
that the names in question must have come through some
ApostoUc source. Among the listeners to Peter's famous
Pentecostal sermon were, we read (Acts ii. 10), "dweUers in
the parts of Lybia about Cyrene." The story of Jesus might
well have been spread along the African coast by these Jews
of Cyrene, who had listened to S. Peter.
But we have selected Carthage and Alexandria for our
especial study because, in the churches of these famous
Imperial centres, at the most critical moment in the early
story of Christianity, when the religion of Jesus was first
brought publicly face to face with Paganism, arose the four
greatest earthly makers of Christianity, who appeared in the
first two hundred and eighty years of stress and storm. We
have dwelt on the Alexandrian masters, Clement and Origen;
we have spoken, too, already, of the Carthaginian master,
TertuUian,* who taught and Avrote in the first quarter of the
third century. The last in order of time of these four great ones,
Cyprian of Carthage, who suffered martyrdom for the Faith in the
year 258, was in some respects the most eminent of them all.
As a writer, indeed, although his literary works are deservedly
famous, and were far-reaching in their influence, he was
inferior to the first three, Clement, Origen, and Tertullian ;
but he represents a type of man somewhat different from any
that had as yet appeared among the ranks of the Christian
communities. He was, it is true, a great scholar and thinker, but at the
same time he was, what such men usually are not, a born
leader, of a wondrously winning personaUty which aroused the
Avarmest and most affectionate devotion among his contem
poraries ; a devotion which survived him, as Ave see in the
references to him and his work again and again, in the Avritings
of Augustine in the West, and of Gregory Nazianzen in the
East. To this was added the halo of a white, pure life ; men
in different lands and of different race believed in his unswerving
integrity of purpose, even when they differed from his views.
* TertuUian and his Ufe- work were especially; dwelt upon in Chapter XII.,
because his influence and teaching were inseparably bound up with the important
school of thought which grew up at Eome under Hippolytus in the Pontificates
of Zephyrinus and CaUistus.

344 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
In some respects he is justly considered as the founder of
Latin Christianity. Deeply impressed by his training and
earlier associations Arith the majesty of the Roman strength
and Roman respect of law, he believed that the strength of
the Church was based upon its unity, and that this unity
depended upon its acknowledgment of the absolute supremacy
of the bishop — who alone could enforce discipline and order,
in matters of doctrine as well as in life.
Until the time of Cyprian, " the absolute supremacy of the
bishop had been little more than a lofty title, or, at least, a
vague, ill-defined assumption." Through his teaching and vast
influence it became "a substantial and world-wide fact." He
added little or nothing to the claims of the Episcopate put
forward by men Uke Ignatius or Irenseus — for Arith Ignatius
at the beginning of the second century the bishop was "the
centre of Christian unity"; Arith Irenajus, far on in the same
century, he was " the depository of Apostolic tradition."
Cyprian, in his teaching, closely followed these great masters ;
but he raised the Episcopate to a higher level, and put new
force into old titles of respect. With Cyprian, the bishop was
" the absolute Vice-gerent of Christ in things spiritual." He
was popularly elected, it is true, by the commons of Christ's
Church, but was no bishop untU he had received consecration
through bishops by transmission from times when the guidance
of the Apostles Avas present in the Church.*
From the position of lofty independence to which Cyprian
raised the Episcopate it has never since been deposed. His
theory underlies Catholic Christendom to-day. Wherever
it has been departed from, Church order has gravely suffered.
Rome, resting largely upon traditional statements of Cyprian,
which the great theologian never reaUy advanced, has subse
quently overridden the freedom of the Episcopate by a
usurpation unquestioned in a large portion of Western
Christendom, while a reaction against Rome in some of the
countries of North-Western Europe has deliberately set aside
bishops altogether and the episcopal theory of Church govern-
* Cf. Bishop Lightfoot, Dissertation on the Christiau Ministry in Fp. to
Philippians. Archbishop Benson, Cyprian, chap. xii.

FB03I DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 345
ment. From this fatal error has sprung much of the disorder
in doctrines, teaching, and ecclesiastical organisation which
so many serious members of the non-episcopal communities
honestly deplore.*
We shaU dwell with some detail upon the Church of
Carthage and upon its great chief, for much light will be
thrown thereby upon the inner life of the Church in his
day. Some serious, special difficulties presented themselves
in the heart of the charmed circle of the Christian com
munities. These had to be grappled with, and without delay,
for they threatened to disturb the Church's government and
gravely to interfere with its discipline and order.
Nothing is known of Cyprian's early life. A native most
probably of Carthage, we first hear of him about the year
246, in the reign of the Emperor Philip, at which date he was
the foremost advocate in the law courts of Carthage, and had
just joined the Christian community. He was possessed of
great wealth. His villa was magnificent, and his gardens
famed for their beauty. In the Christian Church he became
a deacon, then a presbyter, and with strange rapidity we find
him, on the death of the Bishop of Carthage, Donatus, called
by the unanimous voice of the community of believers to
the vacant chief post in the Church. Only five presbyters
are related to have been opposed to the popular election,
and these five for a long period remained in bitter antagonism.
Cyprian at first declined the high office thus thrust upon
him, but the mass of the Christian population of the great
city, no inconsiderable portion of the citizens, would hear
of no refusal. Cyprian then consented to accept the important
and arduous office. This Avas in the year 248. His great
reputation, his wide scholarship, his known eloquence and
high character, all designated the new convert as the most
fitting successor to Donatus.
When Cyprian became chief of the Christian society of
* The great and far-reaching Anglo-CathoUc Communion, which numbers in
its Episcopate bishops of sees situate in Great Britain, and in the yet greater Britam
beyond the oceans, has followed a via media between these two extremes. The
theory of Anglican episcopal government is largely that of Cyprian.

346 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the third city of the Roman Empire, only a few months
remained to the communities of the long period of stiUness,
of immunity from all persecution, which, with only a brief
interruption, had lasted some thirty-eight years.
The unlooked-for death of the Emperor Philip in a mUitary
revolt removed from the scene one who, if not a Christian,
Avas certainly the friend of the Christians. A very different
spirit was at once shown by his successor, the choice of the
poAverful army of Mcesia, which had revolted against Phihp.
The new Emperor Decius was no ordinary man. In the
" Augustan History " he occupies a very honourable place among
the small number of "good Emperors" who reigned between
Augustus and Diocletian ; and in later times is the subject
of a special panegyric in the brUliant pages of the historian
of the Decline and Fall. To Decius the presence of the
Christians in Rome and in aU the provinces, their numbers
and increasing influence, seemed one of the principal causes
of the deterioration of the Empire; and early in his reign
he promulgated a persecuting edict, the severest that had
yet been issued by the Roman Government. The text of
the edict has not been preserved, but its purport is weU knoAvn.
Its intention was evidently their externdnation throughout
the Empire. To slay them was of course, considering their
vast numbers, not practicable ; but every possible means was
to be adopted to induce the Christians to retum to the Official
Religion of the Empire. Gentle means of persuasion were to
be used at first, then severe measures were to be resorted to.
The profession of the hated religion was to be rendered im
possible. The edict was far-reaching; its prorision affected aU
ranks — aU ages. It was to run in Rome and the provinces alike.
There was no delay in putting ^ the stern decree into
execution. Early in the year 250 the Christian communities
were startled at the news of the martyrdom of Fabian,
Bishop of Rome. Of the other chiefs of the proscribed sect,
the Bishops of Antioch and Jerusalem died soon in prison,
Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, was only saved by flight,
Origen, the greatest living Christian teacher, was subjected
to cruel torture.

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 347
We have chosen to speak more particularly of Carthage,
where Cyprian had just been elected bishop, as the repre
sentative city at this juncture. When the order for persecution
arrived in the great North African capital the terror was
widespread. It affected all classes in the Christian population.
Anyone might be summoned and required at once to sacrifice,
and apparently many were brought to submission.
It is not improbable, considering the numbers who were
called upon in Carthage to declare "for Paganism," that a
general solemn " supplicatio " was arranged, to which aU
citizens were summoned, and that thus it would be seen at
once who Avould submit and who Avould resist. At all events
the immediate result was the imprisonment of a considerable
number of Christians, who were cruelly dealt with — confisca
tion of their property, rigorous imprisonment and torture,
and in some cases even death, quickly following upon the
arrest. Those who were steadfast, who endured any loss or
suffering sooner than apostatise, require no special mention ;
they only foUowed in the steps of the brave confessors who
in the successive persecutions for the past 186 years had, by
their steadfast endurance, been at once the strength and the
glory of Christianity. But in this Decian persecution in the
sad year 250 there were a great number of Christians whose
courage failed them, and who, to escape the loss of their
goods, to free themselves from the penalties attached to the
profession of their faith, consented to sacrifice, to burn incense,
or, strange to say, to purchase certificates (libelli) which officially
declared that they had sacrificed or burnt incense before the
altar of the " Divine Emperor " or some other deity of
Rome. It was a novel experience in the story of the Church,
this quick surrender on the part of Christians, this ready
denial of their faith, this strange submission to the gods of
Rome ; an experience as sad and grievous as it was unique.
We have not to search long before we find the causes of
this falUng aAvay of so many in the first hour of stern trial.
For some thirty-eight years, save for the brief interlude of

348 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
fitful persecution in the reign of Maximinus, all persecution
for the Name's sake had been unknown. For the first time
since the dread hour when the officers of Nero laid riolent
hands on the Christians of Rome, the followers of Jesus had
for a lengthened period enjoyed quiet and stillness, had
been aUowed to worship as they chose, had been permitted
openly to caU themselves by the name of Him they loved.
When the Decian storm broke over them only very old men
could remember the days of severe trial in the early years
of the century; indeed, to the contemporaries of Cyprian
persecution Avas rather a tradition than an experience. During
the long StiUness in many quarters laxity of living had
replaced the old grarity and austerity of the Christian hfe
lived so long amid the stress and storm of daily peril and
awful risk. Church discipline had become in many centres
sadly relaxed.
The bishops in many instances, whUe enjoying the privileges
of their rank in the community, had become engrossed in
the pleasures and busuiess of the life in the midst of which
they lived. Some had devoted themselves to agriculture,
some to commerce, some to banking and even to usury.
Not unknown in the Church circles of the middle of the
third century were even immoral chief pastors. Some of the
North African bishops were positively notorious for their
share in the slave trade of the Sahara! Ignorance, too, of
the fundamental doctrines of the Cathohc faith was not
unknown among the Church leaders. "Cold and dark are
the shades which are flung athAvart the bright tracts and
around the gloAving lights of the scenes of this early Church
life. If it were possible for such men to be bishops we can
understand hoAv among their proselytes they tolerated the
makers of idols and the compounders of incense, or among
their laity astrologers and theatrical trainers."*
These gloomy pictures of the Church of this period are
draAvn mainly from the epistles of Cyprian and the treatises
of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, who Avrote about a century
and a half later. * Archbishop Benson; Cyprian, i. 10.

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 319
It is easy to understand how, in a Church which contained
such unworthy members, some of them, even bearers of high
office in the congregation, would, at the first blast of a vigorous
persecution, fall away, and for the sake of preserving life and
all that made life pleasant, would deny the Name for which
their fathers had so gladly died.
Cyprian, we read, was appalled at the first rush of faith
less members of his flock to the Forum of Carthage or the
temples of the gods to sacrifice and to burn incense at the
heathen altars, and so, at what seemed an easy concession,
purchase safety and immunity. What happened at Carthage
was repeated at Rome and Alexandria, and in other great
centres of the Empire. It was even asserted, though no doubt
with exaggeration, that the majority of the Christians feU
away at this awful moment of trial.
The deserters from the cause were divided into two classes.
Those who sacrificed and burnt incense at the altars of the
gods " Sacrificati " and " Thurificati," and those who, for a sum
of money, large or small, purchased from the Imperial magis
trates certificates (libelli), that they had satisfied the officials
of the State of their "orthodox State Paganism." These last
were generally known as Libellatics, Libellatici. From the
accounts we possess of the subsequent trouble in the Christian
Church in deahng with these " lapsed Christians " who wished
to be received again into communion with the Church, a
great number of these libelli,* or certificates of Paganism,
must have been issued.
The reaction, however, soon came, and was remarkable.
Numbers of those who in the first moment of the terror had
fallen away and had consented to sacrifice, or to purchase
safety by means of a libellus from the State authorities,
begged to be admitted once more to communion with the
Church they had for a moment denied. It Avas a grave
* From the passages referring to the " Lapsi " in the writings of Cyprian
and Augustine there appear to have been two forms of these libelli; the more
usual being a certificate issued by the Eoman magistrate to the Christian, stating
that the recipient was a Pagan in the State sense, aud the second form being
a document given by the Christian himself, stating that he had formally denied
Christ, and had adopted the Pagan cultus.

350 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
difficulty how these repentant ones were to be treated. Some
of them voluntarily reappeared before the Imperial tribunal,
defied the edict, and gladly received the punishment of
confiscation, exile, or even death ; others in silence and in
secret renounced their weakness, and tried by a life of peni
tence to atone for their sin. Many of these availed them
selves of a strange privilege, claimed by those who had played
a braver part in the persecution, who for the Name's sake
had suffered the spoiling of their goods, had endured im
prisonment and torture, and now lay in prison waiting for
death. This was the right of at once restoring "lapsed"
persons to all the pririleges of Church communion. It is
not known how long this claim to a singular power or pririlege
had existed; probably it dated far back, and had its origin
in the extraordinary honour ever paid to confessors of the
Faith. Any request made by such brave and constant ones
would no doubt always be reverently listened to. But in
the Decian persecution, when so many feU away, the claim
was obviously liable to gross abuse.
This usage prevailed in other centres in Egypt and in
Asia, and, to a certain extent, in Rome ; but it was in Carthage
that it was most apparent.* There the confessors in prison
were literaUy besieged by crowds of the " Lapsi " begging for
" Letters of Peace " and reconcihation There was only one
in that harassed and haU-ruined community of Carthage
whose voice would be listened to in this hour of confusion
and dismay, and he was in exile. The thoughts of all serious,
anxious Christians in the North African province tumed to
Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, who, when the edict of

' A very strong and remarkable passage on this claim of confessors to be able
to forgive grave sin occurs in TertuUian's treatise, De Pudicitia, 0. 22, written
a good many j'ears before the Decian persecution. " Suppose now your martyr
beneath the sword, with head already poised for the blow ; suppose him on the
cross, with body already outstretched ; suppose him at the stake with the lion
already let loose; on the axle-tree with the fire already heaped, in the very
certainty, I say, and possession of martyrdom, who permits (the Church) to
condone offences whioh are reserved for God, offences whioh not even Apostles
have judged oondonable ? . . . Let it suflice the martyr to purge his own
sins."

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 351
Decius was put out, had withdraAvn himself* for a season
from the city, and from a temporary retirement watched the
storm, and helped to guide his harassed Church in its moment
of extreme difficulty and danger.
The great bishop from his retirement was dismayed at
this claim on the part of the imprisoned confessors — he
viewed it as calculated to destroy all discipline in the Church
and as capable of being used most mischievously, and he
wrote that as soon as possible a Council of Bishops should
be assembled at Carthage and at Rome, who would examine
the whole question of the unhappy "Lapsi," and devise a
wise and gracious method by which those who earnestly
desired it might be restored to communion.
The opportunity soon came. The life and reign of
Decius came to an end in a battle during the campaign
which the Emperor had undertaken against the Goths, who
were sorely pressing the Empire on its eastern fr-ontier, and
for some months confusion prevailed at Rome.
During the months of confusion which followed the death
of Decius on the field of battle the persecuting edict of that
Emperor, although not cancelled, was no longer pressed ; and
gradually once again a partial " stillness " Avas enjoyed by
the harassed Church. Cyprian returned to Carthage, and
Avithout delay summoned the bishops of his important
province to what is known as Cyprian's First CouncU of
Carthage. The date was a.d. 251.
The question of the treatment of the " Lapsed " was carefully
* Cyprian's retirement in this fiery persecution of Decius has been variously
commented upon. He was proscribed by name, and his death would have deprived
the Christians of North Africa of the one leader they possessed, on whose com
manding genius they relied for advice aud guidance. Cyprian was well aware of
this, and for the Church's sake withdrew from the scene of action, conscious that
his life, not his death, would be of most service in "the terror." His absolute
fearlessness of death, however, was shown some six years later, when he felt that
things were more settled and in better order, and that the great example of the
Bishop of Carthage dying for the Name would be the best thing for the Church.
So iu A.D. 257-8, about six years after the events of which we are now speaking,
when the persecution of the Emperor Valerian lay heavy on Carthage, resisting
all entreaties to fly, Cyprian quietly remained to die. His martyrdom wiU be
presently related.

362 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
gone into. The bishops and presbyters who had sacrificed,
or who had procured certificates (libelli) of compliance Avith
the State commands as expressed in the Imperial edict, were
deposed at once from their functions.
The laity who had obtained certificates, the class of
Libellatici generally, Avere treated with much consideration,
and were generally aUoAved to return to communion after a
period of penance. An inquiry into each case of apostasy
was, however, directed, which determined the period of
penance. Those who had actually sacrificed were not to be
received until the hour of death, and then only if they had
continued penitent. It seems, though this is not quite
clear, that in many cases this last severity was subsequently
mitigated or set aside, and none were eventually excluded
from returning to communion Arith the Church, The Roman
Church* accepted the Arise, and on the whole merciful ruling
of C3rprian and his Council, which indeed was generally
foUowed in aU the other great Churches.
This Council of Carthage, under the influence of Cyprian,
ignored the interference of the confessors in the matter of
the reconciliation of the " LapsL" Such an irregular inter
ference was considered, and rightly, a serious danger to any
weU-ordered system of organisation. (The principle of
"merits" of certain saintly persons supplementing the in
sufficiency of others, curiously reappears, in another form,
in the later history of the Church in the mediseval doctrine
of " indulgences.")
No grateful praise is out of place for Cyprian's merciPul
work in this difficult question of the restoration of the
erring. It passed into the code which has since regulated
the dealings of the Cathohc Church with sinners. No sin,
however great, is beyond the hope of pardon.
The great Bishop of Carthage at this time put out several

* There was a party in Eome which persistently took a far severer view of the
" Lapsi," and refused to receive again into communion any of the apostates. The
head of this party was one Novatian, who became a schismatical Bishop of Eome.
This grave schism, its widespread influence, and its long continuance, will be
noticed further on when the story of the Church at Eome is related in detail.

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 353
important treatises on the subject. Some of his wise and
generous conclusions were several times repeated or quoted
by Augustine, writing some century and a half later. With
Cyprian it was clear that " no human right exists to eradicate
tares, or to break the poorest earthen vessels in pieces.
Perfect freedom to become good com, or (using another
image) for the earthen vessel to make a golden urn of itself,
belongs to every soul." It was a gracious and authoritative
exposition of the Lord's parable of the tares,* and one which
the Catholic Church has written for ever in its Rule of Life.
The hope of restoration and reconciliation through the
Lamb's precious blood is the priceless inheritance of every
penitent sinner.
In a passage of the treatise De Lapsis, c. 16, beautiful
as it is true, Cyprian thus inveighs against those stern
puritans who would shut to sinners the blessed door of
hope. "The solace of everlasting life they steal away, uproot
the tree . . . wreck the ship ere it enter the haven . . .
they then assail anew the fallen, silencing their sorrows,
hushing the sobbing heart, disregarding the weeping eyes,
droAvning the entreaties of long and intense repentance
toward a deeply offended Lord — and all the while it stands
written, ' Remember fi-om whence thou art faUen and repent.' "
The lull in the persecution which foUowed the death of the
Emperor Decius was but of short duration. The circumstances
under Avhich it recommenced under his successor, the Emperor
Gallus, were singular.
The plague was no unknown scourge in the early centuries
of the Christian era. In the years 66, 67, 80, this fearful
malady had appeared and re-appeared in the Empire. From
the end of the ^cond century it was ever present in one or
other of the provinces. In the middle of the third century
the pest had attained vast proportions, and for some twenty
years we hear of its ravages in all parts of the Empire. It
* S. Jerome weU writes : " Monemur, ne cito amputemus fratrem, quia
fieri potest, ut iUe, qui hodie noxio depravatus est dogmate, eras resipiscat, et
defendere inoipiat veritatem " ; and compare Archbishop Benson, S. Cyprian,
ohap. iii. X

354 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
seems to have been a malignant class of typhoid fever,
accompanied by many distressing and dangerous complications,
very infectious and often terribly fatal to its countless victims,
and tending to return more than once to centres which it
had already desolated. In A.D. 261, for instance, it made its
appearance for the second time in Alexandria, and in four
years, we read, it had reduced the population of that great
city by about one-half In a.d. 262 it is computed that
Avhile it was at its worst in Rome about 5,000 persons died
daily in the capital city. In the year 252 it made its appear
ance at Carthage, where its ravages were terrible. The effect
of this frightful scourge upon the Pagan citizens of the
Empire seems to have been grievous. The worst passions of
men were stirred up. The sick were uncared for ; selfish greed,
unbridled lust and disorder, reigned unchecked ; physical
terror became the dominant feehng in life. A city when
attacked by the fearful malady became a vast charnel house ;
everywhere men only seemed to care for their OAvn safety,
Avhile crime and aU manner of wrong-doing increased Arith
incredible rapidity. The ordinary government was paralysed
in the presence of the universal terror.
In striking contrast to the selfishness and shameful excesses
of the Pagan population was the behaviour of the Christian
communities in these dread seasons. A wonderful picture, for
instance, is preserved to us of the courage and devotion of
the beUevers of Alexandria when the plague risited the great
Egyptian centre some nine years later than the risitation of
Carthage. There, under the influence and example of the
bishop, the celebrated Dionysius, the Christians showed a
noble pattern of self-sacrifice. In their tender care for their
stricken brother or sister they disregarded all heed of self by
even recklessly, as it seems, exposing themselves in their loring
ministration to the deadly infection. The words of the great
Bishop Dionysius, quoted by Eusebius (H. E., vu. 22), are
of singular interest : " Indeed, the most of our brethren by
their exceeding great love and brotherly affection, not sparing
themselves, and adhering to one another, were constantly
watching the sick, ministering to their wants Arithout fear

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 355
and without cessation, and healing them in Christ, haAre
departed most sweetly with them." And further on he adds :
" The best of our brethren indeed have departed life in this
way, some indeed presbyters, some deacons, and of the people
those that were exceedingly commended. So that this very
form of death, with the piety and ardent faith which accom
panied it, appeared to be but little inferior to martyrdom
itself They took up the bodies of the saints with their
hands, and on their bosoms cleaned their eyes and closed
their mouths, carried them on their shoulders and composed
their limbs, embraced them, clung to them, and prepared
them carefully (for the grave) with washing and garments,
and ere long they themselves shared in receiving the same
offices, those that survived always following those before
them." But self-sacrificing and devoted as were the ministrations
of the members of the Christian communities of Alexandria
and other great plague-stricken centres of population to their
brethren in the Faith, the teaching and example of Cyprian
when the terrible pestilence was raging at Carthage struck a
new note of pity. Pontius, his deacon and biographer, tells
us how Cyprian urged upon his flock that to help their own
people was, after all, but an act of slender merit ; the perfect
Christian must pray for all alike, must minister to all alike
in their great need. There must be no distinction of person,
no inquiry as to creed ; the Pagan and the persecutor must be
succoured as well as the feUow-Christian. The believer must
live up* to his name and his glorious ancestry, he must
remember that God's sun shines for all, and His rain falls on
the fields of the just and the unjust alike. The servant of
God, then, must surely follow his Lord's example.
Such teaching had never been heard since the liring voice
of Jesus had ceased to speak to men. And the words of
Cyprian of Carthage have never been forgotten. His teaching
here. Christlike as it was generous, has been followed by every
Christian nation on the earth, and the countless hospitals of
* The striking words of Pontius are worth quoting here : " Eespondere nos
decet natalibus nostris" (Pontius, Vita Cyp., 9).

356 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the world, raainly the outcome of the devotion and love of
the followers of Christ, minister to aU sufferers, simply
regardless of race or creed.
Yet for their devotion and self-sacrifice the Christians of
Carthage received but a sorry guerdon. The Emperor GaUus,
dismayed at the progress of the plague, thought to avert the
erident anger of the gods of Rome by means of solemn pubhc
sacrifices throughout the Empire. The non-attendance of
Christians at these Pagan celebrations excited the anger of
the multitude, who once more fancied that the Avrath of the
immortals was evoked by the teaching and practices of the
mighty sect groAring up in their midst who taught men to
shun their altars. Thus it came to pass that the general per
secution, which had died away when Decius perished, fiamed
up anew, and the Decian edict, which had never been revoked,
was again set in force; while in Carthage, where a singularly
famous Christian teacher swayed a great community by the
magic of his words and the splendid devotion of his acts, the
menacing cry was heard, " To the lions Arith Cyprian ! "
The persecution of GaUus, though sharp and general, was
but of short duration; for once more a mUitary revolt put an
end to the Emperor's reign and life. And the legions, who
made and unmade at their fickle pleasure the lords of the
Roman world, saluted as Emperor Valerian the Censor, who
had first come into pubhc notice in the reign of Decius. The
new Sovereign Avas at first Irindly disposed to his Christian
subjects. It is noteworthy that, in distinction from the
Decian persecution, no " Lapsi " seemed to have dishonoured
the Name and to have degraded the profession of Christians
in the stormy period which closed the reign of GaUus. The
historian of this anxious period in the Church's early histoiy
Avould be unjust if he did not ascribe to the great Bishop of
Carthage a large share in the re-awakening of the Church to
its imperative duty of bravely and patiently submitting to any
suffering rather than deny the Name.
A considerable period of quiet was enjoyed by the behevers
in Jesus after the accession of the Censor Valerian to the
throne, a.d. 253. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria (quoted

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 357
by Eusebius, H. E., vii. 10), writes thus strongly of the
favourable disposition of this Emperor towards Christianity in
the earlier years of his reign: "Kind and friendly he was
towards the pious (Christians). For there was never any of
the Emperors before him so favourably and benevolently
disposed towards them ; not even those who were openly said
to be Christians received them with such extreme courtesy and
friendship as did he at the commencement of his reign. All
his house was filled with pious persons; it was indeed a con
gregation (iKK\-r]a-ia) of the Lord. But the Master and Chief
Ruler of the Egjrptian Magi, Macrianus (who became Valerian's
chief adviser), persuaded him to abandon this course, exhorting
him to persecute and to slay these pure and holy men."
Before the change in Valerian's policy some two or three
years of quietness remained for Cyprian to impress upon
the men of his time his theory of Christian unity, his grand
conception of the work and office of the Catholic Church.
About a century and a quarter after the martyrdom of Cyprian^
one of the greatest orators and theologians of the Catholic
Church, Gregory of Nazianzen, somewhile bishop of the
Metropolitan See of Constantinople, in one of his famous
-orations, deUvered in the capital of the Eastern Empire, in
glowing words thus describes the commanding influence which
Cyprian had acquired in the Church at large, the mighty
love and devotion he had gained over men's hearts far and
near : " Not over the Church of Carthage alone does he
preside, nor yet over the Church of Africa, famous until now
from him and through him, but over all the Western Church,
nay and almost the Eastern Church itself, and over the
bounds of South and North. . . . Thus Cyprian becomes
our OAvn. . . .' The very remembrance of the man is a
sanctification." This was the estimate of one of the chiefest
of Eastern theologians ; while, in the West, only a very few
years later, the great Augustine, one of his passionate admirers
and foUowers, speaks of him in these terms : "If my sins
do not disable me, I wiU learn if I can from Cyprian's
writings, assisted by his prayers, with what peace and consola
tion the Lord governed His Church through him."

368 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
It is singular that the name of this most eminent Christian
leader, who was deservedly held in highest honoiu- in the
Churches of his own day, whose posthumous fame is even
greater, whose work and influence have been generally so
enduring, is connected with the advocacy of one grave error,
an error which has been universally condemned in the Church
of the West.
In the three Councils of Carthage held under the presidency
of Cyprian in the years of quietness, 255 and 256, a prominent
question was brought before the assembled bishops of the
Prorince, who numbered in one of their CouncUs as many
as eighty- seven — "Was it right to re-baptise heretics?" The
North African Church, under the direction of their great
bishop, formaUy answered the question in the affirmative,
denying the vaUdity of baptism not only by heretics but
also by schismatics (under schismatics Cyprian included
separatist sects Uke that of the Novatians). On this question,
which so seriously agitated the CathoUc Church and for a
while dirided it into two opposing camps, hangs a most
important principle, which, owing to the discussions which
arose, largely as the result of Cyprian's action, has been happily
settled once for aU, certainly as far as regards the whole
Western Church.* The principle is so weighty a one that
it wiU be worth our while very briefly to discuss it.
To insist upon re-baptism, even though the simple divine
ritual t had been comphed with, would imply that the grace
of the sacrament was given not by vfrtue of the sacrament,
but by the merit of him who ministers it. Generally speak
ing, the early Church determined against any repetition of
baptism. This rule was followed by the majority of the early
heretics ; re-baptism appears to have been practised only
among the followers of Marcion. But Cyprian in his con
tention was supported by some weighty precedents and
important authorities. In the middle of the third century
* The Greek Church has taken a middle course, rejecting heretical but
admitting schismatical baptism.
f That is to say "with water" in the name of the ever blessed Trinity,
as commanded by our Lord Himself.

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 359
the point at issue had not been formally decided, nor had
any substantial agreement on the subject been come to.
But such was the generous breadth of the man, that although
he Avas very definite in his teaching here, he never dreamed
of severing the connection or of interrupting the communion
Avhich existed between his oAvn North African Church and
the Churches which he considered to be in error in this
matter. Cyprian apparently rested on the pronouncement of an
important Council of some seventy African and Numidian
bishops under one of his predecessors, Agrippinus,* circa
A.D. 213, which had settled the use of the North African
Church in this particular. Tertullian, ever a very weighty
authority Arith Cyprian, as might have been expected from
the well-known bias of his mind, had some years before
declared the re-baptism of heretics to be necessary. Further
afield, Cyprian was supported by Firmilian, Bishop of Csesarea,
the chief see of Cappadocia. Firmilian's was an important
opinion. He was not only the chief bishop of a large and
important prorince, but in his day (the middle of the third
century) ranked high among the chiefs of Christendom, his
name standing first in Eusebius' roU of the great contemporary
Church rulers (H. E., vii. 28).
Firmilian, in his letter on this subject, alludes to the
Councils of Iconium and Synnada as holding the Cjrprianic
theory of re-baptism. There were fifty bishops attending the
latter of these gatherings. Synnada was an important Phrygian
centre. In the Greek see of Alexandria, Dionysius, another
bishop of commanding influence in that age, was eridently
uncertain on the question, and his ruling on different occasions
on this point does not appear to have been consistent. The
Alexandrian was a broad and tolerant prelate, and apparently
Avould have left each community to continue to observe its
own traditional usage.
* S. Vincent of Lerins {circa a.d. 430) writes that this Bishop Agrippinus
was the first of all mortals to rule that they who had been baptised by schis
matics must be again baptised before they could become CathoUcs. — Com-
monitorium, 1-6.

360 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
But on the other hand, the Church of Rome, in the person
of its Bishop, Stephen, knew its mind. Stephen emphatically
condemned the practice of ever re-baptising, supposing the
divine ritual had been originaUy adhered to ; he asserted
that his Church possessed here the apostoUc authority of a
distinct tradition ; and, according to FirmiUan, he even went
so far as to accuse Cyprian, in his teaching of the necessity
of a re-baptism in the cases of heretics and schismatics, of
being a false apostle and a treacherous worker.
The conclusion of this sharp and acrimonious dispute on
a question which, though it has long ceased to diride Christian
theologians, involved a principle of the highest importance,
has been admirably summed up by one who has made Cyprian
and his work a hfe-study, and who, while passionately admiring
the great bishop, has not aUowed^ this admiration for one
instant to cloud his judgment of Cyprian's error. "How
great," he suggests, " was the triumph of Stephen of Rome ! "
The contention of Cyprian " was backed," he reminds us, " by
an army of prelates, whom he rather restrained than stimulated,
moring as one man to his direction, yet vdth an independence
which threw each upon himself for his argument. ... No
CouncU assembled to support him (Stephen of Rome);
Alexandria (Dionysius) remonstrated, Cappadocia (FirmUian)
denounced. His (Stephen's) good cause was marred by un-
charity, passion, pretentiousness ; yet he triumphed, and in
him the Church of Rome triumphed, as she deserved. For
she was not the Church of Rome as modern Europe has
knoAvn her; she was the hberal Church then; the Church
whom the Truth made free ; the representative of secure
latitude, charitable comprehensiveness, considerate regulation."*
The grace of Baptism,, according to Stephen of Rome, was of
Christ, not of the human baptiser, or as Augustine, a century
and a half after Stephen accurately puts it, "Ministers do
not confer the grace of the Sacraments, but the Holy Spirit
confers it through their ministry." f
* Archbishop Benson, Cyprian, viii. 3.
t S. Augustine, De Paptismo, contra Donatistas, Ub. iv., c. 4 ; and see, too.
Contra Epist. Parmeniani, ii. 11.

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 361
The great principle at stake defended by Stephen and the
Church of Rome, and so hotly discussed in the middle of
the third century, was re-affirmed in the closing century of
the mediseval period by the Council of Constance (a.d. 1414-
1418), when it condemned the error of WickUffe, who asserted
that no bishop or priest in mortal sin could either baptise
or consecrate (Session VIIL). The Twenty-sixth Article of the
Church of England, based on the Eighth Article of the Con
fession of Augsburg, reiterates the unanimous opinion of the
Western Church when it affirms that " the grace of God's
gifts is not diminished from such as by faith and rightly do
receive the Sacraments ministered unto them, which be
effectual because of Christ's institution and promise, although
they be ministered by evil men."
As regards Cyprian and his dissension Arith Stephen of
Rome, it was quickly ended, for only a few months after
Cyprian's third Council held at Carthage, which again re
affirmed his views on the necessity of a new baptism in the
case of heretics and schismatics, the persecution of a.d. 257
burst over the Church in many lands. Stephen, his adversary,
appears to have been among the first victims of the persecution
at Rome. Sixtus, Stephen's successor, in the same sad year
also won the martyr's crown, the circumstances of his death
being singularly touching. But the feud between Rome and
Carthage had already evidently lost its bitterness, for Pontius,
Cyprian's faithful deacon and biographer, styles Sixtus " a
good and pacific priest."
It is a strong testimony to the greatness of Cyprian and
the enduring character of his work that Rome, not always
forgiring, has throvm a veil over his contest with Bishop
Stephen, and in the golden book of Saints has enrolled the
great Carthaginian Master, and even commemorates his memory
in the Canon of the Mass.*
* A modern Eomanist scholar thus curiously apologises for the generous
judgment here of his Church—" How great the guUt of Cyprian (in opposing the
Bishop of Eome) had been, is known only to God. His other services, his martyr
dom, atoned for it. But who would rely on what Cyprian, in his hour of passion
and of error, thought of the Papal Supremacy ? . . . And, oh ! what a warning

362 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
The great change which passed over Valerian's poUcy
towards the Christians after the earUer years of his reign is
remarkable. In spite of the marked favour he had shown
them at the beginning of his reign, suddenly, in the years
257 and 258, cruel persecuting edicts were put forth. These
were no doubt suggested by the circumstances of the Empire.
What has been graphicaUy termed "The Uprising of the
Nations '' was being painfully felt. The mighty confederacy
of Franks was pouring across Gaul, and even invading Spain.
The AUemanni were breaking through the Unes of defence on
the Rhine and Danube, and were even threatening Italy. The
Goths were a terror as far south as Greece ; whUe in the
East, Mesopotamia and Syria were swept across by the Persian
conquerors, who were soon to defeat and to capture the Roman
Emperor himself
In this period of distress and general national terror the
chief adriser and minister of Valerian was that Macrianus whom
we have already seen noticed by Dionysius, Bishop of Alex
andria, as chief of the Egyptian Magi, a distinguished soldier
and statesman, possessed of vast wealth, who fiUed the post
of Chancellor of the Imperial Exchequer. To his adrice is
generaUy attributed Valerian's persecution of the Christians.
Like earlier statesmen, he saw in their attitude towards the
Pagan religion an element of disruption, at a time when the
sohdarity of the Empire was at stake. Hence the first per
secuting edict of A.D. 257. Of this edict we do not possess the
exact text, but it seemingly had two dirisions. The first part
simply required that the Christians should sacrifice to the
gods of Rome, the second forbade them assembhng together
or visiting their cemeteries. These hallowed places were
sequestrated. Refusal to sacrifice Avas punished Arith simple
exile, but any attempt to assemble for worship or to risit
the proscribed cemeteries was to be punished with death.
The bishops and clergy were especially marked out for obser
vation. The edict was put into force generally, and Arith grave
to us, who have not Cyprian's merit, to shun Cyprian's opposition to this doctrine.
fTe, perhaps, might never be aUowed the opportumty of recanting." — Peters ; Der
eilige Cyprian.

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 363
consequences to the Christian population in such centres as
Rome and Alexandria and Carthage. Here, however, we shall
confine ourselves to what took place in the last of these and in
the great province of Avhich it was the capital.
Cyprian, naturally, from his widespread reputation as a
Christian leader, was at once arrested. He made no effort to
escape. The proces-verbal of his first trial has been preserved.
It is a piece of the highest value, and is reckoned by scholars
and critics as of undoubted authenticity. We reproduce it, as it
doubtless faithfully represents more or less exactly what took
place in other important Christian centres in the case of men
of rank who were accused of being Christians.
The trial was held in the Audience Hall of the Pro-consul
of Africa, Aspasius Paternus. The Roman magistrate began
by informing Cyprian that the most sacred Emperors Valerian
and GaUienus (the latter had been associated by his father
Valerian in the Imperial dignity) had sent him a mandate in
which they directed that persons not foUoAring the Roman
rehgion should at once conform to the State ceremonials. In
consequence of the mandate he should make inquiries as to
how the arrested prisoner styled himself.
Cyprian, in his answer, replied : " I am a Christian and a
bishop. I knoAV no other gods but the One true God Who
made heaven and earth, the sea, and aU that is in them. He
is the God whom we Christians whoUy serve. Him we pray
to, night and day, for ourselves and for the safety of the
Emperors." The Pro-consul : " In this purpose, then, you persevere ? "
Cyprian: "A good purpose, formed on the knowledge of
God, cannot possibly be altered."
The Pro-consul (sarcastically): "WiU it then be possible
for you, in compliance with the commands of Valerian and
GaUienus, to go at once into exUe to the city of Curubis?"
Cyprian : " I depart."
The Pro-consul Paternus further requested Cyprian to
give information respecting the Christian presbyters of
Carthage. This the bishop refused to do, adding, however,
that the presbyters would be found in their several cities.

364 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Paternus rejoined that he would have them found, and then
repeated the terms of the Emperor's edict directing that no
assembUes of the Christians were to be held, and that they
were not to enter into their cemeteries : any who riolated
the last injunction would be put to death.
Curubis, the city to which Cyprian was banished, was a
small, remote town on the sea-board about fifty miles from
Carthage, situate in a lonely district. The apparent lerity
with which Cyprian was treated seems to suggest some doubt
in the Pro-consul's mind as to the meaning of the new
edict. The death, however, of this important functionary
changed the state of affairs, and we shortly hear of the con
demnation of nine Numidian bishops, many presbyters, and
lay members of both sexes, to the mines, where great suffer
ings were endured by these true-hearted confessors. No
doubt this severity resulted on the disregard shoAvn of the
edict forbidding assemblies and prohibiting aU risits to the
cemeteries; regulations which would have been deeply felt in
the Christian communities.
In the foUowing year, 258, another and far severer edict
was put out in the name of Valerian and his son. It was
felt by the Imperial Government that if any real effect was
to be produced harsher measures were necessary.
The new edict of a.d. 258 was the severest and most
far-reaching law that had yet been promulgated against
Christianity. Three important classes were speciaUy aimed
at — (1) The Christian clergy, bishops, priests, deacons, were
no longer to be punished with mere exUe, but when
identified were at once to be put to death; (2) a new law
was promulgated which struck exclusively at the higher
classes of Romans, so deeply had Christianity permeated the
upper stratum of society in the Empire. Senators, nobles
(egregii viri), and knights who were knoA^m to be Chris
tians, Avere to be mulcted of all their possessions and
deprived of their rank. Thus degraded they were to be
summoned before the tribunals, and unless they then and
there abjured their faith they were to die ; noble women, too,
were liable to the confiscation of their goods and to exile

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 365
and death. (3) The numerous Christian members of " Csesar's
Household," including a vast number of public officials,
were to be reduced to the condition of slaves. That such
a far-reaching and terrible edict was deemed necessary
by the Pagan Government of Rome in a.d. 258 bears a
testimony which none can dispute to the enormous progress
which the religion of Jesus had made in the upper
classes of society in the Empire in the tAvo hundred
years which had elapsed between the reigns of Nero and
Valerian. No special mention was made of the mass of the people
generally. It was eridently supposed that such a tre
mendous blow aimed at the Christian leaders, at the higher
classes of society, at the official order of the "Household
of Csesar," would be sufficient to stamp out the obnoxious
religion. The edict of the preceding year, which forbade Christians
meeting, and deprived the followers of Jesus of their ceme
teries, still remained in force, and was of course often acted
upon. Although we have eridence that terrible sufferings
were endured by the communities of the Brethren in Rome
and in Italy, in Egypt and in North Africa, in Gaul and
Spain, in Syria and Asia Minor, it is not probable that the
sweeping provisions of the edict of a.d. 258 were ever
thoroughly put in force, although what was done fell Arith
cruel harshness on uncounted individuals in those various
centres. Indeed there was little time to arrange the elaborate
machinery necessary for the complete carrying out of a
law which would affect so vast a number of notable and
even powerful personages; for in less than two years a fresh
edict, promulgated in a.d. 260 by GaUienus, Valerian's son,
put a sudden end to the persecution.
But in Carthage, which we have selected as our example
of an important typical Christian community of the middle
of the third century, at the head of which was placed one
of the greatest of the earthly members of the Church of
Christ, the second of Valerian's edicts was at least in part
put into force, and a persecution, sanguinary whUe it lasted.

366 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
harassed the beUevers* and gave to C3rprian the croAvn of
martyrdom. As regards the great bishop, we have a perfectly rehable
account of his last days contained in one of his letters, in the
recital of his faithful deacon, Pontius, and in the official proces-
verbal of his interrogation by the Pro-consul. The whole story
comes down to us without exaggeration, Arith no improbable
admixture of the marvellous.
We have seen how, in the early autumn of a.d. 257, after
the first Imperial edict, he was banished to the little sea-
coast town of Curubis, some fifty miles from Carthage. Be
yond the fact of his exUe from his city, he appears to have
been under no restraint, and we know he communicated freely
Arith the suffering confessors, who in the course of that year
were sent to the mines. But, although Cyprian personaUy
was treated with consideration, he was persuaded that the
end for him was near at hand. In the August of the foUoAT-
ing year, 258, the new edict of Valerian against the Christians
was sent out; and perhaps the same messengers who brought
him the news told him of the martyrdom of Sixtus and his
four deacons, the first fruits of the persecution at Rome.
The Pro-consul, Galerius Maximus, who had succeeded Paternus
in his high office, at once summoned C3rprian from Curubis
to Carthage. There the bishop was permitted to lodge in
his OATO beautiful villa surrounded by gardens, which he had
sold for the benefit of his flock, but which had been re-pur
chased for him by his devoted friends.
The Pro-consul was suffering from sickness, and sent for
Cyprian to Utica. But the bishop was determined to die in
his own episcopal city, and anticipated the summons, which
he was well aware meant death, by withdrawing himself into
a temporary place of concealment untU the Pro-consul should
return to Carthage. In these last days of a great life must
be dated his beautiful farcAvell letter, addressed to his presbyters,
* Prudentius has chosen one of the scenes of this persecution in Pro-consular
Africa for his theme in the Peri-Stcphandn, xiii. 76-87. And Augustine dwells
upon itin his 306th sermon, where he speaks of the "Massa Candida" of the
martyrs of Utica. Ee further explains this singular expression. " They were
called Massa because of their number, and Candida from their martyr brightness."

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 367
deacons, and people. In it he signified his purpose of return
ing to his Carthage home as soon as he heard that the Pro
consul had arrived in the capital city ; for he said that it
Avas most fitting that a bishop should play the part of a con
fessor in his own city. The words that were spoken by a
bishop at that supreme moment should be heard by his own
people who would repeat them again and again. He had
even asked God that the scene of his martyrdom, to which he
looked forward, might be Carthage. Cyprian evidently hoped,
perhaps expected, that he would be speciaUy helped in his utter
ances in that solemn long-looked-for hour. In view of the new
and aAvful terror which he foresaw coming upon the communities
of believers, the Chief Pastor of Carthage felt there was no
occasion for burning words of encouragement to martyrdom ;
he rather inculcated sobriety and calm ; no one of his people
was to give himself up voluntarUy, no one was to utter fierce
words of defiance ; only after arrest was the accused Christian
to speak, and then a higher Power would tell the faithful con
fessor how to phrase a noble confession.* There was no fear
in Cyprian's mind that any "Lapsi," shrinking fr-om a brave
confession, would shame the Church of Carthage, as had once
been the case in that sad hour of the Decian persecution.
Everything turned out as he had foreseen and provided
for; the Pro-consul speedily returned to Carthage, and the
confessor bishop at once appeared in his own villa. There,
without delay, he was arrested. There was no unmannerly
rough treatment of the Christian leader on the part of the
Roman officials ; his high rank, his stainless reputation, his
vast influence and popularity in Carthage and the province,
were recognised. But the Roman Government had decided
to make him an example, and by striking at so eminent a
personage, to terrorise his devoted flock. The second day
foUoAring the arrest saw the end. The final interrogatory
took place in an open court with a colonnade running round
* Cyprian's calm words, here contained in his memorable letter, were : ' ' Nec
quisquam vestrum aliquem tumultum fratribus moveat, aut ultro se gentilibus
oflerat. Apprehensus enim et traditus loqui debet ; si quidem in nobis Dominus
positus illa hora loquatur, qui nos confiteri magis voluit quam profiteri." — Cyprian :
Fp. 83.

368 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
it in the Prsetorium. It was a striking scene in which the
majesty of Rome was fitly represented — the Pro-consul of
Africa being surrounded with his chief officials ; immediately
behind the chair of office were the Uctors with their rods and
axes ; before the great magistrate stood a tripod with burning
coals, and a box of incense. The prisoner was sipmly charged
with sacrilege. The proces-verbal was very brief We vdll
translate the Acta Pro-consularia.
The Pro-consul Galerius : " You are Thascius Cyprianus ? "
Cyprian : " I am."
The Pro-consul: "You have permitted yourself to be
Pope (or bishop) to persons reckoned sacrilegious ? "
Cyprian : " I have."
The Pro-consul : " The most sacred Emperor has directed
that you should sacrifice."
Cyprian : " I wiU not sacrifice."
The Pro-consul: "Think for a moment."
Cyprian : " Do the duty enforced upon you ; in so righteous
a question there is no room for reflection."
Then after a brief consultation Arith his Council, the
Pro-consul pronounced judgment. The words of Galerius
were few and measured, and admfrably expressed the pohcy
and views of the Pagan Government. "Your life, Cyprian,
has long been a life of sacrilege ; you have gathered around
you many accomplices in your criminal designs; you have
set yourself up as an enemy to the gods of Rome and to
their sacred rites ; nor have the pious and deeply revered
Emperors Valerian and GaUienus been able to bring you
back to their religion. Therefore as the upholder of a great
crime, as the standard-bearer of the sect, I must now make
an example of you in the presence of your associates in
guilt. The laws (of the Empire) must be sealed with your
blood. Our sentence, therefore, is that Thascius Cyprianus
be put to death with the sword."
Cyprian's only rejoiner was : " Thanks be to God." *
* Cf . Acta pro-consularia S. Cypriani, 2, 3, 4, 5 (Euinart) ; Pontius, Tte
S. Cypriani, 15, 16, 17, 18; Le Blant, Zes Actes des Martyrs, p. 230-1; Allard,
Sistoire des Persecutions, vol. iii., chapters i.-iii. ; Archbishop Benson,

FEOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 369
The glorious end was indeed come for the "standard-
bearer " of the Christians, as the Pro-consul had happily styled
him. It was a short but triumphal march from the Prsetorium
to the spot Avhere the doom was to be accomplished. It
was to be no secret execution.
The arrest of the loved bishop and his condemnation were
soon knoAvn to a great crowd of Christian folk. The Roman
Governor Avished it to be a great example ; he had his wish.
Guarded closely by a company of the well-known third legion,
and foUoAved by a crowd of mourning spectators, Cyprian
soon reached the spot where the last scene of this memorable
tragedy was to be acted. Quietly the eminent teacher of
the Christians took off his upper garments, and, after praying
a while, stood upright in his long white linen garment.
Then, as it seemed, he waited to see if any message of God
came to him to utter ; but there was nothing, so he was silent.
The executioner arrived, the martyr asked his friends who
stood near him to roAvard the man with a rich guerdon of
twenty-five pieces of gold, and with the help of two Avho were
close to him bound a handkerchief over his OAvn eyes. Some
thing in the appearance of Cyprian unnerved the headsman,
and he could not strike ; then stepping forAvard the centurion
in command of the escort took his place, determining himself
to give the death stroke, and with one bloAv closed the sad
scene. "Ita beatus Cyprianus passus est." "Thus the blessed
Cyprian suffered" were the simple but pathetic words which
closed the " Acta," from whieh we have largely quoted.
The martyrdom of Cyprian at Carthage in a.d. 258 Avas
the signal for a general persecution in North Africa, in
accordance Avith the provisions of the two edicts of Valerian.
In Pro-consular Afr-ica there were many victims, in Numidia
even more; in other parts of the Empire the cruel edicts
against the Christians were carried out Avith more or less
severity; in Palestine, in Coele-Syria, in various populous
districts of Asia Minor the communities of the behevers
S. Cyprian, xi. The Acta Pro-consularia, which have been referred to, were
older even than the " Life " by Pontius, Cyprian's deacon, who jwas with him
at his death, and from these "Acts" Pontius freely quotes.
T

370 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
counted many martyrs. In Gaul and Spain the edicts were
seemingly less rigorously enforced, but even in these distant
provinces the Church suffered, though no doubt the invasions
or raids of the barbarian tribes to a certain extent occupied
the Imperial Government, and secured some immunity for
the Christian inhabitants. In Rome the iU-wUl of the Govern
ment was of course conspicuously manifest, and we shall give
a somewhat detaUed accoimt of the harrying to which the
great Christian community in the capital city was subjected
in this period of general gloom and distress.
SECTION IL — EOME.

Table of Popes

or Bishops

of

Contemporary

Eome between a.d. 249 and

Roman Emperors

A.D. 260.

Fabianus a.d.

(236) 250

Decius.
Cornelius
. 251
Gallus .
Lucius
. 252
J)
Stephen
. 253
Valerian.
Sixtus II. .
. 257
,,
(or Xystus)
Dionysius
. 258-
(269)
Galllenus.
Although, owing to the commanding personality of Cyprian,
Carthage and Pro-consular Africa was the chief centre of
interest in the stormy period of the general persecutions
during the reigns of Decius, Gallus, and through the latter
years of the reign of Valerian, some events of considerable
interest deserve to be chronicled in the Church of Rome during
those eventful years.
We have in Eusebius (H. E., vi. 43) a brief summary,
or catalogue, of the staff of the Church of Rome at the time
of the Decian persecution; the catalogue runs as foUoATs;
'' There were (besides the bishop) forty-six presbyters, seven
deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty-tAVO acolytes (clerks),
exorcists, readers and janitors, numbering fifty-two; widows,
Arith the afflicted and needy, more than fifteen hundred; all
of whom the goodness of God doth support and nourish."
The historian then proceeds briefly to aUude to the laity of
the Roman communion as follows : " There were others Arho
FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 371
by the Providence of God were wealthy and opulent, together
with an innumerable multitude of all people."
Such a bare summary of the numbers of the officials
belonging to the congregations of the capital gives us some
idea of the size and importance of the Church of Rome, and
also some conception of its elaborate organisation. The
bishop was Fabianus, who had been elected some fourteen
years before in a.d. 236, eighteen years after the death of
Callistus. Tradition says Fabianus was chosen on account of
a dove alighting on his head as the election was proceeding.
He was a prelate of great poAver and considerable adminis
trative ability. The elaborate and careful organisation of
the community Avas in great measure his work; his interest
in the vast netAvork of the subterranean cemeteries, where
so much had been done by Callistus, was sustained, and he
is reputed to have done much to improve and beautify them.
The head of the Roman Christians in the second quarter of
the third century was an important and influential personage
in the hfe of the great city, Avell known to the official world
of the capital. Tradition, too, speaks of him as exercising
considerable power with Decius' predecessor, the Emperor
Philip, the friend of the Christians. This Bishop Fabianus
was at once marked for destruction by Decius, who put
him to death, hoping by this act of cruel tyranny to dis
organise the community he so dreaded. His flock reverently
laid him to rest in the crypt of S. Callistus. De Rossi dis
covered the fragments of the marble slab which once closed
in the narrow cell where the body of the martyred bishop
had been entombed. The name Fabianus was deciphered on
the slab, with the letters annexed, telling of his rank and
noble martyr end.
We possess the letter addressed by Cyprian of Carthage
to the presbyters and deacons of Rome, in Avhich he acknow
ledges their letter containing the particulars of the glorious
close of Fabianus' Ufe, and expresses his own joy that
so upright a career had been so fitly croAvned. The glory of
such a death, said the African Master, is reflected upon his
Church; such an example set by the bishop is a strong

372 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
incentive to a similar brave resistance on the part of his
brethren for their Faith's sake.
After an interval of a year and some months, a delay
occasioned by the severity of the persecution, which no
doubt prevented any formal assembhng of the Faithful in
Rome, Cornelius, who probably belonged to the weU-knoA7n
patrician family of that name, was elected in the room of
the martyred Fabianus. The new bishop had passed through
every order and office in his church, and was generally
respected and revered. His pontificate was short and
troubled ; banished, not long after his election, from Rome
to Civita Vecchia, he soon died in his exile. No doubt his
death was hastened by the harsh treatment experienced by
him in his place of banishment, for he is reckoned as a
martyr, and is spoken of as such by his friend and con
temporary Cyprian of Carthage, although no record of a
violent death in his case is preserved to us.
The body of Cornelius was brought back to his oAm city
of Rome and laid, not in the historical Papal crypt of the
cemetery of S. Callistus, where most of his predecessors had
been buried since the beginning of the third century, but in
an adjoining catacomb where were the graves of other Christian
members of that proud patrician house to which he apparently
belonged. De Rossi has discovered his sepulchre ; the broken
pieces of the marble tablet, which once closed up the deep
niche wherein originaUy was placed a sarcophagus containing
his remains, have been pieced together ; and the inscription in
Latin, graven in Roman characters, can be clearly read: Cor-
nelitis Martyr. Ep. The Latin tongue was probably used
instead of the ordinary Greek, the official language of the
Roman Church, the illustrious family to which the bishop
belonged preferring Latin as more fitting for a noble Roman's
grave. The sarcophagus was probably of somewhat later date
than A.D. 253, the remains in the first instance having heen
apparently at first laid in a simpler grave.
The tomb of this bishop has been the scene of many a
pUgrimage. Pope Damasus, in the fourth century, restored
the chapel where Cornelius lay, and arranged a special staircase

Pho-to ; Anderson, Rome.
A SEPULCHRAL CHAMBER IN THE CEMETERY OF LUCINA
Connected with the Cemetery of S. Callistus, restored by Pope Damasus. It contains the tomb of
S. Cornelius a.d. 251). The paintings of S. Cornelius and S. Cyprian are ofthe Eighth Century.

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 373
for pUgrims. It was injured by the Lombard invaders in their
hunt for treasure or reUcs. In the ninth century Pope Leo III.
once more restored it and painted on its dark walls the figures
of Cornehus and his friend Cyprian, on which picture, dim
and scarred by time, the twentieth century pilgrim may still
gaze. We have described the grave scandals at Carthage which
arose owing to the number of '* Lapsi " — Christians who, in
the persecution of Decius, coming after the long peace of the
Church, fell away in the hour of trial; the same sad faUing
away was noticeable at Rome and in other great centres of
population. The settlement of Cyprian in the all-important
question of reconciling these " Lapsi " to the Church, and of
restoring them, when thoroughly penitent, to communion, was
followed generally by Rome and by the whole Church. But
at Rome there was a violent opposition to the merciful and
gracious view of a temporary weakness of members of the flock
of Christ taken by the bishop and the large majority of the
rulers of the Christian community. This opposition was headed
by a presbyter of great ability but of eccentric disposition,
named Novatian.
During the vacancy of the see after the martyrdom of
Fabian, this Novatian exercised great influence at Rome. He
seems to have expected to have been chosen bishop, although
he vehemently protested that he did not desire the position.
At all events, after the election of Cornelius, a schism was
formed, and Novatian was consecrated to the Episcopate by
three obscure Bishops. Novatian and his party held that the
Church had no power of granting absolution to the "Lapsi,"
and was bound to exclude them for ever from communion.
He sent notice of his consecration as schismatical bishop of
Rome to many of the greater churches, but his claim was
generally ignored. His vigorous opinions, however, on the
subject of the "Lapsi" found many adherents, especiaUy in
the West; and his sentence of lifelong exclusion from aU
Church communion, which, in the first place, had been con
fined to those only who had faUen away, was subsequently
extended to all who after baptism were guilty of any grave

374 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
sin. The followers of Novatian styled themselves Puritans
(Cathari); they even went so far as to re-baptise proselytes
fr-om the Church, whose lax discipline they deemed imperfect
and impure. On other points the followers of Novatian were
orthodox. This schism, which first arose at Rome in the Decian per
secution, did not die out for a long time. In parts of the east,
e.g. in Phrygia, the Novatians united Arith the Montanists.
There was a remnant of them in certain places even as late as
the latter years of the sixth century.
On the death of CorneUus in exile, Lucius was elected
Bishop of Rome in a.d. 252. A solitary letter addressed to
him by Cyprian is extant. Lucius appears to have been im
mediately banished by the Imperial Government. In this
letter Cyprian consoles the exile by teUing him that he has
the prayers of the Church of Carthage that the croAni he had
already won by a noble confession might be perfected — Cyprian
probably meant by a glorious martyrdom for the Name. But
Lucius was not called to suffer a riolent death; for he was
recaUed from his banishment in the beginning of Valerian's
reign, and, on his return, died ahnost immediately. He was
laid with his predecessors in the sacred Papal crypt in the
Callistus cemetery, and the broken slab of marble which once
veiled his last resting-place has been discovered, .simply bearing
his name, Aovkl<;, graved in Greek characters.
It was during the persecution of Valerian, circa a.d. 258,
Avhen all assemblies in cemeteries were sternly forbidden,
that some of the curious Avork of " earthing up," the destruc
tion of staircases communicating Arith the different catacomb
galleries in Rome which has of late years been observed,
was carried out ; and at the same time many secret entrances
and exits Avere skilfuUy contrived. One curious and deeply
interesting account of a terrible catacomb scene of martyrdom
deserves special mention. Circa a.d. 257, in the course of
the Valerian persecution, two well-knoAvn Christians, a husband
and wife, named Chrysanthus and Daria, were buried alive
in one of the cemeteries beneath the Via Salaria Nova on
the north-east of the city. In the course of the foUowing

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 375
year, disregarding the stern edict, which forbade any such
gatherings under a death penalty, a number of Christians
assembled in the labyrinthine recesses of the great arenaria
(or sand pit) adjoining the cemetery, where the two revered
martyrs had met their death. This devout company of
beUevers were in the act of partaking of the Holy Eucharist,
when they were surprised by a party of legionaries, who
were employed in the work of detecting these proscribed
assemblies. The legionaries Arith httle difficulty closed up
the exits of the arenaria, and by piling up a great heap of
sand and stones literally buried alive the numerous band of
worshippers, Avho thus perished. In the following century
when Pope Damasus was busied in restoring and putting in
order some of the more celebrated burying places in the
catacombs, his officials came upon the sad relics of this
entombed company of worshippers. There, lying amidst the
remains, were the holy vessels which they had taken down
with them for the celebration of the sacred communion rite.
Pope Damasus Avould not touch these pathetic memorials
of an age of sufiering. He simply set up one of his weU-
known inscriptions teUing the story, and opened a window
in the adjacent wall or rock in order that pilgrims might see
without disturbing " this monument of a glorious past so unique
of its kind, this Christian Pompeii in miniature." These
touching relics of suffering believers, whom death had over
taken while they Avere in the very act of prayer, were seen
by pilgrims in the sixth century, when Gregory of Tours A\rrote.*
To return to our list of Roman bishops. When Lucius'
* De Eossi saw good reason to hope that further investigations might bring to
light this striking spot, perhaps the very window itself which Damasus con
structed, through which the pilgrims once gazed, " assisting, as it were, at a solemn
Eucharist celebrated in the third century." De Rossi's words are : " Cette esper-
ance est fondee ; j'oserais presque dire, elle sera remplie." — Rome dans sa grandeur,
t. ii., p. 6.
The martyrdom of SS. Chrysanthus and Daria, which preceded the striking
and pathetic wholesale martyrdom above related, is usually dated A.n. 284, in the
reign of the Emperor Numerian. But scholars, such as Tillemont and others, and,
later, Allard, consider that this tragic event belongs to the Valerian persecution, a
quarter of a century earlier. {Cf. the exhaustive note of Allard, Sist. des Persecu
tions, vol. iii., ch. ii.-iii., pp. 46-7.)

876 EAELY CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
brief career was closed, Stephen was elected bishop, circa
A.D. 253.* Considerable interest is attached to this pontifi
cate, OAving to the haughty claims made by Stephen to a very
definite supremacy in the Church. These claims were evidently
resisted by Cyprian and practically ignored by FirmUian,
the famous bishop of Csesarea in Cappadocia, whose high
position among the prelates of the middle of the third century
has been already alluded to ; and the claim of Rome Avas also
ignored by many other bishops of this period.
It is indisputable that Cyprian, who during these troublous
times occupied the foremost position in the Christian Church,
accorded to the Roman see a position of inherited precedency,
but at the same time resisted her claim to dictate her wdl to
other and independent churches. Stephen, however, was not
content with an acknowledgment of an undefined supremacy,
.and there is little doubt that during his pontificate the rela
tions betAveen him and the church of North Africa, Arith its
poAverful phalanx of bishops, were severely strained. Nor
Avere his relations with many of the Eastern bishops by any
means of a friendly nature, although the aUeged fact of his
positively severing his communion with these oriental prelates
is uncertain. After the death of Stephen, the more concilia
tory policy of his successor, Sixtus II. (Xystus), seems to have
restored the harmony between Rome and the prorincial
churches which had been seriously imperiUed by Stephen's
arbitrary conduct.
The character of Bishop Stephen of Rome has been vari
ously painted. Jeremy Taylor's estimate, which represents
him as a zealous and furious person, has perhaps too largely
influenced modern opinion, for it has been well remarked f by
the latest scholarly student of Cyprian, an enthusiastic ad
mirer of the great Carthaginian leader who ever resisted
Stephen's assumption of authority, that "we must not forget
that Stephen's portrait is made up of traits etched in scraps
by the pen of an adversary, that Dionysius, the revered bishop
* The exact date is a little uncertain ; some historians fix it in the spring of
tbe following year, a.d. 254.
t Archbishop Benson : S. Cyprian, vii. 3.

FEOM DEGIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 377
of Alexandria, on the other hand, makes grateful mention of
his (Stephen's) liberality to the churches of Syria and Arabia,
and that to Vincent of Lerins there floated across two cen
turies a tradition of modesty as Avell as zeal, of faith as Avell
as dignity." The story of the long controversy of Stephen Avith Cyprian
on the question, " Should heretics be re-baptised ? " has been
told with some little detail in the previous section which
dealt with Cyprian. It was seemingly an anxious dispute. On
the one side stood the foremost man of the Christian Avorld,
one, too, who was greatly loved as he Avas universally revered ;
behind him were councils composed of many bishops. The
Eastern church sympathised with, even if it did not directly
support him; Alexandria with her bishop, though on the
whole neutral, was inclined to be with him. Stephen of
Rome had fcAV friends; his arrogance and Avant of charity
alienated many a foreign church ; but his teaching and the
tradition of his metropolitan church triumphed m the long
run, and the unanimous voice of the Catholic Church, after
the original disputants had passed away, has pronounced that
the unpopular Stephen was right, and the loved Cyprian
wrong. The issue of this great controversy, Avhich for a brief
season threatened to rend the Church asunder, has no doubt
been one of the unacknowledged factors Avhich, in the coming
ages, powerfully contributed to consolidate the claim of Rome
to being the depository of unerring apostolic authority.
Stephen died in the late summer of A.D. 257. A somewhat
vague tradition saj^s he too won a martyr's croAvn in the
course of Valerian's persecution. He was foUoAved by Sixtus II.
(Xystus), who was a teacher of learning and power, and evi
dently, from the kindly reference to him by Pontius, Cyprian's
dear friend and biographer, was a gentle and conciliatory pre
late. The circumstances of Sixtus' death in a.d. 258 are
strangely pathetic.
In defiance of the Imperial edict forbidding Christian
meetino-s, the Roman bishop and small companies of believers
continued to worship together in the secret recesses of some
of the less famous cemeteries. In one of these, the catacomb

376 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of Prastextatus, Sixtus and a band of devoted Christians were
surprised by a company of legionaries. When the soldiers
entered the dark and narrow chapel of the catacomb, Sixtus
Avas preaching. The bishop and the attendant clergy were at
once hurried away and brought before one of the city Prefects,
Avho was always on duty at the time deciding the fate of the
many arrested Christians. Sixtus was condemned to be be
headed on the spot where he was taken. Once more brought
to the little chapel in the cemetery of Prsetextatus, he quietly
placed himself on his rough stone chair and, bowing his head,
he received the death blow ; with him were executed four of
his deacons.
Laurence, his senior deacon, so runs the beautiful story,
was not present Avhen his chief was arrested, but hurried at
once to bid him farewell. " Whither goest thou, my father,
Avithout thy son ? " "I shall not forsake you," replied Sixtus.
" Do not mourn me ; yet gi'cater trials are before thee, and
thou wilt foUoAv me in three days." The prophecy was UteraUy
fulfiUed. Laurence Avas summoned at once by the Prefect
of the city, and, as the confidential minister of the martyred
bishop, commanded to give up the treasures which belonged
to the Church. These, of course, largely consisted in the
sacred Eucharistic vessels. The deacon asked for a brief
space to enable him to collect and make a list of the Church's
treasures. On the morroAv he appeared again before the
Prefect, foUoAved by a crowd of poor Christian folk who had
been helped by the brethren. "Here," said Laurence, "are
the treasures of the Church, for Avhich you Avere enquiring."
The angry magistrate condemned Laurence, Avho thus dared
to brave the Roman poAver, to be burned alive. Common
tradition speaks of him as having been roasted to death on
a gridiron, his persecutors hoping that the agonising tortures
Avould induce him to reveal the secret of the Church's suqposed
treasures. Several other members of the Roman clergy
suffered death with the deacon Laurence. These are only
a few notable examples of the many Roman sufferers in
this period of storm and stress, the persecution at Rome
in A.D. 258 being memorable for its extreme severity. But

S. LAURENCE BEFORE THE JUDGE.
From the Fresco by Fra Angelico in tlie Chapel of S. Nicholas at the Vatican.

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 379
no memory of that noble martyr army has been so revered
as has that of Laurence. The stately basilica on the Via
Tiburtina rises over the first little simple memoria erected
above his tomb; four other churches in the Eternal City
are dedicated to him ; there is, besides, scarcely a city in
Christendom but contains a church or altar bearing his loved
name. In Genoa the cathedral, in Spain the Escurial, preserve
the honoured memory of S. Laurence, the friend of Bishop
Sixtus, deacon and martyr.*
The campaign in the East, a.d. 260, closed the reign of
Valerian, who had issued the edicts for the bitter persecu
tions under which perished Cyprian, Sixtus II. of Rome, his
deacon, Laurence, and so many of the noblest Christians
whose names are unAvritten in the Church's martyrology.
Sapor, the Persian king, defeated the Imperial forces, and
captured the Emperor Valerian, who never reappeared.
Tradition speaks of unheard-of indignities being suffered by
the hapless Roman Emperor at the hands of the Persian
conqueror. GaUienus, his son, Avho had been before associated
in the Empire, now reigned alone. At once the persecution
at Rome, and in those provinces where the edicts of Valerian
ran, ceased. Not only was all harrying of the followers of
Jesus stayed, but an Imperial edict restored the confiscated
churches, cemeteries, and property to the Christian com
munities. This great and sudden change in the fortunes of
the Church is attributed to the influence of Salonina, the

* There are no extant Acts of S. Laurence ; the simple beautiful story
above related is only based upon an old tradition, but the tradition is as old
as S. Ambrose, who lived within a hundred years of the events in question.
S. Ambrose gives it t-wice; a very few years later S. Augustine quotes it in
four of his sermons ; Prudentius, the Christian poet of the second half of the
fourth century, adopts the story as the theme of one of his poems in the
Peri-Siephanbn (11).
The position Laurence occupied among the Eoman clergy was a high and
responsible one; as first deacon he had the chief charge of the church funds,
and administered the large charities of the Eoman community at home aud
abroad; he was also placed over the cemeteries (or catacombs); very frequently
the first deacon succeeded the bishop in his high office. De Eossi, Inseriptiones
Christiance Urbis Romce, i. 115; Roma Sotterranea, iii. 46; and Allard, Sist. des
Persecutions, iii. 2.

380 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Empress of GaUienus. Salonina was the devoted disciple
of Plotinus, the Neo-Platonic philosopher. For more than
half a century, at intervals, the influence of princesses at
the Palatine had been marked. The teaching of Plotinus
had led the Empress to the borderland of Christianity, and
eventually, it is probable, she became actually a Christian
The Christian inscription which runs round some of Salonina's
medals, " Augusta in pace," seems to indicate the conversion
to Christianity of the Princess. At all events her influence
was exerted in favour of the Church, and the result was
the gracious and generous edict we have just spoken of
In Rome, and over most of the West, including Italy, Gaul,
Spain, and Britain, the Christians at once enjoyed a period
of quietness and toleration. In the East, where the authority
of GaUienus was largely opposed, persecution, more or less
severe, continued. SECTIOK III. — THE ROMAN EMPEROES.
The character of GaUienus was a strange combination of
briUiance and incompetence ; rarely accomphshed, he was
utterly neglectful of all the higher functions of a great
ruler. The aAvful woes of the vast Empire over which he
bore sway touched him but Ughtly. Lazy, and utterly in
different to all duties, civU and military, he contented himseU
with a life of dissolute pleasure in his splendid capital.
The period of his reign was, perhaps, the most disastrous
yet chronicled in the many-coloured pages of the eventful
story of Rome. We have already briefly noticed the terrible
inroads of the barbarians, notably of the Goths and AUemanni
in the Western Provinces, and of the Persians in the East,
in the latter years of Valerian. During the dreary period of
the reign of his son the vast dominions of Rome seemed to
be rapidly crumbling to pieces. Nor were affairs at home
more promising. The " Augustan History " tells us that in this
gloomy reign a group of pretenders to the throne, mostly
soldiers of fortune, rose and fell in the various provinces of
the Empire. In the pages of that useful and interesting,

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 3S1
and generally reliable, chronicle these rebel claimants to
what in every instance proved to be " a bloody purple " —
for they all fell in turn victims to their ill-placed ambition
—are termed the " Thirty Tyrants." The number is as
misleading as the appellation. At most these short-lived
pretenders only numbered nineteen. But their revolts Avere
fatal to all settled government, and the sufferings of the
hapless provincials, harried by the formidable barbarian
raiders, were enormously increased by the state of perpetual
unrest and internal warfare resulting from these continued
and partly successful revolts. To add to the general misery
and desolation, between the years 250 and 265 a furious and
fatal plague raged almost continuously in every province
and every city throughout the Empire. We have dwelt
already, it wiU be remembered, on its terrible ravages in
Alexandria and Carthage. The historian of the Decline
and Fall, commenting on the misery of these sad years,
goes so far as to suggest that "barbarian invasions, internal
revolt and war, and the unchecked pestilence, had consumed
in these fatal years the moiety of the human species.*
In A.D. 268 the Emperor GaUienus, alarmed, at length, by
the presence in the home province of Italy of a formidable
pretender, Aureolus, general of the legions of the Upper
Danube, roused himself from his strange indifference and
apathy, and placing himself at the head of the army of
Rome advanced into north Italy to meet the rebel. He
besieged the pretender in Milan, but received a mortal
wound in a night attack. Dying, he nominated as his
successor Claudius, one of his generals, or, at least, Claudius/
claimed to have been so nominated. This successor o::
GaUienus was unmistakably an oflicer of rare merit and o"
conspicuous ability.
The fortunes of the Empire now brightened. Undei'
Claudius and his immediate successors, men of high genius[
of resolute courage and determination, equally able in civil
matters and in military command, the pressing dangers from
foreign and home enemies were warded off, a succession of
* Gibbon : Decline and Fall, chap. x. 3.

382 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
splendid victories drove back the swarming hordes of bar
barians, a Arise restoration of something of the ancient discipline
was also introduced into the legions. Claudius, Aurelian, Probus,
and Diocletian, who in the next thirty years wore the Imperial
purple, have deservedly been styled the restorers of the Roman
world. But during most of this period of renovation the story
of the Christians is a most gloomy one, and the pages of the
Christian chronicles are filled with the recitals of terrible
sufferings which the followers of Jesus were called upon to
endure, especially in Rome and the home provinces. It was
their last trial — the last effort of Paganism.
Claudius II. reigned from a.d. 268-70. This Emperor is
famous in history for the reforms he inaugurated in the waning
discipline of his Roman armies, and for a crushing defeat
which he inflicted on the Goths in Northern Greece, thereby
freeing the Empire for a long season from perhaps the most
formidable of the barbarian invaders. Owing to this conspicuous
success he has been generally knoAvn as Claudius Gothicus. It
is a disputed point among ecclesiastical historians whether or
no Christians were persecuted in this short "miUtary" reign.
On the one hand, there is no mention of any persecution in
the pages of Eusebius or of the less knovm Avriters, Orosius
and Sulpicius Severus. On the other, a long, sad catalogue of
sufferings appear in martyrologies and in a few Acts of martyrs
purporting to speak of this reign. These " pieces " are un
doubtedly late, but it is difficult to conclude that the
traditions upon Avhich they are based would have specified the
reign of Claudius as the date of these sufferings if it had been
a time of general quietness for the Church. It seems most
probable that the persecution referred to was largely confined
to Rome and Italy, and that it Avas owing to popular discontent
rather than to any special edict of the Emperor. Among the
victims Avhom the martyrologies mention are the wife and
daughter of the son of the Emperor Decius, who had been
associated with his father.
Claudius died, very shortly after his great rictory, of the
plague at Sirmium ; recommending AureUan, one of his most
famous generals, as a fitting successor. Aurelian was a great

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 333
soldier. The son of a small peasant proprietor in the neigh
bourhood of Sirmium and of one of the inferior priestesses of the
Sirmium temple of Mithras, he had passed through all the
grades of the mUitary service, and was distinguished equally
for his dauntless valour and for his consummate military skill.
He rose rapidly in his career. Valerian made him Consul A
senator of the first rank adopted him and gave him his
daughter in marriage, and the choice of the dying Emperor
Claudius nominating him his successor was Avith rare
unanimity generally ratified. He reigned scarcely five years,
from A.D. 270-5 ; but they Avere years of almost unbroken
triumph. In his successive campaigns the power of the
marauding Goths, shattered by the great victory of Claudius,
was completely broken. The Marcomanni and other Teuton
tribes who threatened Italy were routed, and the tAVo for
midable competitors who had assumed sovereign power —
Tetricus in the West, over Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and
Zenobia, the all-accomplished Palmyrene Queen, in the East,
over Syria and the adjacent prorinces — were completely
crushed ; and in Aurelian's splendid triumph at Rome, in
A.D. 274, Tetricus and Queen Zenobia were the most conspicuous
figures in the stately procession of the victorious Emperor.
Nor Avas Aurelian merely a most successful general; he was
also a great military reformer. His fame and the deep respect
in which he Avas held enabled him to complete his predecessor
Claudius' work of restoring discipline in the great armies
which Rome had to maintain for her defence. The stern
though just regulations which he pviblished as to the discipline
and conduct of his legions have deservedly Avon for this great
soldier the admiration of posterity.
But the Christian subjects of the Empire found in AureUan
a deadly foe. In the long drawn-out combat between Paganism
and Christianity, too often the Christian found his most
determined enemy in the person of a really great Emperor,
such as Aurelian, rather than in a weak and vacillating prince
* Allard, Sist. des Persecutions, iii., chap. v. This latest historian follows
Tillemont's conclusions here, who writes : " Claude fut un cruel persecuteur, selon
les martyrologies et quelques actes que nous en avons." — Memoires, t. iv.

384 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
given up to luxury and self-indulgence, as Avas Galhenus. Nor
is it difficult to explain this apparently contradictory experience.
AVe have already dAvelt upon the strength and poAver of
Paganism. The more distinguished men Avho wore the purple
loved Rome, and Avere intensely persuaded that the existence
of the mighty Empire and the continuance of her sovereign
power depended upon the unity of the religion professed by
the many peoples who made up the Roman world ; these many
peoples were largely welded together by the acknowledgment
of the common reUgion professed by the Emperor, the Senate,
and the Imperial Magistrates. This apparent unity, as we
have seen, was only broken by the Christian sect, which, as
generation succeeded generation, ever groAring in numbers
and increasing in influence, absolutely refused to share in
the state cult.
The policy of the State never varied in its view that the
presence of these Christians was a grave and a constant and
increasing danger; and when a great and patriotic Emperor,
like Marcus in the second century, and Aurehan in the third,
Avas at the hehn of pubhc affairs, the head of the State gave
effect to the Roman pohcy, which, however Avrongly, regarded
Christianity as the sleepless enemy of the Empire, and essayed
by means of a persecution, more or less severe, to crush the
ever-present, and as it seemed to the Roman rulers, dangerous
Christian sect.
Relying, perhaps, too much on the contemptuous indiffer
ence of some Avell-known classic Avriters for the popular idol-
Avorship of Rome; dwelling too deeply on the presentment
of this cult in the often shameful but stiU graceful pictures
painted by some of the best-known classic poets of the lives
and pursuits of the "Immortals," whose magnificent temples
adorned the historic Forum of the metropoUs, and proudly
toAvered over the great thoroughfares of Rome and of the
poAverful centres of population in the provinces; posterity
after the long combat betAveen Paganism and Christianity was
over, has not estimated aright the vast poAver which Roman
Paganism exercised over the hearts of men. We must be
allowed to reiterate this point, which, though of the utmost

FBOM DEGIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 385
importance in the great struggle of Christianity with Paganism,
is too often overlooked or neglected. It appears and reappears,
be it remembered, with startling force at different periods of
the struggle. We dAvelt on it at some length when the
persecuting pohcy of the noble Emperor Marcus was under
consideration. With Marcus and his advisers the persecution
of Christians was evidently a matter of conscience. So also
Avas it with Aurelian.
Aurelian was something more than a great soldier. His
mother, as we have said, was a priestess of Mithras ; and from
her, and from his early training and associations, the Emperor
probably derived those views of religion which so powerfuUy
influenced his life during his brief but brilliant reign over
the Roman world. To him, as to Marcus, the religion of
Rome was something more than the official cult, the pledge
of Roman unity ; it possessed evidently a living reality. To
such a sovereign, at once an earnest, even a fanatical Pagan,
and a stern miUtary disciplinarian, the Christian, who not
only refused to share in the popular religion but positively
loathed the objects of the popular cult, Avas at once a rebel
to constituted authority and a standing menace to the State.
Early in his reign his estimate of the followers of Jesus, Avith
whose existence and influence he was evidently weU acquainted,
appeared in his words to the Senate on the occasion of a grave
alarm occasioned by a success in the field of a formidable
Teuton host of Marcomanni. Aurelian urged that the Senate
should at once consult the dread Sibylline books — a step
rarely taken — when they hesitated. He wrote to them
thus: "Why, Conscript Fathers, do you hesitate? One would
suppose you assembled in a Christian church, and not in
the temple of all the gods. Take courage, I adjure you by
the holiness of the Pontiffs, by the sacredness of the
Rulers help your Prince in his hour of need! Let the
SibyUine books be searched, and whatever they suggest, let
it be done. Are captive victims from aU nations required
for offerings, or merely strange Arild animals? All these I
wiU undertake to produce, for there is surely no shame
in being conquerors with the Immortals fighting on our

386 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
side. This is the way in which our fathers went to
war."* The special object of his devotions, whom he hoped to
see the centre of the Roman cult, was Mithras, around whose
sacred shrine his earhest memories were grouped The
extraordinary popularity of the Mithras worship in Rome and in
other great centres, from the earlier years of the second century
onwards, has been already noticed. Originally a Persian deity,
Mithras, a word which signifies " the friend," was adored as
the god of the bright heaven and of the day. This worship
was formaUy introduced by Trajan, circa A.D. 100, and
developed under Commodus, circa a.d. 190, and, though not
at first, was subsequently identified before the time of Aurehan
Arith that of the sun. As practised in Rome and the West,
this worship was accompanied Arith an elaborate and attractive
popular ritual ; Mithras was regarded as at once sun-god and
fire-god, the life-giver and the source of pinrification. Some
scholars consider the worship of Mithras at Rome as an accom
modation of the primitive worship of Nature, so admired by
Augustus and Virgil, to the growing voices of conscience, which,
unacknowledged and perhaps unsuspected, were due to the
influences of Christianity.
Among the rites and teachings of the cult were many
strange customs and doctrines, seemingly borrowed from
Christian worship and teaching, such as baptism, redemption
by blood, the oblation of bread and wine, the sacred common
repast. But here in these outward symbolic ordinances and ritual
observances, the resemblance to Christianity ceased. Upon
the votaries of the Persian deity no precepts bearing on the
higher, purer Ufe seem to have been inculcated. There Avas
no self-denial, no austere virtue, no need for purity pressed
home to the worshippers at the fashionable and favourite
shrines. This was the deity especially adored by AureUan. To Mithras,
among the crowd of Italian and foreign deities adored in
Rome, he specially addressed his prayers. When, for instance,
* Sistoria Augustte Scriptores, Aurelian in Vopiscus, 20.

FBOM DEGIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 387
Valerian told him he had put him forward for the high
dignity of Consul, AureUan, already a famous general, replied :
"" May the gods, and particularly the Sun, influence the Senate
to think thus favourably of me "* (" Dii faciant, et deus
"-certus Sol, ut Senatus de me sic judicet ").
After the great triumph which celebrated his victories
over Zenobia in the East, and Tetricus in the West, Aurelian,
as an enduring memorial of his conquests and of the restora
tion of the Empfre to something of its ancient grandeur,
-erected on the Quirinal hUl a temple of Mithras, or the Sun,
which he proposed should surpass in its costly magnificence
aU the stately shrines of Rome. It was adorned with the
spoils of his Eastern campaign, and its treasury was filled, it
is said, with gold and gems of an incalculable value. In the
"" ceUa," or inmost shrine, arose two statues of the Sun-god,
the one bearing the Western form of ApoUo, the other the
Eastern image of Baal. On some of the coins of Aurelian
runs the inscription, " The Sun, Lord of the Roman Empire "
(" Sol Dominus Imperi Romani ").
To the favour of the gods of Rome, and especially to the
protection of Mithras, the sun-god, Avhom the Romans had
long admitted into the circle of the immortals they adored,
AureUan attributed the successful issue of his striking cam
paigns. To such an Emperor, the stern exclusiveness of his
Christian subjects, who coldly stood aloof from aU the gor
geous pageantry with which he honoured the gods who, he
beheved, protected with their aU-powerful aid his successful
efforts for the restoration of the Empire, was simple disloyalty.
Such impious men, in the eyes of Aurehan, were a veritable
danger to the unity of the State. Under such a ruler, great
in peace as in war, the popular dishke of the Christians grew
in intensity. But the active persecution of the Christians
which marked this reign only seems to have been carried on
in real eamest in the closing months of his life. It is clear
that in the early portions of his reign the edict of GaUienus
j-estoring the ecclesiastical buUdings and cemeteries, which
had been confiscated by Valerian, to the Church, was stiU
' Siatoria Augusta Scriptores, Aurelian in Vopiscus, li.

388 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
considered to be in force ; for we have an account of a curious
petition made to Aurehan against Paul of Samosata, some-
whUe Bishop of Antioch, who had been condemned as a
heretic by a formal council. Paul of Samosata, in spite of
the decision of the councU, persisted in retaining possession
of the Antioch church buUdings ; and the Emperor, as repre
senting the civil authorities, was appealed to by the Catholic
Bishop of Antioch to compel the recalcitrant to give up
these possessions.
It was a singular step, based, of course, upon the edict of
GaUienus which formally restored to the Church all her
possessions, and it is a striking proof of the recognised position
of the Church at this time. Aurelian decUned to give judg
ment himself, but referred the case to the Bishops of Italy,
and especiaUy to the Bishop of Rome, who were to decide it
(Eus., H. E. rii. 30.)
The policy, however, of Aurehan towards the Christians-
in the latter portion of his reign, as might have been ex
pected from his knoAvn zeal for the worship of the gods,
gradually changed. That he always disUked and mistrusted
them is clear, as is shoAim in his words above quoted to the
Senate, when the question of consulting the SibyUine books
came before them. And that this dislike and mistrust eventu
aUy passed into open persecution is evident. Eusebius (H. E.
vii. 30) thus in a few words describes the change which
passed over Aurehan's policy towards the Church. "In the
progress of his reign he began to entertain different rieirs
concerning us, and at length, under the influences of certain
adrisers, he went on to arrange a persecution against us.
And the rumour of this was now everjTv^here abroad." The
formal edict, the text of which is lost, but which Lactantius
characterises as "bloody," ordering a general persecution, A^as
not issued till the latter months of a.d. 274. But probably
harsh and severe measures were taken against the worshippers
of Jesus some time before the general edict was promulgated.
For tradition speaks especially of many martyrs having
perished in the well-knoANTi cities of Gaul in the course of
the reign of Aurelian ; notably in Lyons, Auxerre, Autun, and

FBOM DEGIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 389
Sens. The "passions" of these saints unfortunately are of
comparatively later date ; evidently Avritten, or more accurately
re-written and redacted, long after the events which they
purport to chronicle had taken place; and therefore they
cannot be used in any sense as authentic pieces of history.
That some of them certainly were based on earlier and
probably contemporary memoranda is at all events probable
But we can only speak of their eridence as "traditionary."
Similar " passions," or " acts," of martyrs in Aurelian's reign
in different parts of Italy which have come doAvn to us are
equaUy untrustworthy,* and can only be referred to by the
serious historian as tradition.
The " bloody " edict, however, ordering a general perse
cution, which was issued towards the close of a.d. 274, had
but a short time to run, for the great Pagan Emperor was
assassinated in the spring of the following year, a.d. 275
There were, however, some seven months of interregnum
before the election -of Aurehan's successor, Tacitus, during
which the edict of the late Emperor was, no doubt, generaUy
in force. After the death of Aurelian, a.d. 275, the Church historian
only needs to touch with a Ught hand the story of the
next nine or ten years. Then after a.d. 285 his task wiU
become heavier as he chronicles the last terrible struggle of
Paganism with Christianity. Aurelian was assassinated by
a favourite general, one Mucapor, in a military conspfracy,
and for seven months the Empire was Arithout a master. It
says much for the wise policy of Aurelian that no rebeUion
or disturbances in Rome or the provinces seem to have
jufiled the peace of the State. The legions under the new
discipline inaugurated by the two last Emperors dutifully
left the choice of a new master of the Roman world to the
Senate, who after some delay nominated an aged and illus-
* Allard, Sist. des Persecutions, iii., ch. v., ill, examines at some length these
" acts " and " passions," and discusses their various values as pieces of reliable
history. The French scholar, writing in the later years of the nineteenth century,
considers some of these pieces as embodying a definite tradition, or as based upon
ancient documents.

390 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
trious member of their body. Tacitus, the object of their
choice, reluctantly accepted the purple, but only surrived
his elevation some six or seven months, dying in one of
the frontier camps. The immediate cause of his death is;
unknown. A famous and successful soldier, Probus, was saluted
Emperor by the legions of Asia as successor to Tacitus, and
save for the claim to the throne by a brother of the late
sovereign, a claim soon set aside, Probus was generally accepted
by the Roman world as its master.
His reign, a.d. 276-282, a period of nearly six years, is
famous in the annals of the Empire for the vigorous and
successful campaigns against the barbarian hordes which
were threatening again most of its fairest provinces.
By far the most conspicuous of his great mihtary successes
was the clearing of Gaul, with its many wealthy cities,
of the invaders Avho were once more sweeping through and
desolating the land and its prosperous tOAvns. These savage
hordes were driven back by Probus into their native wUds, and
Gaul was for a time — but only for a time — completely cleared of
them. By the year "^281, thanks to the unresting energy
and military skill of this great soldier Emperor, the Empire
of Rome found itself at peace within and without; and a
triumph, notable among the many triumphs of Rome for its
splendour, celebrated the return to Italy of the successful
commander. In the year following this triumph, strange
to say in the very midst of his legions, who for the most
part idolised their brUliant general, he was murdered by
some discontented soldiers. His Prffitorian Prefect Carus was
chosen by the victorious soldiers as his successor. Tille
mont (Histoire des Empereurs, t. iii.) strikingly Arrites of
the condition of the Roman world in this year, a.d. 282, as
follows : " After the unhappy reigns of Valerian and GaUienus,
the Empire, which had been gradually raised once more
under the rule of Claudius II., AureUan, and Tacitus, under
Probus had reached a position of grandeur so lofty that its
decadence became almost certain." Carus, though a capabl&
soldier and a man of acknowledged ability, seems as an

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOOLETIAN. 391
Emperor to have disappointed the public expectation. The
writer of his biography in the " Augustan History " (Vopiscus)
is doubtful whether to classify him among the good or the
evU sovereigns of Rome. He certainly-, left behind him a
reputation for cruel austerity.
Once more the Empire was threatened on various sides
Arith barbarians, Avho were emboldened by the news of the
sudden death of the conqueror Probus. After obtaining some
marked successes on the westem frontier, Carus, at the
head of a powerful force, marched into Asia and signally
defeated the Persians, driving them even from distant
Mesopotamia. But in the midst of his triumphant Eastern
campaign he perished — as some say struck by lightning in
a terrific storm, as others, perhaps with greater probability,
suspect, assassinated like so many of his predecessors in a
mihtary conspiracy.
The Roman army at once retreated from the scenes of
its rictorious progress in Persia. Carus had previously
associated in the Empire his two sons, Carinus and Numerian.
The brothers, on the death of their father, were universaUy
acknowledged as Emperors. Carinus had been left in Rome.
Numerian had accompanied Carus in his Eastern expedition.
The brothers were very different in character, Numerian
was an accomplished prince, a poet, and an orator of no
mean capacity; in quieter times he would at least have been
a respectable if not a distinguished ruler ; but his genial,
amiable rirtues were insufficient for the occupancy of a
throne where marked military quaUties were pre-eminently
necessary. He never returned Arith the army, which, after
the death of Carus, abandoning its rictorious campaign in
distant Persia, retraced its steps westwards. A dark mystery
attended the close of his short reign. His father-in-law, Aper,
the Prsetorian Prefect, was charged Arith being his murderer,
and was put to death by the hands of Diocletian, captain
of the Imperial bodyguard, who was saluted as Emperor.
Carinus, who had been left in Rome, durmg his brief reign
displayed aU the worst characteristics of the rilest Emperors
who had worn the purple — a heartless profligate and a selfish

392 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM,
pleasure-lover, he utterly failed as a ruler. His favourites
and Ministers he selected from the lowest and most degraded
of the people, whose passions he flattered and amused by the
most gorgeous and extravagant theatrical displays.
These popular games, already in the reigns of the great
mihtary Emperors who preceded him, had been celebrated with
an extravagance unknoAvn even in the days of Nero.* The
magnificence of Carinus here surpassed aU that Rome had ever
seen. This infamous Emperor, in the midst of his guUty pleasure-
filled life at Rome, was aroused by the news of the approach
of Diocletian, the choice of the legions of the East, at the head
of the powerful army which had fought in the late Persian
campaign. Carinus, under the circumstances of personal pressing
danger, developed somewhat unexpected courage and capacity.
The opposing forces met in Mcesia in the Danube country.
At first it seemed probable that Carinus would succeed in
estabhshing his power, and that Diocletian would be driven
back ; but the civil war was unexpectedly brought to an end by
the assassination of Carinus by one of his oAvn officers whom
he had foully Avronged. Without any further bloodshed, the
rival Emperor Diocletian was acknowledged by both the armies ;
widespread consciousness of his ability and tactfulness secured
a general acquiescence in his assumption of the throne of the
Empire. The date of Carinus' death and the accession of
Diocletian was the late spring of the year 285.
During the nine years which elapsed between the death of
Aurehan and the accession of Diocletian we possess but scanty
materials for any accurate picture of the condition of Christians
in the Empire. The edict of persecution issued towards the end
of Aurelian's reign was certainly unrenewed, but it is probable
that the state of unrest, so largely augumented by the strong
anti-Christian pohcy of the great Aurehan, continued.
The brief barbarian-harassed reigns of Tacitus, of Carus and
* Under Probus, for instance, we read of as many as a hundred lions and as many
lionesses, three hundred bears, and two hundred leopards being massacred in one
day in the Eoman amphitheatre, as well as a far greater number of leas costly
beasts, such as ostriches, stags, and wild boars.

FBOM DEGIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 393
his two sons, the longer but completely war-fiUed period of
Probus, gave little opportunity to the enemies of the Christians
for developing any organised attacks on their religion The " acts "
of martyrdom which have come down to us of this period are
few, and in their present form are certainly not contemporary
records. The " acts " of SS. Trophimus and Sabbazius purport
to speak of events which took place in a. d. 281, the last year of
the reign of Probus, in the Phrygian Antioch, and relates the
arrest of certain Christians, and the tortures and martyrdoms
which foUowed in consequence of the resolute refusal of the
confessors to sacrifice ; but these are reported to have been
brought about, not in the course of any general persecution, not
even on the report of an informer, but solely on account of some
imprudent exclamation of disgust uttered by the Christians in
question at the sight of some of the wild and noisy rites carried
on publicly in honour of some probably local deity. As these
" acts " seem probably to have been based on contemporary
memoranda of the scene, we can fairly infer that under Probus,
at least in Asia Minor, there was no general persecution, no
special encouragement even held out to informers, but that if
the profession of Christianity were brought home to any citizen,
the magistrate, if hostile to the sect, could punish the offender
Arith torture and death. Probably this was the general condition
of Christians in most parts of the Empire at this period.
The " acts and passion " ofthe famous soldier-martyr Sebastian
treat of the period covered by the short reign of Carinus. The
story is an interesting one, and has enjoyed considerable popu
larity from very early times, but the recital, as we have it, is
evidently not a contemporary record, though a Aride-spread
tradition points clearly to an historical basis for the story.
Far more reliable as a contemporary piece are the " Acts " of
" the disputation between Archelaus, Bishop of Mesopotamia, and
the heresiarch Manes " * in the reign of the Emperor Probus.
The chief city of the see of Archelaus was Carrhae, a city of
* This " piece," which contains also an account of the death of Manes, was cited
by Epiphanius, Jerome, and CjtII of Jerusalem. Without positively aflarming its
authenticity, the evidence iu favour of this most ancient writing being a contempor
ary record is very strong. Allard, usually very careful in such cases, accepts it as a
genuine and probably contemporary writing.

394 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Osrhoene, a district in the north-west of Mesopotamia. In this
ancient " piece " Ave read of the cruel and brutal treatment of a.
large company of Christian pilgrims by the legionaries of the
Roman garrison of Carrhae. In an apparently unprovoked
onslaught many Christians were killed, more were wounded and
severely injured, and the rest would probably have been sold for
slaves but for the charity of a generous Christian named
Marcellus, who relieved and ransomed them at his oato
charges. Such an incidental notice, occurring as it does in a
" piece " of literary importance, a position undoubtedly occupied
by the " disputation " in question, teUs us how slightingly and
cheaply the lives of Christians were estimated at times by the
great Roman armies of the days of Probus (a. d. 276-282).
In the same interesting record is contained the earUest
trustworthy account of Manes the heresiarch, the first teacher
of that wide-spread and enduring heresy knoAro as Manichaeism.
Manes, the founder of the sect which subsequently bore his
name, appears to have been originaUy a slave, carefuUy educated
by his Persian mistress in aU kinds of oriental lore. His
theological system was a curious mixture of some of the Gnostic
errors, e.g. the two co-equal conflicting principles of good and
evil, the eternity of matter, which was regarded as essentiaUy
erii, aU coloured Arith a certain amount of Christian teaching
One of the marked tenets of the sect was a strong aversion to
the Old Testament as the work of a Aricked spirit. Another
was the unreality of the suffering Christ. Circa a.d. 277,
when Probus was reigning. Manes, who had some time before
incurred the displeasure of Sapor, King of Persia, probably
OAring to his success in assembling round him a considerable
body of disciples, escaped from the prison where he had been
confined for several years. A public disputation was arranged
between Manes and Archelaus, the Mesopotamian Bishop.
Archelaus was pronounced by the arbitrators of the disputation
rictorious, and the heresiarch, we read, Arith difficulty escaped
with his hfe from the indignant bystanders. Shortly afterwards^
Manes fell again into the hands of the Persians, who put him
to death. His skin, stuffed with straw, was exposed for a long
period on the walls of Ctesiphon.

FBOM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN. 395-
But his Arild, half poetic, half rationalistic theory of Chris
tianity, with its mythic machinery, largely derived from the-
old Gnostic speculations, and Gnostic asceticism, long survived
its iU-fated author. It seems to have possessed a strange
fascination of its ovm. Manichaeism was heard of soon after
Manes' death in North Afr-ica. A little more than a century
and a quarter later, Augustine teUs us the sect was numerous-
in Italy and in Africa, and that its poison had affected secretly
even some of the clergy. It appeared and reappeared at
different times aU through the Christian ages. Time, which
spread usually a mantle of forgetfulness over most ancient
errors and fancies of the human brain, seems to have had no
effect here ; for as late as the twelfth century, in parts of
Europe, Manichaeism was taught openly and undisguised.
The chief seat of these opinions was the south of France; a
long drawn out and terrible religious war scarcely stamped out
the enduring results of the teaching of the half-crazed Persian
enthusiast.

396

CHAPTER XIV.
DIOCLETIAN.
SECTION I. — FIEST PERIOD : DIOCLETIAN AND MAXIMIAN.
The reader of this history cannot faU to have noticed how
in the later chapters more and ever more in detail the chief
political events of the Empire are dwelt upon. In the earher
years of Christianity these details were unnecessary. For a
very considerable period the religion of Jesus was generaUy
ignored by the State, except when forced upon its notice.
Gradually the position changed. In the third century, cer
tainly, the Church had, through the vast numbers of its
members, its influence, its Aride-spread organisation, become a
power with which statesmen had to reckon. The poUcy which
the Imperial Government at different times should elect to
pursue in the case of these numerous dissentients from the
State rehgion had become an anxious and debatable question,
and we have seen how this pohcy was constantly changing.
In the next period, the close of the third and the beginning of
the fourth centuries, the great religious question, the relations
of Paganism and Christianity, had become the most pressii^,
the most momentous, of all questions of State policy. Indeed,
to use the words of a serious historian of our own day and time
it would seem as though the scene of the world drama had
been cleared of all other actors — only two of importance
remained on the stage, the Pagan Empire and the Church
Diocletian, the Emperor, whose pohcy changed the whole
aspect of the Roman world, first comes before us as avenging
the murder of the young Emperor Numerian, by slaying
his father-in-law, Arrius Aper, the Prsetorian Prefect. After

DIOCLETIAN. 397
the assassination of Carinus, the brother of the slain Numerian,.
this Diocletian, a weU knoAvn and popular general, who had
lately fiUed the responsible post of captain of the Imperial body
guard, was acknowledged universally as Master of the Roman
world. The son of slave parents, the neAv Emperor, whose talents
were undoubted, had raised himself through the various
military grades, and had been successively Governor of Mcesia,
Consul, and Commander of the Imperial guards. He had
given ample proof of his capacity in the highest military and
civil posts.
Lactantius, indeed, in some half-dozen passages, affirms
that as a soldier he was somewhat timid and lacked daring.*
But as a statesman skilled in the choice of fitting instruments
to carry out his policy, Diocletian was undoubtedly far-seeing
and wise, whatever estimate may be formed of the policy
itself. Unlike many of his predecessors, he inaugurated his
reign, not by murdering or conniving at the murder of the
reigning Emperor, but by slaying the murderer of the
sovereign with his oym. hand. This act may be said to have
won the people to his side.
Firmly seated on the world's throne, he resolved to break
up in some degree the " unity " of the Empire, Avhich he
felt was becoming a constant perU to aU settled government..
There had been, as a rule, one Emperor on Avhom aU depended,
and one city which was the centre of the Roman world. The
successful revolts and assassinations in the thirty or forty
years preceding the accession of Diocletian, had been terribly
numerous. This danger he sought to avert by multiplying
Emperors and by creating various cities which, in power and
prestige, should rival the immemorial capital By this means.
he proposed to render a successful revolt well-nigh impossible,
and an Imperial assassination useless; and thus a security
long unknown in the Empire would be provided for the
* Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap, xiii., referring to Lactantius' De Moriibus
Persecutorum, here somewhat scornfully rejects this testimony. He refers only
to two of these references of Lactantius; there axe, however, other references.
to the same eflcect. The estimate given above is probably accurate.

398 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
existing government. He inaugurated his new pohcy by
associating a partner Arith him on the throne, and subsequently
by increasing the number of Imperial partners from two
to four. Thui3, if in one dirision of the Roman world an
ambitious general or official proposed to seize the throne by
the murder of its occupant, he would probably be deterred
from his purpose when he remembered that three more
partners in the throne in other parts of the Roman world,
partners in the Imperial authority closely knit together by
various ties, would have to be reckoned with.
Again Diocletian felt that the Empire was so enormous,
and so dangerously threatened on aU sides by barbarian
tribes more or less powerful and numerous, that the constant
presence of an Emperor on, or comparatively near, a frontier
of the vast realm was needed for the pubhc security. It was
not sufficient that the chief of the State should successfuUy keep
at bay the Persians on the banks of the Euphrates, when the
Goths or the Alemanni, at an enormous distance from the
Imperial headquarters on the Euphrates, might at any moment
imperil the Empire on the banks of the Danube and the Rhina
His first choice of a coUeague, from these points of riew,
was successful He associated vrith himself Maximian. The
"associated" Emperor, Uke Diocletian, was of low birth and
not an ItaUan. He was merely a rough soldier; but if he
lacked the gifts of a really great general, it is certain that
he possessed indomitable energy, conspicuous bravery, and
splendid perseverance. His campaigns were generally success
ful, but he was known as a stem and cruel ruler, a curious
contrast to his more courtly and gentle statesman-coUeague,
to whom, however, though so different in temper and character,
he was ever loyal and devoted. Carrying out the spfrit of
his contemplated change in the administration of the Empire,
Diocletian resided at Nicomedia, which became the centre
of the government of the East. The eity was weU chosen,
on an arm of the sea of Marmora. It was a good place of
arms in the neighbourhood of the Black Sea, comparatively
speaking within easy distance both of the Tigris and the
lower Danube, the natural highways of approach for some

DIOCLETIAN. 399
of the more formidable of the restless enemies of the Empfre.
This city, as his chosen residence and the seat of his govem
ment, he lavishly adorned with costly buildings, such as
befitted the capital of the Roman Empire of the East. But
the choice boded ill for the future of the Christians, since
it was a famous and even a fanatical seat of Paganism. Maxi-
mian's metropolis was Milan, in North Italy ; Rome was
thus deserted by the Imperial Court, and lost its immemorial
rank and much of its prestige, while the august Senate,
which, even under the rule of the roughest military despots,
retained at least the semblance of its ancient dignity and
privUeges, now sank almost into the position of the Municipal
Council, of a city no longer the official metropoUs of the
Roman world. The associated Emperors assumed respectively
the Pagan titles of Jovius and Herculius, investing them
selves with the insignia of the King of the Gods, and of
the strongest warrior in the ranks of the Immortals, an
erii omen for their Christian subjects.
Another striking change in the Constitution of the Empire
was carried out by the policy of Diocletian. The absolute
masters of the Roman world who had preceded him had
veiled their enormous power under the ancient titles belonging
to the officials of the old Republic, carefully avoiding the
title of king and rejecting the kingly ornament of the diadem,
the ensign of royal sovereignty. The only special title which
Augustus and his successors assumed was that of " Imperator,''
which was originaUy a military term denoting the highest
rank in the army. Diocletian introduced the magnificent
ceremonial of the Persian court, assuming the diadem of a
king, an ornament obnoxious to the Roman spirit as an ensign
of royalty. The mediseval and modern idea of royalty in the
nations of the West was really introduced by Diocletian, when
"the organisation which this sovereign gave to his new
Court attached less honour and distinction to rank than to
serrices performed towards the members of the Imperial
famUy." The apologists of the revolution in the ancient
Roman constitution worked by Diocletian are careful in their
reiteration that these changes were prompted, not by any

400 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
love of ostentation or vain show, but by a persuasion that
aU this magnificence and adulation would promote obedience
and order among the many peoples and nationalities grouped
together under the name of Romans.
What, then, was the position of Christians, now so
numerous, under this great statesman-Emperor, and what
were the circumstances which gradually led up to that
tremendous outburst of systematic persecution Arith which
this reign wUl ever be associated ? In the first place it is
clear that the mind of the Emperor, for several years after
his accession, was not made up as to the policy he should
adopt towards this large and influential body of his subjects.
In these earlier years there is no doubt that great influence
was exercised in the Court of Diocletian in favour of Chris
tianity by a number of the Palace officials, who made no
secret of their Christian profession. At the head of this
Christian party Avere the Arife and daughter of the Emperor,
Prisca and Valeria, who were Christians, at least occupying
the position of catechumens. Christian officials in the Palace
were tolerated, and were possibly regarded with some favour
at first by Diocletian, who even nominated members of the
"Sect" to governorships and important ma,gistracies m the
provinces, dispensing such Christian nominees from the
necessity of sharing in the public sacrificial rites, as indeed
some among his more tolerant predecessors had already done.
But alongside this toleration or even favour, there seems
to have been instances early in the reign of Diocletian when
the sovereign aUowed the old laws of the State, stiU unrepealed,
to be acted upon in the case of open hostility on the part of
Christians to Paganism. The curious and interesting " Passion
of S. Genesius," * the scene of which was laid in Rome, belongs
to the early years of Diocletian. If this piece be accepted as
genuine, it indicates that the severest punishments were, at
* TUlemont, commenting upon this beautiful piece, calls attention to its sun-
plicity and apparent truthfulness, and considers it reliable and authentic — "une
pifece que sa simplicite rend aimable et fait juger tout k fait fidele" (tom. iv-i
Memoires S. Geuese). AUard, Persecution de Diocletien, i. 1 (1898), accepts this
" Passion of S. Genesius " as containing "des dftaUs precis et suffisament siirs."

DIOCLETIAN. 401
aU events occasionaUy, stiU meted out to Christian professors.
WhUst Diocletian in the first partition of the Empire
took the Eastern division of the Roman world under his
especial government, the Western provinces passed at once
under the rule of his coUeague, Maximian Herculius.
The kindly toleration, which perhaps save in a foAv instances
in the beginning of his reign, was showed by Diocletian to
members of the Christian sect does not appear to have been
the policy of Maximian. Between the years 286 and 291-2
there was not indeed any general persecution of the " Sect " ;
but the general testimony of ecclesiastical tradition preserved
in the "Acts of Martyrs," treating of this period, tells us that
in the provinces subject to Maximian, especiaUy in that vast
division of the West known as Gaul, much Christian blood
was shed, and many sufferings were evidently endured.
In A.D. 286 a serious revolt broke out in Gaul ; not a
revolt in the ordinary sense of the word as usuaUy understood
in the Rome of that age, of legionaries who had chosen some
favourite commander to replace the reigning Emperor; but
a general uprising of the peasants, the descendants of the old
Celtic inhabitants of the land, against the oppressions of the
Gallo-Roman nobles who had gradually reduced these people
into a state of miserable servitude. To restore this great
dirision of the Empire once more to a state of law and order
was Maximian's first important task. It was on his march
from Italy to Gaul that the famous bloody episode of the
Theban Legion is said to have taken place.
A portion of the army of Maximian on its march had
encamped in the valley of Agaunum, some little distance
from the Leman Lake, in the district now known as " Valais."
A body of soldiers, called in the story "The Theban Legion,"*
but probably, in fact, a cohort mainly recruited in the Thebaid

* The numbers usually given are evidently exaggerated. We must remember
that Eucherius' account, truthful though it seems on the whole, had come to him
through two persons, neither of them eye-witnesses. A Legion would certainly
denote several thousands. It must be borne in mind, too, that the names of only
three officers of the company are preserved, one of whom was Maurice, the martyr
always associated with the deed of blood.
A A

402 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
district of Egypt and forming part of the Imperial forces,
happened to be earnest Christians.
This Theban contingent declined to take part in a solemn
sacrificial ceremony arranged by Maximian, who desired to
propitiate the gods and to Arin their assistance in the danger
ous campaign on which he was about to enter. The super
stitious Emperor, bitterly incensed at this refusal of the
Thebaid contingent to share in the solemn Pagan rites he had
arranged, treated the refusal not only as an act of special
impiety towards the gods of Rome, but as a grave infraction
of discipline, and condemned the cohort in question to the
terrible mUitary penalty of decimation.* The punishment
had no effect. The Christian soldiers stiU resolutely refused
to take part in the solemn idolatrous rites arranged by the
Emperor. Again Maximian decimated the brave soldier-con
fessors. In spite of the chastisement they stiU stood firm.
The cruel Emperor, upon their reiterated refusal, ordered a
massacre of the whole band. Under the orders of their
captain, a devoted Christian named Maurice, they offered no
resistance, and the whole cohort was cut down.
The terrible story comes to us in a letter of Eucherius,
Bishop of Lyons, a.d. 435-50, written to a brother bishop, one
Salvius, scarcely a century and a half after the martyrdom.
The letter of Eucherius is evidently an authentic document;
the evidence upon which he bases his narrative is very definite.
He had learned the story of the martyrdom from Isaac, Bishop
of Geneva, who received it from Theodorus, Bishop (from a.d.
349) of Octodurum, a city only a few mUes distant from
Agaunum. Theodorus is a known personality in ecclesiastical
history, and was present at the Council of AquUeia in A.D.
381. He, as TiUemont remarks, might well have learned the
particulars of the dread event from eye-witnesses of the scene
of carnage. When Eucherius wrote, the basiUca erected over the grave
of these martyrs for the faith was still standing in Agaunum;!
* The detachment so punished drew lots, and every tenth soldier, after having
been scourged, suil'ered decapitation in the presence of his comrades.
t The modern name of the city of Agaunum is " Saint Maurice," the name
the commander of the Theban cohort. In the sixth century, and even earlier, we

DIOCLETIAN. 403
numerous pilgrims from distant lands Avere stiU in the habit
of visiting the shrine ; and a tradition of miracles performed
in behalf of these devout pilgrim-worshippers hung round
the haUowed spot. The one debatable point in Eucherius'
letter is that he placed the massacre of these Christian soldiers
in the period of the great persecution of Diocletian, which
burst out a few years later than the probable date of the
occurrence. But such a mistake of a verj' few years is easily accounted
for. It would be natural enough for a non-critical Avriter to
class such an event among the many awful incidents of the
great persecution which harried the Christians in all parts
of the Empire so soon after the Agaunum tragedy.
The authenticity of the story has been much contested
by critics who have made much of the silence of the eccle
siastical historians, Eusebius, Lactantius, Sulpicius Severus,
and Orosius, and of the Christian poet Prudentius. Of
these, by far the most conspicuous, Eusebius, dwells in detail
upon the martyrs of the Eastern portion of the Empire alone.
Many scenes of martyrdom in the West are passed over in
his history, for reasons to be discussed' later. Lactantius
again describes the persecutors rather than the persecuted,
and gives us only a general picture of the persecution, in
dulging in comparatively few detaUs. Sulpicius Severus and
Orosius do not profess to treat of these events in detail.
The Spanish poet Prudentius largely confines his hymns and
poems to Spanish confessors, and a few of the more con
spicuous Roman martyrdoms. The "silence'' of these writers
here cannot invalidate the clear simple testimony of Bishop
Eucherius, supported as it is by a widespread tradition
have various references to the martyrdom of the ' ' Theban Legion, " as, for instance,
amongst others in the Martyrology of S. Jerome, S. Gregory of Tours refers
to it. S. Maurice, the chief officer of the band, haa been ever honoured as the
patron saint of the "Valais," and various churches in France, Germany, Italy,
Spain, etc., bear his name. The ancient royal House of Savoy, the present rulers
of Italy, from very early times adopted Maurice as the patron saint of their
famous family. When the Canton of Valais ceased to form part of the dominion
of the House of Savoy, half of the hallowed relics of the martyrs of the " Theban
Legion" were translated with great ceremony to Turin and deposited in the
Cathedral there; this was iu a.d. 1581.

404 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
which has left its mark deep and broad in the country
where the event is related to have taken place.
We have, therefore, treated it as actual history; with
TiUemont, Ruinart, and many other serious writers. In
later times AUard, the French scholar, in his learned and
exhaustive "History of the Persecutions," writing in the last
years of the nineteenth century, after a long and searching
examination of the evidence for this tragic event, unhesi
tatingly accepts it as an important piece of authentic history ;
considering that the bitter animosity undoubtedly shown by
Maximian to Christianity in Gaul in the years immediately
following the 'Agaunum tragedy was largely owing to the
bitter feehng excited in his mind by the Legion's resolute
defiance of orders; implying in his view that the Christians
were disloyal to the Empfre and its immemorial policy.
This animosity was displayed during his residence in Gaul
between 286 and 292, whUe Diocletian in the East was stiU
tolerating, if not favouring, the sect.
There are various "Acts of Martyrs" extant purporting
to treat of this persecution. These "Acts," however, are not
contemporary, and have suffered much from legendary inter
polations ; but they have a general value as proving that
the Christians in Gaul did undergo considerable sufferings-
fitfully, perhaps, and Arithout the promulgation of any special
edict. The existing edicts gave handles enough if the
authorities chose to act on them.
The " Acts " in question speak of persecution under
Maximian's authority in the districts round Paris (Lutetia),
in the west at Nantes, in the north at Amiens and Beau-
vais, in the north-east at Soissons and Rheims, in the south
at Agen and Marseilles. The traditional martjnrdom of S.
Alban in Britain belongs to this same date, and is usuaUy
placed circa A.D. 286.
In the Eastern provinces of the Empire, during these six
years, the position of Christians was generaUy favourable.
The influence of the Palace officials, and of the wife and
daughter of Diocletian, no doubt contributed to this policy
Christianity in the districts directly under Diocletian's rule

DIOCLETIAN. 405
was exceptionally strong, both in the numbers* and in the
position of its votaries. As Ave have noticed in some of our
earlier sections Asia Minor and its wealthy cities, from the
last quarter of the first century onwards, was peculiarly the
home of the worshippers of Jesus.
We have several times had occasion to dwell upon the fact
that under the Emperors who were not unfavourable to Chris
tianity many Christian citizens were permitted to fill various
civic offices, every facility being given to them to discharge such
functions without sharing in any public acknowledgment of the
religion of the state ; while the policy of the rulers of the
Church generally made such a sharing in public duties easy and
practicable to the members of Christian communities. The
Canons of the well-known early Council of the Church, IlUberisj
(Elrira, in the province of Spanish Granada), throw considerable
light on this point, and give us some definite information
respecting the inner Ufe of the Catholic communities at the
time. In this Council, Canons Avere passed in which the position
of members of the community occupying various municipal
offices of importance is gravely considered ; without directly
approving the undertaking the duties of such public functions
the ChuBch distinctly contemplates such cases as not of unfre
quent occurrence, and is careful not to discourage them by too
* It is not, of course, possible to give any exact account of the number of
Christians in the Empire at the period of the breaking out of the last and most
terrible of the persecutions in a.d. 302-3. We can only give an approximation of
the numbers. The total population of the whole Empire at this period is generally
estimated at about a hundred millions. In the East the Christians were decidedly
more numerous than in the West, and scholars have estimated that in the
provinces of Asia Minor and the East about a tenth of the population were Chris
tians ; iu the Western provinces about a fifteenth. On the whole, it would seem
not an unreasonable supposition to estimate the Christian population of the Empire
at the end of the third century at about seven to nine millions. The expressions,
however, of Tertullian, cited above (p. 232), even allowing for rhetorical exaggera
tion, would seem to require a much larger estimate.
t The exact date of the Council of Illiberis or Eliberis (Elvira) has been much
disputed; that usually given is circa a.d. 303-4, but a somewhat earlier date is
more probable, before the great persecution. The period of comparative quietness
between a.d. 286 and a.d. 292, and the general position of the Church iu the Empire,
best fits in with the state of things described in the Canous of this Council.

406 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
severe penalties. For instance, if the garlands and insignia of
priests of the temple are required to be worn on certain occasions
by the ciric functionaries in question, these Christian ofiiee-
bearers are to be separated from communion for two years, and
during their year of office are not to enter a church. It is
to be observed that the Christians who undertook municipal
offices never actually sacrificed or gave public games, but
instead defrayed the cost of some work of public utUity, such
as the building of a bridge or basiUca, or the making of a
road. In some cases the distribution of a sum of money was
substituted for the costly show in the amphitheatre. It must
be borne in mind, too, that the general temper of this lUiberis
Council in which nineteen Bishops and twenty-six priests sat,
was most austere, resembling in the strictness of some of its
Canons a Puritan or Novatian, rather than a Catholic Council;
which renders the fact of the imposition of these comparatively
light penances still more remarkable. The formal decisions
arrived at in such a Council as that of Illiberis emphatically
show that, in the period immediately preceding the final terrible
persecution, the general policy of the heads of the Church in
relation to the State was stiU that which had been laid down by
the Church of Rome in opposition to TertuUian and Hippolytus.
The proceedings of this same famous lUiberis Council
give us various details respecting another phase of the inner
life of the Church at the close of the thfrd century. Historians
have been too ready to attribute to the Christian communities
a general spirit of laxity and worldliness at this particular
period, basing their unfavourable conclusions chiefly on some
expressions of Eusebius (H. E., viii. 1). But the careftd
enumeration of the faults and errors which existed in the
Christian Society of the time, as reported in the proceedings
of this austere CouncU, demonstrate to us how high was the
ideal proposed and taught by responsible CathoUc teachers.
Such severity would not have been possible if the offenders
particularised had been numerous in the communities, or if
public Christian opinion had in any way countenanced such
laxity in ordinary life. Indeed, the resolute and noble stand
made by the Christians generally in the East and West when

DIOCLETIAN. 407
the persecution broke out in the first part of the fourth century
is a plain contradiction to any such supposition.
In the earUer years of Diocletian's reign the Christian
communities, apparently for the first time, ventured in many
cities to build important churches, and to caU in the aid of
art to decorate and beautify their homes of prayer and praise.
One of the Canons of the Spanish Council to which we have
been referring aUudes to this last somewhat novel innovation *
in terms of stern reprobation.
Whilst, however, in the provinces, and particularly in the
Eastern cities, a false sense of security lived in the many
communities, in Rome a haunting sense of the extreme pre-
cariousness of the position seems to have brooded over the
Church. There, far more conspicuously than in any other
centre of the Empire, Paganism was a visible power, with its
splendid ritual, its stately temples, its immemorial traditions.
There the worship of the immortals preserved its time-
honoured intimate connection with the ceremonials of the
Senate and the chief magistrates of the Empire, who were
shorn of their ancient power, but who stUl preserved the
outward and visible insignia of their long inherited dignity.
In Rome during the years of stUlness which preceded the
great storm, the chiefs of the Christian community, instead of
erecting and adorning new and large churches, as seems to
have been the case in many of the prorincial centres, busied
themselves rather in their subterranean city of the dead,t
preparing quiet sanctuaries where they might meet for prayer
* The paintings and decoration of the catacombs of course date from a much
earlier period ; but with a few exceptions these catacomb paintings were of a
simple unobtrusive character. It would seem that the churches which arose in
the latter years of the third century were adorned in a much more ambitious way.
t Much of the catacomb work, according to De Eossi, especially in the
adaptation of corridors and sepulchral chambers for worship, belongs to the last
quarter of the third century, and particularly to the earlier days of Diocletian's
reign. Allard (^Persecution de Diocletien, vol. i., chaps, i.-xi.) quotes from
a Latin Mass of this period a solemn prayer which evidently looks forward to a
time of peril, probably near at hand, in which the ministering priest prays God
for a heart which will continue to serve Sim truly if " quietness " still smiles on the
Church, but which will not deny Sim if the day of temptation comes on the Church
(Si quies adrideat, te colere, si temptatio ingruat non negare).

408 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
and communion in those darker times which they felt might
and probably would soon come upon them again.
The attitude of Paganism when the last and most formidable
attack ever made on Christianity was imminent, had greatly
changed in the half century which preceded the accession of
Diocletian. We have already called attention to the sUent
reformation which had permeated the old beUefs. There is no
doubt that the neAv teaching was in large measure derived
from Christianity, whose great influence had made itself felt in
all the centres of the Empire ; a strange and novel monotheism
was gradually but surely taking the place of the multiplicity
of objects of worship enshrined in the old coUege of immortals
— " The Universal Deity of the East, the sun, to the philosophic
was the emblem or representative, to the vulgar the Deity."*
In some places the sun was worshipped under the name of
ApoUo, more frequently as Mithras, the purifying fire; in
Egypt as Serapis, in Syria as Baal. The many gods of the
older world were curiously placed in the new Pagan teaching
on a loAver platform, and, if adored at aU, were worshipped as
subordinate spirits or daemons. It is true that Diocletian clung
outwardly to the old cult when he adopted the title of Jovius,
and induced his coUeague in the Empire to style himself after
the hero-god as Herculius. But when in the famous scene in
the camp of the murdered Numerian he slew the factious
praefect Aper, it was to the sun-god he solemnly appealed
when he asserted his innocence of the murder before the
assembled army of Rome ; and later we .shall see, when the
question of persecution or no persecution of the Christian
peoples was in the balance, the same statesman-Emperor
betook himself, not to the priests of Jupiter, but to the oracle
of Apollo, the sun-god of Miletus, for adrice upon the tre
mendous question at issue.
Nor was this Pagan Monotheism without its effect on
Christianity; attempts seem seriously to have been made
in various quarters to bring about an understanding between
the two reUgions, and it is said that some Christians here
and there were induced to make common cause with their
* Dean Milman : Sist. of Christianity, Vol. II., Book IL, Chap. IX.

DIOCLETIAN. 409
Pagan foes and their new presentment of their cult. But
only a very few were led into the devious paths of this new
Paganism; the great majority were steadfast to the faith
for which so many of their fathers had given up life and
aU that seems to make Ufe pleasant and dear, and for which
they too were soon to be called to make a like sacrifice.
In line with the Neo-Paganism, with the religion of the
State, the cult professed by the bulk of the official classes, by
the patrician order, and by the vast majority* of the people
in the years immediately preceding, and during the period
of the deadly conflict, outwardly at least were ranged the
philosophers of the time ; not a very distinguished or powerful
group, but one which, through their bitter and incisive
writings against Christianity, exercised a not inconsiderable
influence on the side of Paganism. This group of philosophers
is generally knoAvn as the Neo-Platonists. They had existed
as a school of teachers for some half a century when Diocletian
ascended the throne of the Cssars, and their principal repre
sentative during Diocletian's reign was Porphyry.
Porphyry and his fellow teachers had really very little
in common with the new Paganism of the day, still less
were they in sympathy with the older Paganism of the
Empire ; indeed. Porphyry is reported to have said that
" the older conceptions of God are such that it is more
impious to share them than it is to slight the images of
the gods." But in spite of such a contemptuous estimate
of the old Roman cult, he supported the cause of every
old national religion, and the ceremonial duties of its adherents.
Of Christianity, however, there is no doubt that he was the
sleepless opponent. He professed to admire the moral beauty
and the holiness of the founder of Christianity, but he con
demned with a tireless pen the people who worshipped Him
as their God with what seemed to him a strange inexplicable
* We have already discussed the probable numbers of Christians in the
Empire under Diocletian and his colleague, and it will be remembered that
we put them as about seven to nine millions out of a population numbering
roughly a hundred miUions. _ThuB the expression "The vast majority of the
people" is fairly justified.

410 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
passion of devotion. He was a great student of the sacred
writings of the Old and New Testament, but with the one
object of undermining their testimony and destroying their
enormous and abiding influence. He failed completely, as
we shaU see, in all his efforts directed against Christianity;
as others have in like manner signaUy failed who in later
ages have been inspired by Porphyry's spirit, and have
imitated Porphyry's methods.*
Porphyry's example as a writer against Christianity was
followed by other members of the school, whose works, as
far as we are able to gauge, were coloured with an extra
ordinary bitterness against the religion of Jesus. Indeed,
one of the most prominent of these philosophic scholars,
Hierocles, has been by some considered as the prompter of
the great persecution.
SECTION II. — SECOND PERIOD: THE DIVIDED EMPIRE.
The five or six years' experience of the results of diriding
the Imperial dignity and responsibUities had been on the whole
fairly successful, and during these years no further barbarian
invasion of any serious importance had disturbed the Empire;
but in A.D. 291 threatened raids or revolts on many sides
* Allard, Persecution de Diocletien, I., i., 2, ii., has some very interesting and
suggestive comparisons between the great Pagan phUosopher of the last age of
Paganism, and some weU-known modern adverse critics of Christianity. " Porphyre
serait ' le Renan ' du paganisme. . . . Sa critique parait d'hier ; il afBrme
que les propheties de Daniel ont et6 ecrites aprfes coup, puisque I'^venement les
montre accomplies. . . . Le nouveau Testament est particulierement passe
au crible. Comme fera Strauss, il s'efEorce de montrer des contradictions, des
inexactitudes, des invraisemblanoes. S'elevant parfois a des vues plus hardies,
il devance l'ecole de Tubingue en raettant en lumifere le pretendu antagonisms
de S. Pierre et de S. Paul. Par le souvenir de la fortune qu'ont cue de nos
jours cette recherche des antinomies, ou ces hautaiues affirmations, accompagnees
parfois d'hommages attendris a la personne de Jesus separe de ses disciples et de
son oemTO, on se rendra compte de I'effet que les quinze livres de Porphyre doivent
produire sur I'opinion des contemporains." Porphyry's great work here referred to,
his fifteen books "against the Christians," was destroyed. It was condemned by
an edict of the Emperor Theodosius II., a.d. 448, and even the answers toit
by men like Eusebius, Apollinaris, etc., have 'oeen lost. But we possess copious
extracts from it in Lactantius, Augustine, Jerome, etc. This famous anti-Chns-
tian philosopher was born at Tyre circa a.d. 233 and died circa a.d. 303.

DIOCLETIAN. 411
imperatively called for the presence of an Emperor and an
army on each frontier. Diocletian determined in 292 to enlarge
further his plan of govemment by the association of two more
sovereign princes under the title of Csesars, who Avere attached
in a subordinate capacity to the two senior Emperors, styled
" Augusti." The Csesars were to enjoy the right of succession
to the Augusti, and thus the ever- recurring danger of a popular
or tumultuary election of an Emperor was at least minimised.
The choice of Diocletian fell on two distinguished soldiers,
both trained in the military school of Aurelian and Probus ;
Galerius, who became attached to his Eastern portion of the
Empire ; and Constantius, surnamed Chlorus (the pale), who
assumed the position of the Assistant-Emperor to Maximian
in the West. Galerius was peasant-born, and had risen to
high rank owing to his military capacity. He was rough,
cruel, ignorant, and masterful, though at the same time he was
acknowledged to be an able and successful general. Constantius
Chlorus, on the other hand, while a brilliant soldier, loved
peace, and in his temper and tastes was in most respects the
opposite of the rough and stern Galerius. He was nobl}'
born, his mother being the niece of the famous Emperor
Claudius. In religious matters Galerius was a fanatical and supersti
tious Pagan, whUe Constantius, though attached to the doctrines
of the Neo-Pagan School of which we have spoken, was
in no way opposed to Christianity ; indeed, he was ever
kindly disposed to the followers of Jesus, perhaps owing to
the influence of his first wife, Helena,* who, according to a
* S. Helena, afterwards famous ia Christian history, is generally supposed to
have been of very low extraction ; she is currently described as originally a servant
at an inn. Although the laws of Rome did not give the title of wife to a woman
lowly born married to one in the higher grade of society, stiU such a union being
legal was recognised by the State. It was a lawful marriage to all intents and
purposes, save that it did not carry with it the title of wife. On his elevation to
the rank of Csesar, one of the conditions accepted by Constantius was that he should
marry the daughter of Maximian the Augustus ; Helena was then repudiated and
divorced. Constantine the Great, however, the son of Constantius Chlorus and
Helena, succeeded to the dignity of his father, being preferred to the issue of the
second marriage. It would thus seem that the first marriage was deemed a legal
union. On the question of the Christianity of Helena, Theodoret, who wrote in the

412 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
tradition of authority, was already a Christian during the
boyhood of her son, afterwards known as Constantine the Great.
This further partition of the East and West was a fresh
blow to the cherished unity of the Empire, aud to the matchless
dignity of the immemorial city which had given its proud
name to the mighty dominion. Four Emperors, each Anth
their army and thefr court ; four capital cities,* the selected
residences of the four wearers of the Imperial purple ; completed
the work of the first division between Diocletian and Maximian,
and effectuaUy obscured the oneness of the grand and imposing
creation of Augustus and his successors.
No doubt such a division of the great Empfre had its
advantages; it prorided a more ready and effective means
of defence against the ever-floAring tide of barbarian invasion,
while, to a certain extent, it was a safeguard against the
constantly recurring revolutions to which the State was exposed,
owing to the facUity with which a turbulent and mercenary
soldiery could make and unmake a solitary Emperor. But
in spite of aU the precautions which the statesmanlike foresight
of the creator of the new Imperial constitution could devise,
to use the words of the historian of the Decline and FaU,
" the political union of the Roman world was gradually dissolved,
and a principle of divisioii was introduced, which in the course
of a few years occasioned the perpetual separation of the
Eastern and Western Empires.''
The effect of these great changes in the government and the
Constitution upon the Christian portion of the population was
only gradually felt. No doubt the kindly feehngs of the
noAvly appointed Western Csesar, Constantius, towards Chris
tianity in the prorinces immediately under his rule, con
tributed to the quietness generally enjoyed by the worshippers
of Jesus ; and to a certain extent their influence modified the
early part of the fifth century, teUs us that the principles of Christianity were
taught by his mother to the boy Constantine (the Great), but Eusebius, who wrote
about a century earlier than Theodoret, relates that originally Helena was not a
Christian, but was converted much later, under the influence of her son, the
Emperor Constantine.
* These four capital cities were iu the first instance, Nicomedia and Sirmium,
Milan and Treves.

DIOCLETIAN. 413
fitful persecutions to which they were exposed under Maximian.
In the East, on the other hand, where the toleration of
Diocletian had largely contributed to the development of
Christianity, and had emboldened the communities to make a
more open profession of their faith in such matters as the
building and decorating of their churches, a new and hostile
influence had arisen in the person of the Csesar Galerius, a
bigoted and superstitious Pagan. As time advanced the
ascendancy of this powerful enemy of Christianity became
more pronounced, and Diocletian, whose health gradually
failed under the crushing burdens of government, passed more
and more under the evil influence of the Pagan Emperor he
had created; and a new policy of the bitterest persecution
was adopted which, under the name and authority of Diocletian,
the Senior and virtual Chief of the Emperors, extended over
a large portion of the Empire.
The first famous edict of Diocletian directing a general
proscription of Christians was issued early in a.d. 303. But
for several years before this date, we are aware that in the
army attached to the Csesar Galerius, the Christian soldiers
had been subjected to persecution. At first the respect and
awe Arith which he naturaUy regarded the Senior Emperor,
who had raised him from a private situation to the purple,
kept him in check ; and the unfortunate issue of his earlier
campaign against Persia diminished his influence. But his
subsequent triumph over the eastern enemies of the Empire,
a series of victories which resulted in the annexation of several
important provinces, evidently placed Galerius in a new and
more independent position; and he felt himself at liberty to
carry out his designs against the hated religion even though
they were contrary to the Arishes and in direct opposition
to the policy of Diocletian. The victorious campaign against
Persia was completed in a.d. 297-8, and between this date
and the year 302-3 must be placed the various attempts of
Galerius to eradicate, or at least to diminish, the growing
influence of Christianity in the armies under his command.
The pohcy pursued seems, from Eusebius' words (H. E.,
viii. 1 and 4), to have been devised in the hope of more

414 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
easily overcoming the scruples of the Christians serring in
the armies of the Emperor ; the advisers of Galerius reckoned
that, if these were compelled or persuaded to renounce then-
faith, the victory of Paganism over those in civil Ufe who
professed Christianity would be comparatively easy. Galerius
evidently knew little of the history of the Faith in former
years, and strangely miscalculated the constancy of Christians !
The Csesar began by methodically testing the strength of his
soldiers' convictions; requiring the different divisions of the
army to take part in formal and public idolatrous ceremonies,
and giving notice that if any disobeyed the general's orders
they would forfeit their rank and the various privUeges
which many of them as veteran legionaries enjoyed. Eusebius
goes on to teU us that numbers of these legionaries, who were
soldiers in the kingdom of Christ, without hesitancy preferred
the confession of the Name to the apparent glory and
comfort which they enjoyed ; and of these a few exchanged
their honours not only for degradation but even for death.
These last, however, who suffered this extreme penalty were
not yet many. The great number of believers found in his
army probably deterred Galerius and caused him to shrink
fi-om a general attack upon aU.
Among the more prominent of those few who died for
the Faith at this time were the well-knoAvn martyr-ofi&cers
Sergius and Bacchus. A general tradition speaks of these
two confessors as originally standing high in the Imperial
favour. They attained an extraordinary popularity in early
times— many churches erected after the Constantinian Edict
of Peace of a.d. 313 were named after them; among which
the circular-shaped basilica of SS. Sergius and Bacchus
erected at Constantinople by Justinian very early in the
sixth century is, perhaps, the most remarkable. Their fame
extended far beyond the limits of Galerius' sphere of influ
ence, and we find even in distant Gaul a church dedicated
to their memory as far north as Chartres. Two of the
" Acts " of martyrs of this period, generally accepted as genuine
contemporary pieces, have come down to us, viz., "The Acts
of S. Julius " and " The Acts of SS. Marcianus and Nicander."

DIOCLETIAN. 415
The simple details of their trial and brave constancy are no
doubt accurate pictures of the sufferings undergone for the
Faith's sake. Seemingly small concessions to the Pagan
worship favoured by the Emperor would have procured for
these soldiers life and even high honour, but they preferred
the martyr's painful death, rather than deny their Lord.
Some strangely pathetic circumstances related in the evidently
circumstantial narrative of the "Acts" accompanied the trial
scene of Nicander. His wife, Daria, who was present, encouraged
het husband in his resistance to the Imperial commands. "0 my
Lord," the brave woman is reported to have said, "take care
how you deny our Lord Jesus Christ. Look up to heaven,
you wiU surely see Him there in whom you must believe.
He will help you." And when insulting words were spoken
to this true Christian lady, she asked for herself the boon of
dying first for Christ.
The persecution, however, between a.d. 297-8 and 302
seems to have been confined strictly to the army. There
are records which evidently point to a similar harrying of
Christian soldiers at the same period in the dominion of
Maximian Herculius, colleague of Diocletian, especially in
North Africa and Italy ; and towards the end of the period
the insistence of Galerius, whose infiuence over the elder
Emperor was gradually increasing, prevailed to a certain
extent with Diocletian, who issued similar directions to the
officers of his army, insisting upon the duty of sacrificing to
the gods of Rome. But in no case does it seem that a
death penalty was exacted as yet in his armies.
Diocletian was prematurely old. He was not sixty when
his health failed him ; years of toil, the cares of government,
the restless anxiety of his busy, successful life had worn
him out. The gorgeous and elaborate magnificence of the
palace which he had caused to be erected at Salona, on the
Adriatic, to which he retired after his abdication in the late
spring of a.d. 305, seems to tell us that he had long meditated
his design of quitting the scenes of his greatness. At all
events, in the last months of a.d. 302, when Galerius visited
him at Nicomedia, his health had begun to fail, and he was

416 EABLY CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
unable to resist the urgent importunities of his younger
colleague, who pressed him to change his tolerant policy.
StiU reluctant, however, to assume the role of persecutor
of a very numerous sect, which reckoned among its numbers
his own wife and daughter, he summoned a Council to
consider the wisdom of adopting the anti-Christian pohcy
urged on him. The opinion of this Council, although some
what divided, seems to have been, on the whole, adverse to
Christianity. No doubt the influence of the younger Emperor
coloured the spirit of the resolution of the advisers thus
called together. Diocletian, in feeble health, a world-weary
man, would probably soon disappear from the scene, while
his younger coUeague, strong and vigorous, would at no distant
period no doubt succeed to the supreme authority; naturaUy
his views prevailed. It was determined that the oracle of
ApoUo at MUetus, a famous Pagan shrine, should be con
sulted on this all-important question. Lactantius simply
teUs us that the reply of the oracle was such as an enemy of
our divine religion would give. Eusebius in the "Life of
Constantino"* adds some curious details.
The oracle's answer was a very singular and ambiguous
pronouncement. " The god complained of being unable to an
nounce what was coming on the earth, OAring to the presence of
just men who were liring in the world." The superstitious mind
of Diocletian was troubled by this reply, and he enquired who
were these just men, enemies of the god who prevented his speak
ing. The opinion was unanimous. They were the Christians.
This decided the Avavering Emperor. The Csesar Galerius, the
god Apollo, and the Imperial Councillors were eridently of
one mind; and the terrible persecution was then arranged.
StiU Diocletian, remembering the past prosperity of his reign, was
loth to proceed to extremities, and, whUe ordering a persecution,
forbade that any Christian lives should be sacrificed; the
harrying of the sect was to be confined to deprivation, of rank,
* They are found in Eusebius, De Vitd Constantini, lib. ii., under the
heading " Constantini edictum ad provincialcs de falso cultu multorum deorum."
After Chap. XLVIII. the title of the chapter runs thus : " Quod ex ApoUinis
oraoulo, qui ob justos homines responsa amplius edere non poterat, mota sit
persecutio."

DIOCLETIAN. 417
privUeges, and fortune. With this modified persecution the
Csesar Galerius and the Pagan party professed themselves con
tented for the present. They had laid their plans skilfuUy, and
Avere confident that events would happen which would speedily
induce the ailing Diocletian to adopt a harsher procedure.
The first persecuting edict was pubUshed at Nicomedia in
the names of Diocletian and Galerius early in the year 303. It
Avas drastic in its stern prorisions. (1) All assemblies of
Christians were absolutely forbidden; (2) Christian churches
were to be destroyed ; (3) The Sacred Books of the Christians
Avere to be burned ; (4) Rank and privUeges were to be taken
away from aU persons professing the religion of the Crucified ;
henceforth such noble and privileged citizens of the Empire
were hable to torture, and lost their right of appeal to any
tribunal ; (5) Those who belonged to the lower grades of society,
if they persisted in their adherence to the forbidden religion,
would lose their Uberty; (6) Christian slaves could never receive
their freedom.
The provisions of this sweeping edict were in some respects
even more far-reaching than the anti-Christian legislation of the
Emperor Valerian. The burning of the sacred books was a novel
provision. The widely extended regulations as regards slavery
affected classes untouched by any prerious edict. On the other
hand, the clergy were not speciaUy named by Diocletian, and
the extreme penalty of death was not mentioned. This last
concession was the remnant of the old favour so long shoAvn by
the Senior Emperor to the Christian sect.
It may well be conceived that the provisions of this
terrible law struck the Christian communities who had for
several years been in the enjoyment of immunity from all
harassing persecution with dismay and astonishment.
Very shortly after the promulgation of the first edict, a fire
broke out in the Imperial palace at Nicomedia where the two
Emperors were residing. Fifteen days later another fire in the
palace alarmed Diocletian. Eusebius notices it briefly in the
foUowing language : " I know not how it happened, but there was
a fire that broke out in the Imperial palace at Nicomedia in those
days, which by a false suspicion reported abroad was attributed
B B

418 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
to our brethren as the authors of it " (Eus., H. E., vui 6).
Lactantius (De Mortibus Pers., 14, 15) goes into further details,
and openly charges Galerius with having contrived the fires,
and then accusing the Christians as the incendiaries, hoping
thus to embitter Diocletian against them.
The result certainly turned out as Galerius Arished. Diocle
tian was thoroughly alarmed ; his sick fancy pictured a wide
spread plot on the part of the harassed Christian communities
to destroy him. He no longer trusted his palace officials, many
of whom were Christians.
His genuine terror was no doubt increased by the hurried
departure from Nicomedia of his younger colleague in the Empire
after the second fire in the palace ; Galerius professing to dread
being burned alive in the Imperial residence " contestans fngere
se ne vivus arderet " in Lactantius' words.
Then the great persecution, commoiUy knoAvn as Diocletian's,
began in real earnest. In some particulars the last of these
terrible onslaughts of Pagaiusm on Christianity bore a striking
resemblance to the first. The primary reason for the harrying
of Christians under Nero singularly enough was the result of
the charge brought against the sect of incendiarism. The
current belief that they were the authors of the fires which had
partly consumed the Imperial residence at Nicomedia deter
mined Diocletian to crush them. There was no longer any
hesitation on his part to proceed to extreme measures ; old and
long trusted palace officials were tortured and put to death,
simply because they professed the feared and hated rehgion.
The ghastly details of some of these martyrdoms are given at
length by Eusebius. These men endured thefr sufferings and
met their deaths with the calm courage showed by so many
confessors of the noble army of martyrs. The only recorded
instances of failure in the moment of bitter trial were the two
princesses, Prisca and Valeria, the wife and daughter of the
Emperor, who both consented to sacrifice.
Outside the palace walls the same cruel treatment Avas
meted out to the leading personages in the Christian community
of Diocletian's capital. The Bishop Anthemius, his presbyters,
and a number ofhis clergy and their households were put to death,

DIOCLETIAN. 419
nor were the women and children spared. The early days of
the persecution in Nicomedia witnessed scenes unparaUeled in
any preceding persecution ; some victims were taken out to
sea and droAvned, others burned, and these not in solitary
instances, but in whole companies. The prisons were crowded.
New and fearful forms of punishment were devised for these
hapless and innocent members of the Christian communities.
Nicomedia, the beautiful capital of the Eastern Empire of
Diocletian, wiU ever occupy in the sad yet glorious annals of the
early story of Christianity a position of prominence. It would,
however, be an exaggerated picture of Christian constancy which
omitted to record any instances of falling away among the
crowd of sufferers for the Faith; but, generally speaking, the
Christians of Nicomedia presented a spectacle of extraordinary
constancy and even of superhuman endurance. In other cities
of the East the first edict and the provisions of the subsequent
more severe proclamations which foUowed, were carried out Arith
more or less rigour, but the instances of defection were often
more numerous than at Nicomedia. In Antioch, for instance,
we hear of numbers of Christians falhng away in the hour of
trial. At no period had the Avorshippers of Jesus been exposed
to so rigorous a persecution as in those early years of the
fourth century. No enemy to the Christian sect among the
Pagan rulers of Rome had arisen Uke Galerius. He had
made the cause of Paganism his own, and he hoped finaUy
to destroy the dangerous and powerful religion which he so
intensely hated. He was an ambitious and self-seeking despot,
and probably calculated upon all the influence of Paganism
to support him in his intrigues eventually to gain the supreme
power in the Empire. Diocletian, his patron, the founder of
the new Imperial college of rulers, was sick, he thought, to
death, and Galerius was weU aware of his project of abdica
tion; it Avas arranged that Maximian should abdicate at the
same time. Galerius' influence with the sick Diocletian would,
he rightly guessed, be sufficient to ensure the nomination of
two subordinate Emperors, who would be creatures of his
own, to fiU the vacant places in the Imperial tetrarchy. Only

420 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
one obstacle remained to his obtaining the coveted posi
tion of supreme lord of the Roman Empire, in the person
of the Western Emperor Constantius Chlorus; whose
quiet and unostentatious career, however, seemed to suggest
that in him would scarcely be found a formidable com
petitor. Under such a coming master of the Roman world the
future of Christianity seemed indeed gloomy. The fierce
edict of A.D. 303 was rapidly followed, under the inspfration
of Galerius, by other and yet more terrible anti-Christian
laAvs ; laws which were directed against no one special class
or order among the communities of the Church, but which
in their comprehensive scope affected aU, clergy, laity, legion
aries, all classes of the Christian society, rich and poor, noble
and servile alike. Indeed, had they been generaUy put into
execution throughout the provinces of the Empire, it is hardly
conceivable that Christianity could have survived; humanly
speaking, it seems as though the rehgion of Jesus was pre
served from annUiUation by the new Imperial Constitution
arranged years before by Diocletian.
The edicts of persecution drafted, to use a modern term,
by Galerius ran in the names of the four lords of the Roman
world, Diocletian and Maximian, Galerius and Constantius
Chlorus. In the Eastern Empfre there was no question re
specting the execution of the edicts ; here and there a power
ful pro-consul or provincial magistrate, sympathising Arith the
persecuted sect, might and did soften the fury of the pro
secution ; but generally the sufferings of the members of the
sect who declined to conform to the State religion were very
terrible. In the Eastern countries of Roman Europe, includ
ing Greece and the provinces on the Danube, the sphere of
Galerius' special influence, the same may be said; in Italy
and Africa, the dominion under Maximian, the Imperial edicts
of persecution Avere, of course, enforced with stern rigour,
that Emperor being a cruel and superstitious Pagan. But in
the West of the Roman Empire there was a very different
spirit inspiring the Government. Far away from Diocletian
and Galerius, the vast and wealthy province of Gaul, which

DIOCLETIAN. 421
roughly included,* it must be remembered, modern France,
SAritzerland, the Low Countries, the Rhenish provinces of the
modern German Empire, and the island of Britain, were aU
under the rule of Constantius Chlorus.
In this great and important dirision of the Empire, the
edicts emphatically were, if not ignored, at least very imper
fectly put in force ; nothing like a persecution, in the grave
sense of the word, ever raged there. It is scarcely an ex
aggeration to say that this great and good ruler preserved
Christianity from the most deadly peril to which it had as yet
been exposed.
We have already briefly touched upon Constantius' family
and early life. He Avas by birth a noble, his mother being
the niece of the great mihtary Emperor Claudius, and was a
trained soldier. Of the contemporary historians, Eusebius tells
us that the persecuting edicts were ignored in his provinces ;
Lactantius slightly modifies this statement, and represents
Constantius as making a show of conformity to the laws of
the Empire, in that he ordered the destruction of some
churches, and even proceeded against certain professors of the
proscribed religion ; but these proceedings seemed to have
been merely a feigned compliance with edicts to which his
name was necessarily appended, and the Christians were
generally left unmolested in his broad provinces whUe their
brethren were enduring terrible sufferings in Italy, Africa,
Spain, and in the East of the Empire.
The question has ^been asked. What motive induced Con
stantius to sympathise with the proscribed religion ? Eusebius
seems to have deemed him a Christian ; in his " Life of Con
stantine" (L 17), he represents Constantius Chlorus as dedicating
to the One God wife and children, his palace, and all that
dwelt in it, so effectively that the frequenters of tbe palace
were much the same as those who made up the congregation
* Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap, xiii., Note 14, referring to Tillemont,
is in doubt whether Spain was among the provinces of Maximian or Constantius.
It seems, however, without doubt that the persecution during the years 303-4
and part of 305 was very active in this province. Maximian, therefore, must have
been supreme in Spain.

422 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of a church, and as loring to surround himself with Christian
priests and bishops. This picture, however, which paints
Constantius as a Christian seems scarcely accurate ; for Chris
tian Avriters, who are never weary of describing the conversion
of his son, afterwards known as Constantine the Great, say
comparatively little of the father ; whereas Pagan writers speak
of him Avith an enthusiasm which they would scarcely have felt
for a declared enemy of the gods of Rome.
Constantius probably belonged to the school — a fairly
numerous body in his days — of enlightened Pagans, who,
without breaking with the popular Pagan ideas, had a dim
conception of the unity of God ; he was probably tolerant
of aU forms of behef; perhaps he had an especial sympathy
Arith Christianity, and encouraged and even courted its pro
fessors. The " pale " Emperor, whose quiet, noble hfe was
spent in successfuUy fighting with the enemies of his countiy
and in ruling with justice his widespread dominions; whose
reign, according to the testimony of both Pagan and Christian
writers, was unstained by cruelty or by crime, and who was
invariably kind and gentle to aU his subjects; stands out a
very noble figure among the group of ambitious and per
secuting princes who, after Diocletian's dirision of the Empire,
successively filled the various Imperial thrones of the East
and West.
The importance of Constantius' policy towards Christianity
in her darkest hour can scarcely be overrated. The bitterest
and most unrelenting persecution was making havoc of the
Church in all the provinces of the East, as weU as in Italy
and Greece, Africa and Spain. Successive edicts, each sur
passing the last in severity, were being put forth by the
Imperial Chancery under the direction of Galerius, with the
avowed purpose of utterly destroying Christianity in the
Roman Empire ; but the knowledge that in Gaul, the great
province of the West, a totally different policy was being
pursued by the powerful and honoured ruler of that portion
of the Empfre, largely neutralised the deadening and numbing
influence of Galerius' work. No doubt those magistrates in
the persecuted districts who sympathised Arith Christianity

DIOCLETIAN. 423
were encouraged secretly to favour the proscribed sect, and,
as far as was possible, to check persecution ; and as time went
on, and the power of Galerius began to Avane, the policy of
Constantius in the West insensibly influenced some at least
of that group of Imperial rulers who arose in the troublous
times which followed the abdication of Diocletian.
But it was only in the favoured West, in the realm of Con
stantius, that the edicts were suffered to slumber. In the Asiatic
prorinces of Diocletian destruction and havoc were very
general. In many of the tOAvns the churches which had arisen
in the long period of quietness Avere razed to the ground, and
the communities of Christians scattered and cruelly harassed.
In the realm of Maximian, ever a bitter foe, the edicts of per
secution were rigorously carried out. Rome suffered severely,
and much of the " earthing up " of the catacombs which modern
exploration has brought to light dates from this sad period;
the Bishop of Rome, Marcellinus, thus preventing any dese
cration of the sacred shrines of the dead. Vast numbers of the
Church's archives and coptes of the sacred books Avere seized
and destroyed in this period.
In North Africa, which was included in Maximian's terri
tories, the persecution, as might have been expected, was
severe. In this province religious life seems to have been all
through the earlier centuries peculiarly intense; it was the
home, too, of the schismatic whose cardinal error was an
exaggerated austerity of life and conduct.
A special feature of this first persecution of Diocletian
was the bitterness displayed in the search after the sacred
Christian books. Wherever the edicts were rigorously carried
out, not only were the churches and the buildings connected
Arith the cemeteries of the dead pitUessly destroyed, but the
communities were required to give up the sacred vessels
used for the Holy Eucharist, and also the manuscripts Avhich
contained the Avritings of their Teacher and His disciples.
There is no doubt that vast numbers of them were destroyed
at this time as weU as many " Acts of Martyrs," and other
church records, an irreparable loss being thus sustained.
Many earnest and devout Christians went to prison and some

424 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
to death rather than give up these sacred writings; others,
however, yielded, not looking upon such a surrender as a
rital point. In North Africa a few years later the question
was fiercely raised in the Christian communities whether
those presbyters who in the hour of extreme peril had thus
given up the Holy Books, and who were branded Arith the
opprobrious title of " Traditores," had not by their weakness
forfeited their sacerdotal privileges. The charge of jdelding
up the sacred books was the immediate occasion of the great
Donatist schism. The ranks of these schismatics were largely
recruited, as might have been expected, in North Africa,
from the inheritors of the peculiarly strict and austere tenets
of the Novatianists. The schism made so Aride a cleavage
in the Christian communities that the whole question was
subsequently debated at a CouncU composed of 200 bishops
summoned from all parts of the Western Empfre to Aries
by Constantine in the year 314.
The search after and confiscation of these various Christian
writings indicates the nature of the persecution, and shows
how elaborately planned were the proceedings of the enemies
of the Faith. It was no temporary outbreak of Pagan animosity,
but a carefully arranged campaign against the Christian
religion, Avhich Galerius and his adrisers hoped completely to
eradicate. In Rome, so rich in indirect testimonies to the severity
of the last persecution, an absence of Avritten documents
containing reliable detaUs is speciaUy noticeable. And this
is accounted for by the same reasons we have adduced for the
provinces. Indeed, in Rome, the great seat of Paganism, the
search for and consequent destruction of the sacred writings
and manuscripts of the Christians seems to have been more
thorough and complete than in any other of the important
centres of population.
The first edict was rapidly followed by a second, Avhich
was especially aimed at the clergy. Eusebius (H. E., viiL 6)
tells us of the numbers who were at once thrust into
prison — bishops, presbyters, and deacons, readers and exorcists.
A third edict was soon after put forth offering liberty to

DIOCLETIAN. 425_
any of these who would consent to sacrifice, but in the
event of their refusing they were to be punished with ex
cruciating tortures. The historian seems to imply, in the
words immediately following his brief notice of these second
and thfrd edicts, that the invitation to recant Avas generaUy
refused, as he adds : " Who could tell the numbers of those
martyrs in every province, and particularly in Mauritania,
Thebais, and Egypt, that suffered death for their religion ? "
StiU Eusebius does ilot conceal the fact that there were
some -who, appaUed at the sufferings which awaited those
Avho were steadfast, did recant in the supreme hour of trial.
His words must be quoted : " Hence also we shall not make
mention of those who were shaken by the persecution, nor
of those that suffered shipwreck in their salvation, and of
their own accord were sunk in the depths of the watery
gulph." Of the kind of tortures that were endured, he Avrites :
"Here was one that was scourged with rods, there another
tormented with the rack, and excruciating scrapings, in which
some at the time endured the most terrible death; others,
again passed through different torments in the struggle."
(H. E., vUi. 2-3.)
The closing days of the year 303 brought a brief respite
to the sufferings of the persecuted followers of Jesus. It
was the twentieth year of the reign of Diocletian, and the
Emperor, worn out and ill though he was, determined to
celebrate the auspicious date with a grand triumph, accom
panied with public games of great magnificence at Rome.
Maximian, his senior partner in the Imperial dignity, was
associated with him on the great occasion. The long reign
on the whole had been a period of real prosperity for the
colossal Empire. The frontier provinces of the Danube and
the Rhine had been generaUy protected from the raids of
the barbarian tribes, and the miUtary prowess of Maximian
and Constantius Chlorus had continued the successful work
of the military Emperors Claudius Probus and AureUan in
maintaining the fading prestige of Rome in the West, whUe
the rictories of Galerius over the Persian armies secured the
Eastern frontiers.

.^26 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Africa and Britain, as well as the great frontiers of the Rhine
and Danube, were each represented in the striking triumph
procession, whUe the signal victories of Galerius in Persia
Avere conspicuously represented in the stately march along the
sacred way and through the time-honoured Forum, the scene
of so many and such varied Republican and Imperial
triumphs. In one respect the great military display of Diocletian
and Maximian in the November of a.d. 303 was especiaUy
remarkable. It was the last of the long series of Roman
triumphs. Rome had already virtually ceased to be the
capital of the Empire. The Imperial visit, however, to the
old capital was very short. Diocletian disliked Rome, and
his failing health was his excuse for cutting short his part
in the festivities of the triumph. He left suddenly for Ravenna ;
then, his iUness becoming grave, he lived in great retfrement;
slowly journeying in a closed litter back to his loved Nicomedia,
which he only reached in the summer of the foUoAring year,
A.D. 304. Seriously iU, he was confined to his palace in that
city for many months ; many supposed him to be dead, as in
fact he virtuaUy was to all public business.
The ceremonies connected vdth the triumph of November,
A.D. 303, were accompanied by a proclamation of a general
amnesty, and, save in certain special cases, all prisoners were
released throughout the Empire. Great numbers of more or
less undistinguished Christian captives who were awaiting
trial found themselves set at liberty in consequence of the
general pardon. But the sounds of the public rejoicings soon
died away, and the cruel edicts of persecution, being unrepealed,
were once more enforced vrith rigour ; in the East where
Galerius Avas now in reality supreme, and in the West through
out the sphere of Maximian's influence ; both these Emperors
being deadly enemies of Christianity.
Nor were the first three edicts far reaching enough to
satisfy the bitter animosity of these princes, for in the spring
of the following year, 304, a fourth and more terrible edict
Avas promulgated, no doubt under the special inspiration of
Galerius. Eusebius, dAvelling especially on the Palestinian

DIOCLETIAN. 427
persecution, of which he was an eye-witness, thus briefly sums
up the purport of this fr-esh order of the Imperial Chancery :
" In the course of the second year (a.d. 304), when the war
was blazing more violently against us, when Urbanus was
administering the province. Imperial letters were sent in which
it was directed that all persons of every people and city should
sacrifice and offer libations to idols." (De Mart. Pal., 3.)
Thus open war was proclaimed not merely against the Churches,
the holy vessels, the sacred books and writings, and the
clergy of all ranks, but against all the believers in Jesus,
Arithout distinction of condition, or sex, or age.
In one of those rare Martyrologies which have come down
to us, that of S. Savinus — which bears, however, unmistakable
traces of a late redaction — we have an eridently genuine*
description of the bitter spirit of animosity against Christianity
which animated the Pagan population of Rome in the great
year of Diocletian's persecution, a.d. 304.
In the spring of this year, in the course of the annual
games in honour of Ceres, the Emperor Maximian Herculius
was present. Loud shouts applauding the Sovereign were inter
rupted by cries of the populace clamouring for the destruction
of the Christians. The air was full of the persecuting fury of
Galerius and Diocletian, which Avas raging in the East. The
Roman Pagans longed to see the bloody scenes of Nicomedia
and the oriental centres revived in their own city. " AAvay
with the Christians," shouted the populace, "and we shall be
happy.'' "Let there be no more Christians," was repeated by
the angry crowd again and again. Maximian, whose hostility
to the sect was well knoAvn, was not slow to comply with the
popular desire, and soon the persecuting edicts of which we
have written above Avere carried into dread effect at Rome.
Many and various were the devices adopted in the course
of the terrible year 304 to compel the Christians to pay even
an involuntary homage to the gods of Rome. At Nicomedia,
the residence of the Emperor, altars were placed in all the
' De Rossi, Bullettino di Arch. Crist., 1883, p. 156, insists upon the evident
genuineness of the preamble to the Passio S. Savini. See, too, Allard, Perse
cution de Diocletien, vol. i. vi. 1.

428 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
law courts, and the suitors with various cases were bidden
before their cases came on to offer sacrifice. In Galatia, all
articles of food, before being allowed to be exposed for sale,
were formally consecrated to one or other of the gods. In
Rome these strange and hitherto unheard of methods of
compeUing submission to idolatry were multiplied. Images
of the gods were erected in the various markets, and incense
had to be sprinkled before these by all who Arished to buy
and sell. The very pubUc fountains, then as now so abundant
in Rome, were guarded, and could only be used by those who
chose to adore the national gods.
The condition of the Christian portion of the Roman
world, with the exception of Gaul for the reasons above
referred to, after the putting out of this fourth edict of
persecution, was undoubtedly more serious than it had been
at any prerious time. The greater part of the year 304 and
a considerable portion of 305 may be considered the most
terrible period of the long draAvn-out persecution which began
in the year 303, and did not end tiU Constantine promulgated
at Milan his famous edict in the year 313. It was the most
deliberate and carefuUy planned attack on the Rehgion of
Jesus that the advocates of Paganism ever arranged, and the
Emperor Galerius, the chief instigator of the persecution, and
his advisers had good hopes that the universal terrorism
would, in the end, everywhere stamp out the hated Chris
tianity. The name of Diocletian appeared stUl as the first
of the Imperial names on the fourth edict, but it is doubtful
if the state of his health aU through that year permitted him
to take any active share in the Government. The real author
of the persecution undoubtedly was Galerius, while Maximian
in Italy and Africa, then, as ever, a determined foe to the
sect, willingly carried out the provisions of the various edicts.
The passive resistance of Constantius Chlorus, Avho administered
the Gallic Provinces, and who sympathised with Christianity,
was, hoAvever, the great obstacle to the effectual carrying out
of the Pagan propaganda.
The numbers of the Christians in the Roman Empire in
the first years of the fourth century, against whom the great

DIOCLETIAN. 429
persecution was directed, have been variously stated; we have
computed them, it Avill'be remembered, as amounting roughly
to between seven and nme milUons. But this may possibly
be very considerably under the mark, the whole population
of the Empire at this period being reckoned at about one
hundred milUons.

SECTION III. — REVIEW OF THE PERSECUTION.
As the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian in the May
of the year 305 marks a new departure in the last great
persecution, it wiU be well to take a general riew of this
supreme effort of Paganism against Christianity.
It is true that the great persecution lasted roughly ten
years. But after the first two years, of which we have spoken
in some detail, although it continued to rage, it was greatly
hmited in the area of its operations. BetAveen the spring
of A.D. 303, Avhen the first edict was promulgated at Nicomedia,
and the late spring of a.d. 305, when Diocletian and Maximian
abdicated, the persecution was general throughout the whole
Empire. Even in the great province of Gaul, where Constantius
Chlorus ruled, and in which the Christians enjoyed, on the
whole, StUlness, the persecuting edicts were nominally carried
out ; while throughout the dominions of Diocletian, Maximian,
and Galerius a bitter and harassing war was waged against
the foUowers of the Crucified. These dominions included
roughly aU the provinces of the East ; the sphere of persecu
tion comprehended Italy, Greece, Egypt, Spain, and North
Africa in the Westem division of the Empire.
After the abdication of the two senior Emperors in a.d.
305, in the West the power of Constantius Chlorus was greatly
augmented. Spain was probably added to his sphere of
control, and Severus, the new Csesar, who ruled in Italy
and North Africa, contrary to the expectation of his friend
and patron Galerius, ordered his poUcy towards the Christian
portion of the population rather after the Arishes of Con
stantius, his immediate superior in the Western Empire, than
in accordance with those of Galerius. In his dominions,

430 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
although the edicts remained unrepealed and the churches
and cemeteries were not restored to the Christians, no open
persecution harassed the communities. Thus in the matter
of toleration and persecution the Empire was divided.
Eusebius clearly indicates this cleavage in the foUoAving
language. He teUs us of " an innumerable multitude of
martyrs, noble wrestlers" in the cause of piety who suffered
in the Eastern Prorinces, while in the other countries, includ
ing aU Italy, Sicily, and Gaul, Spain, and Mauritania and
Africa, the hostihty of the persecution hardly lasted two
years ; they were blessed by the interposition and peace of
God, . . . Thus in the one part of the Empire peace
was being enjoyed, whilst those brethren who inhabited the
other endured innumerable trials (De Mart. Pal., xiu.).
Of this second phase of persecution in the East, which
lasted some eight years longer, we shall speak again; of
the general persecution, usuaUy knoAvn as Diocletian's, which
went on for about two years, we have already given some details.
Lactantius, in an interesting and instructive passage which
deserves to be quoted at length, sets forth the spirit in which
the hostile edicts were carried into effect by the different
provincial governors and magistrates during these two years
of general persecution. " It is impossible to represent in
detail everything that took place in aU the various districts
of the Roman world. Each provincial governor, according
to his discretion, used the special powers (against the Christians)
with which he was armed. The timid ones, fearful lest
they should be reproached with not carrying out their
orders, went farthest in the work ; others followed them
and thefr severe interpretations of the directions for various
reasons ; they were cruel by nature, or they were actuated by
a special hatred for the ' just ones ' (the Christians), or they
wished to curry favour with the Sovereign, and by this
means to secure their own promotion. In some cases they
inflicted the penalty of death in a wholesale fashion." Here
the Avriter quotes the example of a Phrygian city where a
terrible massacre of Christians of all ages and sexes was
ordered (Eusebius, too, quotes this horrible act, H. E., viii xi).

DIOCLETIAN. 431
"But the most dreaded of the governors were those who
made false professions of kindness. The most dangerous and
terrible executioner was he who boasted that he never shed
blood in the province over which he ruled. These men could
not endure the thought of the martyrs' victory. It is im
possible to describe the tortures wliich these magistrates
devised in order to compass their purpose. They felt it was
a combat to the death between them and the Christians. I
have seen myself in Bithynia, the joy of one of their governors,
Avhen a Christian, who had held out for two years Avith true
courage, in the end gave in. He was as proud of the achieve
ment as though he had subjugated a barbarian people. To
gain this end, every nerve was strained ; they felt their honour
was at stake. So they inflicted on the bodies of the victims
the most cruel tortures, taking aU care that their sufferings
stopped short of death. Do they imagine that our bhss is
only won by death ? Will not these torments win for us the
glory due to a noble resistance, a glory, too, which wiU be
more conspicuous in proportion to the greatness of the
sufferings endured ? But the persecutors are blind. The
greatest care is taken of the tortured ones in order that the
sufferings may be renoAved. The shattered limbs are care
fully tended with a view of subjecting the suflerers to
fresh agonies. Was ever anything conceived more gentle,
more humane ? This is the strange humanity which idol-
worship breathes into its votaries ! " (Div. Inst, v., 11.*)
It is impossible to compute the number of those who
perished in the two years of general persecution which, save
in Gaul and the provinces under the rule of Constantius,
raged over the whole Empire, and in the following seven or
eight years of persecution in the Eastern Provinces. The
computation of Gibbon is unreliable. He suggests that the
total number of those who perished during the whole period
of ten years did not exceed two thousand ; and he bases his
calculations largely upon the ninety- two martyrs of Palestine
mentioned particularly by Eusebius ; but that historian does not
* Tillemont's rendering {Memoires, v. 20), occasionally slightly paraphrased,
has been generaUy foUowed.

432 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
profess to give more than a list of those cases which were
personally knoAvn to himself, or were specially interesting. " The
roll of the Palestine martyrs is, therefore, on every reasonable
supposition only a select list, and bears probably the same relation
to the Avhole number that suffered, as the names of officers in
a gazette to the undistinguished rictims of the rank and file.
The persecution was undoubtedly a mighty effort to crush
Christianity. More than once the tyrants boasted that they
had succeeded in the attempt* That -in such an endeavour
continued for ten years they accomplished nothing more
than the death of some two thousand persons is as contrary
to reason as to the testimony of aU early writers."!
Besides, in his computation, eridently made with a desire
to minimise as much as possible the numbers of sufferers in
this long continued persecution, the historian of the Decline
and Fall disdains to take any account whatever of the
crowds in different countries who were tortured, as the con
temporary writer Lactantius so graphically in the above quoted
passage tells us, but were not put to death. He omits men
tioning the numberless victims condemned to a lingering death
in prison or in the mines, he makes no allusion whatever to
the unspeakable misery and wretchedness endured by un
counted numbers of the members of the Christian communi
ties during those long years of the terror. J
There is no question, when all possible deduction is made
for the number — no inconsiderable one — of the " Traditores "
who gave up the sacred books hoping thus to save thefr hves,
and of those who fell away under threats of torture, shame,
* Trophies were set up at Cluuia in Spain, and elsewhere. One of these
runs thus ; " Diocletianus Jovius, Maximianus Herculius . . . nomine
Christianorum deleto " ; and another — " Superstitione Christi ubique deletl,
cultu deorum propagate." Quoted by Dr. Mahan. And see Baronius, Annul
A.D. 304. t Dr. Mahan, Professor of Ecc. Hist, in the General Theological Seminary
of New Tork : A Church Sistory of the First Seven Centuries, ohap. ix. New
York, 1892.
X Dean MUman in his notes on the Decline and Fall, chap, xvi., specially
adverts to the deliberate unfairness of Gibbon, in his summary of the last
great persecution, " quietly dismissing from the account all the horrible and
excruciating tortures which feU short of death."

DIOCLETIAN. 433
and confiscation of their goods, that on the whole the great
mass of the Christians endured all rather than deny the name
of Jesus, and that their noble constancy and brave patience
to the end literally Avearied out their persecutors, who gradually
became sensible of the hopelessness of the task they had set
themselves of exterminating such a sect, so numerous and
so determined. SECTION IV. — AUTHORITIES.
As regards the materials in our possession for any detaUed
account of the last persecution, our contemporary and most
valuable pieces are : (1) The writings of Eusebius the his
torian, the Bishop of Csesarea ; (2) the writings of Lactantius,
afterwards tutor to Constantine's son, Crispus; (3) a certain
number of " Acts and Passion of Martyrs " ; (4) the testimony
of part of the Catacombs.
1. The writings of Eusebius. A very considerable portion
of these have come down to us, and in the eighth and
ninth books of his "Ecclesiastical History," and in the
short monograph on the " Martjrrs of Palestine," we have a
detailed account of many of the sufferings endured at this
time by the Christians ; an account compiled by a trained
scholar and historian, not merely a contemporary, but an
eye-witness of many of the terrible scenes* he depicts.
But Eusebius' narrative only embraces what took place
in one portion of the Roman Empire ; he confines his story
to a relation of the operation of the edicts in the East,
dwelling especiaUy on Palestine. On what happened in the
Western Provinces of Rome he is almost wholly silent. The
reason of this silence has been happily suggested by an
eminent modern scholar. " The Bishop of Csesarea (Eusebius),
conscious of the grandeur of this supreme contest between
* We have in the text of our history dwelt very little upon the nature of the
sufferings endured. There is, of course, an awful repetition in those harrowing
scenes. But in Appendix G we have given a few extracts verbatim from the
contemporary historians Lactantius and Eusebius. The latter especially refers
to himself as au eye-witness of some of these painful scenes. The extracts in
question will give some idea of the sufferings to which the Christians were exposed
in the last and greatest of the persecutions.
C C

434 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Christianity and Paganism, a contest in which he was playing
a not undistinguished part, would only speak of what he
himself had witnessed, or of what he had absolutely heard
from eye-witnesses, and he feared to weaken the strength of
his testimony by dweUing on what had taken place in distant
lands far from the scenes of his OAvn personal observation.
Thus his story of the Diocletian' persecution, comparatively
limited as it is in its area of observation, differs in its plan
from the earlier portions of his ecclesiastical history, which
more or less embraces the whole scene of the Christian
struggle with Paganism. By forsaking for this memorable
period the universal character of its earlier books the his
torian gives place to the eye-witness."*
A more competent chronicler of those scenes of the
great persecution which he describes so graphically and so
touchingly can scarcely be conceived. An unwearied scholar
and trained writer, Eusebius saw his co-religionists hunted
doAvn and tortured ; of these many were his own dearest
friends and felloAv-students. He was present, for instance,
in thea mphitheatre of Tyre when his friends and feUow-
Christians were exposed to the fury of the wild beasts. He
visited and encouraged the confessors in the unhealthy
mines of Phsenos. He shared the prison life of his dear
master Pamphilus at Csesarea — Pamphilus the eminent scholar
and famous expositor of the Scriptures, the defender of the
great Origen. He was in Egypt when the persecution was
at its height, and when the proscribed Christians endured
imspeakable tortures and sufferings.
2. The writings of Lactantius.t Here, too, we have the
testimony of a contemporary and of a learned scholar;
Eusebius even characterises him as the most erudite man
of his time. He had exceptional opportunities of observa
tion and of obtaining accurate information respecting the
public events which happened in the early years of the
fourth century. He was inrited by Diocletian to take up
his residence in Nicomedia about a.d. 301, and later he
* Allard : Persecution de Diocletien, Vol. I. Introduction, Section 3.
A short account of Lactantius is given in Appendix E.

DIOCLETIAN. 435
entered into the household of Constantine the Great as in
structor of his son Crispus. In his treatise on " The Deaths of
Persecutors,"* the greater part of which treats of the events
of the Diocletian persecution, we possess a vast number of
details of the sufferings endured by the Christian subjects
of the Empire. Scattered but important notices, too, of
these sufferings are found in his "Divinse Institutiones,"
from which Avork we have quoted the remarkable passage
given above (pp. 431-2).
3. A certain number of " Acts and Passions of Martyrs " of
the period, which have been pronounced genuine in their main
features, although in many cases they have been evidently
amphfied or supplemented by revisers a century or two later
than their assumed date, can fairly be referred to. Considering
the terrible nature of this last persecution, its operations not
being confined to the clergy or to special persons, or to any class
and order, but extending to the whole Christian community, it
is at first sight somewhat surprising that many more of these
" Acts and Passions " relating to so Avidely extended an onslaught
have not come down to us. But the paucity of such " Acts and
Passions " is fairly explained when the circumstances of the
persecution are taken into consideration. Among the articles
of the edicts, it will be remembered, Avere most stringent
provisions for the seizure and destruction of the sacred
Avritings of the Christians, including many MSS. besides
the Holy Scriptures; and amongst others no doubt the
memoranda which bore upon the heroic constancy and
endurance of the Christian victims ; such histories and
recitals the leading spirits in the State Avho guided this
systematic and carefully-planned onslaught of Paganism Avould
justly view with peculiar abhorrence and dread, as eminently
calculated to inspire the sufferers Avith a noble desire to emulate
the bravery and constancy of those who had already in pain and
agony won their martyr crowns. These "Acts and Passions,"
wherever they existed, Avould doubtless be most carefuUy
sought for and destroyed, whUe on the other hand the sweeping
* See Appendix E. The question of the authorship of this treatise is there
discussed.

436 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
nature of the arrests of the clergy as Christian leaders would
largely tend to diminish the numbers of such " official memor
anda " ; the very persons Avhose duty it was to compile or redact
these records having been mostly deprived of their liberty, and
either thrown into prison or driven to some distant place of
exile. Prudentius, the Spanish poet, who was bom only some
forty years later, dweUs on this in graphic and pathetic words,
when he deplores how the stern spirit of the persecutor has
silenced* those memories of a glorious past.
The public archives, the Acta pro-considaria, and the
Acta, municipalia, from which we might have expected much
detailed information respecting the events which accompanied
this general Imperial persecution, have for the most part dis
appeared in the course of the overwhelming disasters which
overtook the Empire in the fifth and foUoAring centuries.!
Among the " Acts and Passions " connected with the Diocle
tian persecution, Allard (Persecution de Diocletien, Tom. I,
i, ii, iii.) quotes at considerable length pieces treating of martyr
suffering in Macedonia, Pannonia, Cilicia, Thrace, Galatia, and,
Cappadocia, the ample notices of Eusebius being confined to
events which took place in Syria, Phoenicia, Egypt, Pontus, and
especially in Palestine.
Comparatively few Roman " Acts of Martyrs " belonging to
this time have come doAvn to us. Among these rare "Acts,"
mostly genuine in the main features of the story, but
mutUated and added to by later revisers, we would instance
the "Acts" of the famous S. Agnes and of her foster-sister
S. Emerentiana, the main features of Avhich narratives late
archseological discoveries have largely substantiated.
4. As regards Rome, we possess in the Catacombs the most
enduring memory of this last and most terrible of the per
secutions. The cemeteries were generally confiscated, and the
Christians forbidden to use them or even to enter them. To
* " 0 vetustatis silentis obsoleta oblivio !
Invidentur ista nobis, fama et ipsa extinguitur."
Prudentius : Peri- Stephanon, i. 73.
•)• Compare Boissier, who has some good remarks on this point, Ia f» ""
Paganisme, vol. i. Appendix on " Les Persecutions."

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DIOCLETIAN. 437
preserve intact the hallowed graves of their fathers, and
especially the resting-places of the more venerated among
their dead, the Roman Christian communities blocked or
earthed-up many of the galleries where these dead had been
tenderly and reverently deposited. After the peace of the
Church, one of the Bishops of Rome, Pope Damasus, Avho
presided over the Church of the great city from a.d. 366 to
A.D. 384 — a name held deservedly in the highest honour
among the many iUustrious men who filled that high ofiice —
devoted himself especially to re-diecover many of these tombs,
earthed-up in various persecutions. One most important work
undertaken by Damasus Avas the composition of numberless
inscriptions in honour of the martyrs whose hidden tombs he
uncovered, which inscriptions he caused to be engraved on
slabs of marble and stone in peculiarly beautiful and legible
characters.-* Some of the inscribed tablets refer to martyrs
and famous men of an earlier period, to heroes of the older
persecutions; but not a few refer to the victims of the last
period of which we are noAv speaking. The historic value is,
of course, very great ; for he wrote, in the case of the victims
of the Diocletian persecution, of sufferers Avhose story was told
him by men who were their contemporaries; indeed, on one
tablet we read how, as a boy, he learned the martyrs' history
from the lips of the executioner himself! "Percussor retulit
mihi Damaso cum puer essem." His are no legendary or
apocryphal narrations ; they are simply the bare recapitulation
of facts of public notoriety. Damasus Avas born a.d. 305.
Some of these inscriptions are preserved in the ancient
Roman churches, whither they were removed in the seventh,
eighth, and ninth centuries, when the catacombs were in
process of being rifled by foreign invaders. Many of them
have been discovered, often broken and mutilated, in the
original crypts Avhere Damasus himself placed them, and as
* De Rossi believes that all the beautiful Damasine inscriptions that have
been recovered were the work of one artist— Furius Dionysius Filocalus. On
one of these inscribed tablets, that belonging to Pope Eusebius, the artist describes
himself thus: '-FURIUS DIONYSIUS FILOCALUS SCRIPSIT DAMASIS
{sic) PAPP.^ CULTOR AT QUE AMATOR."

438 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the excavations slowly proceed more are being found. The
Spanish poet Prudentius, who was a contemporary of Pope
Damasus, specially dwelt on the number and reputation of
these tombs of the martyrs, which were among the glories
of the Rome of his day, when in one of his famous martyr
hymns or poems he ANnrote that men little guessed how fiill
Rome was of buried saints, how rich was her soil with holy
graves.* * ' ' Vix fama nota est, abditis
Quam plena Sanctis Roma sit,
Quam dives urbanum solum
Sacris sepulchiis floreat." Peri-SlephanSn, ii. 54J-544.

439

CHAPTER XV.
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.
SECTION I. — THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE.
The story* of the close of the brilliant reign of the great
Emperor Diocletian is a pathetic one. All through the closing
months of the year 304 he lay sick almost unto death in his
palace at Nicomedia. In the spring a.d. 305, he had partly
recovered, but when he appeared again in public he was
changed almost beyond recognition. His younger colleague,
Galerius, came to Nicomedia ostensibly to congratulate him
on his recovery ; but the real object of his visit was to insist
upon Diocletian at once carrying out his long-meditated project
of abdication. With some reluctance the ailing Emperor seems to have
consented to retire; a step he had evidently long been medi
tating, but such resolves are easier to meditate upon than
to carry out. When, 'however, the nomination of the new
Csesars, who were to take the place of the abdicating Emperors,
was discussed, Diocletian remonstrated vehemently against
the objects of Galerius' choice. These were Daia, his nephew,
a young man Avithout culture and half a barbarian, and Severus,
whom the Emperor characterised as a drunkard, and utterly
* There seems no valid reason for doubting the general accuracy of the
details given in the famous -writing De Mortibus Persecutorum. The question
whether or no Lactantius was the author of "the piece " iu question is discussed
in Appendix B. But the authorship of this contemporary writing does not afiect
the probability of the general truth of the details. That Maximin Daia and
Severus, the two new Csesars, were imposed upon the weak and suffering
Emperor by the imperious Galerius is evident ; Diocletian would never have chosen
them of himself, nor is it by any means certain that he would then have abdi
cated had not pressure, which he could not resist, been brought to bear upon him.

440 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
uuAvorthy of the great dignity. Galerius, however, Avho evi
dently looked upon them as his creatures, upon whom he
could depend to carry out his will, insisted upon their appoint
ment. Using Diocletian's name, he had already secured the
reluctant acquiescence of Maximian. The strange transaction
Avas carried out. The sick and weary Emperor left the scene
with apparent Arillingness ; and Galerius and his creatures
Daia (henceforth knoAvn as Maximin Daia) and Severus,
assumed the government of Italy, Africa, and the East,
Diocletian retiring to his sumptuous viUa at Salona on the
Dalmatian coast, and Maximian Hercuhus to a luxurious
home in Lucania. All seemed to promise weU for Galerius'
project of becoming Master of the Roman world.
Only one obstacle remained. Over the vast Western provinces
of Gaul and Britam stiU presided the quiet, unassuming, and appar
ently unambitious Constantius Chlorus, the friend of the Chris
tians. Constantius, too, was in faUing health, and Galerius looked
forAvard to obtaining at no distant period, Arithout a struggle, the
important and far-reaching provinces over which he ruled. It
was verUy a dark outlook for the Christian cause. But events
turned out strangely. The quiet influence of Constantius was far
greater in the West than Galerius conceived ; and Severus, when
he assumed the reins of government in Italy — acting under the
directions of Constantius, Avho, when Maximian, the old Emperor,
retired, was really supreme in the West — at once, contrary to the
Arishes of Galerius, gave up persecuting the Christians in Italy
and North Africa. A period of quietness for the long harassed
sect commenced throughout the West of the Empire.
At the Court of Galerius in Nicomedia resided a compara
tively young and unknown man of high lineage, the eldest son of
Constantius Chlorus, afterwards knovm as Constantine the Great.
He seems to have been Avith Diocletian for some time, treated by
him with distinction, and placed in his oAvn army as the best
training school. Probably Diocletian looked upon him as the
eventual successor of his father, Constantius Chlorus.
He was a young oflicer of the highest promise, and rapidly
obtained promotion. Galerius evidently feared him, and when
the appointment of the new Csesars, Severus and Maximin Daia,

Photo : Alinari & Cook, Rom

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.
(Statue in the Portico of S. Jolm Lateran, Rome.

CONSTANTINE THE GEEAT. 441
was made, was well aware that men's eyes had been directed to
the son of Constantius as the natural and proper person on Avhom
the nomination as Csesar of the West should have fallen. Con
stantine from this time was carefully watched and guarded.
Some months after Galerius' accession to supreme power an
urgent message arrived from Constantius Chlorus, who was rapidly
failing, requiring the immediate presence of his son in Britain.
Curious reports were current of the jealous hatred entertained by
Galerius of the briUiant young son of his colleague ; of repetitions
of the Old Testament story of King Saul's behaviour towards
Darid, of repeated snares laid for the Ufe of the young man ;
and how he escaped them all, adding continually to his reputa
tion for courage and abUity.
Permission was at length reluctantly given him to leave the
Court of Nicomedia in order to visit his father in Gaul. This per
mission was quickly revoked, but Constantine was already out of
Galerius' reach. In Britain the dying Emperor commended his
son to the legionaries, who, when Constantius Chlorus passed
away at York, at once saluted him as Emperor.
When Galerius received the official intelligence of the death
of the noble Western Emperor and the accession of the young
Constantine to the vacant Throne, his first impulse was to insult
the new Emperor of the West ; but wiser councils prevailing he
reluctantly acknowledged Constantine as Csesar, reserving, how
ever, the higher rank of Augustus for his own nominee, Severus,
who was ruhng in Italy. Constantine made no protest here,
being content with the absolute sovereignty which he possessed
over Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and paying little heed to the exact
title recognised by the elder Emperor in far aAvay Nicomedia.
He at once published an edict, so favourable to the Christians
of his provinces that the very semblance of all persecution at
once ceased even in those districts which had been the sphere
of influence of the abdicated Maximian, notably in Spain.*
Very different, however, is the story of the fortunes of the
* There is some doubt about the time when this pro-sdnce passed, as appar.
ently it did, under the dominion of Constantius Chlorus ; probably this happened
when Diocletian and Maximian abdicated and Constantius Chlorus became ona of
the Senior Emperors, with the title of Augustus.

442 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM
Church in the Eastern Provinces of the Empire during the
years Avhich immediately foUowed the abdication of Diocletian.
In the provinces under the rule of Galerius the harrying of
the worshippers of Jesus went on Arith unabated fury, while
in the dominions especiaUy placed under the charge of his
nephew, the Csesar Maximin Daia, the pages of the chronicler
relating the fortunes of the Christians are even more stained
Avith blood. Indeed, between the years 306 and 312-13
this peasant-born tyrant, so suddenly raised from a position
of obscurity to a throne, stands out in ghastly prominence
as the most cruel and determined of the persecutors. The
roll of his victims was longer even than the death-roll of
the infamous Galerius, to whom belongs the sad credit of
being the original inspirer of the last and most awful of the
persecutions; and the atrocities perpetrated in his name and
Avith his sanction were more terrible than any recorded in the
stories of grievous suffering to Avhich the Christians had been
previously subjected.
Maximin Daia, the relentless persecutor, was apparently a
man of no culture. He was a superstitious and bigoted Pagan.
He Avould do nothing until he had consulted an oracle; his
extraordinary superstition manifested itself in his daUy life.
Lactantius {De Mort. Pers., 37) teUs us how "his custom
was daily to sacrifice in his palace, and that it was an inven
tion of his to cause all animals used for food to be slaughtered
not by cooks but by priests at the altars, so that nothing
was ever served up unless consecrated and sprinkled with
wine in accordance Avith the rites of Paganism."
Before the year 306 had run its course another revolution
in Rome gave a finishing blow to the supremacy of Galerius
in the West, a supremacy already severely shaken a few
months earlier by the elevation of Constantine to the throne
of his father in Gaul, Britain, and Spain.
The exciting cause of the Roman revolt seems to have
been certain fiscal measures devised by Galerius and Severus
by which a long-cherished immunity from taxation was taken
from the citizens of Rome. This Avas another blow aimed
at the pririleges of the immemorial capital. The Roman

CONSTANTINE THE GEEAT. 443
citizens rose, and, driving out Severus, tumultuously pro
claimed Maxentius, the son of the abdicated Maximian
Herculius, Emperor. Maxentius, desirous to consolidate his
usurped authority, summoned from his Lucanian retirement
his father Maximian, who was too ready to resume his old
sovereignty. Severus made but a feeble resistance, and soon
fell into the hands of the usurpers; he was alloAved as an
act ot mercy to put an end to his life and reign by opening
his veins. Thus the early months of a.d. 307 witnessed the
complete disruption of the tetrarchy arranged by Galerius.
In the West Constantine, Maximian and Maxentius reigned
over Gaul, Spain, Britain, Italy, and North Africa. In the
East Galerius and Maximin Daia were Sovereigns over Egypt,
Syria, and Asia Minor, Greece, and the Danubian frontier
provinces. But there Avas no longer any semblance of unity
betAveen these five lords of the vast Roman Empire. The
policy, however, which Severus had pursued in Italy and
North Africa, which left the Christians at peace, was main
tained by Maxentius.
Maximian, on the resumption of his ancient position,
at once sought the alliance and support of Constantine,
whose weight and ever - increasing infiuence in the West
was generally felt and acknowledged throughout the Roman
world. He visited him in Gaul, bestowed upon him in
marriage his daughter, Fausta, and, once more assum
ing the prerogatives of the senior Emperor, created him
" Augustus." Galerius felt deeply the affront to his dignity as the
senior Augustus, and was keenly sensible of the fatal blow to
his power occasioned by this new development. He could
not quietly acquiesce in the deposition of his nominee Severus
and the assumption of the Imperial dignity by the old
Emperor Maximian and his son Maxentius; and he deter
mined by force of arms to assert his authority and to reduce
Rome once more to allegiance. He consequently, with a
powerful army, invaded Italy. But the expedition was disas
trous, and ended in an ignominous retreat. StiU he refused
to acknowledge his defeat. Claimmg the right to nommate to

444 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the throne left vacant by the death of Severus, he associated
Licinius, an old friend and former brother-in-arms, in the
Imperial dignity Avith the supreme title of Augustus ; assigning
to him, as his sphere of influence, lUyricum and the Danubian
frontier, which still acknowledged his (Galerius') sovereignty.
The position of the Roman Empire at the close of the year
307 was as follows. In the West Constantine, Maximian, and
Maxentius were supreme and were more or less united by
common ties of interest, since Constantine had married
the daughter of Maximian. In the East, and in the Danubian
Provinces including lUyricum and Greece, Galerius was stUl
nominally supreme, and was acknowledged as senior Emperor
by Licinius and Maximin Daia, the former being his devoted
friend, the latter his nephew, who owed him everything. Thus
a complete cleavage existed between the West and East. The
cleavage was accentuated by the position of the Christian
sect, now a numerous and powerful division of the popu
lace. In the West, mainly owing to the kindly feeling
towards the Church felt and shoAved by Constantine, whose
influence Avas paramount, the Christians, if not positively
favoured, were certainly left unmolested. In the East, owing
to the bitter hatred of Galerius, shared emphatically by
Maximin Daia, the Christians were, aU through these years
of danger and revolts, cruelly maltreated and ruthlessly
persecuted. An interesting sidelight has been of late years cast on the
position of the Church in Rome, circa a.d. 307-8, by the dis
covery of some of the inscriptions of Pope Damasus, origin
ally placed in the Catacombs betAveen a.d. 366 and a.d. 384
These inscriptions, when compared with statements contained
in the Liber Pontificalis, tell us how sorely the Christian
community in Rome was rent by internal dissensions at the
time. But Avhat is perhaps more important, we learn incident
ally hoAv many Roman Pagans at that time were being enrolled
in the Christian communities. No general restitution of the
cemeteries and church property had as yet been made, but
that they had access to some certainly of the cemeteries is
clear, and that the Church in Rome generaUy Avas in a position

CONSTANTINE THE GBEAT. 445
which made possible a considerable measure of re-organisation
is also evident.
The internal troubles to which we refer Avere oAving to
the disputes which so often arose after a period of bitter per
secution. Some Christians, under the terrible pressure of the
Diocletian persecution of a.d. 303-4-5, had submitted to sacri
fice; in various ways had conformed to the requirements of
Pagan ritual; and Avhen the storm was passed Avere desirous
of being re-admitted to the Church. The question of the
treatment of these "Lapsi" in time of persecution had been
frequently agitated, notably after the Decian persecution some
half a century before, when the authorities of the Church
had wisely decided to re-admit penitents after a longer or
shorter period of penance, as the offence committed by the
"Lapsi" seemed to require. The general principle laid doAvn
was that whUst real penitence must be shown by those who
had, in the hour of extreme peril, fallen away, the door of
mercy and pity Avas not to be closed upon them. On the
other hand, it will be remembered, that in former times a
strong party of rigorists existed in the Church, who abso
lutely refused re-admittance to these poor renegades.
In the Roman troubles of 307-8 the Church authorities
were confronted not Arith the party of rigorists, but Avith a
section of the Church who Avould at once and without penance
receive back again into the community all such " Lapsi."
The dissensions assumed grave proportions, and even blood
was shed in the regrettable tumults which ensued. The reign
ing Pope, or Bishop of Rome, Avas Marcellus, Avho — after an
interregnum of some three or four years, roughly the time of
the persecution of Diocletian — had been elected as the successor
of the Confessor Marcellinus. MarceUus was banished by
Maxentius, son of Maximian, the ruUng Emperor, in conse
quence of these disturbances, and died in exile,, probably
owing to harsh treatment.
He was succeeded by Eusebius, who, after a short ponti
ficate, hkewise died in exile. The remains of both these
prelates were brought back to Rome, and Avere buried with
aU honour in the Catacombs. Portions of the sarcophagus of

446 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Eusebius have been lately discovered, and inscriptions of Pope
Damasus relating to both these prelates have been also found.
Pope Eusebius was succeeded by Miltiades, of whom we shaU
have occasion to speak later.
We return to our brief sketch of the confused and dis
turbed political history of the period reaching from A.D. 305
to 313, the dates respectively of the abdication of Diocletian
and of the promulgation of Constantine's Edict of Milan.
The aUiance between Maximian and Maxentius, the old
Emperor who had abdicated, and his ambitious, profligate
son, was only of brief duration. The father claimed the
supreme power over Italy and Africa, maintaining that
Maxentius owed his throne and position to his own old
prestige and military abiUties. Maxentius, on the other hand,
asserted that he had been legaUy elected by the Roman Senate
and people independently of any paternal assistance. Max
imian was driven by his son from Rome, and, failing to obtain
any assistance from Galerius, took refuge in Gaul, where he
was kindly received by his son-in-law, Constantine, and his
daughter, the Empress Fausta ; there he again went through
the form of a fresh abdication. But the restless old man,
taldng advantage of the absence of Constantine on a mihtary
expedition against a Frankish raid, endeavoured to stir up
a revolt against him. The rising Avas soon put doAvn, and
Maximian was condemned to die. He perished by his oAvn
hands. This second period of Maximian's active life had
lasted a little over three years. He died, unpitied, early in
the year 310, generaUy regarded as an ambitious and self-
seeking intriguer.
In the year 310 Galerius sickened of a grave and incurable
malady. It seems to have been of the nature of a malignant
ulcer, which graduaUy spread ; the loathsome detaUs of the
painful sickness are given by Eusebius (H E., vui. 16),
and at yet greater length by Lactantius (De Mort. Pers., 33).
The many physicians who were summoned to the bedside
of the suffering Emperor Avere unable to afford any rehef,
and we read how some of these were OA^en put to death in
consequence of their failure.

CONSTANTINE THE GBEAT. 447
The oracles of Apollo and Esculapius were consulted
in vain. Rufinus (H. E., viii. 18) tells us how one of the
physicians had the boldness to tell the dying tyrant that his
sufferings were beyond the reach of human aid, and that his
only hope lay in the God of those Christians whom he
had so cruelly persecuted.
This may, or may not, be true ; it is, however, certain that
Galerius, in his mortal agony, endeavoured to make a tardy
amends for the awful suffering for which he was responsible;
and in the year 311 a remarkable Edict of Toleration was
published in the joint names of Galerius, Licinius, and
Constantine. The text of the edict is preserved in the original Latin
form in Lactantius (De Mort. Pers., 34), and in a Greek
translation in Eusebius (H. E., viii. 17).
It was a disingenuous document, and on the face of it
appeared no trace of the hideous cruelties perpetrated in the
course of the long drawn-out persecution. It recounted hoAv
many of the Christians, after the publication of the edict,
had submitted to the observance of the ancient institutions ;
but it aUowed that great numbers still persisted in their
opinions; and, because it had been seen that at present they
neither paid reverence and due adoration to the gods, nor
yet worshipped their OAvn God, therefore " We, from our
wonted clemency in bestoAving pardon on all, have judged it
right to extend our indulgence to these men, and to permit
them again to be Christians, and to establish the places of
their religious assemblies." The Imperial document closed
with a request for their prayers in the folloAving words:
"Wherefore it will be the duty of the Christians, in conse
quence of this our toleration, to pray to their God for our
welfare, and for that of the public, and for their own, that
the republic may continue safe in every quarter, and that
they may live securely in their dwellings."
The Edict of Toleration was published in the Asiatic and
western dominions of Galerius, in the realm of Licinius and
even in the Western provinces of Constantine. The name
of Maxentius, who was not recognised by Galerius, does not

448 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
appear in the preamble; but in Italy and Africa the Church
had long enjoyed a doubtful and somewhat precarious
toleration; the name of Maximin Daia, Galerius' nephew,
the most cruel of the persecuting princes, was not appended
to the Imperial edict, but he did not venture to oppose it,
and for a time persecution ceased even in his Eastern provinces.
Galerius expired very shortly afterwards.
Eusebius (H. E., ix. 1) graphicaUy paints the joy of
the Christians in the dominions of Galerius and Maximin,
and tells us how the prisons were opened and the mines
cleared of captives, how like a flash of light blazing out of
thick darkness in every city one could see congregations
coUected, assemblies crowded, and the accustomed meetings
once more held. "The very roads," he tells us, "were
thronged by the noble soldiers of reUgion, journeying to
their OAvn homes, singing the praises of God in hymns and
psalms, Avith bright joj'^ous countenances."
The dominions of the dead Galerius were dirided by his
tAVO nominees, his Asian prorinces falhng to the lot of
Maximin Daia, while those situated in Europe were added to
the realm of Licinius.
The rejoicings of the long-harassed Eastern Christians
were soon hushed. Maximin Daia was a bigoted Pagan.
He hated Christianity with an intense hate, and although he
jielded for the moment to the general impulse of toleration
Avhich proceeded from the sick bed of the dying Galerius
the Emperor of the East never swerved from his long-
cherished determination to exterminate the Christians from
his Avidespread dominions. In less than six months after
the promulgation of Galerius' Edict of Toleration, his measures
Avere again in full operation, and once more the Christian
of the East found himself an outlaw and proscribed. The
measures adopted were weU and skilfully planned. The
Pagan party arranged that petitions and addresses from great
cities, such as Antioch, should be presented to the Emperor
against the Christians, deprecating the late measures of tolera
tion, and urging all the old pleas ; such as the anger of
the gods against the hated sect, and the consequent danger

CONSTANTINE THE GBEAT. 449
to the Avell-being of the Empire owing to their wrath.
Maximin Daia gladly listened to their " manufactured " requests,
professing to see in them the irresistible voice of public
opinion. Once more the churches and the cemeteries of the
followers of Jesus were peremptorily closed, and aU Christian
meetings sternly forbidden ; efiorts Avere made to arouse a real
anti-Christian feeUng among the people. Writings, such as
the spurious "Acts of Pilate," a composition, dating only
from the early years of the fourth century, which in the
form circulated by the Imperial emissaries set forth the
events of the Passion of the Lord in a blasphemous parody,
were scattered broadcast through the cities and villages of
Maximin Daia's provinces. They were published openly ;
they were given to the schoolmasters as subjects of study
for their pupils. "The very boys," says Eusebius, "had the
names of Jesus and PUate and the forged ' Acts ' in derision
in their mouths all day" (H. E., ix. 5-7). The vUest accusa
tions Avere formaUy made against the Christians. Nothing,
indeed, was left undone to stir up public opinion against
the detested sect.
The great historian gives us (H. E., ix. 7) a transcript
of an Epistle of the Emperor, a kind of State paper, which
was engraved on a brass tablet and pubhcly set up at Tyre,
as a specimen of the Emperor's edicts and pronouncements
in favour of Paganism pubhshed at this time. The Epistle of
the Emperor, in which he decreed the banishment of the
worshippers of Jesus from the city, Avas in reply to one of
those anti-Christian petitions addressed to him by the citizens
of which Ave have spoken above. It has been happUy termed,
a Pagan sermon or "Pastoral," a kind of " Te Deum" of
Paganism sung on the eve of its final defeat.* After a
Avordy preamble, dwelling on the happy victory of the human
mind over the clouds of delusion, a victory which had led
to the universal recognition of the providence of the im
mortal gods, the Emperor expressed his dehght and pleasure
at the regard and reverence manifested by the citizens (of
Tyre) towards the gods. He noticed that their pious petition
* Allard: Persecution de Diocletien, ii., chap, ix., 11.
D D

450 EABLY GHBISTIANIT'i AND PAGANISM.
to him contained no ordinary request for any local privUege
or advantage, but dealt only Arith the question of the votaries
of an execrable vanity (the Christians), long disregarded,
rising up, like a funeral pyre which had been smothered,
once more in mighty flames (aUuding here to the results of
the late Edict of Toleration). Maximin Daia then proceeded
to congratulate the citizens, who had been evidently inspired
by the supreme and mighty Jupiter to make their petition
to him to free them from the sect they so wisely detested.
Then he dwelt on the gracious kindness of the gods towards
them, refraining as these immortals had done from inflicting
upon them the aAvful calamities which had often been the
result of Christian foUy, and which they might reasonably
have expected Avould have been their fate too. In their case,
however, their piety, their sacrifices had propitiated the dirinity
of the all-powerful and mighty Mars (the Avenger). Those
Christians who had abandoned these blind delusions were to
enjoy quietness and peace. But those who still clung to
their execrable folly were to be driven out and banished far
from the city.
SimUar letters and edicts were sent by Maximin Daia to
aU the provinces in his dominion.
At the same time a great effort was made by the deter
mined Pagan Emperor to strengthen the cult of the old
gods by the revival of a magnificent and striking ritual,
not only in the stately fanes of great cities, such as Antioch
and Tyre, but as far as possible even in the more humble
rural sanctuaries.
At first Maximin Daia seems to have refrained from open
bloodshed in the case of the harassed Christians, contenting
himself with banishing, mutUating, and otherwise maltreating
the worshippers of Jesus; but soon severer measures were
adopted, and persecution was decreed equalhng in its cruel
severity that which had prevaUed before the Edict of Tolera
tion had been put out from the death chamber of Galerius.
Once more the provinces of the East, where Maximin Daia
was paramount, Avere the scenes of a terrible Christian per
secution.

CONSTANTINE THE GBEAT. 451
But the end of all this was nigh at hand.
We turn again to the Westem Empire, where grave
political events were occurring which completely changed the
whole aspect of affairs throughout the Roman world.
The peace of the provinces of the Western Empire seemed
secured by the close connection through marriage ties of
the three Sovereigns Avho reigned respectively over Gaul,
Spain, and Britain, Italy and North Africa, lUyricum and the
Danubian provinces. Constantine, the most poAverful of the
three Lords of the West, as we have seen, Avas married to
Fausta, the daughter of Maximian, while a marriage was
arranged between Licinius, the Sovereign of Eastern Europe,
and Constantia, the half-sister of Constantine.
In the vast territories ruled by these three Emperors
the quiet long enjoyed by the Christians was completely
ratified by the Edict of Toleration, lately put out by the
dying Galerius. In Rome Maxentius, for reasons unknoAvn
to us, but not improbably connected with the idea of
att aching the powerful sect more closely to his Government,
promulgated an edict which restored the long-confiscated
possessions of the Church, including the subterranean ceme
teries especiaUy dear to the community of Rome from the
haUowed traditions of a glorious past.
MUtiades, the pope or bishop of the ancient metropolis, who
had succeeded Eusebius, Avho died in his banishment, was
formally recognised by the Imperial Government as the head of
the Christian community of Rome. His first act was, as we
noticed above, to inter the remains of his predecessor Eusebius
with reverent care in one of the sacred chambers Avhich once
more had become the property of the Church.
The peace of the Roman world, however, was broken by the
ambitious views of the evil Maxentius.* Jealous of the prestige

* The Sovereigns of Italy and the East, Maxentius and Maximin Daia, have won
a certain prominence among the wicked Emperors of Rome. Their shameless
immoralities were even more notorious than those indulged in by their worst
predecessors on the throne. The conduct of Maxentius especially had alienated all
the best and most serious of his Roman subjects. He was universally regarded with
detestation and loathing.

452 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
and power of Constantine, the pretext he alleged for the declara
tion of war against his brother-in-laAv was the treatment of
the old Maximian, who had been condemned to die, after the
failure of his infamous conspiracy. Maxentius had previously
quarrelled with his father and driven him from his dominions,
but he chose to regard Constantine's conduct towards the rest
less old conspirator as a deadly offence.
Maxentius, conscious of possessing an army considerably
larger than his adversary's, and confident of success, proceeded
to insult the great Western Emperor by publicly throwing down
the statues erected in his honour in Italy and Africa. In view
of the coming war, Constantine, who had determined, even
with his smaUer force,* to invade Italy, had secured the
neutrality of Liciiuus, to Avhom he had betrothed his sister
Constantia. But it was a perilous and dangerous adventure,
and only the consummate generalship of Constantine and the
wonderful celerity of his movements prevented the disaster to
his arms to which Maxentius confidently looked forward, t
Without delay the Galhc Emperor, leading his troops over
the rugged and inhospitable passes of the Mont Cenis Alps, won
a series of brUliant victories over the armies of his adversary
successively at Susa, Turin, and Verona, and reached the neigh
bourhood of Rome, with a small army of picked veterans,
flushed with victory, and inspired with confidence in theur
brave and skilful commander.
In the neighbourhood of the immemorial capital of the
Roman world the last stand was made by the stUl numerous
armies of Maxentius; the same good fortune which had
accompanied the daring army of invaders all through the
successful campaign again befriended them. The disposition of
the forces of Maxentius was incompetent, and every error in
strategy was turned to account by the consummate generalship of
the Western Emperor. The result Avas a triumphant victory;
-* The disposable legionaries of Constantine were computed at about 40,000 men,
but they were trained and war-worn soldiers ; 40,000 men of his troops were engaged
iu defending the Rhine frontier. Maxentius on the other hand, it is said by Zosimus,
had weU-nigh 190,000 legionaries under arms in Italy.
t The question of Divine assistance being given to the Emperor Constantine in
this campaign against Maxentius will be presently discussed at some length.

CONSTANTINE THE GBEAT. 453
the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber, the scene of the final rout of
the Italian Emperor's forces, gave its name to one of the decisive
battles of the Avorld. In the headlong flight which ensued
Maxentius perished in the waters of the Tiber, and the victorious
Constantine immediately took possession of Rome, where he was
received with enthusiasm as a deliverer. Indeed, there is httle
doubt but that the shameful excesses of Maxentius had largely
affected the loyalty of his subjects, and had contributed in
no small degree to the wonderful and rapid success of the
Emperor Constantine, in his victorious march from the passes
of the Mont Cenis to the gates of Rome.
The crowning victory of the Milvian Bridge and the entry
of Constantine into Rome took place in the October of the
year 312. SECTION II. — the CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE.
Among the rulers of the Roman world between a.d. 305
and A.D. 312, the years Avhich immediately followed the abdi
cation of Diocletian, one figure occupies a peculiar place.
Maximian, Galerius, Maximin Daia, Severus, Maxentius, were
all stained more or less with crimes, with offences of the
gravest complexion against morality, with greed, selfishness,
heartless ambition, remorseless cruelty; nor were they in any
way speciaUy distinguished as wise or capable Sovereigns. Only
the son of Constantius Chlorus, Constantine — in after days
generally known as "the Great" — has been characterised alike
by Pagan as by Christian Avriters as a wise and good ruler of
men ; not only a brave and skilful general, but also a capable
and far-seeing prince in times of quietness and peace.
Constantine was scarcely twenty years of age when in
392 his father, Constantius Chlorus, was promoted to the high
dignity of Csesar, and was invested with the government of
Greater Gaul, including distant Britain. This great promotion
of Constantine's father was, however, coupled with the under
standing that the new Csesar should put away or divorce
Helena, the mother of his son, and espouse the daughter
of the Augustus Maximian. We presently hear of the ap
parently disinherited Constantine as attached to the service of

454 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Diocletian, in whose armies he quickly rose to the conspicuous
station of a tribune. When Diocletian resigned the purple,
it was the general expectation that the briUiant young
soldier, who was then a little more than thirty years of age,
Avould be appointed Csesar ; but, as we have seen, Galerius,
who Avas all-powerful in the State, had other views, and Con
stantine Avas left for the present in a private station. Shortly
after, the dying Constantius Chlorus recaUed to his side the
long-absent son of Helena, and procured his nomination by
the army of Britain and Gaul to sovereign rank, leaving in
his charge his chUdren by his second marriage. In spite of
the ill-wUl of Galerius, Constantine succeeded to the gi-eat
dominions ruled over by his father, to which Spain had prob
ably been recently added. He thus became Sovereign Ruler
over the Western provinces of the Empire in a.d. 306. For
the next five or six years his govemment was characterised by
moderation and firmness. The frontiers were protected from
the raids of the barbarians, and his dominion generally enjoyed
quiet and prosperity. Although aU through this period of his
Ufe he carefully carried out the Pagan observances required by
the Constitution of the Empire, ofiiciating at the dedication of
Pagan temples and publicly taking part in the sacrificial cere
monies, yet his Christian subjects generaUy enjoyed quietness,
if not something of official recognition. His great reputation
as a wise Sovereign and a skilful mUitary commander was
weU knovm throughout the Roman world, and gave him vast
and Aridespread influence.
We have already aUuded to the circumstances which led
to the war between Constantine and his brother-in-laA7,
Maxentius, the Sovereign of Italy and Africa. During this
period, the early autumn of a.d. 312, took place the event
which had so far-reaching an influence on the story of the
world — his conversion to Christianity.
The Pagan writer Zosimus* has a strange story referring
* Zosimus was a Govemment official, apparently of some rank, at Con
stantinople in the first half of the fifth century. His history, written in Greek
in six books, treats in Book I. very briefly the lives of the Emperors Augustas
to Diocletian ; Books II.-IV. in much greater detail contain the history of the

CONSTANTINE THE GBEAT. 455
the date to a.d. 326, and attributing it to remorse for the death
of his wife and of his eldest son, Crispus. The Pagan pontiffs,
on being asked what expiation he would make for that judicial
murder, replied that they were aware of none which would
atone for such evU deeds. Hence, on being informed that
there was no sin, however grave, which could not be washed
away by the Christian sacraments, the Emperor joyfully
embraced a religion in which he could, on easy terms, obtain
peace. But this is all imaginary ; for we have abundant proof
that the Imperial conversion belongs to a much earlier period
than A.D. 326. The famous Edict of Milan was promulgated
in A.D. 313, and a number of historical incidents between
A.D. 312-13 and a.d. 325 indisputably show that aU through
this period the Emperor was an earnest Christian.
Lactantius (De Mortibus Persecutorum, 44) mentions as
taking place in a.d. 311* the dream of Constantine, directing
him to mark the shields of his legionaries with the sacred
sign of the cross before the decisive battle of the Milvian
Bridge, in Avhich Maxentius was defeated and slain. Eusebius
(H. E., ix. 9), Avriting before the death of Crispus, relates
how Constantine invoked the aid of the God of Heaven and
of His Son Jesus Christ, and then by the Dirine assistance
defeated the tyrant (Maxentius) ; and the same writer later,
in his " Life of Constantine," i. 28-29, gives us careful detaUs
of the event in question; details which he says he heard
from the Emperor hunself The story is a remarkable one.
The scene of the wonderful appearance and of the dream
was somewhere on the march from Gaul to Italy, apparently
before! Italy Avas entered, and probably in the wild and
mhospitable defiles of the Mont Cenis pass. Constantine
period from the accession of Constantius and Galerius to the death of Theodosius.
The Fifth and Sixth treat of the years between a.d. 395 and a.d. 410. The work
is unfinished. * Lactantius, apparently through an error, antedates the event by one
year. t Both Boissier, La fin de Paganisme (1898) (vol. i., chaps, ii., iii.), and Allard
Persecution de Diocletien, vol i., x. 1 (1898), who discuss the question of the
conversion at considerable length, place the scene early in the campaign of
Constantine, before the Emperor had entered the Italian plains.

456 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Avas on horseback, and was meditating upon the difficulties
and dangers of his daring adventure. He thought of the
small number of his legionaries, and recaUed with a super
stitious fear what he had heard of his adversary Maxentius'
great devotion to the Pagan gods. It must be remembered
that as yet Constantine was a professed Pagan. Alone could
he hope to be victorious if some divinity was on his side.
Then it came into his mind hoAv many of the rulers of
Rome, who had trusted in the gods of Rome, had perished,
and their children, and their very memory too, had passed
away. Only one could he remember who had prospered —
his own father Constantius, Avho was a Monotheist. Who
Avas this One God who had helped Constantius Chlorus ? So
he prayed earnestly in his sore need that the God who
had helped his father Avould manifest Himself to him and
give him protection. Then as he prayed came the wonderful
sign — the luminous cross in heaven with the writing,
" Conquer with this." * The heavenly vision was seen, so
runs the story given in Eusebius, not only by Constantine
but by his soldiers. That night the Emperor had a remark
able dream,t in which Christ appeared to him and bade
him make at once an ensign under which his legions would
be victorious in the ensuing campaign. Around the story
of the conversion of Constantine, as related by Eusebius and
generally followed by ecclesiastical writers, has arisen a war
of diverse opinions ; one school of writers deriding it as belong
ing to the improbable if not to the impossible ; the other school
accepting it as a piece of true history. The consequences
* Eusebius teUs the story in Greek ; the words whioh accompanied the
cross were : " roinp viica' ; but Constantine and his legionaries spoke Latin,
so the words in Constantine's own narrative to Eusebius were no doubt, "IIoo
vince," or "Hoc vinoes."
fit has been suggested that the "dream" referred to by Lactantius
(De Mort. Pers., 44) was an appearance of Christ subsequent to the one related
in the "Life of Constantine," which followed immediately after the luminouB
appearance of the cross in the heavens. ' ' The Command ' ' given in Lactantius
vision directs the cross symbol to be marked upon the shields. The first
vision simply gave direction as to the standard or ensign. Prudentius, Cmire
Symmaolium, i. 486-488, mentions the cross upon the ensign and also on
the shields of the legionaries.

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CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. 457
of the conversion of the great Western Emperor have been so
momentous and far-reaching that it will be worth our while
quietly and dispassionately to see how the matter stands.
It is perfectly clear that before the campaign which
resulted in the defeat and death of Maxentius, and the
consequent annexation of his broad dominions of Italy and
North Africa to the realm of the Gallic Emperor, Constantine
was to all intents and purposes a Pagan ruler; one who,
it is true, viewed the Christian sect benevolently, possibly
even favourably, but emphaticaUy not a Christian and ap
parently with no idea of becoming one.
It is equally clear that during the campaign in question
he changed his mind on the question of Christianity, and
fought the several battles Avith Maxentius and his lieutenants
avowedly under the protection of Him on whom the Christian
called, with a sacred banner floating above his legions inscribed
with the holy symbol and awful monogram of Jesus Christ.
Equally certain is it that after the crowning victory of the
Milvian Bridge, Constantine made a public profession of his
Christianity, asserting it not only in a formal State edict
but showing it by his personal interest in the inner life and
government of the Christian Church. He Avas evidently
intensely in earnest.
Something, then, must have happened early in the cam
paign against Maxentius, Avhich brought about so great a
change in the opinions and subsequent conduct of the Emperor
Constantine. This " something " Lactantius (De Mortibus Pers.,
44) tells us was a dream in which he received a command
to stamp upon the shieLis of his legionaries the sign of the
cross. Eusebius, in his " History " (ix. 9), is stUl vaguer, simply
stating that he prayed to God and to His Son and Word,
Jesus Christ, and Avas divinely assisted in the battle. Only
in Eusebius' later Avork, in his " Life of Constantine," appears
the story of the sign of the cross in Heaven, told at some
length as it had been related to him by the Emperor himself :
the sign being the response vouchsafed as an ansAver to earnest,
anxious prayer, and foUowed by the dream Avhich we have
related above.

458 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
The bona fides of Eusebius here is CA^ident. He makes
no effort to represent his hero in a speciaUy favourable hght.
He describes him as anxious about the success of his perUous
adventure, and casting about for an Immortal who should
help his arms and crown his expedition with victory. In
this perplexity he bethinks him of the unknown God who
had blessed his father, and to him he turns with earnest
prayer — answered, as he thought, by a miraculous sign,*
foUowed by a dream. Victory foUowed, and, thus convinced,
he became a devout follower of the Immortal Being who had
blessed him in his hour of danger and of urgent need. The
very earthiness of the whole transaction is a Aritness of its
veracity. Had Eusebius invented it, he had surely made
it more beautiful and his hero less earthly and more spiritualf
The wonderful success of Constantine, with his compara
tively small force, when the numerous legions of which
Maxentius was able to dispose are taken into account, ap
peared to Pagans as well as to Christians as miraculous. The
legions of Maxentius seemed unaccountably to melt before
his rapid advance. Everything at first seemed to promise
a successful resistance. The armies of Italy far exceeded in
numbers the invading force; they were admirably equipped.
There were several strong fortresses in the invaders' track,
and, above aU, the Imperial City, with its great garrison
* A sign which, as years passed on and he brooded over it, became ever more
clear and distinct tUl it assumed the definite appearance related in his narrative to
Eusebius. The dream is easy to explain ; his mind was full of what he had seen,
or thought he had seen, of what he heard from Christiau lips about the cross and
its power. t The above suggestion contained in the text, and in the note, of course by no
means precludes the possibility of a miraculous sign having been seen aud a subse
quent revelation in the night vision having been made to Constantine. The fact of
the conversion of Constantine was a very important one, and tremendous conse
quences to the votaries of Christianity foUowed. But the silence of Lactantius,
aud of Eusebius in his earlier writing, seems to suggest that the suggestion above
given is the more probable explanation of the incident. The sketch of the
character of Constantine, which foUows in the text of our history, too, supports the
view above advocated. That Constantine firmly believed in the heavenly -vision
and in the command of the dream respecting the cross symbol is certain. The
victory which foUowed, and tbe splendid success of his dangerous campaign, in his
eyes set the seal of truth upon it.

CONSTANTINE THE GBEAT. 459
and its immemorial prestige, was Maxentius' stronghold.
Pagan, as well as Christian, saAv in the unexpected and rapid
victory of Constantine the hand of some supernatural poAver.
This opinion seems to have gathered strength as time went
on. One of the panegyrists even wrote as foUoAvs : " All Gaul
speaks of the heavenly armies Avhich were seen in the skies
in the last decisive battle, Avith their glittering armour and
flashing weapons, led by the divine Constantius Chlorus
helping his son in the supreme conflict."
It may well be conceived that Constantine himself believed
that he was the chosen minister of God, and that out of
gratitude for the divine help he devoted himself to the ser
vice of the Deity who had taken him under His almighty
protection. The Emperor Constantine, who put an end to the long-
drawn out war between Christianity and Paganism, who gave
the blessings of peace to the Church and laid the foundation
stories of its supremacy in the Avorld of Rome, was no ordi
nary man. Trained in the hard school of adversity and
disappointment, he became, during his period of exile from
his father's Court, a great and daring soldier and a skiUed
tactician, eventually taking rank Avith the most famous mili
tary Emperors as a consummate general ; as a ruler, too, in
times of peace, he occupies a distinguished position His
government of Gaul, after his accession to poAver, on his father
Constantius Chlorus' death, Avas wise and temperate, and his
praise was in all the countries of the Roman Avorld. None
of the vices which stained the lives of so many of the mighty
Emperors have ever been attributed to him. Some critics
have endeavoured to paint him as a shroAvd opportunist and
to represent his Christianity, which clearly dates from the
epoch upon which Ave have been dwelling, a.d. 312, as simply
a matter of selfish State policy. Others sketch him as a
saint of God. Both these estimates are probably erroneous.
His devotion to Christianity Avas no mere selfish adoption of
a cult that would secure his interests and further his am
bitious schemes. According to his lights he was from the
first a devout and earnest beUever. His Avhole subsequent

460 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
career, his acts, his sayings, his whole policy, plainly show
us this. But, on the other hand, the first great Christian
Emperor was no ideal saint of God ; no holy and humble
man of heart. He Avas, in the first instance, as we have seen,
draAvn to Christianity not by any of the deeper feelings of
the heart toAvards the great Sacrifice, not by the exceeding
beauty of its moral teaching, not by any profound sympathy
with a sect which had endured persecution and unheard-of
trials for the faith Avith a splendid constancy and an almost
superhuman endurance ; a sympathy which in that age moved
so many to enthusiasm for Christians and Christianity; but
simply by a persuasion that the God adored by Christians
was more powerful, more able and ready to help his wor
shippers than any of the old deities worshipped in the temples
of the Empire. It was a sorry motive for the great conver
sion Avhich had such momentous consequences ; there is little
trace in it of any of those nobler and more generous aspira
tions which run like a golden thread through the life story
of great Christian heroes. But, such as it was, it was intensely
real, absolutely genuine, and from the hour of his fervent
prayer in the AAdld, savage defiles of the Alps, when he received
what at least he took for an answer to his prayer, Constantine
Avas a fervent believer in the doctrines of the rehgion of Jesus,
a devoted and aU-powerful friend to the long persecuted and
harassed sect.*
The end Avas come at last. There is not much more to
be told in our account of the laying of the foundation stories of
our faith. The long Avar betAveen Christian and Pagan which for
more than tAvo centuries and a half had been waged so
fiercely by the Pagan, so quietly but with such surpassing
-* Boissier, Za fin de Paganisme, vol. i., chap, i.-v., weU iUustrates this estimate
of Constantine's Christianity, very real, even if based on somewhat sordid and
earthly motives. Quoting Eusebius, Vita Const., iv. 9, he says: "Vers la
fin de sa vie, eorivant au roi de Perse, Sapor, pour lui recommander les Chretiens
repandus dans ses Etats, il recommence a depeindre les malheurs qui ont accable
les ennemis de I'Eglise, tandis que lui (Constantine), qui a ouvert les yeux a la
verite, a toujours ete heureux, et qu'il a fait le bonheur de tous ses sujets. Cet
argument sur lequel il revient sans cesse, lui parait irrefutable, irresistible, et Ton
voit bien qu'U lui semble qu'il n'est pas besoin d'en invoquer d'autre pour que le
monde entier suive son exemplo et se fasse Chretien comme lui."

CONSTANTINE THE GBEAT. 461
bravery by the Christian, Avas virtually over Avhen Constantine,
the Christian Emperor, at the head of his conquering legions,
rode through the streets of Rome, past the immemorial
Forum, stUl glittering with its hushed and almost deserted
temples, to the proud palace of the mighty Ceesars which
looked over that matchless group of silent historic shrines.
Christian in good earnest was the great Gallic Emperor,
though the charm which had drawn him to the strange cross
emblem floating over his war-Avorn legionaries, and graven
on their glistening armour, was one which the divine Founder
of Christianity no doubt watched with a tender, regretful
sorrow. Yet, earth-stained though the motives had been
which had made him a follower of Jesus, he was a follower
in intense earnest; and the late splendid victory of the
MUvian Bridge, which had given him the mighty dominions
of Italy and Africa, ruled over by the dead Maxentius, had
set as it were the seal on his fervid belief; "In hoc signo "
(Crucis) had he not triumphed !
Yery gently did the conqueror use his victory ; little
blood was shed, the only victims seem to have been the son
of the fallen Maxentius, and just a feAv of the chief instru
ments of the tyranny and evil rule of the late Emperor.
Rome rejoiced at the wise and beneficent measures of Con
stantine, which at once relieved the victims and sufferers of
the late shameful tyranny; not only were the poor and
oppressed Christians the object of the largesse of the grateful
Emperor, but the many Pagans who had been banished,
impoverished, and imprisoned under the late Avicked and
proffigate Government had cause to bless the day Avhich
witnessed his triumph. There was no ostentatious favour
shown to the long-despised and often sorely-harassed Church
of Christ, but the exclusive patricians and haughty senators
were amazed at meeting at the table of the mighty Emperor
poorly dressed, unknoAvn men Avho were freely admitted to
the august circle of the Palatine— ministers of the Gospel
distmguished, probably, for their piety and learning.
For the first time in the history of the Empire a subsidy
was granted from the Imperial treasury toAvards the buUding

462 EAELY CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of churches, and the historic palace of the Laterani, which had
been the Roman residence of the Empress Fausta, was given
by Constantine to Miltiades, the bishop of the Christian com
munity in Rome, as his residence; the permanent home for
the administration of the see, and the site of the first Chris
tian cathedral* of the ancient metropolis of the Roman world.
Among the statues and temples which an admiring and
grateful people proceeded to erect to the great Emperor, who,
although an earnest Christian, stiU maintained with the title
of Pontifex Maximus the old Imperial prerogative which con
stituted him the supreme head of the Pagan religion pro
fessed by the great majority of the inhabitants of the
Empire, Avas that superb arch of triumph under which
passed the old Via Triumphalis leading to the Via Appia.
On that magnificent arch the inscription can stUl be read,
though somewhat mutUated; bearing the memorable words
which teU of the universal belief of the Pagan world
in the supernatural assistance vouchsafed to Constantine
in the late war Avith Maxentius. The inscription runs thus:
" The Senate and the Roman people have dedicated this
Arch of Triumph to the Emperor Csesar Flarius Con
stantine because, thanks to the divine inspiration (Instinctu
divinitatis^) and to the greatness of his genius, he with his
army has, in a just war, avenged the Republic."
* This was the origin of the famous Lateran church and papal palace. The
Laterani were a wealthy patrician family whose houses and estates were
originally confiscated by Nero. The old family palace of the Laterani became
an Imperial residence, and it was given by the Emperor Maximian to his daughter
Fausta, who became, as we have seen, the wife of Constantine. The first basilica
was built under Pope Silvester and consecrated a.d. 324. It was rebuilt after an
earthquake by Pope Sergius II. iu a.d. 904-11, and then dedicated to S. John the
Baptist. Sergius H.'s basilica was destroyed by fire in a.d. 1308. It was again
burnt in a.d. 1360, was rebuUt by Urban \. a.d. 1362-70, and has since
been sadly mutilated by subsequent additions and alterations. Along the west
front stiU runs the proud inscription : " Sacrosancta Lateranensis ecclesia. Omnium
urbis et orbis ecclesiarum Mater et Caput." The Chapter of the Lateran still
takes precedence even over that of S. Peter's.
+ These words, with their skilfuUy- veUed compromise between Christianity aad
Paganism, long suspected as a later insertion, have by modem archseological investi
gation been shown to form part of the original inscription put up by order of the
Senate.

Photo : Alinari & Cool,, Rome.

FApADE OF 8. JOHN LATERAN, -|734.
Illi till' ri.nlit i.s till- L;iter:m Jliisciiiii, occui.j'iiiii jiavt of tlio sito of tho ancient. Latomii Palaco,

Photo : Alinnri & CooA, Rome.

THE ARCH OF CONSTANTINE (FORUM),

CONSTANTINE THE GBEAT. 463
The completeness of the victory of Constantine and the
consequent incorporation of the territories of Maxentius (Italy
and North Africa) with the vast Western Empire of the conqueror,
gave Constantine such an overAvhelming preponderance in the
Roman world, that the persecutor, Maximin Daia, on receipt of a
peremptory letter from the Court of Constantine, deemed it
expedient to stay the persecution Avhich for so many weary years
had harassed the Eastern Provinces. We have in Eusebius a
copy of the decree which Maximin Daia issued. It was an
untruthful and hypocritical document, but it directed that if any
should wish to follow their own worship (alluding to his Chris
tian subjects) these should be suffered to do so. This concession
was, however, only granted through fear of Constantine. The
real sentiments of Maximin Daia were manifested shortly, as
Ave shaU presently notice.
Early in a.d. 313 Constantine came to Milan, where he had
arranged to meet the Emperor Licinius, whose dominions
extended over the Eastern Provinces of Europe. The marriage
of his sister, Constantia, with Licinius, which had been previously
arranged, was to be celebrated there with much ceremony.
During the late Avar Licinius had maintained a position of friendly
neutrality towards Constantine, and the relations between the
tAVO Emperors now became closer.
The famous Edict of Milan, which was put out in the
earlier months of this memorable year, ran in the names of
the two allied Emperors. The edict was more than a simple
Imperial proclamation according a general amnesty to the per
secuted Christians ; it was more than a mere edict of toleration ;
it was intended to be, and indeed was generaUy received as
a manifesto of the Imperial clemency in favour of the long
proscribed religion, Avhich had been accepted as the true cult
by the all-powerful Emperor Constantine. It certaiiUy left to
all the citizens of the Empire the free choice to follow that mode
of worship Avhich they might wish, but that Avas no new
permission. The only form of worship forbidden during the two
hundred and eighty years which preceded the putting out of the
Edict of MUan was the Christian, and that was now especially,
and with much detaU and em jhasis )ronoiinced to be lawful.

464 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
But more than this was contained in the Milan Edict. The
second part of the Imperial Law provided for the restoration to
the Christians of all the property confiscated in the days of perse
cution. Everything was to be given back ; even lands and goods
which had since changed hands by purchase, were to be restored
summarily to the original Christian possessor, the State reserving
to itself the poAver, if it thought fit, of indemnifying those persons
who had thus to make restitution. In addition, all the pubhc
places where Christians used to meet for worship and assembly
(cemeteries were here speciaUy alluded to), which had been taken
from them by the Government, were at once to be freely restored
and that without delay; thus tacitly, but emphatically, con
demning the whole public procedure followed in the days of the
late persecution.
Nothing could be more complete, more far-reaching, more
favourable to the Christians than the provisions of the edict
And it must be borne in mind that this Imperial Law ran
throughout the whole of the Empire in Europe and Africa,
stretching from the Atlantic seaboard of Westem Gaul to the
coasts of the Euxine and the Danube frontier, and from Northern
Britain to the Mediterranean- washed provinces of Spain, Soutli
Gaul and Italy, and southwards over North Afi-ica. Of this
enormous realm by far the greater part acknowledged the rule
of Constantine. The wording of certain portions of the edict is curious, and
deserves a little examination. It is undoubtedly a Christian
document, inspired by a Christian, and put out, as we have
noticed above, mainly in the interest of Christians. They alone
are named in it, and in one striking passage the general toleration
to be enjoyed by difi'erent forms of reUgion is based upon the
toleration accorded to Christianity. But one clause has a strange
semi-Pagan colour. After giving to all the free choice to foUow
that mode of worship which they may Arish, it adds that this
promise was given in order that " Whatsoever Divinity and
celestial power may exist might be propitious to us, and to all
that live under our Government." The thought that underlies
these words Avould seem to be : If, as is possible, any poAver belong
to the old gods, it is well, by allowing men, if they please, to

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. 485
worship them, that the gods in question should be propitiated
by such worship. This suggests that the edict, so strongly in
favour of Christianity was not avowedly drafted by a Christian ;
although, no doubt, in the main it was dictated, or at least
inspired, by Constantine himself, who we know after his formal
adhesion to Christianity as Emperor of a still Pagan Empire,
continued to be the official head, as Pontifex Maximus, of the old
religion.* The proceedings at Milan in the spring of a.d. 313, for
ever memorable on account of the edict which established
Christianity as a legal religion, and which signified to the
Roman world that the great Emperor had thrown in his lot
with the long despised and outlawed sect, were rudely inter
rupted by inteUigence whieh summoned the allied Emperors
Constantine and Licinius to take the field. A raid of Frankish
tribes in the Rhineland called for Constantine's presence once
more at the head of his legions on the disturbed frontier,
Avhile a most dangerous civU war impending required Licinius
in Eastern Europe to defend his dominions against the sudden
invasion of Maximin Daia, who, with a powerful army,
threatened the very existence of his Empire.
Maximin Daia, as we have seen, was a bigoted Pagan, and
it is probable that the late events had roused the Pagan party
to strike this blow in the hope of destroying, or, at least, of
weakening, the powerful Christian influences which bade fair
to undermine the old religion. It was weU-nigh the last
serious efibrt of Paganism. At first the arms of Maximin Daia
were successful, and the city of Byzantium was invested and
captured; but the victorious march Avas interrupted by the
rapid advance of Licinius, by whose military skiU the forces
of the invader, although superior in numbers, were completely
routed in a pitched battle near Heraclea. Maximin Daia fled,
and, retuming to his capital, Nicomedia, a beaten and dis
graced Sovereign, died a few months after by his own hand.
He perished apparently unregretted ; the civil war in the
East was over; and without further resistance Licinius was
* See Boissier, Revue des Deux Mondes. August, 1887, p. 528, and Za fin
du Paganisme, Vol. L, Chap. IL, U (1898).
E E

466 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
acknowledged Emperor of the East. Thus, before the year 313
had run its course, the provisions of the Edict of Milan, which
assured peace and protection to the Christians, were received
as the Imperial law Arithout further opposition throughout the
whole Roman world.

SECTION in. — AFTER THE EDICT OF MILAN.
It was a strange experience for the Christian subjects of
the Empire to find themselves not merely tolerated but even
favoured The open profession of beUef by Constantine placed
the long persecuted religion in a new light, and it is not difficult
to conceive that vast numbers of aU classes, vmder these neiv
circumstances gradually joined the Christian communities.
Licinius, the feUow Emperor of Constantine, it is true, was no
real friend of Christianity ; but the power and influence of the
great Western Emperor from a.d. 313 to a.d. 321 ensured the
freedom of Christian worship in the East where Licinius was
supreme. A dispute and a short war between the two Em
perors in A.D. 314, which ended in victory for the armies of
Constantine, placed weU-nigh aU the prorinces of Eastern
Europe under the Westem Sovereign.
In these years must be placed the foundation and, in some
instances, the completion of not a few of the proud basilicas of
the Constantinian period, notably the great churches of S. Peter
on the Vatican, of S. Paul on the Ostian Way, of S. Laurence,
of St. Agnes, and of the basiUca and palace of the Bishops of
Rome in the Lateran Gardens. These were in Rome ; but in
numberless cities of the Empire in these years churches were
erected, some of great magnificence and splendidly adorned
Among these the basUica of Tyre is memorable owing to the
detaUed picture of this lordly fane contained in the inaugural
discourse pronounced at Tyre by Eusebius (H. E., x 4).
That such a magnificent building shoiUd arise in a city which
had so lately taken the lead on the side of Paganism in the
last days of the persecutions of Maximin Daia iUustrates the
power and opulence of the Christian party. "Nor would the
Christian orator venture greatly to exaggerate the splendour of

CONSTANTINE THE GBEAT. 467
a buUding Avhich stood in the midst of and provoked, as it
Avere, a comparison with temples of high antiquity and
unquestioned magnificence."* The basilica of Tyre was only
one among the many stately churches which arose in these
early years of the peace of the Church, in Rome and in the
chief cities of the Empire. And the student, as he reads the
great historian's description of the Tyre basilica, evidently of
vast proportions, with its rich sculptures, its roofs of cedar, its
pavements of inlaid marbles, its arrangements for carefuUy
ordered services, is amazed at the latent power and resources
of the Christian sect, which only needed a foAv years of assured
peace and Imperial favour to create such mighty works and
to develop a ritual so stately and so elaborate.
It has been sorrowfully remarked that while Constantine
could give protection, he could not give peace to Christianity
and its inner life. Very early in its days of unlocked for
prosperity the Church was rent with internal dissensions.
These first quarrels, to us who look back through the long
waste of centuries, seem to have sprung from seemingly un
important causes. The old questions respecting the diflerent
degrees of guilt incurred by the "Lapsi," or those who had
fallen away in the late persecution, were fiercely agitated,
especiaUy in the provinces of North Africa, ever a fruitful
soil for these sad disputes. The validity of the election of
Csecilian, Bishop of Carthage, was called in question by a group
of Numidian prelates, who alleged that he had been unlaw
fully consecrated by a certain Felix, Bishop of Aptunga, who,
they said, had been a " traditor " — one Avho, under pressure,
had given up to the Pagans the sacred books. The malcontents
appealed to the civil power, and the Emperor relegated the
cause to a council held at the Lateran under Miltiades, the
Bishop of Rome. The Lateran Council decided in favour of
Caecihan. The African malcontents were not satisfied. And,
as a consequence, a rival bishop was set up in Carthage. Con
stantine, in the hope of avoiding a permanent schism in the
North African provinces, summoned a council from all parts
-* See Dean Milman, Sistory of Christianity, Book IL, Chap. IX. ; and
Eusebius, S. E., x.

468 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of the West to meet at Aries in Gaul. This Aries Council,
which met in the year 314, was the greatest ecclesiastical
assembly that had been known, numbering as it did over
two hundred bishops.* Pope Silvester, who had succeeded
Miltiades as Bishop of Rome, was represented at Aries by
two priests and two deacons. Again the decision was in favour
of the legality of the consecration of CsecUian. The details
of this long drawn out and dangerous controversy do not
belong to the scheme of our history. But some of the canons
passed at Aries must be briefly noticed, as they throw con
siderable Ught on the connection of the fast-growing Chris
tianity with civil society in the reign of Constantine at this
period, a.d. 314. One of the most remarkable of these canons
forbade, under pain of excommunication, any Christian to take
part as an actor in any of the public games so popular among
the people, particularising the parts of charioteer or comedian.
Another canon of a different complexion supported with the
weight of the Catholic Church, the duty of Christians towards
the State by pronouncing the sentence of excommunication
upon any Christian soldier who should, through any mistaken
conscientious scruple,t decline to perform his mUitary duties.
The influence of the Christian bishops and others among
the leading men at the Court of Constantine during the ten
years of which we are speaking, a.d. 313-23, was very marked.
Some forty years later, in the brief Pagan reaction, the Emperor
Julian bitterly notices this, commenting upon Constantine as
* The decision of this important council was again questioned, and Con
stantine agreed to hear in person the opposing parties at MUan, a.d. 316, where
he upheld the decisions of Eome and Aries. The schismatics, who were styled
" Donatists," after the anti-Bishop of Carthage, Donatus the Great, who had
been elected by the dissidents in the room of Csecilian, still declined to submit
to the " Catholic " party, who maintained the validity of the election of Csecilian
as Bishop of Carthage in accordance with the decisions at Rome, Aries, and
Milan. The Donatist schism long divided the Church of North Africa. These
Donatists were a powerful and very numerous sect of Dissenters, including m
their ranks at one time, it is said, as many as four hundred bishops 1 They pro
fessed, as other sectaries had done before them, an extreme austerity, and
maintained that the true Church existed only in their communion.
•j- It will be remembered that about a century before this question had been
argued by the eminent teacher Tertullian, who taught that a soldier, if a Christian,
was justified in certain acts of insubordination.

Fhotu : Maiutiu, Pome
SEPULCHRAL CHAIVIBER IN THE CEMETERY OF S. CALLISTUS, NEAR THE PAPAL CRYPT.
I'l'nli.iMy the t.iiul. .If Jliltia.lts (.v.i.. 311), flii' Libt Pi.pe Uirieil in tliu Catiicninl.^.

CONSTANTINE THE GBEAT. 469
an innovator, as one who disturbed the ancient laws and
upset the old customs.*
Amongst the new remarkable laws which Avere promul
gated in the Empire in these years and which were directly
attributable to Christian influences was the rescript directing
the celebration of the Christian Sabbath; it was cautiously
worded, and bore no special allusion to the peculiar sanctity
of the day in the eyes of the Christian communities. Out
of deference, no doubt, to the votaries of the ancient reUgion,
it was termed " the day of the Sun," but it was to be gener
ally observed, the law courts were to be closed, and the noise
and bustle of public business were no longer to disturb the
repose of the holy day. The only legal work that might be
transacted Avas that connected with the manumission of slaves,
a strange exception, and one undoubtedly due to the noAv
spirit which was brooding over the Imperial chancery, which
at this time issued various laws bearing on the relief of the
great slave class. Other ordinances Avere put forth under
the same Christian inspiration, such as the abrogation of the
laws inimical to celibacy. Laws, too, dealing with immorality
were passed. The punishment of crucifixion was significantly
abolished. One most important concession appears at this
time, giving the Church the fullest poAver to receive the
bequests of the pious, an ordinance which had far-reaching
consequences in after ages.
But, although the Emperor had accepted the groundwork
of the Christian revelation, and had evidently resolved, as far
as his conception of imperative duties imposed upon him as
Emperor allowed, quietly to assist and promote the interests
of the religion which he beUeved to be true, he resisted any
attempt made by the more favoured sect to obtain through
their reUgion any undue rights or privileges which, if acknow
ledged, might be inimical to the interests of the State. The
ecclesiastical order had obtained, through the Imperial favour,
an exemption from the necessity of serving in any of the
burdensome and costly offices belonging to the municipalities ;
offices which at this time were disliked and, when possible,
-* See Ammianus Marcellinus, xxi. 10.

470 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
avoided, on the just plea that the duties attendant on such
offices were incompatible with their religious obligations. To
secure their exemption from a hated duty many entered the
clerical order. To remedy this manifest abuse of a privUege,
Constantine decreed that none were to be admitted into the
sacred order except on the vacancy of a reUgious charge, and
then only those whose want of fortune exempted them from
these costly municipal functions.*
The position of Constantine in these early years which
succeeded the famous Edict of Milan was a somewhat strange
one. He was a Christian not merely in name, but, as Ave
have insisted, was reaUy persuaded of the truth of the
great Christian doctrines. But, at the same time, he was
the supreme head of the Pagan reUgion of the Empire, which
certainly for some years after a.d. 313 was stiU professed by
the majority of his subjects. Constantine never seems to have
laid aside the Imperial rank of Pontifex Maximus, or to have
dispensed with the ancient Pagan titles upon his medals and
coins. His apologists, Avith some justice, plead that it was
his desire to maintain the pubUc peace and tranquiUity, which
induced him to preserve these official ensigns of power over
what was still the State religion. He was thus possessed of
the supreme authority in both religions. Invested as he was
with the right of superintending the ancient Pagan cult, he
was enabled to restrict it in various Avays, and gradually,
without using any violent measures, to separate it from the
ordinary social life of the citizens of the Empire, whUe it
continued for a whUe to be the official worship. As early as
A.D. 313, the year of the proclamation of the Edict of MUan,
he declined to sanction the celebration of the secular games,
the chief Pagan festival, and in the year 319 we find him
* The Decurions formed the Senates of the towns ; they supplied the magis
trates from their body, aud had the right of electing them ; under the regulations
introduced by Diocletian the Decurions were made responsible for the full amount
of taxation imposed by the Imperial assessment on the town and district. As the
payments grew more burthensome many became insolvent and fled the district,
but the whole revenue was still exacted from the Decurions ; hence the onoe
coveted oflSce became a severe and hated burthen. See Milman, Sistory of
Christianity, Book 111., Chap. II.

CONSTANTINE THE GBEAT. 471
forbidding aU private sacrificial ceremonies. The public and
official rites seem to have been continued, but they were by
degrees shorn of their ancient pomp and distinction as the
coldness and dislike of the Emperor became more and more
manifest and apparent. The rapid decay of Paganism was
Aritnessed with apprehension and dismay by the more earnest
of the StiU very numerous party who, for various reasons,
adhered to the old Roman cult.
In the year 323 a civil war broke out between the two
Emperors, Constantine and Licinius. The Eastern Emperor,
under the dominant influence of his greater colleague, had
signed the Edict of MUan ; but it seems that Licinius never
reaUy favoured Christianity, and it was only Arith a half
hearted toleration that he suffered the worshippers of the
Crucified openly to practise their religion in his Eastern
dominions. It was to Licinius that the hopes of the Pagan
party in the Empire turned when the rapid decay of their
religion alarmed and disturbed them.
We have seen how in A.D. 314 discord between the two
Emperors, in spite of the matrimonial connection — Licinius,
it wUl be remembered, had married Constantine's half-sister,
Constantia — precipitated a bitter civil war. This war ended in
favour of Constantine, and the terms of peace included the
cession to Constantine of the larger portion of the European
dominions of Licinius. A hollow and uncertain peace which
lasted some nine years from a.d. 314 to a.d. 323 succeeded.
But the marked favour and encouragement showed by Con
stantine to Christians was viewed by his Eastern colleague
with dislike and dread. Gradually the aversion of Licinius
to Christianity was more and more openly manifested. Synods
of clergy were at first forbidden, insulting decrees to Christian
bishops were issued ; in some of his provinces, in direct
contravention of the Edict of MUan, Christian churches were
closed, and at length a partial persecution was sanctioned.
It was a final effort of Paganism to assert itself against the
fast groAring Christianity of the Empire. Once more a bitter
civU Avar between the East and West blazed forth, which
assumed the aspect of a contest of rehgions. Again the

472 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
superior genius of Constantine, and probably his better-equipped
and disciphned legions, enabled him, after a short straggle,
to vanquish his adversary. The campaign was soon con
cluded by a naval victory and by the yet more decisive
battle of Hadrianople, in which Licinius suffered a complete
defeat. The death of Licinius which quickly foUowed left Con
stantine sole master of the East and West. The first act of
the conqueror was at once to withdraw the recently pro
mulgated anti-Christian edicts of the late Emperor of the
East, and to grant to the Eastem followers of the Crucified
all the privUeges which his Christian subjects in the West
had been long enjoying. The year 323 Aritnessed what was
virtually the close of the long draAvn out struggle between
Christianity and Paganism.

473

CHAPTER XVI.
FROM PAGANISM TO CHRISTIANITY.
SECTION I. — THE CHANGE.
The tremendous issues of the change which had passed
over the fortunes of the Christian religion after a.d. 313,
the date of the Milan Edict, were probably foreseen by few
at the time.
Indeed, the gradual progress of events had somewhat
accustomed men's minds to the altered position of things.
We will very briefly recount the principal steps which led
up to the new platform upon which Christianity found itself
in A.D. 323 and in the years immediately following, a platform
from which it never had to recede. First, the abdication of
Diocletian in a.d. 305, and the readjustment of the Imperial
Government, put a stop to all active persecution throughout
most of the Western provinces. Second, the Edict of Tolera
tion issued by the dying Galerius in a.d. 311 gave a new
aspect to the position of Christianity in the East; and,
although its merciful provisions were temporarily set aside
by Maximin Daia, persecution was generally looked on hence
forth as a something absolutely aUen to the universal policy
of the Roman Empire. Third, the victorious campaign of
Constantine under the banner of the cross, and the conse
quent union of the Western Empire under his sceptre, foUowed
by the Edict of Milan, formaUy gave the Christian a legal
status throughout the Empire. The ten years of Imperial
favour which followed the edict witnessed an enormous
increase in the numbers of the hitherto persecuted sect.
Fourth, the efforts of the Pagan party in the East to regain
its lost ground were completely defeated by the overthrow

474 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
and death of Licinius in a.d. 323 and the peaceable succession
of the Emperor Constantine to the Eastern throne; the
whole Roman world being thus united under the undisputed
rule of a Christian Sovereign.
These great events had foUowed one another during the
eighteen years which had elapsed since the abdication of
Diocletian, and, although to aU outward appearance the world
was StiU Pagan, though " every city seemed still to repose
under the tutelary gods of the ancient rehgion ... the
sUent courts of the Pagan fanes were untrodden but by a few
casual worshippers, the altars were vdthout rictims; thin
wreaths of smoke rose where the air used to be clouded
with the reek of hecatombs, the priesthood murmuring in
bitter envy at the throng which passed by the porticoes of
their temples towards the Christian Church."*
As regards many of the great nobles of the Empire, those
who were more closely associated with the Emperor generaUy
adopted the rehgion of the Sovereign and of the Court; but
for a lengthened period very many of the patrician houses,
and not a few among the cultured classes, haughtily stood
aloof from the reUgion which in so marveUous a way had
stirred the hearts of the men and women of the Empire. In
the writings of the Pagans of the last half of the fourth
century, a strange sUence is observable respecting the undreamed
of progress of the sect — a curious reticence on all the circum
stances attendant on the tremendous rictory of Christianity
which that century had witnessed. We search, but search
in vain, for detailed mentions of Avhat must have been
uppermost in the hearts of these passionate lovers of the
storied past of Rome in the well-known and serious writings
of the period. The letters of Symmachus, the proud and
wealthy patrician, in which the life of the nobles of Rome
is so vividly and picturesquely depicted, are silent. So
are the writings of Macrobius and the histories of Aurelius
Victor and Eutropius, Avho do not even deign to mention
an event so striking as the conversion of Constantine. This
almost universal silence is, however, broken in the curious
* Milman, Sist. of Christianittj, Book III., Chapter III.

FBOM PAGANISM TO GHBISTIANITY. 475
Latin translation of the dialogue of Asclepius put out about
the middle of this fourth century. Here the increasing cult
of Christian martyrs is bitterly inveighed against, and the
Avriter dweUs with mournful eloquence on the fate of the
ancient land of Egypt, deprived of her immemorial deities.
"Oh, Egypt! Egypt!" he cries "nought remains of thy
beliefs but confused echoes and a few inscriptions which may
bear witness to coming generations of thy ancient piety.
The gods who once dwelt with thee have gone back again
into Heaven."*
The prevalent silence was again broken a little later by
RutiUus Namatianus, a Gallic gentleman of high position,
who very early in the fifth century filled distinguished offices
at Rome, and became a senator. His words may fairly be
taken as voicing the extreme dislike, even hatred, Avith Avhich
very many of the highest class viewed the rapid advance of
Christianity. His undisguised opinions appear in a graceful
little poem descriptive of a sea trip from Rome (Ostia probably)
to South Gaul. He comes across a Jew — not a loved race
by any means ; but his great objection to the Jew is based
upon the fact that Christianity sprang from a Jewish root —
" radix stultitise " as he sorroAvfuUy terms it. Sailing by the
Isle of Capraria, at that time (circa a.d. 416) largely peopled —
dishonoured, as he terms it — with Christian monks, he
writes, "squalet lucifugis insula plena viris." Very bitterly
he inveighs against these people, the monks, who avoid, as
he thinks, the light of day. Is there any sense, he asks, in
firing a wretched life simply for fear of becoming unhappy?
A little later he meets with another company of Christian
¦solitaries, among whom he finds a wealthy and well-born man,
Avho has thrown up his duties as a citizen, who has forsaken
friends, family and wU'e, in order to bury himself alive in the
sepulchres. The miserable man, so writes Rutilius, " dreams
that Heaven is pleased with the sight of these unclean beings.
They loved to torture themselves; they are more cruel even
than the ofiended gods ! I ask the question : has not this
sect (the Christian) the secret of poisons more deadly than
* Augustine specially quotes this passage, De Civitate Dei, viii. 23.

476 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
any possessed by Circe ? — for Circe only brought about a
change in the body; these people change the very soul."
Rutilius detested and loathed monasticism ; but his contemp
tuous scorn for it is derived from his intense hatred of
Christianity. To him it is only a natural outcome of a
religion which debased the soul.
Among the class of noble, wealthy Romans in the provinces
as in Italy, but especiaUy in the great metropohs, Paganism died
very slowly. These haughty descendants of the ancient
patrician houses, and those who in the provinces recruited
their ranks, as well as the rhetorician, the panegyrist, the
poet, the historian, viewed the strange triumph-march of
the Christians, which began in real earnest in a.d. 313, the
date of the Milan Edict, vrith a shuddering disdain; they
watched with a sorrow which refused to be comforted the
ever-growing neglect of aU the stately immemorial rites and
ceremonies of an historic Paganism ; they saw Arith deep
murmuring the contempt into which the ancient gods of
Rome and the Empire had fallen. And in the room of
those gods who, as the translator of the " Dialogue of Asclepius,"
above referred to has it, had Aringed their flight away in grief
from earth to Heaven, men had substituted a strange un
natural faith in "the Crucified" — a faith which their Aviser
and more far-sighted ancestors had pronounced imlaAvful,
had condemned as the "exitiabilis superstitio" of Tacitus,
as the "superstitio prava et immodica" of Phny; a "super
stitio" they had never deigned, however, to examine.
But for them the end* was soon to come, when their
beliefs were to be swept away for ever in the wild torrent of
barbarian invasion, while the Ark of the Church, which they
hated and despised, floated safe and unharmed on the aAvful
flood. The Pagan cult they loved and admired is only a
* How near the end was for the society in the midst of which these men of
whom we are writing lived (it vfill be remembered that we have been speaking of
the last few decades of the fourth century), the foUowing dry but pregnant dates
show: A.D. 410— Alaric the Goth sacks and bums Rome; a.d. 455— Gtenseric
the Vandal again sacks and makes havoc of Eome ; a.d. 476 — Odoacer, the
Herule Chieftain, occupies Rome, sweeping away the last remnant of Imperial
majesty.

Photo ; Alinari & Cook, Rome. THE TEMPLE OF CASTOR AND POLLUX.
AVith the Forum, lookint! towards the Capitol.

FBOM PAGANISM TO GHBISTIANITY. 477
memory surviving among a handful of curious scholars. The
Church, though fifteen hundred more changing and change
ful years have since come and gone, is with us still, the
greatest and most enduring power in the world.
But what of the rank and file of the population of the
Empire ? What of the masses of the people ? What of
the many mUUons who were not of senatorial rank, who
possessed no palaces in the fashionable quarters of Rome,
or Carthage, or Antioch, or Milan, or Lyons, who
OAvned no villas in the hills round Rome or on the shores
of the charmed Italian and Sicilian seas — who were neither
rhetoricians nor poets, philosophers nor historians — the millions
who could not be described as cultured — what of all these?
How from the year 313 onward were these affected towards
Christianity ?
It will be remembered how again and again in the story
of Christianity from the year 64, and even earlier, in count
less centres of population, a fierce persecution frequently arose
OAring to hostile denunciations by the populace. Very little,
apparently, was needed at all times to excite them against
a sect which from various reasons was indubitably disliked by
the masses. Now it was the Joavs who stirred up the popular
enmity ; now it was the jealous priests of the Pagan cult ;
not unfrequently it was the anger of traders who were injured
by the teaching and practice of Christianity. One or other
of these classes of a city population would often stir up
their feUow citizens, who were only too ready to force the
somewhat reluctant magistrates to harass and persecute
the sect.
But after the Edict of Milan in a.d. 313, probably at a
somewhat earlier date in the Western provinces of the Empire, a
different spirit evidently prevailed. The edicts favourable to
Christianity seem to have been quietly received, even approved,
and in many places positively welcomed; and vast and ever-
increasing numbers of the population hitherto Pagan joined
the Christian communities. Here and there, it is true, we
hear of a popular demonstration against the Christians, such as
took place in Alexandria, but such temporary outbreaks wree

478 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
put down without difficulty. Something had evidently hap
pened to bring about this great change in popular opinion.
The conversion of Constantine and the Edict of MUan have
been usually alleged as the causes of the strange and rapid
conversion of " the masses " of the Empire to the religion of the
Crucified. But without detracting from the importance of these
events, we would urge that other and very different causes were
at work which reaUy brought about this wonderful and SArift
change in the hearts of the people.
A study of certain Christian writers and workers in the
second half of the fourth century suggests that a deep impression
was made upon the masses, i.e. the people generaUy of the
Roman Empire, by the sufferings and conduct of the Confessors
in the great Diocletian persecution. The imagery adopted by
Prudentius, the Spanish poet of the second half of the fourth
century, would have had absolutely no meaning did it not
represent a popular feeling which must certainly have come into
existence before the middle of the fourth century. Thus in the
Peri-Stephanon, iv., Christ is spoken of as sanctifying a great
city like Saragossa (Csesar Augusta) ; whole cities are described
as finding shelter and comfort in the day of the great Assize
under the shadoAv of the strong protection of some martyr
or martyrs who had been speciaUy honoured by the dweUers
therein. Again, much of the long later life of the once renoAvned and
popular Saint PauUnus of Nola is taken up vrith the question
of " pilgrimages." He tells us of early impressions stamped on
his childish mind by the sight of the crowds of pUgrims to the
humble shrine of S. Felix of Nola ; and as Paulinus was born a.d.
353, Christianity must have permeated the masses before the
middle of the century to have brought such a number of devotees
to a humble and little-knoAvn shrine during his chUdhood. Now
Nola was but a comparatively humble instance of many other
more famous Martyr-shrines. Within fifty years after the pro
mulgation of the Milan Edict, it would seem as though
Christianity had taken by storm the hearts of the vast majority
of the masses of the people.
This impression is confirmed by the records of the well-

FBOM PAGANISM TO GHBISTIANITY. 479
known and elaborate works carried out by Pope Damasus during
his episcopate at Rome a.d. 366-384. When Damasus began his
memorable pontificate little more than half-a-century had elapsed
since the Peace of the Church had been proclaimed. The works
of restoration and renovation would have been meaningless had
they not been designed for the devout visits of a vast number of
Christian pilgrims from distant countries to the many sacred
tombs of confessors and martyrs for the Faith who had
suffered at Rome. It is obrious that the passion for pilgrimage
to martjnr-shrines had already, before the period of his Episcopate,
permeated the people not only in Rome but also in far distant
prorinces. Surely then we are not in error when we assert our behef
that Christianity very early in the fourth century, certainly
from the date of the Edict of Milan, a.d. 313, had gained the
key to the hearts of the people.* From signs no candid
student can safely neglect or pass over, it seems clear that
the events connected with the last great persecution largely
contributed to this result. Its extent, the extreme severity
of its edicts, the terrible thoroughness with which these edicts
were carried out, the numbers, the constancy and brave
patience of the confessors, although in the Western Provinces
of the Empire it only lasted a little over two years, must
have made an extraordinary impression on the people. Its
progress was made easy — when once the supreme Govemment
of the Empire ceased to be hostile to and even looked with
favour upon the long persecuted rehgion, when once the rm-
lawfulness of being a Christian was done away with by
Imperial edicts, formally sanctioning the profession of the
Christian cult. But no mere favour and patronage of the
Emperor and the Court could ever have won for Christianity
that widespread acceptance among the people which was
noticeable even before the first half of the fourth century had
run its course. Something more was needed; that sometlung
the persecution of Diocletian and the conduct of the sufferers
in the persecution in large measure provided.
To the nature of this revulsion of feelmg witness is borne
* See pp. 494-6.

480 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
by the writings and the records left by some prominent
Christians in the latter half of the fourth century. To these
we shall now refer in detail.
SECTION II. — TYPICAL STUDIES : (o) PRUDENTIUS.
We select then for our purpose four distinguished men:
Prudentius, the Spanish poet, S. Paulinus of Nola, somewhile
a statesman, later an ascetic and a popular writer, Damasus,
the famous Roman bishop, to each of whom reference has
already been made ; and S. Martin, the loved Bishop of Tours
in Gaul. Of these, Prudentius, the Spanish poet, not only speaks
for his own country of Spain, but also gives us considerable
information connected with other parts of the Empire, notably
in Italy and Rome. Paulinus of Nola represents largely
popular opinion in Italy and GauL Damasus and his work
speak for the Christian communities of the capital and for
the vast numbers of visitors and pUgrims from ma,ny lands
to the sanctuaries of Rome. S. Martin is the representative
par excellence of the vast province of Gaul.
The dates of the four are as foUows : — Bom. Died.
A.D. a.d.
Prudentius  348 405
Paulinus of Nola  353 431
Damasus, Bishop of Rome from  366 384*
Martin of Tours  316 400
Prudentius apparently belonged to a Christian famUy,
but in early and middle life rehgion does not appear to have
much influenced his Ufe and conduct. He was a lawyer of
some distinction, and his career, a brUliant and prosperous
one, culminated in his appointment to an important provincial
governorship. Something occurred in that sunny, successful hfe
which determined him to give up his public career as a
servant of the State. Retiring from the world, he resolved
to devote the evening of his hfe to hterary pursuits, devoting
* These eighteen years represent his Roman episcopate.

FBOM PAGANISM TO GHBISTIANITY. 481
his pen exclusively to the assistance of the religion he felt
was so intensely real and true. He soon showed that he
was a poet of no ordinary power, and he consecrated this
power to the service of the Crucified Master, Who had sum
moned him at a comparatively late hour to His side.
We have still with us several of his works, which include
his dogmatic poems and his coUection of hymns which have
as their theme the various divisions of the day "Kath-
emerinon," as it is termed ; besides his answer to Symmachus
the Senator, when that statesman claimed that the altar of
" Victory " should be restored to the old place which it occu
pied when the august Senate legislated for a Pagan Rome.
As poems, though they belong to so late a date in Latin
hterature, they are unmistakably the work of a master;
the " Answer to Symmachus " being besides a piece of real
historical importance.
But a more special interest attaches to his Peri-Ste
phanon, "The Book of the (Martyrs') Crowns." It contains
fourteen distinct hymns or poems, several of them of con
siderable length. The theme of these pieces is the " passions "
of certain once-famous martyrs, the various circumstances
of their trials, the final victories of these hero-sufferers for
the Faith.
This work is quite original in its character, it is framed on no
earlier model, and Prudentius may be said to have had no
subsequent imitator. Much of it is taken up with reproductions
of scenes in Pagan Courts, when the Christian hero, or heroine
as the case Inight be, was accused, examined, tortured, and then
led out to a death of agony which was endured without fUnching,
the brave confessor welcoming indeed with unfeigned gladness
the bitter suffering for the Lord's sake. These hymns attained a
Aride popularity, and some of them apparently were read or sung
in churches, being substituted for the prose Acts and Passions
of Martyrs which were frequently read on the day Avhen the
confessor Avas especially commemorated.
These ferrid and impassioned poems or hymns cannot, of
course, be received as faithful and exact pictures of what took
place in the Diocletian or in the yet earUer persecutions ; but
F F

482 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM,
they do represent what the popular imagination in the years
immediately foUoAving the last great trials and sufferings pictured
to itself as having taken place. The basis of the stories was true,
but the popular fancy added many a legend to the simple original
facts, and these legends were utilised by our poet.
It is the halo of glory surrounding these martyrs that
especially strikes the historian. We see in these popular poems
what a profound, Avhat a lasting, impression the sufierings of the
martyrs had made on the people ofthe Roman Empire. The saint-
sufferer, man or woman, became soon positively an object of some
thing more than reverence. Their noble confession, their splendid
courage and endurance for the Faith's sake, so thought the people,
had won for the brave confessor a strange power in Heaven, so
that whatever they asked at the throne of God would be granted
to their prayers. This Prudentius evidently held, Avhen in his
impassioned verse he thus apostrophised one of the saints of his
hymns : " Hear me, 0 blessed Spirit. I am unworthy that Christ
should Usten to my prayer for pardon, but if thou Arilt speak for
me to the Master, He Avill surely listen to thy voice" (Peri-
StephanSn, ii. 572).
To Prudentius, and to those for whom he Avrote, the noble
army of martyrs, so largely recruited in the persecution of the
first years of the century, were already in the enjoyment of the
beatific vision of God, and their powerful intercession was
eagerly sought by sufferers alike in body and in mind.
The saint heroes and heroines of Prudentius belong to no
one land, to no solitary nationality, but in the heart of the poet,
his own loved Spain evidently holds the foremost place. We
possess indeed but few records of the days of the last
persecution in Spain, but the virid and fiery verses teU us hoAV
sharp and bitter must have been the harrying of Christians, how
numerous the Spanish sufferers, in that dread time. Nowhere
was the truth of the well-knoAvn saying that the blood of the
martyrs was the seed of the Church more conspicuously
exemplified than in Spain, the home of Prudentius.
When our poet Avrote in the second half of the fourth century,
the cult of the martyrs Avas widely spread throughout the
country. Already well-nigh every city of importance boasted

FBOM PAGANISM TO GHBISTIANITY. 483
what may be termed its patron saint or saints. Thus Emerita
(Merida) was proud of the girl-confessor Eulaha, to whose
memory the citizens had speedily raised a noble church; its
interior ghttering with gold and coloured work, and bright with
variegated mosaics and costly marbles. Tarragona Avas styled
" happy " (feUx) Tarragona, under the protection of its saintly
bishop, the martyr Fructuosus. Saragossa (Cajsar Augusta), how
ever, surpassed all other cities, in our poet's estimate, ranking
only after Rome and Carthage, since it possessed the greatest
number of martyrs, the presence of whose ashes sanctified the
whole place, Avhere Christ reigned indeed as Sovereign Lord.*
Nor was the protection in Heaven of these martyrs only a
present help to those who sought their succour and intercession
in days of sickness, and in hours of sorroAv. In the bloody and
fiery dawn of the final judgment of the world, the confessors of
the great persecution Avould not only be at hand to succour
individuals who had honoured and paid them homage, but under
the shadow of their strong protection whole cities, where their
memory had been venerated, would find shelter and comfort.
Perhaps the grandest of the many striking pictures painted by
Prudentius in this Epic of Martyrdom, is the one where he
describes, in his musical and stirring cadences, the Epiphany of
the aAvful Judge descending in fiery clouds from Heaven, ready to
weigh the peoples in His scales of judgment ; and there, before
the Judge, the Spanish cities pass, each one carrying the relics
of the saint and martyr it had long honoured, and in whose
guardianship it had trusted, f
* " Christus in totis habitat plateis,
Christus ubique est." Peri-Stephanon, iv.
f " Quum Deus dextram quatiens coruscam
Nube subnixus veniet rubente,
Gentibus justam positurus sequo
Pondere libram;
Orbe de magno caput exoitata
Obviam Christo properanter ibit
Civitas quaaque pretiosa portans
Dona cariistris.
Sterne te totam generosa Sanctis
Civitas mecum tumulis ; deinde
Mox resurgentes animas et artus
Tota sequeris ' Peri-Stephandn, iv.

484 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Such a poem with its lofty and soul-stirring imagery, with its
new, strange beliefs, is something more than the outcome of the
inspiration of a solitary individual, it is evidently the expression
of a people's thoughts.
Prudentius, in many of his startling and rousing verses, is
eridently the mouthpiece of a great multitude. Erroneous and
exaggerated though much of his teaching was, evoking as it soon
did the warning voices of serious and responsible scholars hke
the great Augustine, there is no mistaking its source of inspiration.
What Prudentius wrote and clearly himself believed was without
doubt the popular creed of the people among whom he lived,
and who read and loved the pathetic and soul-stirring lUts of
their favourite song man. (b) PAULINUS OF NOLA.
Nor was this outcome of the last great persecution, this
enthusiasm of the masses for the Christian martyrs, confined to
Spain and her popular poet ; precisely the same devotion to the
martyr for the Faith, the same curious trust in the superhuman
efficacy of the martyr's intercession, is conspicuous in the Avritings
of Paulinus of Nola, who may be taken as the representative of
popular feeling in southern and central Gaul and in Italy.
PauUnus was a contemporary of Prudentius, his poetry being
written in the last quarter of the fourth and early years of the
foUoAring century.
This Paulinus spent his youth and middle life in Gaul and
Italy, and his later years exclusively in Nola, a city of
Campania, dying at an advanced age Bishop of Nola, about the
year 431.
He was the heir of a very noble and extremely wealthy family ;
among his ancestors were not a few persons who had attained to
the highest dignities in the Roman Empire. Gaul proudly
claims Pauhnus as one of her sons, his father having chosen as
his chief residence Bordeaux, in which city the young Paulinus
was born. He had for his tutor the celebrated rhetorician and
poet Ausonius, who became later the tutor of Gratian, the
Emperor Valentinian's son. Ausonius was extremely proud of his

FBOM PAGANISM TO GHBISTIANITY. 485
pupU Paulinus, and used his great influence to procure his speedy
advancement to the Consular dignity, and when Paulinus
withdrew himself altogether from the world, determining to
apply his great talents, his enormous wealth, and the prestige
of his eminent name to devotion and to furthering what he
deemed the best interests of Christianity, his whilom tutor
warmly and affectionately remonstrated with him, urging him to
give up his newly-formed plans of life.* It was about a.d. 389
that Paulinus finally gave up the world in which he promised to
play so brilliant a part. For some thirty-five years or more, he
resided at Nola, a small Campanian city, Avhere a little basiUca
had been erected over the tomb of S. Felix, a martyred presbyter,
whose memory was tenderly cherished in that part of Italy,
and whose shrine was the object of the visit of innumerable
pilgrims. This basUica he rebuilt at a great cost, erecting
around it elaborate buildings for the entertainment of pilgrims
to the shrine.
Durmg this long period of retirement Paulinus by no means
gave up his literary labours, but he devoted them exclusively to
religion. He has left behind him, among other works, a valuable
volume of letters, and a still more interesting collection of poems,
many of them of considerable merit ; poems which he wrote
annually, on the occasion of the festival of S. FeUx, largely
bearing on the merits and good offices of the saint to men, but
containing many virid pictures iUustrative of the popular aspects
of Christianity in the latter years of the fourth and the early
years of the fifth century ; of which poems some five thousand
hnes have been preserved.
The special attraction which brought the iUustrious convert
to the shrine of Felix and induced him to spend the long pro
tracted autumn of his life under the shadow of the Church
* It has been questioned -whether or not this famous Man of Letters, who
for a time was one of the more influential personages of the Roman world, in the
second haU of the fourth century, can be properly termed a Christian. On the
whole it appears that at all events outwardly he professed Christianity. In his
works, however, little or nothing is found which indicates any real belief in the
doctrines of the Faith. M. Boissier, in his study Ze Fin du Paganisme, ii., 11,
well sums up the position here of Ausonius: "Evidemment le Chr^tianisme a
gliss4 sur lui, et n'a jamais penetrd jusqua son ame."

486 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Avhich arose over the martyr's tomb, is not at first sight very
evident. It appears, however, that Avhen a boy he had been taken to
the little basilica on the occasion of the saint's yearly festival.
His child-mind was impressed Avith Avhat he saw, the miracles
Avorked by the powerful intercession of the saint, the crowd of
Avorshippers who thronged the little church, the earnest devotion
of the pilgrim-visitors. These things were never, so he tells us
himself, forgotten; and far on in middle Ufe, the longing for
a closer walk with God gradually took possession of him,
absorbing aU his thoughts, colouring aU his projects. PauUnus
attributed this strange change passing over him to the direct
intervention and mediation of the martyr-saint. Gratitude to S.
Felix determined him to fix his permanent abode hard by the
tomb where the sacred remains rested. Henceforth he would
watch over the holy spot himself, Avould even every moming
play the humble part of sweeper of the threshold of the church,
Avhich he determined to enlarge and beautify, making fresh and
ample prorision for the reception and entertainment of the
many pUgrims, who in ever-increasing numbers frequented the
holy place. PauUnus' purpose remained unchanged ; for some
thirty-five years he dwelt in the little Campanian city, only
quitting it once a year when he used to go to Rome and pray at
the hallowed shrines of the martyr-apostles SS. Peter and Paul.
In addition to the work he carried out in the basilica and shrine
of FeUx, and in the pilgrims' buUdings adjacent, he buUt a smaU
monastery, to use a term which belonged to a somewhat later
period; where, Arith his wife, whom he termed his sister,
and a few like-minded friends, he led an austere and self-
denying life, in which he asserted that he found a happiness
and deUght utterly unknoAvn to him in his former days,
when as a wealthy patrician, high in the favour of the Em
peror, he played the part of an important Roman official of
the highest rank.
How deep was the attachment felt and the devotion
shown towards the martyr Felix, not only by the poor
and sick, but by trained, highly-educated men like the
cultured Paulinus, is shown by such an apostrophe as the

FBOM PAGANISM TO GHBISTIANITY. 487
foUoAving : " Be kind and propitious to your faithful followers,
I have been tossed on the waves of the sea and on the heav
ing waters of the Avorld, and I have come at last to such a
quiet haven of rest close to thee, I have laid up my bark
and fastened it to thy shore."
Our " cloistered " poet dwells on the number of pilgrims to
the popular* shrine of the Nola martyr. Every year these
devotees grew more numerous. They came, many of them,
from distant Italian provinces and cities, from ApuUa and
Calabria, from Naples and Capua, from Latium and the
metropolis. He indulges in some rhetorical expressions when
he mentions the enthusiasm shoAvn by citizens and dwellers
in Rome, which sent her thousands to little Nola when
ever the anniversary festival of S. Felix came round. The
Appian Way, he says, was literally hidden by the pUgrim
crowd. He dweUs on the miracles Avhich he saw Avorked at
the shrine of his favourite saint, miracles of healing, especially
on the " possessed " by evil spirits. Very kind Avas S. Felix
to all poor folk, hence his widely extended popularity. He
tells us how the glorified martyr loved to listen to the prayers
of these humble devotees, and did not disdain to grant even
their curious requests for their sick beasts. These, he says,
were constantly healed as a result of their petitions.
But Paulinus' faith in the power of his martyr-saint went
far beyond these comparatively humble manifestations of
supernatural powers.
The early years of the fifth century Avitnessed the begin
nings of the final ruin of the Roman Empire in the West.
When the immediate danger of the invasion of Radagaisus
the Sclavonian, and his barbarian host, was averted by the
victory of Stilicho the general of Honorius, the annual poem
of PauUnus in honour of his saint commences with a glad
note of triumph. It was in truth a strange hymn of thanks
giving; the writer ascribes the great victory of Roman
ciriUsation over barbarism to the intercession of S. Felix, who,
uniting his prayers to the Lord Avith those of SS. Peter and
* Paulinus indulges in a play on the martyr's name : " 0 felix Felice tuo tibi
prsesule Nola."

488 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM,
Paul, had obtained a respite for the sorely-harassed and
threatened Empire. Its days were to be prolonged in conse
quence of the powerful mediation of these saints.
The ascription of such a mediatorial influence to the
great Apostles was a grave and utterly baseless innovation
in the primitive teaching contained in the Master's Gospel,
but to associate with these great ones, in such a tremendous
responsibiUty, a comparatively unknown martyr like S. Felix
of Nola was indeed to advance a novel and a startling claim ;
that it was put forward by one subsequently so well knoAvn
and revered in the Church as S. Paulinus of Nola is a
striking testimony to the exalted and exaggerated position to
which the martyrs of the persecutions had attained, at aU
events in the popular Christianity of the day.*
(c) S. MARTIN OF TOURS.
S. Martin, Bishop of Tours, a.d. 316-97, in the course
of the second half of the fourth century attracted enormous
love and veneration from the numerous Christian congre
gations of Gaul, leaving behind him an unsurpassed reputa
tion for devotion and sympathy, for boundless charity and
kindness to all sorts and conditions of men; his beautiful
life-story is the chief subject of the Avritings of his eminent
scholar-disciple, Sulpicius Severus. S. Martin foUoAved the
almost universal practice of his age in paying extreme rever
ence and even Avorship to the remains of martyrs for the
Faith. Only before sanctioning these acts of devotion, he
required solid proofs that the dead saint to be venerated was
in very truth deserving of the honour which the credulous
people were only too ready to offer.
-* It may possibly be pleaded, in extenuation of these extraordinary assertions
respecting the power of the martyrs of the persecutions to influence the Most High
in His dealings with men, that the assertions above quoted from Prudentius and
Paulinus of Nola appear in poems ; and that the -writers in making them used a
poet's licence of exaggeration in their fervid pictures of the unseen world. But
these poems, it must be remembered, were of the nature of hynms, and contained
without doubt the creed of the devout and earnest writers ; they also, it is clear, too
faithfully represented the " credenda" of the mass of the people who read and
istened to these glowing popular lilts.

FBOM PAGANISM TO GHBISTIANITY. 489
The most striking feature of S. Martin's hfe is the enormous
influence he evidently exercised upon the rank and file of the
population in the great Gallic prorinces.
He was no Avriter or scholar like the other three whom we
have here selected to dwell on ; he was simply a man of rare
gifts in inspiring sympathy. The almost boundless power which
he evidently obtained over the hearts of the inhabitants of Gaul
from about the year 353, shows us that a large proportion of
these prorincials, if not already Christians, were kindly disposed
to the sect. S. Martin is represented by his devoted biographer,
Sulpicius Severus, not as the great missionary to a Pagan
people, but as completing a work ah-eady largely done. He is
spoken of as the instrument by Avhich the remaining Pagans
of Gaul, especially in the southern and middle districts, Avere
brought to the confession of the Crucified.
And no small portion of his labours Avas devoted to winning
over erring Christians, heretical Christians, to the Catholic Faith.
When, fuU of years and honour, he passed aAvay in the last year
of the century, we hear of the citizens of two important
Gallic cities, Poitiers and Tours, warmly disputing the possession
of the remains of the loved teacher ; and Avhen Tours succeeded
in obtaining the coveted prize, the Avhole city is represented as
coming out to meet the body of S. Martin, together with about
two thousand monks. (d) DAMASUS, BISHOP OF ROME,
Of the eminent teachers and Christian leaders of the fourth
century, Damasus, Bishop of Rome (a.d. 366-384), perhaps did
more than any other to further the cult of the martyrs. Pope
Damasus was a prominent figure in the Church life of that
century which Avitnessed the triumph of Christianity throughout
the Roman Empire. But the work for Avhich he is best known
is his elaborate restoration of the catacombs, which as the
resting-place of so many martyrs, were an object to him of
special interest.
It was no mere antiquarian, or even religious, zeal for the
works of his fathers in the Faith which inspired Pope Damasus

490 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
to undertake so many and important operations* in the City ofthe
Christian Dead ; but it was above aU an ardent devotion to the
martyrs Avhose remains had been deposited there at different
periods. It was the same spirit of loving admiration for the
heroes of the Faith, an admiration which too quickly shaded into
devotion, which inspired the poems of Paulinus of Nola, the
same spirit which Uves along the pages of the hymns of
Prudentius on " The Crowns of the Martyrs," a spirit which may
be regarded as a remarkable feature of popular Christianity in
the first years of its triumph.
Damasus' long and patient work was a labour of love. With
immense pains and care in many placesf he removed the earth
and re-opened the closed corridors and sepulchral chambers,
which had been earthed-up in the days of the Decian or
Diocletian persecutions ; he widened a vast number of the
passages so as to make them accessible to the crowds of
pilgrims, who, from aU lands, wandered to Rome, to pray at these
sacred shrines of the dead ; and even constructed many flights
of stairs leading down to the more illustrious tombs. In some
more special cases he adorned the chambers with costly marbles,
and opened shafts to admit air and hght, when it was practicable,
to facilitate the pilgrim visits. In nearly aU the catacombs
that have yet been investigated traces of these labours of Pope
Damasus have been found, and as the excavations advance,
fragments, large and small, of the beautifuUy-chiseUed inscrip
tions of his famous artist Filocalus, are constantly being found.
The works carried out during his Pontificate gave a great
impetus to that passion for pilgrimage to the martyrs' shrines,
which became henceforth a marked and enduring feature in
Christian life.
So persistent and so general had this " cult " of the martyrs
become that grave alarm Avas excited among certain of the more
* Pope Marcellinus, Bishop of Rome a.d. 296-308, and his deacon Severus
for instance, earthed-up the famous Papal crypt in the catacomb of S. Callistus,
and the adjacent chambers. These^were in part excavated by Pope Damasus and
restored. + One of the inscriptions of Pope Damasus, found on the tomb of S. Eutychius
in the catacomb of S. Sebastian, runs as follows: QUjERITUK, INVENTUS
COLITUR 

Photo : Mariani, Rome
THE TOMB OF 8. EUSEBIUS, BISHOP AND MARTYR, A.D. 310.
A Chamber in the Cemetery ot S, Callistus. The inscription is a Sixth Century restoration of that
put up by Pope Damasus, of -which fragments were found on the floor.

FBOM PAGANISM TO GHBISTIANITY. 491
thoughtful Christian theologians. A note of warning Avas
struck, perhaps with over-much bitterness, by one VigUantius,
in whom some have seen a Ai^ry early pioneer of Luther. VigUan
tius, born in Aquitaine, in Southern Gaul, about A.D. 370, was a
friendj possibly a pupil, of Sulpicius Severus, of whom we have
already spoken as the companion and biographer of S. Martin
of Tours. For a time he lived in some intimacy with Paulinus
of Nola and with Jerome. He Avas subsequently ordained and
became a presbyter, settling in Gaul, or perhaps in Spain ;
in his later life he wrote a work, Avhich obtained considerable
celebrity, against superstitious practices, notably against relic
worship, and the vigils in the basilicas of the martyrs. The
treatise in question is lost, and is only known to us through the
writing of Jerome, Contra Vigilant-iiim, in Avhich work the
great Latin Doctor bitterly inveighs against the opinions of the
GaUic divine. Largely, it Avould seem, in consequence of this
unfavourable judgment of Jerome, Vigilantius came to be
ranked among heretics. But the note of alarm Avhich he struck
gives us some indication that the exaggerated reverence for
martyrs upon which we have been dwelling was gravely misUked,
at least by a section of theological teachers.
But a far more considerable theologian than Vigilantius Avas
also disturbed at the rapid growth and universal prevalence of
the martyr cult. The great Augustine (a.d. 354-430) bitterly
grieves over the popular superstition which led uneducated and
superstitious crowds to kneel in adoration before the tombs of
famous confessors of the Faith. He takes some pains to define
the style of homage which might fairly be paid to saints and
martyrs. " We," he Avrites, " do not treat these as deities ; we
have no intention of imitating the Pagans here, Avho adore the
dead, we erect no temples in their honour, we adorn for them no
altars, but with their remains we raise an altar to the one God."*
When the reUcs of S. Stephen were brought with great ceremony
to Augustine's church at Hippo, he took the greatest pains that
the enthusiasm of the people should be restrained from aU
extravagant excesses.
* Compare S. Aug., De Moribus Fee. C««/wZ. ,^31-76, and .Sermons 273, 280,
318, 325.

492 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Yet in spite of sober theologians of the Cathohc Church the
mischief* to a great extent was done. But with the theological
question,with the consequent errors and superstition so disfiguring
to Christianity, the historian has Uttie to do. We have dwelt at
some length upon this strange development, so general and
so widespread, because it sprang almost wholly and entirely out
of the last and final persecution of Diocletian. That supreme
effort of Paganism Avas, as we have seen, gigantic, far-;:eaching,
desperate. It harried uncounted thousands of every class and
order ; the sufi'erings which paganism infiicted upon its Chris
tian foes were indeed terrible, but the very magnitude of the
efibrt was one of the causes of its ultimate, its complete defeat.
There were, of course, some, perhaps many. Christians whose
hearts failed them in view of the aAvful sufiering which lay
before them. But on the Avhole, the courage, the brave patience,
the noble constancy, of the Christian congregations enabled
them to endure all rather than fail A very great number shed
their blood, and in pain and agony, borne in brave patience for
the Name's sake, passed to their rest in the Paradise of God.
Many more, who were not condemned to death, endured the loss
of all things that made life pleasant and joyous.
But all this great suffering, the noble, patient endurance of
the confessors, the spilt blood of the martyrs, was not for nought
Innumerable Pagan bystanders watched, and when at last the
persecutors stayed their hands, and the Christians were left
alone, largely owing to their persecutors groAving weary of
inflicting wrongs and suffering upon an unresisting folk, multi
tudes, who had seen and marvelled how their old foes had borne
all, had suff'ered and had died rather than recant, determined to
throw in their lot with the strange people who had been
evidently helped in the deadly struggle by some unseen,
mighty poAver.
This is the explanation of the sudden conversion to Christianity
of a large portion of the subjects of the great Empire on the

-* The grave injury done to the spiritual life of the Church of the fourth
century, by the introduction of these novelties into her teaching, is alluded to in the
next Chapter (XVIL).

FBOM PAGANISM TO GHBISTIANITY. 493
morrow of the proclamations by the Government of " Peace "
for the Church.
The reasons of the extravagant glorification of the martyrs
on which we have just dwelt are not far to seek. No honour
was too great to shoAv to the more conspicuous among the late
sufferers for the Faith. The old man and the young girl, the
senator and the slave, who in especially trying circumstances,
had shown the subUme courage of the Christian martyr, became
at once the objects of popular reverence. Nay, more, those
noble souls who had borne so splendid a witness, were surely
now, so many loved to think, very close to the Master for Whom,
and for Whose cause they had died ; surely He could refuse
nothing to such brave and devoted servants.* They would ask
these glorified ones who had been so lately among them, of their
company, in their homes, partners of their sorrows and their joys,
to speak for them to their Lord. They, the martyrs, surely had
only to ask a boon, and it Avould be at once granted. Hence the
martyr cult. Its genesis is not difficult to grasp. It Avas, of course, a
sad error, and a grievous one, deplorable indeed in its far-
reaching consequences, but we can understand exactly how it
came about.
* The feeling of passionate reverence for these bravely patient sufferers for the
Truth's sake was not peculiar to the men and women of the fourth and fifth centuries.
It inspired one of the noblest passages in one of our latest philosophic writers.
" For the love of their Di-vine Master, for the cause they believed to be true,
men and even weak girls endured these things without flinching, when one word
would have freed them from their sufferings. No opinion we may form of the
proceedings of priests in a later age should impair the reverence with which
we bend before the martyr's tomb." — Lecky : Sist. of European Morals, vol. i. ,
ohap. iii., pp. 497-8.

494

CHAPTER XVII.
AFTER THE PEACE OF THE CHUECH.
SECTION I. — CHRISTIANITY AND THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
To the reader of the foregoing chapters of this volume, con
taining the recital of the great struggle between Christianity
and Paganism, a few pressing questions naturaUy suggest
themselves respecting the fortunes of the Church after the
great and sudden change which passed over it in the first
quarter of the fourth century.
Without attempting anything like a connected history of
the years which directly foUowed the Edict of MUan, a
brief reply may be given to the questions which seem to press
for an immediate answer. These are introduced by the
inquiries :
(1) What brought about the sudden and rapid conversion
of the majority of the peoples of the Empire ?
(2) Was the ruin of the Empire, the result of the barbarian
invasions in the century foUoAving the general acceptance of
Christianity, attributable in any way to this acceptance of
Christianity ?
(3) What Avas the attitude of Christianity towards the
unhappy citizens of the fallen Empire, and the swarms of
barbarian invaders who in the fourth and fifth centuries
overran her territories, sAveeping away Roman society through
out all the Westem provinces, including Gaul, Britain, Spain,
Italy, and North Africa ?
(1) The first of these questions, "What brought about the
sudden and rapid conversion of the majority of the peoples
of the Empire ? " has been already touched upon. It seems
that a deep impression was made upon the inhabitants of

AFTEB THE PEACE OF THE GHUBGH. 495
many of the provinces by the behaviour of the Christians
in the course of the last terrible persecution carried on under
the name of Diocletian and his colleagues, so that when the
Imperial decree in favour of the long persecuted sect was pro
mulgated it found a ready acceptance among the multitudes.
But much had been done already by the teaching and prac
tice of the Christians towards gaining the hearts of the people
during the preceding two and a half centuries. The seed
had been sown, and it only needed the powerful impulse to
Avhich we have been referring to mature it. Men had gradually
come to see what Christianity really was, what a pure and
noble system it taught, and how capable it was of realisation
in action. " Amid the softening influence of philosophy and
civilisation it taught the supreme sanctity of love. To the
slave who had never before exercised so large an influence over
Roman religious life it was the religion of the suffering and the
oppressed. To the philosopher it was at once the echo of
the highest ethics of the later Stoics, and the expansion of
the best teaching of the school of Plato. To a world thirst
ing for prodigy it offered a history replete Arith wonders. . . .
To a world that had grown very weary gazing on the cold,
passionless grandeur which Cato realised and which Lucan
sang, it presented an ideal of compassion and of love, an
ideal destined for centuries to draw around it aU that was
greatest as well as all that was noblest on earth — a Teacher
Avho could weep by the sepulchre of His friend, who was
touched with the feeling of our infirmities. To a world, in
fine, distracted by hostUe creeds and colUding phUosophies,
it taught its doctrines, not as a human speculation but as a
Divine revelation. . . . One great cause of its success was that
it produced more heroic actions and formed more upright
men than any other creed. . . - There was no doubt that
Christianity had transformed the characters of multitudes,
vivified the cold heart by a new enthusiasm, redeemed,
regenerated and emancipated the most depraved of mankmd.
Noble hves, crowned by heroic deaths, were the best argu
ments of the infant Church. Their enemies not infre
quently acknowledged it. The love shown by the early

496 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Christians to their sufiering brethren has never been more
emphatically attested than by Lucan, or the beautiful sim
plicity of their worship than by Pliny, or their ardent charity
than by Julian. . . ."*
(2) The second question stands thus : " Was the ruin of the
Empire, brought about by the barbarian invasions in the century
foUowing the general acceptance of Christianity, attributable
in any way to this acceptance of Christianity ? "
The accusation — that in the abandonment of the ancient
reUgion of the Empire must be sought and found the cause
of the misfortunes and ruin of the world-wide Roman
domination — reaches back to the fourth and fifth centuries,
the epoch of the ruin and misfortune. The first and in
some ways the most obrious plea urged at that time was
that the desolation of the Empire was owing to the anger
of the deserted and off'ended gods, Avho naturally left to them
selves peoples who had contemptuously abandoned their
worship; a plea put forward with earnestness and zeal by
believers in Paganism — stUl no inconsiderable number in those
centuries when the great change in belief was passing over
the Roman world, but this does not noAv demand serious con
sideration. Other reasons, however, for supposing that the
adoption of Christianity contributed to the ruin of the Empire
have been advanced which merit a more grave attention.
It has been urged with considerable truth that in the old
world the worship of local deities inspired the dweUers in the
city and country where these deities were the especial object
of adoration with an intense spirit of patriotism. The
deities were identified with the city and country, and noble
deeds of devotion and self-sacrifice were performed in the
service of the god under whose protecting care the city or
country flourished; aU this patriotic sentiment was weakened,
perhaps extinguished, by Christianity, which swept away all
local objects of adoration, substituting in their place One
God who loved all peoples, cities, and countries with the same
pitying but changeless love. Thus, it is said, Christiamty
* Lecky: European Morals, chap, iii., pp. 412-419, 441.

AFTEB THE PEACE OF THE GHUBGH. 497
destroyed the patriotic heroism which would, under the old
state of things, have defended the Empire against the bar
barian invaders. But the truth is that this ancient feeling
of patriotism had been extinguished long before Christianity
was adopted as the religion of the Empire. Already in
Rome strange deities, such as Mithras and Serapis, had largely
taken the place of the old national objects of Avorship — foreign
gods whose worship could inspire no special patriotic feeling ;
and the same change had passed over the provincial centres.
The mischief, if it Avere a mischief, dates long before the years
of the fourth century, Avhen Christianity was beginning to be
generally accepted.
Other and very different causes precipitated the ruin of
the mighty Empire, a ruin which, although coincident with
the victory of Christianity, was in no way connected with its
adoption. These causes had been long at Avork, for the
Empire, both morally and politically, had been for many
years in a condition of manifest decline. Within, may be
noted in this connection the increase of the slave population
and the consequent grave deterioration of morals, the growth
of luxury, the gradual decrease of population, the OA^er
augmenting taxation, which reached its culminating point in
the last decades of the third century under Diocletian, Avhen
the condition of the people under the enormous fiscal burdens
they were called upon to bear became almost intolerable.
Without, the presence of the barbarian nations* on all the
frontiers of the Empire, a pressure which the enfeebled pro
vinces each succeeding year were less able to resist. But all
these things were of older date than the fourth and fifth
centuries, and none of them can be referred to Christianity;
they made up an evU heritage upon which the Christianised
Empire entered, but the state of things was emphatically not
one for which it was in any way responsible.
We have, however, to face the fact that on the morrow,
-* The enormous and seemingly sudden increase in the numbers of these
barbarian peoples in the third and following centuries on all sides of the Empire is
a problem which has never yet been exhaustively discussed, and remains, indeed
something of a mystery to the historian.
G G

498 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
so to speak, of the cessation of persecution of the Church, quickly
foUowed by the recognition and acceptance of Christianity as
the religion of the Roman world, the Empire fell to pieces;
Christianity proring powerless to stave off', or even for a single
hour to delay, the utter ruin. Nor does it seem in any ap
preciable degree, after its almost general adoption, to have
succeeded in transforming the Pagan society, or in making it
more capable of resisting the formidable hordes of invaders.
In the century which foUowed the conversion of Constantine
and the Edict of MUan, society in aU its grades continued as
hopelessly corrupt as before; nor was any strenuous effort
made to ward off the utter ruin which eventually overtook
the Roman civilisation. In the course of this sorroAvful
century a group of singularly able and earnest Christian
teachers and Avriters arose, such as Ambrose and Augustine,
Jerome and Chrysostom, Orosius and Salvian, who teU us
Avithout disguise what was the feeling of the Church, and
admirably voice the hopes, the fears, and outlooks of the
more serious Christians of their day and time. There is no
doubt that they were at first grievously disappointed with
the results of the conversion of the Roman world. Their sad
words have been weU described as a long cry of grief; they
felt themselves SAvallowed up by Pagan corruption. "Civil
society, like religious society, appeared Christian. The
Sovereigns and the immense majority of the people had em
braced Christianity, but, at bottom, civU society was Pagan,
it retained the institutions, the laws, and the manners of
Paganism. It was a society which Paganism and not Chris
tianity had made."* And yet for that society the Church felt
itself in some degree responsible.
Besides this there were various other causes at work which
account for the Church's early faUure to transform this vast
Roman society Avhich had adopted its rehgion.
We may touch upon certain of the more obrious of these.
(a) When aU, or well-nigh aU, were Christians, or at least
nominally Christians, the influence of the Church on the life
of the individtial, or on the life of society in general, A^as
-* Guizot : Sist. de la Civilisation en France, Lect. II.

AFTEB THE PEACE OF THE CHUECH. 499
enormously reduced. The comparatively littie body of really
earnest believers was lost in the great multitude of professed
Christians, very many of Avhom remained semi-Pagans at heart.
This so-called Christian society Avas exposed to all the tempta
tions sanctioned by the Paganism of the Empire, of Avhich
the gladiatorial games are a prominent example. These
games, almost inconceivable in their atrocity, Avere the favourite,
even the habitual, amusement of the society of the Empire ;
and the arrangements for their performance, eclipsing every
other monument of Imperial magnificence, are still among
the most imposing relics of old Rome. We must remember
when we speak or Avrite of these horrible spectacles, that the
main diversion of all classes of the people was the spectacle of
bloodshed; of the death, sometimes of the torture, not only
of animals but of human beings. The ghastly fascination
and the inhuman infiuence of these games of the amphi
theatre "pervaded the whole texture of Roman life, they be
came the commonplace of conversation, the very children
imitated them in their play, the philosophers drew from them
their metaphors and illustrations. The artists portrayed them
in every variety of ornament." * As late as the closing years
of the fourth century we read of the Prefect Symmachus, who
Avas regarded as one of the most estimable of the lovers of
the old rdgime, collecting some Saxon prisoners to fight in
honour of his son. They strangled themselves in prison, and
Symmachus mourned over the misfortune that had befallen
him froin their impious hands, t A few years later even S.
Augustine relates how one of his friends, being attracted to
the Amphitheatre, endeavoured by shutting his eyes to guard
against a horrible fascination which he knew to be sinful. A
sudden scream caused him to open them, and he never could
Arithdraw his gaze again. J
(b) Another cause of the seeming powerlessness of the
¦* Lecky : European Morals. His picture of the popular amusements at this
period, and their effect on the lives of the people, is very vivid. See jVol. I.,
chap, xi., pp. 287-305, and see, too, Boissier: Za fin du Paganisme, livre v.,
chap. xi.
t Symmachus : Fpist. 11, 46.
X S. Aug. : Confess, vi. 8.

500 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Church to regenerate or even materially to influence society
in the Roman Empire in the fourth century must be sought
in the fatal schism which appeared in her communities in
the first years which followed her victory. It was a schism
which threatened her very existence, and affected to an
almost incalculable extent her infiuence for good. Arianism,
with its subtle suggestions casting doubt on the supreme
divinity of the blessed Founder of the religion, sapped the
fundamental doctrines of Christianity; and with its appeals
to unassisted human reason, rapidly obtained a wide, though
a comparatively short-lived, popularity. Strangely enough
this Arianism found alhes, all powerful for a season, on the
Imperial throne. The great Constantine gave ear to its
teachers. Matters were even worse under his successors.
"The Emperor Constantius (a.d. 337-361) put himseU at
the head of the Arians, and cruelly persecuted the Cathohcs.
. . . . Valens, Emperor of the East, an Arian, like Con
stantius, was a StiU more violent persecutor."*
S. Jerome, writing at the close of the fourth century,
uses the following strong expression on the subject of the
wide prevalence of this heresy: "The whole world groaned,
and was astonished to find itself Arian."t
It is true that the " whole world," to use Jerome's some
Avhat rhetorical expression, in after years woke up from its
feverish dream, and the Catholic faith regained its empire
over the hearts of the large majority of Christian beUevers,
while Arianism was graduaUy relegated to the position of a
sect, which, as time passed on, became ever less and less
influential. But long before the Catholic doctrine had re
covered its supremacy in the Church, the great change had
passed over the Roman world, and the Empire had virtuaUy
ceased to exist. Among the causes which marred the
Church's influence in the early days of its adoption as the
religion of the Empire the widespread Arian heresy holds a
conspicuous place.
-* Bossuet : Cinquieme Advertissement aux Protestants, C. 18.
t S. Jerome : Dial. adv. Zue, c. xix. " Ingemuit totus orbis, et Arianum
miratus est se esse."

AFTEB THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 501
(c) With somewhat greater caution may be adduced
another probable cause for the Church's impotence in the
matter of the renovation of the corrupt and dissolute Pagan
society of the fourth century.
Judging from the clear and definite pictures painted by
the popular Christian poet Prudentius, the poems and writings
of Paulinus of Nola, and the ideals they exhibit, the side
lights throAvn on the life of the Church by Pope Damasus
of Rome,* the stern reproaches of Vigilantius, the grave
warnings of Augustine — the Church of the days which im
mediately foUoAved the Peace established by Constantine, the
Church of the fourth century, was curiously weakened with
strange superstitions. The cult of the martyrs had introduced
into the popular belief elements quite unknown to the pro
fessors of the Faith in the first days, elements utterly foreign
to the primitive teaching of the Gospel. Such novelties in
matters of belief and practice no doubt grievously detracted
from the spiritual power of the Church. How deeply these
grave errors had sapped the life of Christianity at that time
is hard to measure, but that such teaching Avas widespread
and popular is ahnost certain.
(3) The startling rapidity Arith which, at the close of the
fourth and during the first half of the fifth century, the
floods of barbarian invasion, one quickly foUowing on the
other, overwhelmed all the fairest and richest provinces of
the Roman Empire, came as a terrible surprise upon all sorts
and conditions of men. Generally speaking, the resistance
of the Imperial forces Avas feeble, half-hearted, and iU-directed ;
only one conspicuous example of a great commander can be
with certainty quoted as having arisen in that period of
tremendous disaster. Stilicho's campaign against Radagaisus,
which resulted in the hordes of that famous barbarian
chieftain being forced to retire from Italy, stands out in bold
relief among- the countless disasters which terminated in the
* All these various pieces of testimony, belonging to the second half of the
fourth and the earlier years of the fifth century, have been dwelt upon at some
length in the preceding chapter.

602 EABLY CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
total ruin of the Western and more important division of the
Roman Empire.* The following rough table of some of the
principal invasions and their dates will show at a glance
what befel the hapless Roman Avorld in these sad years : —
Circa A.D.
396 Alaric's invasion of Greece and Southern Europe.
400-3 „ „ of Italy.
406 Radagaisus invades Italy (but is defeated by Stilicho).
„ „ GauL
408 Alaric and his Goths in Italy ; first siege of Rome.
409 Second siege of Rome.
410 Alaric takes and sacks Rome and ravages Italy.
412 Adolphus, King of the Goths, overruns and seizes Gaul.
409 The Suevi, Vandals, and Alans invade Spain.
415-8 The Goths invade and conquer Spain.
430-9 Genseric and the Vandals overrun and conquer North Africa.
450-3 Attila and the Huns overrun Italy and Gaul.
At the close of the fourth and in the early years oi the
fifth century the more thoughtful of the Roman people,
strange to say, were stiU apparently unconscious of the utter
ruin which menaced the Empire and the whole fabric of
Roman society. Clouds of barbarians not only menaced the
frontiers, but had already invaded many of the provinces,
had even penetrated into Italy, and had been seen at the
gates of Rome. Yet in spite of these ominous warnings, men
still beUeved in the majesty of the immemorial city, and were
persuaded that the hordes of invaders would be roUed back
from her gates, and that the formidable invasions were but
transient calamities. The victories of Stilicho over Alaric,
and more conspicuously over Radagaisus, Avere hymned m
exultant language by the Christian poet Paulinus of Nola
and by the Pagan song-man Claudian. Claudian especiaUy
voiced public opinion when he sung of the Roman power as
of something Avhich recognised no terms, no limit, and
pointed to the barbarian armies fleeing before StUicho as a
striking object-lesson for the invaders, f
* The resistance of .ffitius to Attila and the Huns was not until the middle
of the fifth century, when all was ah-eady lost. The forces, too, of Mtms were
mainly composed of Goths and Franks.
1 1 " Discite vesanae Eomam non temnere gentes." — Claudian : De hello Get,, 647,

AFTER THE PEACE OF THE GHUBGH. 503
But all these dreams of safety were mdely dissipated by the
faU and sack of Rome in a.d. 410, when Alaric and his Goths
for ever dissipated the illusion of the inviolabiUty of the
Eternal City.
The effect produced throughout the Roman world by the
fall of Rome in a.d. 410 was terrible and far-reaching. No
succession of invasions of the provinces, no lengthened occupa
tion of a country by a barbarian horde, struck home as did the
news of the sack of the Imperial city, so long the centre of
Roman civilisation. Augustine tells us how "the whole
world, even in the Far East, shuddered at the dread tidings."*
Jerome, in his Bethlehem retreat, wrote that the torch of the
world was extinguished, t
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, in the earlier years of the
fifth century, was the greatest figure in Christianity since
the days of the Apostles ; no teacher had enjoyed so wide,
so general an authority. His greatest literary work on the
" City of God " was begun in the year 413. Its primary object,
and especially its earlier part, was devoted to questions con
nected with the great catastrophe of a.d. 410, and was a
well-reasoned answer to the plaint of the Pagan party in the
Empire, that the disasters which had befallen Rome were
owing to the Christians and their lately acquired supremacy
in the Empire. Augustine argued that instead of the Chris
tians being responsible for the calamity Avhich had happened
to the great city all would have been lost had it not been for
Alaric's friendship for Christianity ; as it Avas, the churches of
Rome, and those who sought sanctuary within their walls,
were spared, among those who were thus preserved being
many Pagans.
Through this important work of the Christian master,
the composition of which occupied some thirteen years, a
strange vein of optimism as regards the political situation
runs. Bad though things seemed, Augustine could not bring
himself to believe that all Avas lost. "The Empire is sorely
tried, rather than completely changed; do not let us despair
-* Aug. , Sermo de urbis excidio.
+ Jerome : Cemmentat. in Ezech. prol.

504 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of resurrection, for who knows here what is the wUl of
God."* The thoughts and feeUngs of some at least of the more
responsible leaders of Catholic Christianity in this anxious
period of stress and storm, included roughly in the second
and third decades of the fifth century, are expressed in the
well-knoAvn "Universal History" of Orosius. This composi
tion may in certain aspects be regarded as a sequel to the
" City of God " of Augustine.
Paul Orosius,t a Spaniard by birth, was the disciple and
friend of the great Augustine ; the same optimistic view of
the political situation noticed in "The City of God" runs
through the writings of the younger scholar, perhaps even
exaggerated. In reality the period when Orosius was writing
Avas one of the saddest the Avorld has ever known ; but Orosius
viewed the terrible barbarian inroads as a severe trial rather
than as the total ruin of the Empire. A sadder and more
faithful view of the desperate situation and of the cruel suffer
ings to which the hapless population of well-nigh aU the
Western and more important prorinces were subjected is,
hoAvever, given in tAvo anonymous poems f belonging to the
same period which have come down to us. These represent
the Empire as utterly ruined, the aspect of cities and country
being completely changed, the sword, fire, and hunger having
passed over them. The human race is represented as perish
ing, war is everywhere. The end of aU things is at hand.
" Ultima quseque vides." " Ultima pertulimus ! " Another
contemporary poem containing a virid picture of the bitter
* De Cie. Dei, iv. 7, " Romanum imperium afBictum est potius quam
mutatum." t His great work, " The Universal History," was much read throughout the
middle ages ; King Alfred translated and somewhat abridged it. It was largely
studied as late as in the sixteenth century, in which age as many as twenty-six
editions were published.
t These anonymous poems are entitled Ad Uxorem and De Prov ident i i> ;
they will be found in Migne, among the works of S. Prosper, to whom they
once were' wrongly attributed. They are referred to at some length by
Boissier, Ze fin du Paganisme, vol. ii. To these two pieces may be added the
Commonitorium of S. Orientius, composed somewhat later, probably early in the
fifth century.

AFTEB THE PEACE OF THE GHUBGH. 505
suffermgs endured by the great GalUc proprietors has also
been preserved. Pauhnus of Pella, a rich and noble provincial
connected with some of the great houses of the hapless
Empire, lived to see his sumptuous villas burned, his wife
and children slain, and in his old age found himself poor
and solitary, a little farm quite insufficient for his support
being the only relic of his vast estates.
A few years later than Orosius, the weighty and important
Avritings of Salrian give us a lurid picture of the state of
the dying Empire about the year 450 or somewhat later.
The optimism of the " City of God," and of Orosius' " Universal
History," has disappeared in the lengthy and exhaustive treatise
" On the Government of God," by Salvian. Events had indeed
moved quickly in the twenty years which foUoAved the date
of Augustine's death in the year 430 ; there was no longer
any room for hope. Gaul, Spain, Africa, most of Italy, were
occupied by barbarian invaders, Avho had come to stay in
those vast, fair provinces, not simply to raid and to harry
them. Salvian* recognises the fact that the grand Empire
was indeed dying, if it were not already dead. It is no longer
to Pagans that his arguments are addressed. Pagans had in
eff'ect disappeared from the scene, and the great majority of
the world of Rome, outAvardly at least, was professedly Chris
tian. Many of the more thoughtful were asking how it came
about that the Empire, now a vast Christian community, was
so manifestly the object of the Divine Avrath. Salvian replies
to the agonised enquiry by drawing a picture of the Roman
of the dying Empire, and the barbarian raider whom God was
using so manifestly as His instrument of punishment.
In his vivid portraiture of the so-called " Christian " Romans,
Salvian paints a society living in conditions of awful depravity
and degradation rarely surpassed. He spares no class, no
* Of Salvian's private life but little is known. He and his wife voluntarily
chose the life of ascetics. He was evidently a person of the highest culture. He
spent several years in the Monastery of Lerins, an island near Toulon, a great
home of learning and devoted piety. His great work on " The Government of God,"
above referred to, was composed circa a.d. 450, or a few years later; he spent the
later years of his life at Marseilles.

50 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
order. The merchants and traders are fraudulent and dis
honourable, the public functionaries hopelessly corrupt and
venal, the legionaries of the Empire faithless and robbers;
the clergy, if possible, Avorse than the laity, being unjust,
greedy, immoral; the ecclesiastic had changed his dress not
his life. The Roman society, so sorely tried in that fatal age,
Salvian paints as a sink of iniquity ; and though he may have
overdrawn his gloomy picture, there is little doubt that it
was on the whole evU and corrupt. We learn this much at
least from other contemporary authorities; men who wrote
from very different standpoints, such as Ammianus MarceUinus
and, a few years later, Jerome and Chrysostom.
The barbarian invader in Salvian's eyes was, on the whole,
a nobler being than the degenerate Roman Christian ; cruel
he Avas undoubtedly, a robber and ignorant ; but his vices
were practised by the Roman Christians ; * in some respects
the morals of the stranger nations were purer. We read of
the Vandal conqueror, Genseric, for instance, after the faU of
Carthage purging the city of its haunts of vice. Those of
them who professed Christianity were no doubt tainted with
the heresy of Arius ; but this was the result of no dehberate
choice on their part. It was from Arians they had derived
their knoAvledge of the reUgion of Jesus.
The sum of Salvian's argument undoubtedly is that the
rough, often untutored barbarian was more worthy to be the
master of the world than the degenerate Roman, Christian
though he professed to be.t In our day even Montalembert,
the fervid Roman Catholic scholar, has strongly endorsed
the conclusions of Salvian, Avhen in his Monks of the West
(Book I.) he describes the Roman Empire without the bar
barians as " an abyss of servitude and corruption."
Amidst all this chaos of misery into which the once
* "Injusti sunt barbari, et nos hoc sumus," Salvian, iv., 14, 65. This late-
Latin expression is reproduced in the well-known French idiom, " nous le sommes."
t " Their modesty purifies the ,earth all stained by Eoman debauchery."—
Salvian, v. 2 and vii. 6.
S. Aug. had already, Dc Civ. Dei, 1-4 and 7, dwelt upon the forbearance of
the soldiers of Alaric (tho Goth) before the tombs of the martyrs, and he speaks of
the "misericordia et humilitas" of these fierce conquerors.

AFTEB THE PEACE OF THE GHUBGH. 507
mighty Empire was plunged we catch sight of the presence
of a great Church — great in spite of the disorders referred to
by Salvian in his burning rhetoric, perhaps with some
exaggeration in his details — which, amid aU the terrors of the
barbaric conquest, amid deep-seated corruption and unspeak
able misery, still taught to Roman and to barbarian alike a
pure morality and a lofty ideal, enforcing its teaching by the
strongest motives of action. This Church was everywhere, in
the camps of the invader, in the captured cities, in the
desolated country, controlling, strengthening, comforting, or
over-awing with its great traditions and splendid history ;
strongly organised, drawing to its side the best and noblest
spirits among the conquerors and the conquered ; possessing
in its ranks some of the greatest leaders and teachers who
have in the long story of Christian progress ever adorned the
ranks of the beUevers in Jesus Avith their virtue and self-
denial, their wisdom and learning.
Among these were Martin of Tours, the more prominent mem
bers of the monastic House of Lerins, such men as Augustine,
Ambrose, and Jerome, Damasus and Athanasius, Basil and
Gregory Nazianzen, Avith others, their friends, and felloAv-
workers ; some known, more Avhose names have not been
handed down, guides of the Church in those dark and
perilous times. Naturally their Avishes, and for a time their
hopes, Avere bound up Avith the fortunes of the Empire.
We see from the writings of Augustine and Orosius they
trusted that things would in the end go right Avith the
immemorial domination of Rome ; and it Avas with deep
sorrow they Avitnessed the rapid decadence of the Empire.
But, although the Church naturally grieved over the ruin of
the old state of things and mourned the dissolution of the
old society, she never threw in her lot Avith the falling
Empire, but gradually separated her cause from the old
vanquished Rome, feeling that her work would endure even
though Rome perished. So when, recognising that all Avas
over, she turned to the new conquering nations with her
divine story, her hopes, and her promises — saving from the
wreck of the old world and the old civiUsation all that Avas

508 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
possible to preserve, and standing between the Romans and
the barbarians, somcAvhat in the position of a neutral power —
she obtained with the conquerors a mighty influence wliich
was used for the benefit of the conquered.
SECTION II. — THE MONASTIC DEVELOPMENT.
Salvian, in his picture of Roman society, spared no class,
no calling; even the clergy, whom at first he excepted from
his denunciations, he included later in his general summary
of those who shared in the almost universal laxity of conduct.
It could hardly have been otherwise, when it is remembered
that a large portion of the society of the Empire in the
second half of the fourth century was Christian only in
name, while in heart and mind it remained Pagan.
There were, hoAvever, many earnest and devout foUowers
of Jesus amidst the thoughtless masses who made up the
population of the Empire, who clearly recognised the grave
perU, and felt that something must be done lest Christianity
should be SAvamped — lost in the crowd of heedless professors
of the beautiful creed Avhich had inspired the comparatively
small company of believers in the centuries of persecution.
It Avas out of this urgent need that monasticism arose.
The great Chrysostom, writing circa a.d. 376, defends and
extols the monastic spirit Avhich was then beginning to be
a great power in the Church. It has many powerfid adver
saries, but he speaks of it as "the true philosophy."* He
considers that monasticism, in the confused state of things
which existed in the last quarter of the fourth century, was
the one resource and hope of Christianity, and aU through
his brilliant, chequered career, the great theologian, preacher,
and thought-leader continued to defend and extol the new
monastic institutions. And with him, in his estimate of
monasticism, Avith scarcely an exception, went all the group
of eminent men Avho at that hour of extreme peril, when the
* The treatise containing the famous apology of Chrysostom, written dren
A.D. 376, is termed Adversus Oppugnatores Vitee Monastics, and is di-vided
into three books.

AFTEB THE PEACE OF THE OHUBOH. 509
very foundations of the old society were being uprooted,
kept the lamp of Christianity brightly buming; Avhose words
and writings during the fifteen centuries which have elapsed
since they fell asleep, have been the treasure house, the
arsenal of her theology. In the Eastem churches, men such
as Athanasius and Chrysostom, Basil, and Gregory of Nazi
anzen; in the Western churches, Martin of Tours, Ambrose,
Jerome, and Augustine; and a few years later, Vincent of
Lerins and Csesarius of Aries, Avith one voice, in their teach
ing and by their example not only defended the novel
institution of monasticism, but pointed to it as an organisa
tion absolutely necessary to the Church and to Christendom.
It appeared first in the East in the last years of the third
and the early years of the fourth century. Amid the deserts
of Egypt Ave mark its first real beginnings. Some of the
victims of the bitter persecution of Diocletian sought there
a refuge from the cruelty of the Govemment, but as Bossuet
weU says, " The persecution made fewer solitaries than the
peace and the triumph of the Church." The name of Anthony,
who died in a.d. 356, is deservedly celebrated as the father
and head of the solitaries of the Thebaid, whom he trans
formed into Coenobites.* A contemporary of Anthony was
Pachomius, who died in a.d. 348. He gave to the Coenobites
of Anthony a written rule, traditionally given to him by an
angel. This Pachomius founded upon the Nile at Tabenne,
an island a little above the first cataract in the Thebaid,
the first monastery properly so-called — ^or rather a congrega
tion of eight monasteries, containing, it is said, many thousand
monks. Rapidly the tAvo Thebaids of the Egyptian deserts
were peopled with monks. The houses of nuns or female
soUtaries at this same period in number were nearly equal
to the monasteries. The numbers given are simply enormous,t
* The derivations of the terms used to designate the new order of monastics
are as follows : — Coenobites KOivhs (common), and 0ios (life), ascetics da-K-na-is
(exercise), anchorites di/axapea (to put oneself apart, to withdraw), monk,
monastery ludros (alone, solitary), abbat (abbot), the Syriac abba (father).
t Rufinus, Sist. Mon., xi. 5, mentions, for instance, that as early as a.d. 356,
at Oxyriuchus, on the Nile, were as many as ten thousand monks and twenty
thousand virgins.

510 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
but are probably exaggerated. Each of these early rehgious
houses was a school of labour, the inmates numbering in
their ranks weavers, curriers, carpenters, etc. At Tabenne
there was a special school of scholars. Under the rule of
Pachomius every monk was required to be able to read and
write. Not a fcAv profound theologians and teachers were
trained in these houses of prayer and solitude. An ahnost
perpetual fast was rigorously required from the many inmates
of the religious houses. From Egypt, before the end of the
fourth century, this strange, novel stream of monastic hfe
overflowed into Arabia, Syria, and Palestine, and even further
east into Mesopotamia, where we hear of it from the writings
of Ephrem of Edessa.
In the West it was almost an unknown feature in Church
life until circa a.d. 340, when Athanasius, driven from his
home in Alexandria by the Arians, came to Rome. This
eminent and far-sighted Church leader at once used his great
influence to introduce into Rome and Italy the new phase
of Church life which had so rapidly and powerfully moved
Egypt. Somewhat later he issued his life of Anthony, the great
Egyptian monk; and this Avork, pubhshed imder the name
and authority of the greatest of the Catholic theologians, quickly
acquired a wide popularity throughout the West. The story
of Egyptian monasticism, told with all the winning power of
the great Master, came as a revelation to the Church of the
West,* which was languishing and fading under the conditions
* There is in one of the charmed passages of the Confessions of Augustine a
chance reference to this " Life of Anthony the Monk " by Athanasius, which
undesignedly tells us into what centres it had penetrated, how widely it was cir
culated, how powerful was its influence. Augustine was at Milan lecturing upon
eloquence. One day he received a -visit from one of his African countrymen,
named Potitiauus, a military oflicer of high rank on the staff of the Emperor.
" We seated ourselves," said Augustine, " to talk, when he happened to notice a
book which lay ou the table before us. He opened it ; it was ' The Apostle Paul.'
I confessed to him that reading it was my principal study. Ho was theu led in the
course of conversation to speak to us of Anthony, the monk of Egypt, whose name
so glorious among Thy servants was unknown to us. He perceived this, and
confining himself to that subject he revealed the great man to our ignorance,
which astonished him much ; and we were lost in admiration when we heard of
these marvels so recent, almost contemporary, which were worked in the Catholic
Church. . . . From them his conversation j turned upon the holy flocks of the

AFTEB THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 511
we have been sketching. The new organisation at once breathed
a fresh life into the Roman and Italian churches, giving them
power to adapt themselves to the changed world noAv rapidly
growing up round them. With extraordinary rapidity monas-
monasteries, and the perfumes of virtue which went up from them towards their
Lord ... of whioh we knew nothing. Even at MUan there was a cloister full of
Brothers trained under the wing of Ambrose, at that time Bishop of MUan, and we
knew nothing of it." Then the soldier told Augustine how he came first to hear of
Anthony and the new life of monasteries. " He was in garrison at Treves on duty
at the Imperial Palace ; the Emperor was spending the afternoon at the spectacles
of the Circus ; he and three of his brother officers went to walk in the gardens laid
out close to the walls of the City, and as they walked two and two, one with him
and the two others together, they separated. The two latter entered a cottage on
the way, where lived some of those voluntary poor who are Thy servants, and there
they found a manuscript ofthe Zife of Anthony. One of them began to read it, he
admired it, his heart burned, and as he read the thought rose up : should he embrace
such a life and leave the warfare of the age to serve Thee ? [They were both in the
service of the Emperor.] Suddenly he was filled with a divine love and holy
shame . . . and casting his eyes on his friend he said : ' Tell me, I pray thee,
whither all our labours tend ? What is it we seek ? For whom do we carry arms ?
What can be our greatest hope in this palace but to be friends with the Emperor ?
And how frail is that fortune 1 AVhat perils, and how many perils before reaching
the greatest peril ! Besides, when shall that be attained ? But if I desire to be a
fi-iend of God I am so, and instantly. ' He spoke thus, all shaken by the bitth of his
new life, and then his eyes returning to the holy pages (of the Life of Anthony the
monk) he read : His heart changed in Thy sight ... he read on, aud the waves
ot his soul flowed, trembling ... he was already Thine, when he said from hi^
soul, ' It is done, I break with all our hope, I will serve God, and now in this
place I begin the work, if thou wilt not follow me deter me not.' The other
answered that he also would win his share of glory and spoil. . . . Potitiauus and
his companion, after having walked in another part of the garden, reached their
retreat, seeking their two companions, and told them it was time to go back because
the day fell. But they, declaring their design, told how their resolution had come
to them and had established itself in their minds ; they entreated their friends not
to oppose their determination even if they refused to share it . . . they piously con
gratulated their comrades and returned to the palace." Both these officers,
Augustine tells us, had betrothed brides, who, hearing this, consecrated to Him
their virginity. Then Augustine, in the vivid page of his Confessions, relates
the effect produced upon him by Potitianus' story. " I was penetrated with shame
and contusion whUe Potitianus spoke. ... I seized Alypius (his dear friend and
companion) and cried out: "What, then, are we doing? How is this? . . .
These ignorant men rise ; they take heaven by force, and we with our heartless
sciences, behold we are waUowing in the flesh " (S. Aug. : Confessions, Book
VIIL, Chaps. VI.-XIL). The sequel of this strange moving scene is weU known.
Augustine renounced his career and the world, and became the leading spirit of the
Church of his day, the greatest teacher of the period in which he lived ; in some
respects, after the Apostles, who had heard the Master's voice, the most influential
teacher of all the Christian ages.

612 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
teries for both sexes were founded in Rome and in the
immediate neighbourhood of the capital; from Rome the new
institution spread all over Italy. It was fostered, as we have
remarked, by Avell-nigh all the leading spirits of the Church in
the second half of the fourth and early years of the fifth
century; it was especially favoured in Gaul under the aU-
powerful influence of Martin, Bishop of Tours. Sulpicius
Severus, his devoted friend and disciple, tells us how some two
thousand monks gathered found the grave of the great GaUic
Bishop and teacher Avhen he passed away in A.D. 397. Another
of the leading Latin Bishops, the saintly Ambrose of MUan,
who died in the same year, 397, was one of the warm supporters
of the movement. But among the Latin fathers of that age,
so prolific in eminent scholars and writers, perhaps the most
ardent believer in the new departure was Jerome; who by
his writings and his example did, perhaps, more than any
of his illustrious contemporaries to advance and popularise this
noAv phase of Christianity.
Under Augustine, who after his conversion (alluded to in
the note above) became subsequently Bishop of Hippo and
the most influential leader and adviser in the churches of the
West, numerous monasteries for both sexes multiplied in the
North African provinces. It was Augustine who, in the year
423, drew up the famous monastic rule which bears his name.
This " Rule," originally compUed for a monastery of women in
Hippo of which his sister was Superior, subsequently became
the fundamental code of an immense branch of the monastic
order Avhich for many centuries has borne the honoured name
of Augustine. The new organisation came into existence in the West
about the middle of the fourth century; in the East, as Ave
have seen, it arose a few years earlier. It grew out of the
necessity of the time, and was approved and shared in by
the large majority of the noblest professors of Christianity.
We must not, however, in our warm appreciation of the great
services rendered by monasticism to the Church, and indeed
to all society, shrink from confessing that dark shadows in
many cases Avere not wanting in the pictures Ave have been

AFTEB THE PEACE OF THE GHUBGH. 613
sketching. Disorder and various abuses rapidly crept in; the
monastic life was sometimes chosen as a pretext for idleness,
as a cloak under which life's ordinary duties might be evaded.
But these errors and flaws were recognised at a very early
period and sternly denounced by the eminent Church leaders
and teachers who so earnestly promoted the system and
advocated its general adoption as the most effective means of
breathing fresh life into the Christian communities. We find
these stem reproofs, these earnest warnings, notably in the
Avritings of Jerome, Chrysostom, and Augustine. Jerome, in
deed, denounced with boldness and energy all such idle
monks, and pointed out with scathing severity the faults and
dangers of the monastic institution. Augustine is not behind
hand in his grave reproofs and pointed warnings, when he
dwells with an eloquence peculiarly his own on the high
motives of that laiu of labour which has ever remained the
glory and strength of monasticism.-*
Too much stress has been laid by certain writers upon
some of the forms of life adopted in the first great outbreak
of asceticism, especially in the East, where there were many
eccentric examples of what may be fairly termed a terrible
self-abnegation; the instances of Simeon StyUtes and his
imitators, with their life-long awful penances and ghastly
self-tortures, are often quoted. Yet these, after all, were ex
ceptions, and such examples found comparatively foAv imitators
in the West. Nay, even the unnatural life-work of these
earnest though mistaken enthusiasts was not thrown aAvay.
"Imperfect and distorted as was the ideal of the anchorites,
deeply, too, as it Avas perverted by the admixture of spiritual
selfishness, still the example . . . was not wholly lost upon
the world. . . . The very eccentricities of their lives, their
uncouth forms, their horrible penances, won the admiration
of rude men. . . . Multitudes of barbarians were converted
to Christianity at the sight of S. Simeon Stylites."t
* Augustine, De Opere Monachorum, Cap. C. 28.
t The words quoted are Mr. Lecky's, Sistory of European Morals, chap. iv.
In spite of his usual conspicuous fairness, Mr. Lecky generally underrates
monasticism and faUs to give it the place it emphatically possesses in the story of
Christianity; hence the importance of the above conclusion
H H

514 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
Even in its earliest days the monastic development of
Christianity was far from being opposed or even indifferent to
learning. We have dwelt above on the comparative foAvness of
the ascetics, such as Simeon Stylites, whose extreme austerities
necessarily separated them entirely from ordinary human life,
its possibilities and its thoughts ; and we have justly judged
their ideals as something extravagant and excessive, although
not without their influence upon the dissolute and thought
less world of those days and times. Ordinary monastic life,
however, even in the East, included, as part of its invariable
rule, useful work of varied kinds. Each monastery was a
great school of labour; and to simply manual labour the
monks united the culture of the mind, and especially the study
of sacred Uterature. It was from among their ranks that the
most learned and successful adversaries of the greatest and
most dangerous heresy that has ever appeared were drawn.
The monk, as a rule, was the deadly foe of Arianism. Augus
tine, in his De Opere Monachorunfi, dwells upon the regular
work of the monastics, who divided their day between manual
labour, reading, and prayer.
In the first half of the fifth century, to take well knoAvn
and conspicuous examples, the famous houses of Lerins,* of
S. Victor of MarseiUes, and scarcely later, of Condat in the
Jura, were famous far and wide as houses of great learning,
as Avell as seminaries of instruction, where their inmates led
the austere and saintly life Avhich monasticism pressed upon
those who voluntarUy took on them its obligations and duties,
and at the same time pursued then- various studies.
* Leiins was a little island in the roadstead of the modem Toulon. The
religious house was founded circa a.d. 410, and speedily became a great and cele
brated school, not merel}- of theology but of general literature. In this monastery
many of the most illustrious bishops and teachers in the fifth century received
heir training ; with it the names of Salvian and Vincent of Lerins, the first
controversialist of his age, are closely connected. The Commonitorium of
Vincent the Monk of Lerins has been read and studied for more than fourteen
centuries. The monastery of S. Victor at MarseUles rivalled Lerins in importance.
It contained, it is said, as many as 5,000 monks, and was a famous theological
seminary all through the fifth century. Condat, in the Jura, was another of these
ve^y early monastic homes of learning — leaming by no means confined to theology.
It became one of the most renowned seminaries of the East GalUc province.

AFTEB THE PEACE OF THE GHUBGH. 515
Before the close of the fifth century this new departure
in Christian Ufe and work, which commenced a very few
years after the peace of the Church and the general adoption
of Christianity by the Empire in the first half of the fourth
century, had permeated the whole life of the Christian com
munities. Very large indeed was the number of monastics
in the various provinces now completely under the power of
the barbarian invaders. The great need, hoAvever, in the new
organisation Avas for some acknowledged discipline and order.
In the East the rule of S. Basil was largely acknoAvledged,
but many diversities prevaUed. In the West the want of a
recognised order Avas even more marked. This lack of an
established rule was supplied through the energy of a remark
able man who appeared in Italy at this juncture, Benedict,
whose life dates from a.d. 480 to a.d. 543. This Benedict
succeeded in impressing his views of discipline and order
upon a number of the Italian monastic houses, and gradually
his " Rule " Avas accepted by the majority at least of Western
monasteries. Under the neAv conditions of order and discipline devised
by him, monasticism continued to grow in numbers and
influence, rendering to the human race during the long drawn
out period of stress and storm which foUoAved, services which
can scarcely be overstated.
Looking back from the vantage ground of the experience
of many centuries, we are in a position fairly to weigh these
services which the monastics have rendered to civilisation.
Here one voice proceeds from the cool judgment of the
phUosophic essayist, and from the somcAvhat passionate
enthusiasm of the Roman Catholic historian; the one not
unbiassed by an aversion to the system, the other influenced
by his admiration for the mysticism which more or less
colours the works and days of all monasticism.
These services can only be characterised as immense, and
as continumg during a long period of weU-nigh universal
desolation and confusion stretching over some six or seven
centuries.

616 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
The Ufe of a monk, it must be remembered, was an ex
ceptional Ufe ; its advocates never taught that it should be
the common life of men and Avomen; there was never any
idea of transforming the entire universe into a cloister ; the
conception Avas that " by the side of the storms and failures
of the world there should be a home, a refuge, a school of
peace and strength apart from the Avorld. . . . These monks
were ever men of prayer and penitence, but they did not
limit themselves to prayer and penitence.." They busied
themselves in the practical work of life besides. In the first
place they were pre-eminently agricultwrists. Not only were
the farm lands immediately adjacent to the religious houses
admirably cultivated, but vast tracts of country, which OAring
to the long-continued state of anarchy and confusion had
become once more marsh land or forest land, were brought
back to a condition of high cultivation.
In every department of agricultural life the monk was dis
tinguished — vineyards, corn lands, pastures, orchards, just to
name a few examples, were restored or introduced in all the
prorinces of the desolated Empire. It is difficult to trace the
history of a weU-cultivated estate or district to any source
save to these cloistered settlers. Nor was their work in literature,
in its many departments, of less value. We have aheady
aUuded to the regulations respecting reading and study,
which formed an invariable and important part of the earUest
monastic rules in the East and in the West ; and when the
old Ufe of the Roman Empire had literally " gone under " as
the barbarian flood spread over the unhappy prorinces, it
was in the monasteries alone that the great works of antiquity
were preserved. A favourite occupation of the monk was
the copying, in a more or less elaborate fashion, the writmgs
of the poets, phUosophers, and historians which had charmed
the citizens of the great Empire between the days of Augustus
and Theodosius.
The care of the monks here, although, perhaps, especially
devoted to sacred and ecclesiastical literature, was by no
means confined to works of the Christian school, but was
* Montalembert, Monks of the West, Book III.

AFTEB THE PEACE OF THE CHUECH. 617
extended over the whole period of classic letters. For centuries,
too, the monk was the only teacher* and instructor, and learn
ing of all kinds was exclusively confined to these homes of
prayer, so plentifuUy scattered over the provinces of the
barbarian-harassed Empire. The charge of Jerome at the
close of the fourth century, " that a monk should always have
a book in his hand or under his eyes," t was faithfully ob
served in a thousand religious houses. From the first, well-
nigh every monastery possessed its library, great or small,
and as time advanced many of these became famous for the
number and value of the volumes they contained.
In the great ruin which in the fifth and following cen
turies overtook the Empire, it seemed well-nigh certain that,
under the rough and destructive barbarian rule, all art in
its various departments would surely decay and die. Here
again, the network of monastic institutions at first preserved
the poor remnant of the many-sided artistic crafts, and sub
sequently developed and even gave them a new colouring.
As early as the first years of the sixth century, Benedict
(A.D. 480-543), the great organiser of these houses, in his famous
rule provided for artistic work being carried on in his cloister. J
Very soon the more important religious houses contained, in
addition to schools and libraries, studios and workrooms where
painting, mosaic work, sculpture, engraving, ivory carving,
bookbinding, and the arts of the goldsmith and of the jeweUer,
were studied and practised.
A great impulse was given to these various art industries
by the monk Cassiodorus, the once famous statesman, a con
temporary of Benedict. All through the darkest ages of the
history of the world, a period covering the sixth and the four
following centuries, elaborate and even exquisite works of art
* Schools from the fifth century onward were established in the chief monastic
centres, as well as frequently in many of the smaUer communities. Alcuin,
writing of the monastic school of York at the end of the eighth century, tells us
that besides the Holy Scriptures, gi-ammar, rhetoric, jurisprudence, poetry,
astronomy, mathematics, etc., were taught there.
t " Nunquam de manu et oculis recedat liber."— Fpist. ad Rustic, S. Jerome.
t "Artifices si sunt in monasterio, cum omni humUitate et reverentia faciant
ipsas artes, si permiserit abbas." — S. Benedict, C. 57.

618 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
were produced in the religious houses of the West, whUe the
stately Romanesque was revived, and subsequently the Gothic,
schools of architecture of the Middle Ages were graduaUy
developed in the lonely islands of prayer, whose strange rise
we have been sketching in outline.
How successful the monk had been in his unwearied
artistic toU in these gloomy centuries of confusion and anarchy
is admirably phrased in a gentle though grave rebuke of an
eleventh century abbot to his brethren, when he warned them
not to be over-attentive to these pursuits lest those higher
duties, the peculiar glory of Christianity and the especial duty
of the monk, should suffer.
" It matters little that our churches rise to heaven, that the
capitals of their pillars are sculptured and gilded, that our
parchment is tinted purple, that gold is melted to form the
letters of our manuscripts, and that their bindings are set
with precious stones, if Ave have httle or no care for the
members of Christ, and if Christ himself lies naked and dying
before our doors." *
Such is a brief outhne of services rendered by monastics to
society during a long and terrible period in the history of
the Avorld. It seems indeed scarcely probable that the great
Christian Doctors of the fourth and fifth centuries, much as
they admired and encouraged the monastic spirit, ever dreamed
of a future of such a paramount and far-reaching influence for
the groups of self-denying solitaries who arose out of the sore
needs of the Church, weakened and wounded strangely enough
by the very magnitude and suddenness of her decisive rictory
over Paganism.
The task I set myself is done. How often in the sUence of
night, under the roof of the old dwelling house of the Deans
of Gloucester, the ancient home of the long line of Abbots
and Priors of the once famous Benedictine Abbey, in Avhich the
foregoing pages have been mostly Avritten, have I fancied that
I saAv around me the imposing procession of teachers, martyrs,
* " Flores Epitaphii Sanctorum apud MabiUon." Ann. I., Ixxi., No. 23
(quoted by Montalembert).

AFTEB THE PEACE OF THE CHUBCH. 519
and saints whose life story I have endeavoured to teU. My
work has been no panegyric, not even an apologia ; the faults
and weaknesses which too often scarred the heroic lives of
the brave confessors of the Faith have not been slurred over,
the divisions and bitter schisms which divided the Christians
even in the days of persecution have been faithfully though
sorrowfully recorded. It has been a simple, truthful tale — nothing
more. But how often, as I read over my narratives of one or
other of the stirring or pathetic incidents which make up the
wondrous epic of Christian life in the age of persecutions, have
I felt that mine Avas only " a cold and sad pen after all," quite
unworthy of the beautiful, difficult task I had set myself My
hope is that my work wUl please others more than it has
succeeded in pleasing the writer — my prayer, that the reader
at least may be as intensely persuaded as is the writer, of the
awful reality of the stern, long drawn-out confiict between
Christianity and Paganism, of the Ever Presence, in the ranks
of the Christian combatants, of the Holy Spirit of God and
His Christ.

521

APPENDIX A.

EMPERORS OP ROME.
(CHAPTERS I. -XIII.)

Julius Csesar, Perpetual Dictator .

B.C.
48

„ „ assassinateo

... •

... ...

44

Octavianus Csesar (Augustus)



27

A.D.

A.D.

Tiberius 

14

Elagabalus

218

Caligula

. 37
Alexander Severus
222
Claudius
. 41
Maximinus
235
Nero
. 54
Gordian (and his son)
237
Galba
. 68
Maximus and Balbinus ...
237
Otho
. 69
Gordian (the younger) . . .
238
Vitellius
. 69
Philip (the Arabian)
244
Vespasian
. 69
Decius 
249
Titus
. 79
Gallus
251
Domitian
81
j33milianus
253
Nerva
. 96
Valerian ...
253
Trajan
. 98
GaUienus (the "Thirty"
Hadrian
. 117
Pretenders) ...
260
Antoninus Pius ...
. 138
Claudius II. (Gothicus) ...
268
Marcus Aurelius Ante
Aurelian ...
270
ninus 
. 161
Tacitus
275
Commodus
. 180
Probus
276
Pertinax 
. 193
Carus ... 
282
Septimius Severus
. 193
Carinus and Numerian . . .
283
Caracalla and Geta
. 211
Diocletian 
284
Macrinus .

. 217
522

EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.

The Associated Empeeors under the Constitution of
Diocletian.
(chapters xiv.-xvii.)
1st Group 'of Emperors : Diocletian — Maximian... ... ... 286
2nd ,, „ Diocletian — Maximian — Galerius — Con
stantius Chlorus ... ... ... 292
3rd „ ,, Galerius — Constantius Chlorus — Severus
— Maximin-Daia ... ... ... 305
4th „ „ Galerius- — Licinius — Constantine — Max
entius — Maximian — Maximin-Daia 306-7
5th „ ,, Constantine — Licinius ... ... ... 312

(Constantius on the death
!^ of his brothers
became sole
Emperor.)

Constantine (sole Emperor)

Sons and suc
cessors of
Constantine.

Constantine II.
Constantius . . .
Constans

Died 340
„ 361.
„ 350.

A.D.
Valens (East)... 364
Theodosius the Great 379

Julian ...
Jorian ...
Valentinian (West)
Gratian )
Valentinian II. /
Theodosius the Great (sole Emperor)

Arcadius (East)
Theodosius II.

395 Honorius (West)
408 Died 423 (a.d.).

323
337

361363364 367392 395

THE SEE OF ROME.
[m. signifies Martyr.]

A.D.

A.D.

S. Peter and S. Paul

m.

Sixtus

... 119

(Martyrs)...

.. 67-8

m.

Telesphorus .

... 128

m. Iiinus

.. 67

Hyginus
... 139
m. Anencletus ...
.. 78
m.
Pius ...
... 142
m. ? Clement
.. 91
Anicetus
... 157
m. Evaristus
.. 100
m.
Soterus
... 168
m. Alexander . . .
.. 109
Eleutherus .
... 176
APPENDIX A.

523

THE SEE OP ROM^E— continued.
\m. signifies Martyr.]

A.D.

A.D.

m. Victor

.. 192

ni. Eutychianus

 275

m.? Zephyrinus ...

.. 202

m. ? Gaius

 283

m.i Callistus

.. 219

m. ? Marcellinus

 296

m.? Urban

.. 223

m.? Marcellus

 308

m. ? Pontianus ...

.. 230

m.? Eusebius

 310

TO. Anteros

.. 235

Miltiades

 311

m. Pabianus

.. 236

Silvester

 314

m. ? Cornelius

.. 251

Marcus

 336

m. Lucius

.. 252

Julius

 337

m. Stephen

.. 253

Liberius

 352

m. Sixtus II. ...

.. 257

Damasus

 366

Dionysius . . .

.. 259

Siricius

384-398

m. Felix 

.. 269

524

APPENDIX B.

THE PRESENCE OF S. PETER AT ROME.
That S. Peter resided for a considerable time at Rome in his later
life, and that he suffered martyrdom there, is now generally allowed by
the great majority of scholars, Anglican as well as Roman.
(1) Early patristic testimony can scarcely be understood here to
bear any different sense.
a. Clement of Rome, circa a.d. 95-6, in his first undoubtedly
genuine epistle, makes special mention of Peter and Paul, and onl-y of
Peter and Paul, who, after enduring many sufferings, endured martyr
dom. Clement is writing from the Roman Church to the Corinthians j
he is calling attention to examples of devoted Christians who " lived
very near to our own times," and without doubt he is appealing to
examples which the Church of Rome had themselves witnessed.
(Clem., ad. Cor,, c. 25.)
b. Iffnatius of Antioch, circa a.d. 107, writes to the Eoman
Church : — '' I do not command you, like Peter and Paul ; they Avere
Apostles, I am a condemned man ; they were free, I am a slave until
now." Why should Ignatius cite Peter and Paul ? Why did he not
cite others (for instance, John, writing as he does from the neighbour
hood of Ephesus, where John so lately had been the distinguishing
personality) ; had not Peter and Paul been the Apostles Avho, from
their residence and authority at Rome, would naturally carry most
weight Arith the Church to which he was writing? (Ign., ad. Bom. 4.)
c. Dion-ysius of Corinth, circa a.d. 170, in his letter to the Roman
Church, thus writes most definitely : — " So also you by your admoni
tions (to us) have joined together the plantation of the Romans and
Corinthians [a plantation] which was planted by Peter and Paul ; for
they both came to our city of Corinth and taught us, and in hke
manner they went together to Italy, and, having taught there, suffered
martyrdom about the same time." (Eusebius, H.E., ii. 25.)

APPENDIX B. 525
d. Irenceus, Bishop of Lyons, circa a.d. 177-90, equally clearly
writes : — " Matthew put out also a written gospel among the Hellenes,
in their own tongue, while Peter and Paul were preaching and founditi;,'
the Church of Rome. And after their departure (by death) Mark, the
disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself also handed down to us in
writing the lessons preached by Peter." (Irenseus, Hcer. iii., i. 1.)
e. Clement of Alexandria, circa a.d. 190-200, tells us "when Peter
had preached the word publicly in Rome," the hearers of his preaching
urged Mark, as having been long his companion, and remembering
what he said, to write out his statements. (Eusebius, H.E., vi. 14.)
f. Tertullian of Carthage, circa a.d. 200, writes in his treatise,
De Baptismo 4, thus ; — " Nor does it matter whether they are
among those whom John baptised in the Jordan, or those whom Peter
baptised in the Tiber." And, again, in his De Prcescriptione 32 : —
" The Church of the Romans reports that Clement (of Rome) was
ordained by Peter." And yet more positively as to detail in the same
De Proescri-ptione 36 : — " If thou art near to Italy thou hast Rome.
. . . How happy is that Church on which the Apostles shed all their
teaching with their blood, where Peter is conformed to the passion of
the Lord."
g. Gaius, the Roman presbyter, circa a.d. 200-20, thus claims for
the Roman Church the authority of the Apostles Peter and Paul,
whose martyred bodies sleep in Rome : — " But I can show you the
trophies (the reliques) of the Apostles ; for if thou wilt go to the
Vatican or to the Ostian way thou wilt find the trophies of those who
founded this Church." (Eusebius, H.E., ii. 25.)
h. Lactantius, circa a.d. 306 : — " He disclosed to them all things
which Peter and Paul preached at Rome, and their preaching remained
in writing for a record," etc. (Lactantius, Instit. Div., iv. 21.)
That Peter perished in the course of the persecution of the Emperor
Nero is the universal tradition. His two canonical epistles were, no
doubt, written at this period. The first epistle, which was very
generally used in the earliest times, was evidently composed in a
season of bitter persecution.
The burden of this writing is the consolation and encouragement of
some distant communities of Christians under the fiery trial which lay
before them. Now, the Neronian persecution was not by any means,
we know, confined to Rome. It raged in far-away provinces. The
salutation at the close (v. 13) runs thus :—" The (Church that is)
at Babylon, elected together with (you) saluteth you." By Babylon
the Fathers universally understood Rome ; for it could not be the
Egyptian Babylon which was a mere obscure fortress, a place utterly

526 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
unknown to Christian history and tradition. It could not have been
the well-known Babylon, because, at the time when Peter wrote, that
once great city was ruined and deserted, nor is there any vestige of a
tradition connecting Babylon with Peter. The vast majority of
modern scholars follow the interpretation of the Fathers — as, for
instance, Lardner, Alford, Lightfoot, and Farrar ; and a famous writer
of a very different school, Renan, in his " Antichrist," writes thus of the
term Babylon : " Nom dont la signification symholique n'Schappait d,
personne." These symbolic names are very usual in the Talmud.
But while Peter's residence at Rome during the latter years of his
life, and his martyrdom in that great city in the course of the Neronian
persecution, are looked upon by weU-nigh all schools of thought as
historic facts, the ti'adition of his presence at Rome, and of his teaching
there, at an earlier period, is much disputed. Roman Catholic writers,
however, appear to have no doubts on the point ; and though doctrinal
reasons would influence their judgment, still the fair historian cannot
fail to see that much can be said in support of their contention.
Amongst others, the foUowing arguments in favour of the earlier risit
of Peter to Rome, and of his " twenty-five years' episcopate " are
urged. It will be seen that some of them at least rest upon historic
testimony. a. The New Testament. — In Acts xiL 1-17 we read how "at this
time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the
church. And he killed James the brother of John Arith the sword,
and, seeing that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter
also." Then follows the story of the miraculous delivery of the Apostle
from prison, and of his decision at once to place himself in safety
beyond the jurisdiction of Herod. "He departed," we read, "and
went into another place." No mention, indeed, occurs of Rome or of
any other city as the goal of his journey. But the constant repetition
of the scene of the arrest of Peter by Herod's soldiers on Roman
sarcophagi of the fourth century (there are some twenty examples now
in the Lateran Museum) show us unmistakably how deeply rooted at
Rome was the tradition of the close connection between the Apostle's
first coming to Rome and the arrest and the miraculous deliverance
from the prison of Herod.
b. Jerome, Avhose close connection with Damasus — the earnest
restorer of so many of the sacred tombs round Rome in the catacombs,
who was Pope a.d. 366-384 — gaA-e him rare opportunities for accurate
investigation, explicitly tells us how Simon Peter came to Rome in the
second year of the Emperor Claudius, a.d. 42.
c. We can trace certainly as far back as the fourth century in the

APPENDIX B. 527
Roman calendars of the Church two feasts in connection with the
veneration of the Chairs of S. Peter, the one on January 18th, the
other on February 22nd. At the latter of these the chair now at the
Vatican was venerated. But what of the other 'i It seems unmistak
ably to point to a very early tradition that there was another chair of
the Apostle, the object of pilgrimage and veneration.
Recent archseological investigation has revealed to us, almost with
certainty, that this " other chair " existed in the very ancient Ostrian
cemetery, discovered in the Via Salaria Nova. This chair, evidently a
venerable and precious relic, did not, like the well-known one in the
Vatican, symbolise Peter's primacy, but it did symbolise his first
coming to Rome. Of its existence and preservation in the Ostrian
cemetery in the sixth century, we have a remarkable testimony in the
papyrus MS. at Monza, which contains a list by Abbot John of " holy
oils" collected by him from sacred shrines for the Lombard Queen
Theodolinda, circa a.d. 590. (These "holy oils" were taken from
lamps kept buming in front of celebrated shrines.) The memorandum
mentions how he obtained (amongst other reliques) oil from the lamp
buming in front of the chair where Peter "first sat" (prius sedit) in
the Ostrian cemetery in the Via Salaria.*
This cemetery on the Via Salaria Nova has, by recent discoveries,
been clearly identified.
d. The testimony of the early Papal lists supports in a very marked
way the ancient tradition of the presence of S. Peter at Rome at a
period long anterior to the accepted date of a.d. 62.
The Papal list given by Irenseus, circa a.d. 170-90 (contra
Hcer., iii. 3, 3) simply states that the Roman Church was "founded
and organised by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul," and
that " those blessed Apostles committed into the hands of Linus the
office of the Episcopate." Irenseus then enumerates the Roman suc
cession of bishops from Linus.

* There was evidently a confusion in the minds of the editors of the Martyr
ologies, from the eighth century downwards, on the point of the " two chairs " of
S. Peter, for the 22nd February is marked as the Feast of the " Cathedra S. Peter
in Antioch," but De Kossi points out that no ancient document prior to the eighth
century makes any allusion to Antioch in connection with the Feast of February
22nd. The reason of this eighth century emendation is, no doubt, that the scribes
who copied the ancient Roman Calendar, finding the 18th January marked as
" Cathedra S. Petri qua primum Romae sedit," and not imderstanding why another
feast of S. Peter's chair at Rome should be kept on February 22nd, inserted after
February 22nd the words "apud Antiocheium,'''' to explain what they thought was
a difficulty.

528 EABLY GHBIS TIANITY V AND PAGANISM.
In the Eusebian lists * of Roman bishops, S. Peter appears as having
presided over the Roman Church in one list for twenty years, in
another for twenty-five. In the table of Filocalus, a famous cali-
grapher best known in connection with the inscriptions set up in
the catacombs by Pope Damasus, S. Peter's duration of ride as bishop
of the Roman Church is given as twenty-five years. This ancient list
of Filocalus (a.d. 354) is usually known as the " Liberian," Pope
Liberius' name closing it.
The "twenty -five" years of S. Peter's rule is repeated again in
the Liber Pontificalis, sometimes, but mistakenly, called "The Lives
of the Pontiffs," which, although originally dating from the beginning
of the sixth century, is probably based largely on older materials.
This persistent tradition of an episcopacy lasting twenty or twenty-
five years does not, in the opinion of Roman Catholic writers, preclude
the acceptance of an absence of S. Peter from Rome during part of
this time. They maintain that he first visited Rome circa a.d. 42,
and from this date onwards till his death exercised a general control
in that Church.
e. Certain references in S. Paul's epistles to the Romans have been
quoted (notably by Bishop Lightfoot, Clement qf liome, Vol. ii.,
pp. 491 and 497) as incompatible with the theory of the earlier visit of
S. Peter to Rome, and the long connection of the elder Apostle with
that great church. The reference dwelt on especially is Rom. xv.
19-24. Now the passage, it has been pointed out, will bear an exactly
opposite interpretation to the one suggested by Lightfoot ; for in it
S. Paul tells us that, although for years it had been one of his great
desires to see Rome, yet he had abstained from going there precisely
because it was not virgin soil — "lest I should build upon another man's
foundation." What is clearly proved is that by the fourth century the tradition
was established, and apparently undisputed.
To sum the matter up : The presence and preaching of S. Peter
at Rome between a.d. 62 and 67 cannot be doubted ; and that the
great Apostle suffered martyrdom in that city during the Neronian
persecution, probably in the latter days of that awful period, is also
well-nigh certain. That he visited and preached at an earlier period,
and continued to exercise a kind of presidency over the Roman Christian
community — a presidency generally referred to as the twenty-five years
* These lists are contained in the Chronicle of Eusebius. In the Armenian
version the period of twenty j'ears is named ; in the Latin version of S. Jerome,
twenty-five.

PIANTA DiLLE CllOTTE VATICANE NEL ilTO CHETERA^g ft,,'" H

ITI S\ LEVAi5E- IL DEPOSITO Dl PAOXOill

PLAN OF THE CRYPT CONTAINING THE GRAVES OF S. PETER AND
THE EARLY BISHOPS OF ROME.
Discovei-ed in 1G15. The plan waa executod by Benedetto Di-oi (clerk of the works at S. Peter's), and was
llrst inUilistied in li;35.

APPENDIX B, 529
episcopate— is and must remain, with the materials of history we now
possess, open to question. We can only afiirm with certainty that the
tradition was thoroughly established and apparently undisputed in the
fourth century.
The oldest tradition in the Liber Pontificalis relates that nine of
the immediate successors of Peter were buried in the Vatican Crypt ;
the names are given. After S. Victor, a.d. 202, the Papal Crypt in
the Catacomb of S. Callistus became the usual burying place of the
Popes. The same authority tells us that the Emperor Constantine
enclosed the stone coffin which contained the body of the blessed Peter,
ia bronze, and then built up the whole with solid masonry (but appa
rently leaving the space actually above the loculus or coffin to the
ceiling, free) ; upon the coffin Constantine placed a cross of pure gold,
weighing one hiindred and fifty pounds.
In A.D. 1594, in the course of the works which were being carried on
in the new basilica, the ground gave way, and through the opening Pope
Clement VIII. and the Cardinals Bellarmine, Sfondrato and Antoniano,
with the help of a torch, could see the golden cross inscribed with the
names of Constantine and Helena. The aperture was immediately filled
up with cement, in the presence of the Pope himself.
In A.D. 1615, when Pope Paul V. (Borghesi) was building the stairs
leading to the Confession of S. Peter and the Crypts, the workmen
employed came upon the crypt containing the graves of the early
Bishops of Rome buried " in Vaticano." One of the coffins bore the
name LINVS who, according to the Liber Pontificalis, had been
originally buried by the side of Peter. The plan we have given of this
most sacred spot was drawn by Benedetto Drei, clerk of the works in
S. Peter's, an eye-witness of the discoveries made at that time. (The
plan wa,s published in a.d. 1635.) It is an invaluable record of what
lies beneath the Mother Church of Christianity. It is exceedingly rare.
The engraving we have given is from a copy in the British Museum
Library. The Sarcophagus of S. Peter was presumably in the centre ;
its position in the picture is a little above the words " Sacratissima
Confessione." It is, however, completely concealed by the solid
masonry of Constantine above alluded to.
Only a few years later, in a.d. 1626, when the vast foundations of
the enormous Baldachino, erected by Pope Urban VIII. (Barberini),
were being constructed, the crypt above described was again seen and
examined, and generally the details which Drei's map revealed were
substantiated. Many particulars concerning the wonderful things
which were then seen are given in the account which was written down
I I

530 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
at the time by Ubaldi, a Canon of the great Basilica of S. Peter's —
whose narrative, long forgotten and hidden in the archives of the
Vatican, has been comparatively recently brought to light, transcribed
and published by Professor Armellini in his book Le Chiese di Bo-ma,
An English translation of XJbaldi's record is given by Barnes in his
exhaustive and scholarly work, S, Peter in Rome and his Tomb on the
'Vatican Hill (London, 1900).
Prom XJbaldi's memoranda it would seem that a more thorough
examination of that sacred crypt was made, viz. in a.d. 1626, than the
somewhat earlier one represented in Drei's plan, and that many more
interments were discovered besides those indicated by Drei. One very
remarkable passage of Ubaldi runs as follows : " Almost at the level of
the pavement, there was found a coffin made of fine and large slabs of
marble. . . . This coffin was placed, just as were the others which
were found on the other side within the circle of the presbytery, in such
a manner that they were all directed towards the altar, like spokes
towards the centre of a wheel. Hence, it was evident with how much
reason the place merited the name of the Council of Martyrs. . . .
These bodies surrounded S. Peter just as they would have done, when
living, at a Council."

APPENDIX C.

ON THE AUTHENTICITY OP THE SEVEN EPISTLES AND
THE ACTS OP MARTYRDOM OP S. IGNATIUS.
SECTION I. — THE SEVEN EPISTLES.
The letters of S. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch in Syria, profess to
have been written by the saint as he was passing through Asia Minor
on his way to Rome, where he was to suffer death by exposure to the
wild beasts in the public amphitheatre. The date of the writings is
commonly given as a.d. 107 to a.d. 110. The letters that are now
generally accepted by scholars as absolutely authentic are seven in
number, five of these being addressed to different churches of Asia
Minor, viz. to Ephesus, Magnesia, TraUes, Philadelphia, and Smyrna ;
one to Rome, and one to the then Bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp.
There are three recensions of the Ignatian epistles extant.
The first, or Longer form,. This recension contains twelve epistle.s.
Besides containing the seven letters above referred to, it includes five
extra epistles. The form ih which the seven epistles are given is
considerably longer than the accepted one. This recension is now
universally condemned by scholars as spurious.
The second, or Middle form, contains the seven epistles above
enumerated ; a good deal of the matter incorporated in the first or
longer form is here omitted. This recension is sometimes alluded to
as the Vossian, from the scholar Isaac Voss, who in a.d. 1646 published
the first Greek edition of six of the seven epistles. It is now very
generally acknowledged by scholars as genuine.
The third, or Short form, is represented only by a Syriac version,
which was published for the first time by Canon Cureton (West
minster) in 1845 from MSS. recently brought to the British Museum

532 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
from the Nitrian desert. This recension contains but three epistles,
viz. those addressed to Polycarp, to the Ephesians, and to the Romans,
and the text of the three epistles is also abbreviated. In spite of the
advocacy of some scholars, this " Short form " is not now looked upon
as at all representing the text of the original writings of Ignatius. It
is evidently an abridgment or mutilation of the second or Middle form
of recension. Bishop Lightfoot considers a.d. 400, or a few years
earlier, as a probable date when this abridgment in the Syriac version
was first put out.
To return to the Middle or Vossian Recension. " This text,'' says
Lightfoot, " of the seven epistles is assured to us on testimony con
siderably greater than that of any ancient classical author, with one or
two exceptions."
This testimony we will briefly summarise.
External Evidence. — In the epistle of Polycarp, which belongs to
the first years of the second century, we find several unmistakable
references to the acknowledged seven Ignatian letters. Ire-noeus,
writing from fifty to seventy years later, quotes verbatim from the
letter to the Romans, and has references besides to several others of
the seven Ignatian letters. Some twenty years earlier than Iren^ua
the letter of the Smyrna Church to tlie Philomelians, with the account
of the martyrdom of Polycarp, shows an acquaintance with the
Ignatian epistles. Echoes of these letters, too, are found in the Epistle
of the Churclies of 'Vienne and Lyons, giving an account of the
martyrdoms in these cities. This epistle was written circa a.d. 177.
Lucian, the Pagan satirist, circa a.d. 165-170, in his celebrated satire
or romance, De Morte Peregrini, evidently alludes to and apparently
bases a portion of his writing upon the story of Ignatius as contained
in the seven epistles.
Towards the middle of the third century we find at least two direct
quotations from the epistles to the Romans and Ephesians in the
writings of Origen. The references direct and indirect of these early
writers of centuries two and three were made exclusively from the
seven epistles contained in the second or middle form of recension
only. Eusebius of Ccesarea, the Church historian in the first half of the
fourth century, gives us a full and definite account of the Ignatian
letters, quoting from each of them, but only from the seven of this
recension. From the age of Eusebius onward — that is, from the middle of the
fourth century — " the testimony is of the most varied kind. The
epistles of Ignatius appear, whole or in part, not only in the original

APPENDIX 0. 533
Greek, but in Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Latin, etc. They are abridged,
expanded, imitated. ... No early Christian writing outside the
Canon of the New Testament scripture is attested by witnesses so many
and so various. . . . And in this many-tongued chorus there is not
one dissentient voice."
Throughout the whole period of Christian history before the
Reformation not a suspicion of their genuineness is breathed by friend
or foe. The INTERNAL EVIDENCE furnished by the seven epistles is equally
strong. Bishop Lightfoot, in his long and exhaustive treatise, partitions
this internal evidence into five or six groups : — (1) The historical and
geographical circumstances ; (2) the ecclesiastical conditions ; (3) the
theological polemics ; (4) the literary obligations ; (5) the personality
of the writer ; and (6) the style and diction of the letters.
On the first point, the historical surroundings of the famous
martyrdom, much has been said as to the improbability of the long
journey from Antioch to the Roman amphitheatre. But this is well
answered by an investigation into the practices of that age of Trajan,
when the enormous number of victims required for the Imperial games
is taken into account. After his second Dacian triumph in a.d. 106,
for instance, the Emperor celebrated games in the metropolis which
lasted 123 days, and in which some 11,000 wild and tame beasts were
slaughtered, and as many as 10,000 gladiators fought. For these
bloody entertainments the Governors in the provinces no doubt were
ev6i- on the search for victims.
A small escort, like that which guarded Ignatius, would pick up
detachments of prisoners condemned to die, at different places on the
route. Just such a reinforcement of the sad convoy, Polycarp tells us,
was annexed to the company of Ignatius at Philippi ; we find, too,
references to this practice in classical writers.
The devotion of friends, the pressing round him of devotees duruig
that weary journey, the attention and reverent admiration of so many
at the various halting places on that triumphal march of the Christian
martyr, is reproduced with marvellous accuracy in the curious Satire
upon the Cynics and the Christians by the Pagan Lucian. The
romance, De Morte Peregrini, above mentioned, so exactly pictures
scenes from the journey of Ignatius, that not a few scholars think that
Lucian, writing circa a.d. 165, drew much of his brilliant, though
sarcastic, Christian portraiture from the story. Be this how it may,
Lucian would not have filled his recital with circumstances impossible
or even improbable.

534 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
The geographical notices * in the letters are absolutely accurate.
The ecclesiastical conditions,* moreover, incidentally described therein,
perfectly accord with all that we know of the govemment and internal
arrangements of the Christian Church in the early years of the second
century ; while the theological polemics * are exactly what we should
expect, neither more or less developed than we should look for at that
early period in the Church's history.
Till the days of the Reformation, then, the Ignatian epistles were
accepted without dispute. On the revival of learning, however, in the
sixteenth century certain misgivings on the part of scholars began to
arise, owing to manifest historical errors discovered in the longer
recension which was commonly used in the middle ages.
At the period of the Reformation, Protestant controversialists like
Calvin were bitterly offended at the overwhelming testimony to
episcopacy contained in these letters, and this school angrily con
demned them as spurious. Milton in 1641, and the Puritan writers,
renewed the attack with fierce denunciation. Archbishop Ussher in
A.D. 1644, however, with his wonderful erudition and critical genius,
largely restored the original text by the aid of some ancient Latin
MSS., sweeping away the five extra epistles, and purging the text of
the genuine letters of the interpolated matter ; while Isaac Voss, in
A.D. 1646, published six out of the seven authentic epistles in the
original Greek from a recently discovered Florentine MS. (The
Greek text of the remaining epistle to the Romans, missing in Voas's
discovery, was found about half a century later.) The work of Ussher
and Voss in the restoration of the original text has been criticised
again and again ; but in the main the accuracy of their labours has
been established by the subsequent investigation of scholars ; and the
publication of the great scholarly work of Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham,
on the apostolic fathers, put out in the latter years of the nineteenth
century, has virtually closed the question for ever. We are now assured
that we possess the precious seven epistles of Ignatius in their entirety,
purged from all the additional matter which had gradually gathered
round the original compositions of the martyr Bishop of Antioch.
(The seven authentic epistles of S. Ignatius, translated, occupy
some 32 large octavo pages, printed in fairly good type.)
* These various points, which are only just touched upon in this brief note, are
all discussed at great length, with rare learning and profound scholarship, by Bishop
Lightfoot, who has made that period, and the position occupied by Ignatius,
peculiarly his own. See Apostolic Fathers, S. Ignatius and S. Polycarp, vol. i.,
vi., pp. 354-430. Lightfoot closes his long and e^auative dissertation thus :
— " On these grounds we are constrained to accept the Seven Epistles of the
Middle form aa the genuine work of Ignatius."

APPENDIX 0. 5o5

SECTION II. — THE ACTS OF MARTYRDOM.
These "Acts" we possess in five forms. Three of these must be
set aside as evidently combinations of two older documents.
These two older documents may be termed the Antiochene and
Roman Acts respectively. Of these two the Roman may be safely
disregarded ; internal evidence condemns it as pure romance, the pro
duct of an age considerably posterior to that of the saint of whose
" passion " it professedly gives a detailed account.
The other document, the " Antiochene Acts " of martyrdom, is con
sidered by many serious critics, notably by Archbishop Ussher,
Pearson, Leclerc, and lately by the French scholar and writer Allard
(end of nineteenth century), as being substantially genuine ; largely
spurious no doubt in its present form, but based upon an early and
authentic document incorporated in the present later text which has
come down to us, it has obtained a wide circulation, and is read as an
authoritative piece not only by Greek-speaking Christians, but also in
Armenia and in all the churches of Latin Christianity.
On the other hand Bishop Lightfoot, after a searching examination,
decides that the " Acts " in question have no claim to be regarded as
an authentic document; but, at the same time, he carefully adds his
opinion that possibly they embody some earlier document, and thus
may preserve a residuum of genuine tradition. This eminent scholar
especially dwells on the later portion of the narrative, which professes
to be related by eye-witnesses : " I cannot help feeling impressed," he
says, "with the air of truthfulness, or, at least, of verisimilitude, in
some incidents in the latter portion of the narrative ... I should
be disposed to believe that the martyrologist had incorporated into
the latter portion of his narrative a contemporary letter of the martyr's
companions, containing an account of the journey from Philippi (to
Rome) and the death, although freely interpolating and altering it
when he was so disposed."
He suggests the fifth or sixth century as the probable date for the
composition or redaction of the Antiochene Acts in their present form.

636

APPENDIX D.

NOTES ON THE PASSION OF S. PERPETUA.
(1) The different writers in the " Passion." — This well-known inci
dent in the history of the Christian Church in North Africa consists of
three distinct pieces welded into one narrative by a redactor or editor,
who, no doubt, was a contemporary of Perpetua and her companions.
Its great interest consists in the memoranda or notes of Perpetua
relating to her prison experiences, among which were those remarkable
dreams which she relates in singularly vivid language. A short piece
incorporated with the narrative of Perpetua purports to have been
written by one of her fellow-prisoners, Saturus, once her teacher in the
Faith, containing the memories of a dream or vision of his shortly
before his martyrdom.
A brief introduction, and a somewhat lengthy but most graphic and
eloquent account of the last scenes in the arena when Perpetua and her
companions suffered, is by another hand — that of the redactor or editor
— who, he tells us, added this narrative to Perpetua's memoranda, in
fulfilment of a promise made to her before her martyrdom.
The variations in style and composition between these three por
tions are marked. The vocabulary used is very different in each of the
cases. The " memories " of Perpetua and the one little narrative of
Saturus are perfectly simple and unrestrained ; the recollections,
indeed, of highly cultured persons, but written down absolutely with
out any attempt at eloquence. The preface and the concluding account
of the martyrdom, on the other hand, are undeniably beautiful, but are
evidently the composition of a trained writer and thinker.
(2) 'Very early use of the " Passion." — It was known to and exten
sively used by Tertullian, the great African writer, at the beginning of
the third century. He was a contemporary of Perpetua's ; indeed,
some consider that Tertullian himself was the redactor we have alluded
to. S. Augustine, writing about the end of the fourth century, cites

APPENDIX D. 537
this " ' Passion ' of Perpetua ' several times. It is the theme of three
of his discourses, and it is quoted at least four times besides in his
writings. (3) The abbreviated Latin " Acts." — The " Passion " is best known to
Church historians through the medium of a condensed edition, generally
known as the " short Latin Acts," read in churches on the day when
S. Perpetua and her companions in martyrdom were commemorated,
the original "Acts" being too long for liturgical use. These shorter
Latin Acts were evidently an abbreviation of the longer form. They
contain, however, a detailed account of the trial of the martyr before
the Roman magistrate, which is not in the original. Some critical
scholars believe that this account is authentic, being based upon an
original proces-verbal which was preserved.
This shorter Latin form of the Acts was used in the older Roman
Church, as well as in the East, and for a long time was contained in
the Roman breviary. Eventually it was omitted to make room for
S. Thomas Aquinas.
(4) Re-discovery of longer form of "Acts." — The longer and more
authentic Latin form was only re-discovered in the seventeenth century,
in the library of the great Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, in
a MS. written partly in the eleventh and partly in the twelfth century ;
and although other MSS. of the Acts are said to exist, the Monte
Cassino MS. is still the basis of the Latin text now used. In 1889
Professor Rendel Harris discovered a complete Greek text of the
martyrdom in the library of the Convent of the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem, the MS. written apparently in the tenth century (of course
copied from an older copy). Allard relates how another Latin MS. of
the " Passion " was lound as late as 1892 iii the Ambrosian Library at
Milan. No doubt, as time goes on, other MSS. will turn up, as the
great libraries are more carefully searched. It is a matter of dispute
whether the original was written in Latin or in Greek. The balance of
evidence seems rather to point to Latin. One argument carries much
weight. In the vision of Saturus it is expressly stated that Perpetua
talked Greek with the bishop or presbyter outside the heavenly gate —
a remark which would be incomprehensible if the original document
had been composed in the Greek language. The Greek version, how
ever, is certainly of a very early date, and is, generally speaking,
admirable. (5) The Visio-ns of S. Perpet-ua. — Distinct from the historical interest
of Perpetua's account of the life led in prison by the Christian accused,
and of the intercourse allowed between the accused and the ordinary
citizens the dreams and visions of Perpetua and Saturus, as related by

538 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
themselves, are most important contributions to our knowledge of the
hope and faith which supported the early Christians all through the
period of their bitter trial, and gave them courage to endure these
sufferings. We have already, in our summary of the " Passion " in the text of
our history, dwelt a little on the frame of mind which would render
such visions or dreams probable. Now much, though not all, of the
framework, so to speak, of these remarkable visions is based on what
we may term the current Christian literature of the age. " It is a
familiar experience with us that all our dreams can frequently be
traced back to thoughts which have been present to our waking
moments, and that their materials, in whatever strange combinations
they may present themselves, are derived largely from our recollec
tions;" but "we shall not for that reason,'' adds the writer of the
above suggestive words, " be tempted to question their genuineness."*
Unmistakably in all the visions in the " Passion " there are many
recollections of scenes and words which we find in Holy Scripture.
The imagery of the Ladder in Perpetua's first dream, for instance, was
suggested, no doubt, by the ladder in Jacob's dream in Genesis. In
the dream relating to Dinocrates, her suffering child -brother, the
great gulf between Abraham's bosom and the place of torment where
the rich man found himself is evidently remembered.
Not a few memories of the scenery and the persons of the apoca
lypse of S. John colour the dreams of Perpetua and Saturus. And
there was another book, written some forty or fifty years before, whioh
had attained to enormous popularity in the Church. This book was
the " Shepherd of Hermas." There we find many curious and in
teresting details which more or less clearly reappear in the visions of
Perpetua and Saturus.
So great was the popularity of the " Shepherd of Hermas " in
many of the early congregations of Christians, that although it never
was counted among the inspired writings included in the New Testa
ment Canon, yet it was not infrequently bound up in the same volume
with the New Testament, and in certain churches was even read in the
public services. Besides the memories of the Old and New Testaments
and of the " Shepherd of Hermas," the influence of other apocalyptic
writings in vogue in the second century was clearly at work ia the
minds of these highly-wrought and earnest confessors.
All these natural suggestions as to the sources of the colouring ot
their scenes, however, by no means exclude the belief that the Lord,
* Prof. Armitage Eobinson, in I'exts and Studies : The Passion of S. Per'
petua. Cambridge, 1891.

APPENDIX D. 539
by means of these visions, directly intended to comfort and support the
souls of His brave suffering witnesses.
(6) Is the "Passion of S. Perpet-ua" a Montanistic writing? — Theo
logians have noticed, and called attention to, the strong Montanistic
colouring, specially observable in the Introduction and Peroration by
the editor and compiler of the " Passion ; " where allusions to the work
of the Holy Spirit, then working with peculiar energy in the Church,
are pointedly made ; the writer evidently assuming that there would
he, in the age in which he was living (the first years of the third
century), a more abundant outpouring of the Holy Ghost than had
ever been the case before. It seems highly probable that the compiler
was a Montanist. Arguing from this, some have suggested that
Perpetua and her companions also belonged to the Montanist sect.
Bishop Freppel in his " Tertullian " strongly and effectually disposes
of this hypothesis, which, if accepted, would diminish the great weight
of the words of Perpetua as a representative of the Catholic Church in
the very first years of the third century. Never, said the learned
Bishop, would the Church have accorded to one tainted with even a
suspicion of the errors of Montanism so eminent a position as that
given to Perpetua, and in. a less degree to her companion Felicitas;
these illustrious confessors with Cyprian, alone among the many North
African martyrs, being included in the famous fourth century cata
logue of saints to be commemorated in the Church of Rome. Their
names appear in the most ancient Canon of the Mass, and their
memories are shrined in the oldest martyrologies. They were the
subject, too, as we have remarked, of three of the extant sermons
of Augustine. (7) The Montanists. — The date of the origin of Montanism has
been variously given. Epiphanius gives two dates, a.d. 127 and a.d.
157 ; Eusebius giving a.d. 173. Little is known of its founder,
Montanus, who was a native of Mysia. On many points of
Christian teaching it was no heresy. The doctrine taught respecting
God and His Christ in no wise differed from Catholic teaching. But
as regards the work of the Holy Ghost, the doctrine of the Montanists
was wild and uncertain. They believed that at intervals the Holy
Spirit descended upon men in more abundant measure, completing and
supplementing the original Christian revelation. They bitterly re
sented their subsequent exclusion from the Communion of the Church,
but they had virtually excommunicated themselves by condemning the
rest of the Christian worid. They professed a stern, rigorous ascetism,
a perfection of manners, so to speak, different from others. Their fasts
were longer and more severe. Their views on marriage were most

540 EAELY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
unpractical ; if they did not absolutely condemn it, they hardly suffered
it, while a second marriage was in their eyes an unpardonable sin. In
their counsels of perfection they pressed upon Christians the sternest
and most austere life. The ordinary Christians in their rigorous creed
occupied a low and inferior position.
It is not too much to say that the often deficient teaching of the
Catholic Church as to the influence of the Holy Ghost was owing in
great measure to a reaction against the extravagances which the
Montanists loved to connect with a special illapse of the Third Person
of the Blessed Trinity. To take well-known instances of this strange
omission in Christian teaching, in that most ancient hymn of adoration,
the " Gloria in Excelsis " (sung or said at the conclusion of the Com
munion Office), the Blessed Spirit is only mentioned quite at the close,
and then only with inexplicable brevity. In the Middle Ages, in the
" Imitation of Christ," the most popular devotional work Christianity
has ever put out — a popularity which knows no sign of decrease or
abatement as time wears on — a treatise which is loved and prized still
in all the churches of the West by all schools of thought, scarcely a
mention of the Person and office or of the blessed influence of God the
Holy Ghost occurs.
(8) The Pregnancy of Felicitas. — That the state of Felicitas should
prevent her from being exposed to the wild beasts was a well-known
practice in accordance with Roman law. So Ulpian [Digest xlviii.,
xix. 3), " PrsBgnantis mulieris . . . poena diffei-tur quoad pariat."
The Roman law here has passed into the laws of England, and is
carefully observed when capital punishment is in question.
(9) The condemned Christians being vested as idol priests a-nd
priestesses. — The martyrs, we read, bitterly resented the attempt to
vest them with the dress and ornaments of Ceres and Saturn. These
deities were chosen because in Carthage, where the deadly drama was
to be played, Ceres represented Tanit, and Saturn Baal-Ammon, the
two greatest divinities of the Carthaginians.
(10) Honours paid by the Church to the Memory of Perpetua and
Felicitas. — In addition to the reverence showed by the Church to these
famous North African martyrs, mentioned in the text, we know that
in the fifth century, probably at an earlier date even, a basilica had
been erected at Carthage over the " Memoria," or chapel-tomb of
Perpetua and Felicitas.

541

APPENDIX E.

EUSEBIUS THE HISTORIAN, AND LACTANTIUS.
Eusebius, Bishop of CsBsarea, was born circa a.d. 260-5. Prom his
earliest days he seems to have been an earnest student of sacred
literature. While still comparatively young he became connected with
Pamphilus, the master of the Theological School of Cagsarea, which
possessed a famous church library; to the care and augmentation of
which Eusebius paid special attention. When in a.d. 303 the
Diocletian persecution burst on the Church, Pamphilus was arrested,
and suffered martyrdom two years later. During the imprisonment
of his friend and master, Eusebius was in constant attendance on him.
After Pamphilus' death Eusebius withdrew to Tyre, and subsequently
to Egypt, where he was arrested for the Faith's sake. He was, how
ever, soon released. Potammon, the Confessor, in later years, charged
him with procuring his freedom by apostasy. " Who art thou,
Eusebius," said the rough and impetuous Confessor as they sat together
at the Council of Tyre, "to judge Athanasius? Didst not thou sit
with me in prison at the time of the tyrants ? They plucked out my
eye for the confession of the truth ; thou earnest forth unharmed.
How didst thou escape 1 " But the grave charge is incredible. Had
it been true, the elevation of Eusebius to the see of Caesarea not long
afterwards would have been impossible ; never would an ecclesiastic
have been nominated to so important a position had he been an
apostate in the persecution. Besides, never would one, who in the
time of peril had been a renegade, have set himself to search out the
precious memories of the great persecution, and have devoted so con
siderable a portion of his life-work to do honour to the noble martyr
army. The short story of the martyrs of Palestine,* and the eighth
and ninth books of the ecclesiastical history of Eusebius, are the most
* The story of the " Martyrs of Palestine " is included in the Eighth Book of
the S. F., to which it forms a kind of Appendix; the chapters being numbered
separately.

542 EABLY CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
serious and important contemporary pieces we possess on the subject
of the terrible Diocletian persecution. Some surprise has been ex
pressed at the historian's departure from his usual custom of dwelling
on the general history of the Church, and confining himself, in the books
treating of this period, to the Eastern area. The reason no doubt
was that Eusebius, sensible of the deep importance of the last terrible
struggle of Christianity against Paganism, restricted himself to those
events of which he had been an eye-witness, or could be assured of the
evidence of eye-witnesses. Hence his silence as to the trials of the
Church in the Western provinces of Rome.
The whole ecclesiastical history, of which these two books form a
part, consists of ten books, the last being mainly occupied by a relation
of the happy consequences which immediately followed the " Peace of
the Church." But it is in the " Memoranda " contained in Books I.
to VII. that Eusebius has won his undying title to honour. These are
simply priceless. They are not skilfully put together, it is true : the
arrangement is sadly wanting in method, and often even in graphic
interest ; but they give us a mass of information at first hand, stretch
ing over the whole period of the trial-time of the Christians, especially
valuable in the history of the second century, owing to the numerous
quotations from writings of that age now lost. No doubt, when
Eusebius wrote these "lost works" were still extant, and were to be
found in the great library of Csesarea, with which he was so intimately
connected. Of his other works, perhaps, the Chronicon, in two books, is the
most important for students of Church history. It comprises an his
torical sketch, with chronological tables of the more memorable events
in the history of the world from the times of Abraham to the twentieth
year of the reign of the Emperor Constantine. In his " Life of
Constantine," an important study, Eusebius has been charged with
writing rather from the stand-point of a courtier than from that of an
historian. That he was a fervid admirer of the great sovereign, who
was his friend and patron, is undoubted ; but it must be borne in mind
that the "Life"' was written after Constantine's death. No mere
sordid feeling then could have coloured the writer's memoir of his dead
friend and sovereign. Moreover, many of the documents quoted in the
" Life " reappear in the works of Lactantius, Augustine, and others,
these authors deriving their knowledge of the events in question largely
from the State archives.
As a theologian he has been severely criticised ; Newman, in his
history of the Arians of the fourth century, charging him with " openly
siding with the Arians.'' On the other hand, well-known Anghcan

APPENDIX E. 543
scholars — e.g. Bishop Bull — defend his orthodoxy. In truth, the great
historian was neither Arian nor Athanasian ; he was the representa
tive of the indeterminate theology of the Church on the great points
in dispute before the formulae known as Athanasian and Arian had
become stereotyped. In other words, he was too old-fashioned to
readily adopt formulas which were unknown to the school in which he
had been trained. But he was certainly never an Arian. Eusebius,
however, is important as a historian rather than as a theologian.
This great writer, to whom the Catholic Church owes so deep a
debt for his life-long researches, and for his faithful guardianship of
so many treasures — which but for his patient work would have been
lost to men — cannot certainly be charged with ambition ; for when in
late life he might have filled the great patriarchate of Antioch, he pre
ferred simply to retain his earlier and less distinguished position, feel
ing doubtless that the higher office would have interfered with the life-
task which he so well discharged.
None of the fathers — not even Origen or Jerome — were his equals
in erudition; and those who justly complain of his dry uninteresting
style, forget that it is just this very fault which constitutes the strange
charm and the priceless value of his greatest work^ his ecclesiastical
history. He gives us the very words of the ancient Christian writers
whom he quotes, making no attempt to fashion and mould them into
a brilliant and attractive history. Lactantius.
A FEW words on another and far less famous writer than Eusebius,
to whom, however, we owe much of our knowledge of the history of the
times of Diocletian and Constantine, will be of interest to the historical
student. Lactantius, whose historical treatise especially — De Mortibus
Persecutorum — is of the greatest use to the chronicler of the events of
the last persecution, was a writer of no little power. Prom the beauty
of his style he has been called the " Christian Cicero." Little is known
of his early life. At the invitation of Diocletian he became a public
teacher in Nicomedia, the favourite city of the great Emperor, where
no doubt his intimacy with the master of the Roman world gave him
rare opportunities of becoming acquainted with the circumstances which
led up to the great persecution. Later he was asked by Constantine
the Great to become tutor to his eldest son, the ill-fated Crispus ; and
for a considerable period he enjoyed the friendship of the Christian
Emperor. These rare opportunities of learning much of the secret history of

544 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
the eventful epoch were well used by Lactantius. His most important
work, Divinarum Institut-lonum Libri Septem, concerns itself rather
with theology and Christian philosophy than with history ; still, it is
not wanting in historical references of real value. But his famous
treatise on the " Deaths of the Persecutors " is a very valuable, though
somewhat rhetorical, piece of contemporary history. It sets out to
describe God's judgments on the persecutors of His Church from Nero
to Diocletian ; but by far the greater part of the work is devoted to
the story of the harrying the Christian communities by Diocletian and
liis colleagues in the Empire. Of much of this harrying Lactantius was
an eye-witness, and he was personally acquainted with several of the
masters of the Roman world at the period of the last terrible conflict
of Paganism and Christianity.
Some doubts have arisen respecting the authorship of this treatise.
In the earlier printed editions of Lactantius the piece in question is
wanting; it was first brought to light and printed by Stephen Baluze iuA.o.
1679, from an ancient MS. Those critics who question the authorship
ascribe it to some more obscure rhetorician of the same period. But
the intimate knowledge of the inner history of the times displayed by
the writer is a strong argument in support of Lactantius, whose posi
tion as a famous rhetorician, held in high esteem at Court by men like
Constantine (who subsequently entrusted him with the education of
his son), would have given him special access to the inner circles of the
Imperial Court. The style, too, and expression of the treatise are in
perfect harmony with the other known writings of the author. Allard,
the French scholar, the most recent historian of the period, in his great
and exhaustive work on the persecutions, makes copious use of it as a
book " dont I'authenticite n'est plus contestee." (Persecution de
Diocletien — vol. i., Paris, 1898 — Introduction, iv.)
Gibbon fiercely assails Lactantius with the abuse and sarcasm of
which he was so skilled a master, but his animosity was evoked by the
bitter hatred of Paganism and its defenders which so strongly colours
the writings he attacks. To some extent the estimate of the great his
torian has influenced the judgment which later writers have generally
formed of the works of this most interesting and valuable contemporary
witness.

545

APPENDIX F.

THE EARLY HERESIES OF THE CHURCH.
The Christian Church from the earliest days of its existence had to
meet and combat strange, and to us somewhat unaccountable, heresies.
As these for the most part disappeared before the first three centuries
had run their course, leaving few traces behind them, we shall not
weary the student with any long detailed account of them. The
Manichoean heresy, a late development of Gnosticism, in some of its
developments alone seems to have lived on into the Middle Ages.
Gnosticism is a name which primarily suggests a claim to more
than ordinary knowledge. The following rough characteristic features
generally belonged to its professors.
(a) Gnosticism would not now be classed as a " heresy " at all. In
none of its various developments was it a corruption of Christianity.
It was in all respects a different religion, which engrafted certain
Christian ideas into its several systems. The term " heresy " was
used by early writers in a greatly extended sense. Gnosticism probably
made little headway among the Christian ccrmmunities themselves ;
its malignant influences affected only their fringes — but no doubt it
attracted largely their Pagan neighbours in different countries to its
mystic speculations.
(6) As a rule all Gnostic sects held that evil inheres in matter.
(c) The result of this belief led these "heretics" to deny the
resurrection of the body altogether, as they regarded death as freeing
the soul once for all from the state of imprisonment in the body.
(d) Our world was not formed by the supreme God, but by another
Being, who had proceeded from Him, not directly, but through sue
cessive generations of spiritual Beings. This Being, to whom the
creation of the world was attributed, is generally termed the Demiurge.
Him the Jews worshipped. He was the God of the Old Testament.
In the various Gnostic systems this Demiurge, or Creator of the world,
J J

546 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
occupied different positions. In some of their schools he is represented
as hostile to the Supreme ; in others, a subordinate and unconscious
instrument of the will of the Supreme.
As a result of this generally received Gnostic article of belief, the
Old Testament was usually rejected, and by some Gnostic schools was
even abhorred.
These fantastic teachings seem to have appeared very early, and
were probably alluded to by both S. Paul and S. John. As time
advanced the Gnostic systems grew more complex and elaborate, each
particular sect — -for there were many — fashioning and shaping them
according to their own liking, largely drawing upon Oriental religions
for their grotesque and often uncouth fancies.
Valentinus, one of the ablest and most imaginative of these teachers,
who flourished about the middle of the second century, or rather earlier,
elaborated perhaps the most popular form of Gnostic belief. Prom the
first principle, self-existent and perfect, proceeded various grades of
Beings, or " -^ons." Prom the first grade, by successive generation s
emanated other and lower Beings. Among these Christ* is found, and
the Holy Spirit, and still later the Demiurge, who created Man.
To dwell upon these curious and fanciful speculations would be, in
a history of the Christian Church, an unprofitable task, especially as
well-nigh the only materials for such an investigation are contained
in the writings of certain Christian fathers, notably Irenseus and
* The Christian idea of redemption evidently was not absent from the Gnostic
conception, but the declarations about Christ in its difEerent schools were ex
ceedingly various. Even amongst the Valentinian teachers, as far as we can
gather, very different conceptions existed of Him. It seems that Valentinus him
self truly acknowledged neither the Humanity nor the Divinity of the Saviour;
generaUy, Gnosticism taught that Jesus Christ, abhorring all commumon with
matter, assumed a docetic or apparitional body. Among the Gnostic teachers
Marcion, who taught in the last quarter of the second century, perhaps alone among
the Gnostic leaders, professed to be purely Christian in his doctruie, and took for
the basis of his system the New Testament scriptures ; but here he was eclectic.
Among the gospels he only acknowledged S. Luke's, and ten of the Pauline
epistles ; freely cutting out, even from these writings, any statements which were at
variance with his own peculiar and fantastic theories. The other books of the New
Testament he considered were tainted with Judaism. He rejected without ex
ception all the books of the Old Testament. Marcion, in common with other
Gnostic masters, held that Matter was evil, aud that Matter had its Lord, eternal
aud evil. He taught, too, that between the Lord of Matter and the Supreme God
existed a third Being, the Demiurge (who created Man), who probably was an
emanation from the Supreme ; but this is uncertain. This Demiurge was the God
of the Jews. The work of the Demiurge in some respects was independent of the
Supreme God, and hence faulty. Jesus Christ was sent by the Supreme God to
earth to redeem man without the knowledge of the Deiuinrge.

APPENDIX F. 547
Hippolytus, Irenseus wrote in the last quarter of the second century,
and Hippolytus a very few years later. To these may be added Origen,
who wrote about a quarter ofa century after Hippolytus, and Epiphanius
(second half of the fourth century). These writers being the bitterest
opponents of the Gnostic theories, their presentment of them was
inevitably coloured by this intense enmity. The charges especially
brought against the great Gnostic leaders of impurity and corruption in
their lives must be viewed with some suspicion.
But when all these allowances for possible exaggerations or even
misrepresentations on the part of their Christian adversaries have been
made, when it has been conceded that the " fanciful and grotesque " in
these Gnostic systems has been perhaps unduly pressed, when the
charges of impurity and lawlessness in their way of life have been, if
not dropped, at least largely modified in the case of many of these
followers of Gnosticism; there remains, absolutely proven^ the fact
that^ Gnosticism in its varied and various developments was not
Christianity, not even a perverted Christianity, but a perfectly dif
ferent religion. The few points of resemblance, here and there notice
able, in no way affected the general Gnostic teaching. As set forth
by Menander, Cerinthus, Basilides, and Valentinus, and even Marcion
— to name a few of the most conspicuous masters — it was to all intents
and purposes a new religion.
With one or two possible exceptions, the actual writings of the
Gnostics have disappeared. In later times a Gnostic hymn of some
length was discovered in the Syriac "Acts of Judas Thomas, the
Apostle." The hymn, however, has no apparent connection with the
" Acts of Thomas," no possible bearing on the narrative therein con
tained ; it is only found in one MS. (now in the British Museum Library),
and has evidently been borrowed from some extraneous source and
inserted in this MS., which only dates from the tenth century. It has
been accurately described by a modern scholar in the following terms :
"We have here an ancient Gnostic hymn relating to the soul, which is
sent from its heavenly home to the earth, and there forgets both its
origin and its mission until it is aroused by a revelation from on high ;
thereupon it performs the task assigned to it, and returns to the upper
regions, when it is reunited to the heavenly robe, its ideal counterpart,
and enters the presence of the highest celestial Powers.'' From internal
evidence the hymn must have been written before a.d. 224, and prob
ably was put out some years before this date. It contains several of
the well-known Gnostic "heresies." (1) It regards the separation of
the soul from the body as a blessing, representing the human body as
a filthy and unclean garb. (2) It holds the theory of the existence

548 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
of a number of lesser Gods ; that is to say, of eternal Beings subor
dinate to the Supreme God. (3) It never, however, refers to the New
Testament, or even alludes to the historical facts on which Christianity
is founded. We have spoken at some length of this recently discovered " Great
Hymn of the Soul," which is a poem of extraordinary beauty ; because,
as far as we know, it is the only * piece of pure Gnostic literature ex
tant which has not come down to us through the medium of Christian
writers. And while we acknowledge its high merit as a striking com
position, fuU of beauty of thought, and coloured with pure and noble
ideals, it fully bears out the conception we have formed of Gnosticism,
as a system altogether alien from Christianity ; possessing, indeed, few
points in common with it, save the shadows of a few names and a
certain number of borrowed doctrines, which when examined closely are
found to possess little likeness to the original Christian teaching.
The rough dates of the Gnostic masters are as follows : Simon
Magus, the contemporary of S. Peter ; we hear of him as early as
A.D. 34-5. He is usually considered the pioneer of Gnosticism.
Menander, his disciple, carried on his teaching. Cerinth-us was a
contemporary of S. John towards the end of the first century. He
seems to have differed in his teaching from the later Gnostic schools
in his estimate of the Old Testament. He accepted the Law and the
Prophets, but considered the Old Testament teaching as proceeding
from a Being (the Demiurge) not only inferior to the Supreme, but
even ignorant of Him. He did not apparently share in the Gnostic
views of the inherent evil of Matter, as he taught the resurrection of
the body. The only portion of the New Testament that he received
was a mutilated gospel of S. Matthew.
Saturninus and Basilides, respectively the founders of Syrian and
Alexandrian Gnosticism, were traditionally disciples of Menander, the
pupil of Simon Magus. The school of Saturninus had comparatively
little influence, and soon disappeared. The date usually assigned to
him is circa a.d. 110-134.
Basilides, circa a.d. 135, taught the usual Gnostic doctrine of
various emanations from the Supreme God,. one of the lowest of whom
was Creator of the world and was the God of the Old Testament. He
professed to derive his system from S. Matthias and from one Glaucias,
an interpreter of S. Peter. His teaching obtained a wide popularity.
Valentinus flourished about the middle of the second century, or a
* With the possible exception of the treatise nia-ns iro^to, reg-arded by some
scholars as an original composition by Valentinus.

APPENDIX F. 549
little earlier. His system we have already briefly dwelt upon. It was
of a more elaborate and complex character than that of any other of
the Gnostic teachers, and he counted among his adherents a more
numerous following. His influence was probably largely owing to
his brilliant pupil Heracleon (circa a.d. 170), whose commentaries,
especially on S. John, were widely read. Clement of Alexandria,
writing early in the second century, calls him the most famous of the
Valentinian school, and gives us two extracts from his commentaries ;
while Origen has preserved no less than some forty-eight extracts,
several of them being of considerable length.
It must ever be borne in mind that, with the one or possibly two ex
ceptions mentioned above, all our knowledge of the once famous Gnostic
teachers is derived from their bitter opponents, and from the fragments
of Heracleon preserved to us by Origen. Some of these excerpts are
undoubtedly of great power, and, as has been well said, " enable us to
set their theology in a more worthy light than does the fantastic
' system ' which Irenseus and others have given." But, as we have
said above, their teaching can in no wise be looked upon as simply
"heretical" The religion which they taught was absolutely distinct,
and their speculations find little, if any, support whatever in the teach
ing of the gospels and epistles of the New Testament Canon.
Judaic Heresies.
There was one specially grave danger to which the early Church
was exposed, and from which after some struggling she freed herself ;
but for a time the issue seemed doubtful. What was to be her atti
tude towards the Jewish people, from the heart of which she sprang ?
In other words, was Christianity to be a Jewish or a Universal Church ?
Were the Gentile nations who accepted Christianity to be admitted on
somewhat hard and degrading terms into the Jewish fold ; or, on the
other hand, were the Jews to become Christian, acknowledging that
the ancient doors of separation between them and the outside world
were now broken down, and that all men were equally the people of
God? Very soon the great question was decided. By apostolic decree, '
by apostolic teaching everywhere. Gentile liberty and Gentile equality
in all respects was insisted upon. It was decided that the rite of cir
cumcision should not be imposed upon the Gentiles, and that Jewish
laws and customs should not be pressed upon the foreign strangers
flocking into the Church. Gradually without restriction Gentiles were
admitted, faith in the name of Jesus and a pure devoted life being the

550 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
only requirements necessary before they received the baptismal seal of
membership. But not a few of the Jews were indignant at these concessions;
indignant at the bare thought that they, the chosen people, were to
be merged into one great fold, with Gentiles, whom they had so
despised, for their comrades in the love of God. To many Jews the
doctrine of the great " Pharisee " Christian Paul, " that in Christ was
neither Jew nor Greek," was positively hateful.
No doubt the jealousy in the Christian synagogues was for a season
the gravest danger the Church had to encounter. We shall never
know how great was the peril. With perhaps the exception of the
Thessalonian letters, written too early to be affected by this deadly
struggle, all Paul's letters are more or less coloured by this internal
strife. And we come upon burning references to it in S. John's
" Revelation," when he flames out, for instance, twice over, in the
letters to the Smyrna and Philadelphia churches, with such words
as, "I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews but are
not, but are the synagogue of Satan." Zeal for a '' Law '' which had
done its work was the prime danger the first Christian missionaries
had to encounter ; it had to be overcome, for the question was one of
life or death.
But a terrible and unlooked-for catastrophe happened, which largely
cleared the way for the brave and generous preachers of the " open
door " for the Gentiles. The awful close of the Jewish rebellion in
A.D. 70, the ruin of Jerusalem which followed the burmng of the
Temple, the utter overthrow of the Jewish nation, well-nigh swept
away the Jew from the scene. The cessation of the Temple services,
the utter impossibility of any longer observing the Mosaic ordinances,
save in a very attenuated manner, disarmed much of the fierce opposi
tion ; and the work was completed by the second frightful catastrophe
to the Jews in Hadrian's reign (a.d. 135). Henceforth the work of
the preachers of the "open door'' for the Gentiles was easier. Effective
Jewish opposition was in fact crushed out ; the Christian communities
were left to pursue their life virtually unhindered, unhampered by
Jewish prejudices and Jewish passions.
After the ruin of Judaism in the final catastrophe of Hadrian's
war in a.d. 135, there remained of the once fairly numerous class of
the Christians of the Circumcision only a poor remnant who still clung
to their cherished traditions ; but these were neither numerous nor
powerful enough to hinder the onward march of Christianity.
In the middle of the second century, not many years after the
catastrophe of a.d. 135, Justin Martyr tells us that there were two

APPENDIX F. 551
classes of (professedly Christian) Judaisers ; those who, retaining the
Mosaic law themselves, did not wish to impose it on their Gentile
brethren, and those who demanded conformity in all Christians alike
as a condition of communion and a means of salvation.
The first of these classes, generally known as Nazareiies, cannot be
fairly classed as heretics, and were in no way a hindrance to the pro
gress of Christianity. They were mostly orthodox in their creed, and
held communion with Catholic Christians. The Nazarenes were few
in number, and for the most part dwelt in remote districts in Palestine
beyond the Jordan. Some scholars hold that the curious and ancient
writing known as " The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs," vari
ously dated by scholars from a.d. 100 to a.d. 150, was a Nazarene
work, and, as far as it goes, fairly representative of their opinions.
This "friendly" Judaising sect still existed as late as the close of the
fourth century.
The Ebionites, however, were a much larger and more important body.
They were to be found not only in Palestine and Syria, but in Rome
and in other great cities where the dispersed Jews congregated. They
were bitterly opposed to Gentile believers who refused to conform to
the Mosaic law and customs. They were thoroughly unorthodox,
too, in their opinions, holding our Lord to be a mere man, the son of
Joseph and Mary, although they regarded Him as Messiah. They
hated S. Paul, and, of course, rejected his writings. The famous pseudo-
Clementine writings, known as " The Homilies " and " The Recogni
tions," issued from this hostile heretical sect. They were in active
antagonism to the orthodox Christian Church about the second half
of the second century in Rome, were mischievous, too, in other popu
lous centres, and we hear of them as still a considerable body in the
fourth century, after which they disappear from view. It has been
suggested with great probability that they became gradually absorbed
into Jewish communities, with whom they possessed greater affinities
than with their so-called brethren of the Catholic Church.*
* The meaning of the appellation "Ebionite" is doubtful. Tertullian derives it
from one Ebion, a master or teacher of tbe sect ; but against this it is urged that no
mention of such a person occurs in the references of Irenseus or Origen. A more
probable derivation is from th3 Hebrew " ebion "—poor— from the overty of their
doctrines, or more likely fi'om the poverty of their condition; the Jewish communities
from whom this sect would be largely recruited, especially after the dispersion in
A,D. 135, being as a rule notorious for their poverty, at least as far as outward
appearance could be trusted.

552

APPENDIX G.

EXTRACTS FROM LACTANTIUS AND EUSEBIUS.
showing the nature op persecutions endured by the christians
under diocletian, galerius, and maximin daia. a.d. 303-313.
Lactantius — De Mortibus Persecutorum.
" Presbyters and other officers of the Church were seized, without
evidence by witnesses or confession, condemned, and together with
their families led to execution. In buming alive no distinction of
sex or age was regarded ; and because of their great multitude, they
were not burnt one after another, but a herd of them were encircled
with the same fire : and servants, having millstones tied about their
necks, were cast into the sea.
"Nor was the persecution less grievous on the rest of the people of
God ; for the judges, dispersed through allthe temples, sought to compel
everyone to sacrifice.
" The prisons were crowded. Tortures hitherto unheard of were
invented ; and lest justice should be inadvertently administered to
a Christian, altars were placed in the courts of justice, hard by the
tribunal, that every litigant might offer incense before his cause could
be heard." — Chapter xv.
" He began this mode of execution by edicts against the Christians,
commanding that after torture and condemnation they should be burnt
at a slow fire. They were fixed to a stake, and first a moderate flame
was applied to the soles of their feet, until the muscles, contracted by
buming, were torn from their bones ; then torches, lighted and put out
again, were directed to all the members of their bodies, so that no part
had any exemption." — Chapter xxi.

APPENDIX G. 553
Eusebius — H. E., Book VIII.
"But of the rest, each encountered various kinds of torments.
Here was one that was scourged with rods, there another tormented
with the rack and excruciating scrapings, in which some at the time
endured the most terrible death; others again passed through other
torments in the struggle." — Clw/pter iii.
"Who can behold without amazement all this: their conflicts, after
scourging, with bloody beasts of prey, when they were cast as food to
leopards and bears, wild boars and bulls, goaded with fire, and branded
with glowing iron ? And in each of these, who can fail to admire the
wonderful patience of these noble martyrs ? At these scenes we have
been present ourselves, when we also observed the Divine power of our
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ Himself, present, and effectually dis
played in them ; when for a long time the devouring wild beasts would
not dare either to touch or approach the bodies of these pious men, but
directed their violence against others that were anywhere stimulating
them from without." — Chapter vii.
"But one cannot but admire those that sufl'ered also in their native
land, where thousands, both men, women and children, despising the
present life for the sake of our Saviour's doctrine, submitted to death
in various shapes.
" Some after being tortured with scrapings and the rack, and the
most dreadful scourgings and other innumerable agonies, which one
might shudder to hear, were finally committed to the flames ; some
plunged and drowned in the sea ; others voluntarily ofiering their own
heads to the executioners ; others dying in the midst of their tor
ments ; some wasted away by famine, and others again fixed to the
cross. Some, indeed, were executed as malefactors commonly were ;
others, more cruelly, were nailed with the head downwards, and kept
alive until they were destroyed by starving on the cross itself." —
Chapter viii.
" And what language would suffice to recount their virtues and their
bravery under every trial ?
" For as everyone had the liberty to abuse them, some beat them
with clubs, some with rods, some with scourges, others again with
thongs, others with ropes. And the sight of these torments was varied
and multiplied, exhibiting excessive malignity. For some had their
hands tied behind them and were suspended on the rack, and every
limb was stretched on machines." — Chapter x.
" Some were mutilated by having their noses, ears, and hands cut
off and the rest of their limbs and parts of their bodies cut to pieces,

554 EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.
as was the case at Alexandria. Why should we revive the recollection
of those at Antioch, who were roasted on grates of fire, so as not to
kill them immediately, but to torture them with a lingering punish
ment? " — Cha27ter xii.
" The men bore fire, sword, and crucifixions, savage beasts, and the
depths of the sea ; the maiming of limbs and searing with red-hot
iron, pricking and digging out the eyes, and the mutilations of the
whole body. Also hunger, and mines and prisons ; and, after all, they
chose these sufferings for the sake of religion, rather than transfer to
idols that veneration and worship which is due to God only. The
females, also, no less than the men, were strengthened by the doctrine
of the Divine Word, so that some endured the same trials as the men,
and bore away the same prizes of excellence." — Chapter xiv.
" Some were scourged with innumerable strokes of the lash ; others
racked in their limbs, and galled in their sides with torturing instru
ments ; some with intolerable fetters, by which the joints of their
hands were dislocated. Nevertheless they bore the event, as regu
lated by the secret determinations of God." — Martyrs of Palestine,
Chapter i.
" When the storm had incessantly raged against us into the sixth
year of the persecution, there had been before this a vast number of
confessors of true religion in what is called the porphyry quarry, from
the name of the stone which is found in the Thebais. Of these one
hundred, wanting three, men, women, and young infants, were sent to
the governor of Palestine, who, for confessing the Supreme God and
Christ, had the ankles and sinews of their left legs seared off with a
red-hot iron. Besides this, they had their right eyes first cut out,
together with the lids and pupils, and then seared with red-hot irons,
so as to destroy the eyes to the very roots." — Martyrs of Palestine,
Chapter viii.
" Thus, then, the thirty-nine, at the command of the most execrable
Maximin, were beheaded in one day. And these were the martyrdoms
exhibited in Palestine in the space of eight years, and such was the
persecution in our day. It began, indeed, with the demolition of the
churches, and grew to a great height during the insurrections from
time to time under the rulers. In these, many and various were the
contests of the noble wrestlers in the cause of piety, who presented an
innumerable multitude of martyrs through the whole province, from
Libya, and through all Egypt, Syria, and those of the east, round as
far as those of the region of Ulyricum." — Martyrs of Palestine,
Chapter xiii.

INDEX.

Absolution, Dissensions respecting, 304
" Acta Justini," 189
"Aots of Pilate," 449
" Acts of the Apostles," 21 ; Period covered
by, 25
" Acts " of the martyrs nnder Severus, Lost, 242
" Acts (or Passions) of the Martyrs," 13, 96, 99,
133, 188, 192, 198, 206, 217, 224, 242, 311,
389, 393, 395, 400, 404, 414, 427, 486, 481,
636, 636
Africa, North, Persecutions in, 869
Agnes, S., "Acts " of, 436 ; Cemetery of, 272
Agrippinus, Council under, 359
Alaric and Rome, 279
Alban, S., Martyrdom, 404
Alexander Severus, Emperor, 251 ; favourable
to Christians, 260, 299 ; his death, 252
Alexandria, Catechetical School of, 332 ; the
Church in, 331 ; Persecutions in, 240, 242,
477 ; and S. Marls, 381
AUard's " Histoid of Persecutions," 404
Ambrose, S. , of Milan, 512
Amphitheatre Garaes, Influence on Roman
society, 499
Anencletus, Bishop of Rome, 62
Anicetus, Bishop of Ro]ne, 84
Anthony, S. , 609 ; Life of, by Athanasius, 610
Antiochene " Acts of Martyrdom," 99, 535
Antonines, Emperors, 176
Antoninus Pius, Hostility to the Christians,
177, 179
Apocalypse of S. John, 78
Apollo, Worship of (see Mithras)
"Apologies" for Christianity, 7, 126, 126, 172,
177
"Apology of Aristides," 7, 126, 130
Appian Way, The, 264
Archelaus and Manes, Disputation between, 393,
395
Arianism, 500 ; and Monasticism. 514
Aristides' "Apology tor Christianity," 7, 126,
180
Aries, Council of, 468
Art of the Catacombs, 282
Arval Brothers, The, IBO ; died out, 260
Asclepius, Dialogue of, 476, 470
Asia Minor and Gaul, Close relation of
Churches in, 226
Asia Minor, Tlie Church in, 77, 81, 235, 244
 , Literary pre-eminence of, 225
Athanasius introduces Monasticism into Rome,
510; Life of S.! Anthony, 610; and the
Council of Tyre, 641
"Augustan Histoiy," The, 240, 380
Augustine (of Plippo) and Martyr-Devotion, 491,
501
.  and Monasticism, 510, 612, 613
 , "City OfGod," 603
 , " Confessions " of, 510
 , " De Opere Monachorum," 514
 " Rule," The, 512
Augustus, Emperor, 138 ; head of Roman
religion, 146 ; Restored the Temples, 145
 . Great writers in time of, 146
 'and Home, Worship of, 166, 211, 213
Aurelian, Emperor, 382; Persecutions under.

Aurelius Victor, History by, 474
Ausonius, 484
Babylas, Bislinp of Antioch, 258
Babylon, Symbolic name for Rome, 525
Bacchus aud Sergius, SS., 414
Baptism, Re-baptism, Disi^ute as to, 358, 360,
374, 377
Barbarian invasion and Christianity, 501 et seq.
•  invasions, List of, 502
Barnabas, Epistle of, 7
Basilj S., Monastic " Rule " of, 516
Basilides, Gnostic, 548
Benedict, S., Monastic *' Rule " of, 515, 517
Bilt, B. (Hippolytus), 302
Bishops, Influence ilt Court of Constantine, 468
 of Rome, List of, 298, 370, 522, 528
 , Supremacy of, 344 ; Council of, 424
Britain and Caledonia, Severus' expedition to,
245 ; and the Roman Empire, 421, 426 ;
Constantius Chlorus dies at Yorli, 441 ;
Constantine visits, 441; saluted as Emperor
first in, 441, 454
Burial customs of the Romans, 265
Byzantium captured by Maximin Daia, 465
Ctecilian, Bishop of Carthage, 467
Csesarea, Library of, 542
Callistus, S., 252; and Hippolytus, 294, 803;
Bishop of Rome, 296 ; Barly life of, 294 ;
given charge over the Cemetery, 296 ;
Cemeterj' of, 217, 242, 263, 270, 272, 276, 296,
299, 302, 490, 629
Capraria, Isle of. Monks of, 475
Caracalla, Emperor, 245
Carthage, Church in, 223, 243, 342-369; Dissen
sions in the Church, 313 ; Councils of, 351,
358, 361 ; Disputes as to appointment of
Bishop, 467 ; Rival Bisliops, 407 ; Descrip
tion of, 341 ; Persecutions in, 199, 223, 347,
309
Catacombs (see also Cemeteries) ; Origin of word,
263, 267, 268 ; The, gatherings in, 5, 243,
245, 264, 275, 374, 407 ; Development of,
276 ; " earthed up " to prevent discovery,
269, 277, 279, 374, 423, 437 ; excavations pro
gressing slowly, 277 ; dangerous nature
of work, 111 ; The, become attached to
tlie Church, 263, 276 ; a misnomer, 269
extent of, 269 ; tiieir construction described
264, 270, 278, 282 ; built under gardens, 271
restored by Pope Damasus, 278, 875, 487
489 ; used as liiding places as well as fo
services, 272, 276 ; History of, 272 ; Rever
ence for, .278 ; Early guides Or itineraries to,
279, 281 ; ransacked by the Goths, 279
spoiled by restorations, 280 ; remains ot
dead reuioved to churches, 2S0 ; existence
forgotten, 281 ; Art of, 282 ; Art of, a record
of early Christian beliefs, 283; paintings
and inscriptions— the story they tell, 283 ;
"Orante" figure. The, 284; "The Good
Shepherd," 285 ; Symbols in, 284, 286 ;
Inscriptions in, 287, 437; Virgin Mary,
Pictures of, rai-e in, 288 ; decorations of
Bishop Fabian, 371; Christian assembhes
in, forbidden, 374 ; an enduring memory of

556

EAELY CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.

persecutions, 437 ; restored to Church by
Maxentius, 451 ; Pilgrimages to, 490
Cathedral, The flrst Christian, 462
"Catholic" Church, TJie, 17. 468, 500
Cecilia, S., "Acts" of, 217; Martyrdom of, 218;
Basilica of, 'MS, 2(iS, 272 ; Long preserva
tion of body of, 219 ; last to be martyi-ed in
Rome under Marcus, 221
Celibacy (see Marriage)
Ceraiiteries {see also Catacombs) ; Christiau,
267, 272, 274, 275 ; Management of, 275 ;
Development uf in tirae of persecution, 276 ;
protected by Roraan law, 206
Ceractery of Doraitilla, 73, 267, 274
Ceriiitlius, Gnostic, 54s
Chairs of S. Peter, 527
Christian and Jew, their positions contrasted,
1:'2
Christian art, 282, 289
 cemeteries, 267, ¦27-2, 274 ; Management of,
275
 Chur<^h,The llrst, a Hebrew Church, 23, 27;
a universal Chiu-cli, 24
 community in Rome, 28, 217, 275
 extremists, 236
 persecutions (see under Persecutions)
•  sacred Books destroyed, i.'42, 417, 423, 435
 writers of the fourth ceiituiy, 47S, 480 et
seq., 509
Cliristianity a State religion, 3 ; an illegal reli
gion, 3, 53, 178 ; a lawful religion, 3, 241, 252,
277, 447, 462, 46.! ; and Pagan writers, 11,
474, 476 ; Beginnings of, 20 ; Letters between
Emperor Trajan and Plinv, 108 ; Spread of,
113, 137, 182, 186, ltf7, 223, 2a2, 239, 474 ;
" Apologies *¦ for, 125, 126, 172, 177 ; at close
of second century, 222 ; Early, Xo consecu
tive history of, 230 ; a itower in Roman
Empire, 231 ; Etfect of extension of Roman
citizenship to provinces, 248 ; and heathen
philosophy, '6'63 ; at beginning of fourth
centiu-y, 420, 42H; again proscribed, 448;
iu the East allowed by Maximin Duia, 463 ;
and the Edict of Milan, 464; and society,
468, 496, 498, 500, 501, 508 ; Rapid progress
under Constantine, 474 ; dislilved by Roman
nobility, 476 ; and Tacitus, 476 ; and Pliny,
476 ; and the people, 477, 494 ; advanced by
persecutions, 479, 494 ; Did it influence the
fall of the Empire? 496 et seq., 503, 505;
Society uot altered by, 498, 505 ; aud the
Barbarian invasion, 501 et seq., 507 ; v.
Paganism, 164, 384, 396, 448, 459, 472
Christians, The c;irly, 2; their oneness of
faith, '14, 70, 2>i7 ; always luyal aud
peaceable, 4, 68, 71, 88, 132, 316 ; in the
"Household of C&sar," 36, 253, 365; a
proscribed sect, 53, 17^, 241 ; their position
in Roman Empiie, 53, 112, 122; cave for
their dead, 72, 217, 264 ; Trajan's Rescript
respecting, 111 ; Hadrian's Rescript respect
ing, 115 ; Growing leniency towards, 112,
115 ; Renewed hostility against, 177, 179,
182, 238 ; Hatred of Pagans fitr, 123 ; Reasons
for persecuting, 123, 139, 165 ; Influence in
Roman families, 180 ; in the Roman Army,
232, 237, 315, 319, 401, 413, 468 ; a period of
peace, 250 ; and public ollices, 316, 319,
322, 324; "Lapsed," 350, 373, 445, 467;
must be self-sacriflcing, 355 ; lavom-ed by
Constantius Chloius, 421 ; in the West in
peace, 440 ; Bloodshed between, 445 ; in
the East allowed fjcedura of worship, 466
Christians o. Stoics, 174
Chrysostom, S,, aud Monasticism, 508
Chuicli, The, during reigns of Vchpasian and
Titus, 60 ; Early doctrines, 69 ; dui'ing
reign of Trajan, 107 ; i.duriug reign 40f

Hadrian, 114, 125 ; under the Antonines,
176 ; in reign of Severus, 235 ; Peace of, 278,
479, 493 ; subsequent history, 494 et seq. ;
luner life of, 290 ; Disputes iu the early,
290, 291, 293, 304, 313, 326, 467, 500, 545 ;
in relation to society, 291, 298, 316, 322, 405 ;
and (Roman) State, 233, 324, 405, 468 ;
Laxity of discipline in, 348, 406 ; Unity of,
357 ; Restoration of property to, 379, 388 ;
under Claudius II., 382 ; at end of third
century, 393, 406 ; under Diocletian, Quiet
ude, 400, 404 ; Persecutions, 413 et seq.;
in the West, 440, 451 ; allowed to receive
bequests, 469 ; iu the fourth centmy, 496,
498, 500; and the Barbarian invasion, 501,
507 ; Christian leaders in the (ifth century,
507 ; Early heresies in, 545
" Church discipline " disputes, 290 ; efifect on
Christianity, 291
Churches in Asia Minor and Gaul, Close relations
betweeu, 226; The first Christian public,
407; destroyed, 254, 417; Building of,
Imperial subsidy for, 461 ; built under
Constantine, 461, 466 ; spared by Bar
barians, 503
Cicero and Jewish influence in Rome, 29
"City of God," Augustine's, 503
Claudius ApoUinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis,
writer, :i26
Claudius II., Emperor, 382
Cleraent, Bishop of Rome, 7, 50, 62, 67, 524;
Letter (Epistle) to the Corinthians, 63, 65,
70 ; lost page found, 70 ; Influence of, 64 ;
Prayer for rulers and governors, 5, 68 ;
Oratory or "Memoria," 73
Clement of Alexandria, 8, 10, 332, 333, 525
"Clementines, The," 64, 73
Clergy, Marriage of, 305 ct seq.
Cletus, Bishop of Rome (see Anencletus)
" Cffiraeterium ad Catacumbas," 269;
Ccenobites, 509
Commodus, Emperor, 222 ; Death of, 233
Condat Monastery, Jura, 514
" Confessions of Augustine," 510
*' Confessors " and the Lapsi, 352
Constance, Council of, 361
" Constantine, Life of," by Eusebius, 455, 457
Constantine the Great, Emperor, Edict of
Milan (see Milan), 1, 3, 428, 446; Rise
of, 411, 439, 440, 453, 459 ; proclaimed
Emperor in Britain, 441, 454 ; Edict in
favoxu- of Christians, 441 ; made "Augustus,"
443 ; aud Maxentius, Civil war between,
452 ; enters Rome as conqueror, 453 ;
Conversion of, 453, 454 ; invokes Divine
assistance, 455 ; Dreara and vision of, 455 ;
and tlie "Sign of the Cross," 455, 457;
Public confession of Christianity by, 457
reasons for becoming Christian, 460 ;
Building of Churches, 461, 466 ; Ai-ch of
Triumph in Rurae, 462 ; Influence of bishops
at Court of, 468; New laws by, 469;
abolishes cruciflxion, 469; Paganism still
State religion, 470 ; head of Paganism and
Christianity, 462, 470 ; Civil wars with
Licinius, 471 ; sole Emperor, 472 ; Rapid
progress of Christianity, 474 ; and the body
of S. Peter, 529
Constantius Chlorus, Empernr of the West, 411,
422, 459 ; favoui-s Christians, 421 ; death at
York, 441
Constantinople, CEcumenical Council of, 340
Corinthians, Clement's Epistle to, 63, 65, 70
Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, 372 ; Pilgrimages to
tomb of, 372
Council imder Agrippinus, 369
 of Ai-les, 468
 of Bishops, 424J.

INDEX-

557

Council of Constance, 361
 of Elvira (see Elvira)
 of Iconium, 359
 the Lateran, 467
 of Nice, 307
 of Synnada, 359
 of Trent, 806
 of Tyre, 541
" Council of Martyrs," 530
Coimcils of Carthage, 361, 368, 361
Creed, Barly Christian, 129, 229, 310, Sll
Gross, The Sign of the, .and Constantine, 455
Crucifixion abolished, 460
Cyprian, S., of Carthage, 8, 343 ; History of,
345-369 ; Account of Trial of, 363, 868 ;
banished to Curubis, 366 ; martyrdom, 369

Damasus, Pope, 479, 489 ; restores Catacombs,
278, 375, 437, 489
" De Mortibus Persecutorum," Lactantius', 435,
439, 543, 552
Dead, Christian burial of the, 267
 •, Prayers for the, 203
 , The, worshipped by Bomans, 153
Decius, Eraperor of Rome, 346 .
 , Persecutions under, 346
Decmaons, The, 470
Diocletian, Emperor, 396 ; Persecutions under,
326, 418, 416, 418, 420, 427, 652 ; Persecu
tions under, authoi ities, 433 ; Eesults of,
492, 495 ; Edicts against Christians, 413,
417, 420, 424, 426 ; Abdication, 439
"Diognetus, Letter to," 7, 131
Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, 356, 359
 , Bishop of Corinth, writer, 9, 524
"Docetism," 102
Domitian, Persecution under, 60, 62
Domitilla, Cemetery of, 78, 267, 274
Donatist Schism, 424, 468

Easter, Difference of opinion as to correct day
for celebrating, 85
Ebionites, 561
Edict of Milan, by Constantine (see Milan)
 by Constantine in favour of Christians, 441
 of Toleration, Galerius', 447
Egypt and Monasticism, 609
Elagabalus, Emperor, lavourable to Christians,
250
Elvira, Council of, 805, 405
Emerentiana, S., "Acts" of, 436
 , Tomb of, 272
Emperors of Eome, deified, 123, 162, 165, 211,
213, 816, 847 ; why they were chosen, 246 ;
List of, 521
Ephesus the centre of Christianity, 77
Ephrem of Edessa, writer, 510
Epictetus, Teaching of, 171
Episcopacy, The early, 16, 103
 , Ecclesiastics relieved from taking public
ofBces, 469
" Epistles" from early Christians, 7
Eusebian Catalogue, The, 62
Eusebius, Bishop of Cgesarea, writer, Extracts
from, 66, 216, .240, 253, 370, 3SS, 416, 426,
427, 448, 449, 455, 456, 467, 626, 628, 553;
"Bcclesiastical History," 433; "Martyrs
of Palestine," 433 ; an eye-witness of per
secutions, 433 ; History of, 641 ; Works of,
541, 642
 , Pope, 445,'451
Eutiopius, History by, 474
Eutychius, S. , Tomb of, 490
Excommunication, 304, 352, 373, 468
" Exhortation, The,"iby Origen, 254

Fabian, Bishop of Rome, 371 ; decorates Cata
combs, 371 ; maityrdom, 371
Fasting, ISO, 321
Felicitas, S. (Rome), " Acts of F. and her Sous,"
188, 192 ; Trial of, 192 ; Martyrdom of, 196
Felicitas, S. (Carthage), 208-208, 540
Felix, S., of Nola, 478 : Paulinus of Nola, 486 ;
Pilgrimages to shrine of, 486
Filocalus, artist of the Catacombs, 278, 437, 490
Firmilian, Bishoji of Csesarea, 359
Fronto's letters to Marcus Aurelius, 183
Galerius, Persecutions under, 412, 416, 422, 428,
552 ; hatred of Christians, 419 ; ambition,
440 ; jealous of Constantine, 441 ; invasion
of Italy defeated, 443; issues Edict of
Toleration, 447 ; asks for prayei s of
Christians, 447 ; Death of, 448
Gallienns, Emperor, restores Church property,
379, 388
Gallus, Emperor, Persecutions under, 356
Gaul and Asia Minor, Close relation of Churches
in, 226
 •, Persecutions in, 404
 , The Church in, 210
Genesius, S., " Passion" of, 400
Gnostic Heretics, 10, 86, 807, 331, 545, 548
 writings, 647
" Good Shepherd" figure. The, 285
Gordian, Pro-Consul, Emperor, 255; his palace,
266
"Graffiti," 302
Greek, the official language of the Roman
Church, 372, 374
Hadrian, Emperor, Riescript respecting Chris
tians, 115 ; Career of, 116 ; deseci-ates holy
places, 132 ; persecution of the Christians,
183
Hadrianople, Battle of, 472
Hebrew Church, The flrst Church a, 23, 27 '
Helena, S., 411
" Heresies, The Refutation of all," 292, 294, 299,
328
 iu the early Church, 545
Heretical Schools, Early, 10, 326, 394
Heretics, Judaising aud Gnostic, 10, 86
 and S. Martm, 489
Hippolytus of Rome, S, 11, 254, 291, 292, 294,
310; History of, 297; and Callistus, 294,
803 ; Statue of, 299 ; Shrine, 300 ; Removal
of remains, 801 ; Intiuence of, 300 ; contem
porary with Tertullian, 314
Holy oils, 627
Horace, 147
Iconium, Council of, 359
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, History of, 94 ;
Letters by, 7, 94, 98. 103, 524, 581 ; Letters
impugned by Presbyterian critics, 104 ; a
pupil of the Apostles, 95 ; Nurono, 95 ;
" Theophoiars," 96 ; Legends concerning, 96 ;
Martyrdom, 96 ; Seven Epistles of, 531 ;
their authenticity, 531 et seq.; " Aci^" of,
636
lUibens, Council of (see Elvira)
Irenams of Lyons, Extracts from, 7, 10, 212,
227, 228, 626, 627 ; " Memories " by, 81, 227 ;
instructed by Polycarp, 82
Italy, Invasion of, by Galerius, defeated, 443
¦  and North African Empire conquered by
Constantine, 453
Itineraries (guides) to Catacombs, 279, 281
Januarius, S., 194-198
Jerome, writer, 491, 500, 503, 512, 613 ; " Contra
Vigilantium," 491

558

EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.

Jerusalem The Christian Church in, 121 ; Final
destmction of, 121
Jew and Christian, their positions contrasted.
122
Jewish-Christians, 121, 649
Jews. Final expatriation of, 120; straggles
against the Eomans, 120
John, S. (see S. John)
Judaising Heretics, 10, 549
Judaism, Ruin of, 550
Julius Cffisar deitted, 154
" Jnlius, S., Acts of," 414
Justin Martyr, 7, 650 ; "Apologies of," 172, 177
Lactantius, writer, 430, 434, 443, 466, 626, 662 ;
" The Deaths of the Persecutors," 435, 489,
543, 652; "Divinte Institutiones," 435;
History of, 543 ; Works of, 543, 544
"Lapsed" Christians, Restoration of, 349 ct
seq., 373, 446, 4i;7
Latei.aii Church and Palace, 462 ; Council, The,
407
Latin Christianity and Versions of Scripture,
842, 344
Laurence, S., Basilica of, 299 ; martyrdom, 378
Lerins monastery, 614
"Libellatics," 349
" Liher Pontificalis," The, 62, 220, 253, 444, 628
" Liberian Catalogue," The, 263
Licinius, War with Maximin Daia, 465 ; Em
peror of the East, 466 ; allows Christian
worship, 466 ; Civil wars with Constantine,
471 ; unfavourable to Christianity, 471 ;
Persecutions under, 471 ; Death of, 472
Linus, Bishop of Rome, 62
Literature, Early Christian, 7, 478, 480, 509, 531,
641
Lucina, S., Cemeteiy of, 268, 274, 275
Lyons, 211 ; Persecutions at, 212
" Lyons and Vienne, Martyrs of," 188, 210
Macrobius, Writings of, 474
Manes, disputation with Ar-chelaus, 393, 395
Msmichaeism, 394, 645
"Marcianus and Nicander, SS., Acts of," 414
ifarcionite School, 10
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus' "Meditations,"
141, 167, 183 ; Hostility to the Christians,
179, 184; Life-sketch of, 183 ; Persecutions
under, 188, 190
Mark, S. (see S. Mark)
Marriage, Second, Opinions respecting, 305 ;
of clergy, Opinions respecting, 306 ; be
tween freemen and slaves, 308 ; Laws re
specting, 469
Martin, S., Bishop of Tours, History of, 488;
influence in Gallic provinces, 489, 612; and
with heretics, 489
Martyrdom sought for, 66, 97, 106, 320, 321 ; of
SS. Peter and Paul, 67 ; Typical scenes of,
190 ; Typical trial before, 191 ; Typical
prison life before, 198 (see also Persecutions)
Martyr shrines. Pilgrimages to, 478 et seq.
JIurtyr " Worsliip," 4S2, 486, 491; and Augus
tine, 491, 501 ; Vigilantius' book against,
491 ; Reasons for, 493 ; Efl'ects on the
Church, 501
Martyrs' burial places kept secret, 192, 196 ;
their bodies delivered to friends, 271 ;
Known burial places of some, 271 ; Removal
of remains from Catacombs, 219 ; at Rome,
221 ; their heroic deaths spread Chiistianity,
479, 494; Prayers to, 482, 484, 487, 488;
Intercession by, 483, 484, 487, 4S8, 493 ;
Miracles by, 487 ; Extreme reverence for,
490
Martyrs, Early "Acts'* or Reports of (see
" Acts of the Martyrs ")

" Martyr's Manual,'' 106
" Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne," 188, 210
"MartjTS of Palestine," The, 541, 564
Maurice, S., 402
Maxentius, co-Emperor with Maximian Hercu
lius, 443 ; restores Church's possessions,
451 ; and Constantine, Civil war between,
452 ; Death of, 463
Maximian Herculius, Emperor of the West, 401 ;
Persecutions under, 401, 423 ; Abdication
of, 440 ; Restoration of, 443 ; Death of, 446
Maximin Daia, Emperor of the East, 440 ;
Fierce persecutions under, 442, 552 ; Re
newed persecutions under, 448, 460;
Churches and cemeteries closed, 449 ; Meet
ings forbidden, 449; "Epistle" in favour
of Paganism, 449 ; Revival of Paganism,
450 ; allows Christianity, 463 ; War with
Licinius, 465 ; Defeat and death of, 465
Maximinus, Persecutions under, 253
Melito, Bishop of Sardis, writer, 235
"Memoria," or Oratory of Bishop Cleraent, 73
" Memoria " (Chapels) of Martyrs, 73, 135
Menander, Gnostic, 548
Milan, Edict of, by Constantine, 446, 466, 463,
466 ; becomes Imperial law, 466 ; Effects
of, 466 ; Provisions of, 463 ; History of the
Church after, 494 et seq.^
Miltiades, Pope, 461 ; recognised as head of
Eoman Church by Govemment, 451 g
Milvian Bridge, Battle of, 463
Miracles by martyrs, 487
Mithras, Worship of, 886, 416, 497
Monasteries, schools for leaming, 514, 516, 517 ;
Some famous, 514 ; the seats of agriculture,
literature and art, 516, 517
Monastery, The first, 609
Monasticism, 308, 476, 486; Development f,
608 ; supported by early Christian writers,
509 ; Augustine " Eule," The, 612 ; Evils of,
513 ; " Eules " made by Basil and by Bene
dict, 515 ; its services to society, 518
Monk, The life and work of a, 616
Montanism, 244, 307, 326-331, 639
Mm-atorian Canon, The, 78, 79
Nazarenes, 561
Nero, 40 ; his mother's influence, 40 ; his
character, 41 ; and the fire of Eome, 42 ;
persecution of the Christians, 28, 44, 49,
52 ; " martjT" games, 61
New Testament permeated with the Super
natural, 1; Earliest "versions" of, 18;
accepted as Holy Scripture by early Chris
tians, 22S, 329 ; Latin version of, 342
"Nicander and arcMianus, SS., Acts of," 414
Nice, Coimcil of, 307
Nicene Creed, The, 229
Novatian of Rome, 373 ; excommunicated, 373
Novatianists, 424
Nuns, Tlie flrst, 609
Oicumenical Council of Constantinople, 340
" On the Government of God," Salvian's, 605
" Orante" flgure. The, 284
Origen of Alexandria, 8, 10, 251, 264, 292, 324 ;
History of, 334-340 ; Revision of Greek
Septuagint, 336 ; Works by, 337
Orosius, writer, 269 ; " Universal History," 604
Ostrian Cemetery, The, 272, 275, 527; and S.
Peter, 276
Ovid, 147
Pachomius founds first monastery, 509
Pagan writers and Christianity, 11, 474
 Monotheism, 408
Paganism, Revival of, 138, 145, 161 ; History of,
140; Cicero and, 140; Decline of, 144;

INDEX.

559

Emperors the heads of, 145 ; Sacerdotal
Corporations, 160; Arval Brothers, The.
100, 260 ; Admission of foreign deities, 162,
497 ; .and the Philosophers, 166 ; Supersti
tions ot, 326 ; The last effort of, 382, 389,
429 ; influenced by Christianity, 408 ; Neo-
Pagauism, 409 ; Maximin Daia's " Epistle "
m favour of, 449 ; Tablet at Tyre in favour
of 449 ; stillathe State Religion under Con
stantine, 470; to Christianity— results of
change, 473 ; dies slowly, 476
Paganism v. Christianity, 164, 384, 396, 448 ;
Christianity victor, 459, 472
Paniphilua, expositor of Scripture, 434
Pant«nus of Alexandria, 332
" Papal Crypt," 219, 221, 274, 276, 302, 629
" Passions ' of Martyrs (see "Acts ")
Patripassi.anisin, 15, 70, 809,313
Patron Saints, 483
Paul, S. (see S. Paul)
Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, 478, 601, 502 ; History
of, 484 ; taught by the poet Ausonius, 484 ;
and S. Felix, 485
Peace of the Church, The, 493 ; subsequent
history, 494 et seq.
Penance among early Christians, 258, 804, 352
Dissensions respecting, 445
Pentecost, 23
" Peri-Stephan6n " of Prudentius,iThe, 481-4S3I
Perpetua, S., in prison, 199 ; Visions of, 200,
202, 203, 537 ; Martyrdom of, 207 ; " Passion
(or Acts) of," 198, 206; "Acts"ot, Notes
ou, 536 et seq.
Persecutions (see aho Martyrdom) ; Epistles by
SS. Peter and John during, 67; Reasons
for, 123, 189, 166 ; Summary of periods of,
322 ; Allard's History of, 404 ; Tortures
just short of death, 431 ; alien to Eoman
policy, 473 ; advanced Christianity, 479,
494 ; Nature of, 562 et seq. : under Nero, 28,
49 ; Effects of, 52 ; under Titus, Vespasian,
and Domitian, 60, 62 ; Trajan, 110, 633 ;
Pliny, 110 ; Hadrian, 133 ; the Antonines,
181, 188, 190 ; Commodus, 223 ; Severus
236, 238, 240 ; CaracaUa 247 ; ceased
for a time, 249 ; under Maximinus, 253 ;
Christians free from, under Philip, 259 ;
Diocletian and Galerius, 326, 413, 416,
418, 420, 427, 428, 662 ; authorities, 433 ;
Eesults of, 492, 496 ; Decius, 346 ; Gallus,
S56 ; Valerian, 362, 369, 379 ; Aurelian, 383,
8SS ; Maximian, Emperor of the West, 401,
423 ; Maximin Daia, 442 ; renewed, 448,
450 ; Licinius, 471 ; in the East, pfeace in
the West, 430 ; in the East under Maximin
Daia, 460 ; ceased in the West, 441, 444 ;
relentlessly carried on in the East, 442, 444 ;
in Alexandria, 477 ; Carthage, 199, 223, 347,
369 ; Gaul, 404 ; Eome, 243, 370 et seq., 427 ;
Smyrna, 89
Peschitta-Syriac, 28
Peter, S. (see S. Peter)
Philip, flrst Christian Emperor, 257, 336 ;
refused admission to Church by Bishop
Babylas, of Antioch, 258 ; Christians free
froni persecution, 259; ends Arval Brother
hood, 260
Philippians, Polycarp's Epistle to, Sl, 87
Philosophers, The, and Paganism, 166
" Philosophumena," 292
Philosophy and Christianity, 333
Pilgrimages, Barly, 135, 196, 278, 281, 302, 372,
403, 478 et seq., 486
Pionius of Smyrna, "Acts" of, 311
Plagues, 363
Pliny and Christianity, 61, 109, 110, 476
Pliny the Younger, Writings of, 11
Polycarp, Bisliop of Smyrna, (, 81; and Cle

ment's Epistle, 65 ; Irenrous's " Memories,"
81; "Epistle to the Philippians," 81, 87;
and Ignatius. Bishop of Antioch, 81, 98 ;
"Father of the Christians," 84; and the
celebration of Easter, S5 ; and heretics, 86 ;
as a writer, 87 ; Martyrdom of, 89
Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, wi-iter, 226
Pontianus, Bishop of Rome, martyr, 254, 299
Pontifex Maximus, The title, 462, 465, 470
Porphyry, philosopher, and Christianity, 409
Pothinus, Bishop of Lyons, martyr, 212
Prsetextatus, Cemetery of, 197, 218, 268, 272,
275, 378
Prayers for the dead, 203
 to martyrs, 482, 484, 487, 488
PriscUla, S., Cemetery of, 267, 275
Prudentius, Spanish poet, 436, 438, 478 ; His
tory of, 480 ; Works by, 481, 601 ; " Book
of the (Martyrs') Crowns," or " Peri-Ste-
phaonn," 481-483
Quadrjitus' " Apology for Christianity," 125
Quarto Deciman controversy. The, 85
Ee-baptism, Dispute as to, 368, 860, 374, 377
"Eefutation of all Heresies, The," 292, 294, 299,
328
Eoman "Acts " nf Martyrs, 436, 636
Eoman Army, Christians in, 232, 237, 316, 319,
401, 418, 468
 burial customs, 265, 266
 Ciiristian coniniunity, 28, 217, 275
 " Cohunbarium," 266
 death guilds, 265
 Empire, Power of the Church in, 231 ; new
laws, 248, 469; "Unity" of, 397, 412;
Changes in government, 398, 411 ; The four
capital cities of, 412 ; at beginning of foiuth
century, 443, 444 ; civil war, 452, 465 ;
united under one sovereign, 472, 474 ; fall
of. Reasons for, 496 ; and the Barbarian
invasion, 501
 religious worship (see Paganism)
 society and Christianity, 498, 505
 "triumphs," The last, 426
 writers, 146
Eomans, Eeligious devotion of, 143 ; decline of,
144
Eome and Augustus, Worship of, 155, 211, 213
 , Bishops of. List, 298, 370 et seq., 522, 628
 , Bishop of, his palace, 466
Eome, SS. Peter and Paul in, 34, 76, 524;
Pilgrimages to, 479 ; Emperor the head
of religion, 145; Emperors of, deiti ed,
123, 152, 211, 213, 316, 347 ; why they were
chosen, 246 ; in third century, 380 et
seq. ; Jewish colony in, 29 ; Cicero and
Jewish influence in, 29, 31 ; The Ghetto or
Jewish quarter, 32 ; Fire of, 42 ; Christians
accused, 44, 47 ; State and I'eligious offices
united, 138, 142 ; Peasants the backbone of
the State, 148 ; in the latter years of Marcus,
216 ; Power of the Church iu, 281; History
of, in third centmy, 233 ; Building work by
Severus in, 244 ; Extension of citi2en.ship
to provinces, its eflect on Christianity, 248 ;
Power ofthe army, 263, 257; no longer capital
of the Empire, 426 ; taken by Constantine,
453 ; FaU of, 503 ; and Christian writers,
603 et seq.; Christian churches spared by
Alaric 503
Rome, The Church in, 35 ; "The Household of,
Ceesar," 36, 253, 365 ; Hostility of tlie Jews
39 ; after Nero, 61, 67 ; fixed Litm-gy, 72 ;
growth in authority, 72, 76 ; the centre of
Christianity, 76, 312, 376, 377; ceased to be
so for a time, 77; in second century, 270;

560

EABLY GHBISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.

290 ; under Sevei-us, 291 ; Dissensions in,
293, 304, 444 ; and re-baptism, 360, 374, 377 ;
in third century, 370 ; Staff of, 370 ; posses
sions restored by Maxentius, 451 ; Churches
built in, under Constantine, 466 ; founded
by sa. Peter and Paul, 527; Martyrs at,
221 ; Monasticism introduced by Athana
sius, 510 ; Monasticism, its rapid spread in,
612 ; Persecutions iu, 243, 253, 370 et seq.,
427
Eutijius Namatianus, Writings of, 475
Sabbath, Christian, to be kept throughout the
Empire, 469
Sabbazius and Trophimus, SS., " Acts " of, 393
Sacerdotal Corporations, 160
S. Agnes Cluu-ch, Rome, 466
S. John, 77 ; at Ephesus, 77 ; Death of, 78 ; his
Gospel, 78 ; Personal memories of, 79
S. liaurence's Church, Rome, 466
S. Mark and Alexandria, 331
S. Paul, 25 ; missionary travels, 26 ; in Rome,
34, 76; Martyrdom of, 57, 524; Burial
place, 272 ; Basilica and Crypt of, 274
S. Paul's Ciiurch, Rome, 466
S, Peter in Rome, 34, 76, 524 et seq. ; authorita
tive testimony of, visits to and martyrdom
at, 524; Martj'rdom of, 57, 524; Burial
place, 271, 274 ; Basilica of, 274 ; and the
Ostrian Ceraetery, 275 ; Chairs of at Rome,
527 ; Episcopacy of Rome, 528 ; Constan
tine and the body of, 529 ; Sarcophagus of
at Rome, 529
S. Peter's Church, Rome, 466
S. Stephen, Relics of, 491
Saints, Patron, 483
 , Prayers and Intercessions (see under
Martyrs)
Salarian Way, The, 275, 281
Salvian, writer, "On the Govemment of God,"
505 ; History of, 505, 514
Saturninus, Gnostic, 548
Savinus, S., " Acts " of, 427
Schools of Christian opinions, 310
SciUitan Martyrs, " Acts " of. 224
Sebastian, 8., Basihca of, 268; Cemeteiy of,
268, 490 ; "Acts" of, 393
Seneca and SS. Peter and Paul, 169 ; Teaching
of, 169
"Septem biothanati," The, 135
Septuagint, Greek, Revision of by Origen, 336
Sergius and Bacchus, SS., 414
Severus, Eraperor of the West, 234, 440 ;
friendly to Christians at first, 236 ; Persecu
tions under, 236; caused partly by Chris
tians themselves, 236 ; builds rauch in
Eorae, 243 ; expedition to Britain and
Caledonia, 245
"Shepherd of Hermas," The, 7, 538
Sibylline Books, The, 385
Silvester, Pojn', 468
Simeon Stylites, 513
Simon Magus, Gnostic, 548
Sixtus IL, Bishop of Rome, martyrdom, 377
Slaves, Manumission of, 469
Smyrna, Persecutions in, 89
Spanish Christian writers (see Prudentius and
Orosius)
Stephen, Bishop of Rome, 360, 376 ; dispute
with S. Cyprian, 370
State, The, and the Church, 233, 324, 405, 408

Stoic Philosophers, The, 166, 173
Stoics V. Christians, 174
Suetonius, Writings of, 11
Sulpicius Severus, writer, 60, 240, 488, 512
Symmachus, Letters of, 474, 499
Symphorosa, S., 133
Synnada, Council of, 359
Tacitus, Writings of, 11,49; and Christianity
476
*' Teaching of the Aposties," The, 7
Tertullian of Carthage, writer, 3, 8, 10, 206, 209
231, 237, 243, 305, 313, 525; "Apology,"
303, 319 ; and dissensions in African Church,
313, 318 ; Life of, 314 ; contemporary with
Hippolytus, 314; views as to Christians'
pm-suits and actions, 319
"Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, The,"
551
Thebaid, Monks ofthe, 509
" Theban Legion, The," JIassacre of, 401
Tiburtine Way, The, 135, 299
Titus, Persecutions under, 60
Telesphorus, S., Bishop of Eome, 133
Toleration, Galerius' Edict of, 447
Trajan, Persecutions under, 110, 533
"Travel Docuraent of S. Paul," The, 27
Trent, Council of, 306
Trials, Procts verbcmx of, 188, 191, 292, 195,r317,
363, 368
Trinity, The Doctrine of, 15, 310-3
Trophimus and Sabbazius, SS., "Acts" of,;393
Tyre, Public Tablet in favour of Paganism, 1449;
Basilica (Church) of, 466 ; Council of, 541
Unity ofthe earlv Church, 14, 70
" Universal Hisoury," Orosius*, 504
Urban, Two Bishops of that narae, 219
Valentinian School, 10
Valentinus, Gnostic, 546, 548
Valerian, Emperor of Rome, 357 ; fevourable at
first to Christians, 357 ; Persecutions under,
362, 369, 379
Vatican Cemetery, 274, 276
 Crypt (see Papal Crypt) '
 Gardens " Martyr Games," 49, 51
Vespasian, Persecutions under, 61
Via Triuraphalis, 462
Victor, S., Monastei-y, Marseilles, 514
" Viemie and Lyon^, Martyra of," IbS, 210
Vigilantius, writer, 491, 501
Vincent of Lerins, 340, 359, 377, 514; "Com-
monitoriura," 514
Virgil. 147 ; and S. Paul, Legend of, 149 ;
influence ofhis writings, 149
Virgin gMary, Pictures of, rare iu Catacombs,
288
Visions of Martyrs before their death, 201, 204
Vossian Eecension of Ignatius' Ejjistles, 7,^532,
534
Writers, Early Ciiristian, 7, 10, 12, 60
 , Great Roman, 146
¦  of the second century a.d., 9
York, Constantius Chlorus dies at, 441
Zephyrinus, Bishop of Rome, 242, 296, 298, 303
Zosimus, Pagan writer, 454

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