Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To

Constantine.—Part III.

The answer of Trajan, to which the Christians of the succeeding
age have frequently appealed, discovers as much regard for
justice and humanity as could be reconciled with his mistaken
notions of religious policy. 59 Instead of displaying the
implacable zeal of an inquisitor, anxious to discover the most
minute particles of heresy, and exulting in the number of his
victims, the emperor expresses much more solicitude to protect
the security of the innocent, than to prevent the escape of the
guilty. He acknowledged the difficulty of fixing any general
plan; but he lays down two salutary rules, which often afforded
relief and support to the distressed Christians. Though he
directs the magistrates to punish such persons as are legally
convicted, he prohibits them, with a very humane inconsistency,
from making any inquiries concerning the supposed criminals. Nor
was the magistrate allowed to proceed on every kind of
information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, as too
repugnant to the equity of his government; and he strictly
requires, for the conviction of those to whom the guilt of
Christianity is imputed, the positive evidence of a fair and open
accuser. It is likewise probable, that the persons who assumed so
invidiuous an office, were obliged to declare the grounds of
their suspicions, to specify (both in respect to time and place)
the secret assemblies, which their Christian adversary had
frequented, and to disclose a great number of circumstances,
which were concealed with the most vigilant jealousy from the eye
of the profane. If they succeeded in their prosecution, they were
exposed to the resentment of a considerable and active party, to
the censure of the more liberal portion of mankind, and to the
ignominy which, in every age and country, has attended the
character of an informer. If, on the contrary, they failed in
their proofs, they incurred the severe and perhaps capital
penalty, which, according to a law published by the emperor
Hadrian, was inflicted on those who falsely attributed to their
fellow-citizens the crime of Christianity. The violence of
personal or superstitious animosity might sometimes prevail over
the most natural apprehensions of disgrace and danger but it
cannot surely be imagined, 60 that accusations of so unpromising
an appearance were either lightly or frequently undertaken by the
Pagan subjects of the Roman empire. 6011

59 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 98. Tertullian (Apolog. c. 5)
considers this rescript as a relaxation of the ancient penal
laws, “quas Trajanus exparte frustratus est:” and yet Tertullian,
in another part of his Apology, exposes the inconsistency of
prohibiting inquiries, and enjoining punishments.]

60 (return) [ Eusebius (Hist. Ecclesiast. l. iv. c. 9) has
preserved the edict of Hadrian. He has likewise (c. 13) given us
one still more favorable, under the name of Antoninus; the
authenticity of which is not so universally allowed. The second
Apology of Justin contains some curious particulars relative to
the accusations of Christians. * Note: Professor Hegelmayer has
proved the authenticity of the edict of Antoninus, in his Comm.
Hist. Theol. in Edict. Imp. Antonini. Tubing. 1777, in 4to.—G.
——Neander doubts its authenticity, (vol. i. p. 152.) In my
opinion, the internal evidence is decisive against it.—M]

6011 (return) [ The enactment of this law affords strong
presumption, that accusations of the “crime of Christianity,”
were by no means so uncommon, nor received with so much mistrust
and caution by the ruling authorities, as Gibbon would insinuate.
—M.]

The expedient which was employed to elude the prudence of the
laws, affords a sufficient proof how effectually they
disappointed the mischievous designs of private malice or
superstitious zeal. In a large and tumultuous assembly, the
restraints of fear and shame, so forcible on the minds of
individuals, are deprived of the greatest part of their
influence. The pious Christian, as he was desirous to obtain, or
to escape, the glory of martyrdom, expected, either with
impatience or with terror, the stated returns of the public games
and festivals. On those occasions the inhabitants of the great
cities of the empire were collected in the circus or the theatre,
where every circumstance of the place, as well as of the
ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion, and to extinguish
their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators, crowned with
garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood of
victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their
tutelar deities, resigned themselves to the enjoyment of
pleasures, which they considered as an essential part of their
religious worship, they recollected, that the Christians alone
abhorred the gods of mankind, and by their absence and melancholy
on these solemn festivals, seemed to insult or to lament the
public felicity. If the empire had been afflicted by any recent
calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the
Tyber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the
earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had
been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that
the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by
the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked
the divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated
populace, that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed;
it was not in an amphitheatre, stained with the blood of wild
beasts and gladiators, that the voice of compassion could be
heard. The impatient clamors of the multitude denounced the
Christians as the enemies of gods and men, doomed them to the
severest tortures, and venturing to accuse by name some of the
most distinguished of the new sectaries, required with
irresistible vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended
and cast to the lions. 61 The provincial governors and
magistrates who presided in the public spectacles were usually
inclined to gratify the inclinations, and to appease the rage, of
the people, by the sacrifice of a few obnoxious victims. But the
wisdom of the emperors protected the church from the danger of
these tumultuous clamors and irregular accusations, which they
justly censured as repugnant both to the firmness and to the
equity of their administration. The edicts of Hadrian and of
Antoninus Pius expressly declared, that the voice of the
multitude should never be admitted as legal evidence to convict
or to punish those unfortunate persons who had embraced the
enthusiasm of the Christians. 62

61 (return) [ See Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 40.) The acts of the
martyrdom of Polycarp exhibit a lively picture of these tumults,
which were usually fomented by the malice of the Jews.]

62 (return) [ These regulations are inserted in the above
mentioned document of Hadrian and Pius. See the apology of
Melito, (apud Euseb. l iv 26)]

III. Punishment was not the inevitable consequence of conviction,
and the Christians, whose guilt was the most clearly proved by
the testimony of witnesses, or even by their voluntary
confession, still retained in their own power the alternative of
life or death. It was not so much the past offence, as the actual
resistance, which excited the indignation of the magistrate. He
was persuaded that he offered them an easy pardon, since, if they
consented to cast a few grains of incense upon the altar, they
were dismissed from the tribunal in safety and with applause. It
was esteemed the duty of a humane judge to endeavor to reclaim,
rather than to punish, those deluded enthusiasts. Varying his
tone according to the age, the sex, or the situation of the
prisoners, he frequently condescended to set before their eyes
every circumstance which could render life more pleasing, or
death more terrible; and to solicit, nay, to entreat, them, that
they would show some compassion to themselves, to their families,
and to their friends. 63 If threats and persuasions proved
ineffectual, he had often recourse to violence; the scourge and
the rack were called in to supply the deficiency of argument, and
every art of cruelty was employed to subdue such inflexible, and,
as it appeared to the Pagans, such criminal, obstinacy. The
ancient apologists of Christianity have censured, with equal
truth and severity, the irregular conduct of their persecutors
who, contrary to every principle of judicial proceeding, admitted
the use of torture, in order to obtain, not a confession, but a
denial, of the crime which was the object of their inquiry. 64
The monks of succeeding ages, who, in their peaceful solitudes,
entertained themselves with diversifying the deaths and
sufferings of the primitive martyrs, have frequently invented
torments of a much more refined and ingenious nature. In
particular, it has pleased them to suppose, that the zeal of the
Roman magistrates, disdaining every consideration of moral virtue
or public decency, endeavored to seduce those whom they were
unable to vanquish, and that by their orders the most brutal
violence was offered to those whom they found it impossible to
seduce. It is related, that females, who were prepared to despise
death, were sometimes condemned to a more severe trial, 6411 and
called upon to determine whether they set a higher value on their
religion or on their chastity. The youths to whose licentious
embraces they were abandoned, received a solemn exhortation from
the judge, to exert their most strenuous efforts to maintain the
honor of Venus against the impious virgin who refused to burn
incense on her altars. Their violence, however, was commonly
disappointed, and the seasonable interposition of some miraculous
power preserved the chaste spouses of Christ from the dishonor
even of an involuntary defeat. We should not indeed neglect to
remark, that the more ancient as well as authentic memorials of
the church are seldom polluted with these extravagant and
indecent fictions. 65

63 (return) [ See the rescript of Trajan, and the conduct of
Pliny. The most authentic acts of the martyrs abound in these
exhortations. Note: Pliny’s test was the worship of the gods,
offerings to the statue of the emperor, and blaspheming
Christ—præterea maledicerent Christo.—M.]

64 (return) [ In particular, see Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 2, 3,)
and Lactantius, (Institut. Divin. v. 9.) Their reasonings are
almost the same; but we may discover, that one of these
apologists had been a lawyer, and the other a rhetorician.]

6411 (return) [ The more ancient as well as authentic memorials
of the church, relate many examples of the fact, (of these
_severe trials_,) which there is nothing to contradict.
Tertullian, among others, says, Nam proxime ad lenonem damnando
Christianam, potius quam ad leonem, confessi estis labem
pudicitiæ apud nos atrociorem omni pœna et omni morte reputari,
Apol. cap. ult. Eusebius likewise says, “Other virgins, dragged
to brothels, have lost their life rather than defile their
virtue.” Euseb. Hist. Ecc. viii. 14.—G. The miraculous
interpositions were the offspring of the coarse imaginations of
the monks.—M.]

65 (return) [ See two instances of this kind of torture in the
Acta Sincere Martyrum, published by Ruinart, p. 160, 399. Jerome,
in his Legend of Paul the Hermit, tells a strange story of a
young man, who was chained naked on a bed of flowers, and
assaulted by a beautiful and wanton courtesan. He quelled the
rising temptation by biting off his tongue.]

The total disregard of truth and probability in the
representation of these primitive martyrdoms was occasioned by a
very natural mistake. The ecclesiastical writers of the fourth or
fifth centuries ascribed to the magistrates of Rome the same
degree of implacable and unrelenting zeal which filled their own
breasts against the heretics or the idolaters of their own times.

It is not improbable that some of those persons who were raised
to the dignities of the empire, might have imbibed the prejudices
of the populace, and that the cruel disposition of others might
occasionally be stimulated by motives of avarice or of personal
resentment. 66 But it is certain, and we may appeal to the
grateful confessions of the first Christians, that the greatest
part of those magistrates who exercised in the provinces the
authority of the emperor, or of the senate, and to whose hands
alone the jurisdiction of life and death was intrusted, behaved
like men of polished manners and liberal education, who respected
the rules of justice, and who were conversant with the precepts
of philosophy. They frequently declined the odious task of
persecution, dismissed the charge with contempt, or suggested to
the accused Christian some legal evasion, by which he might elude
the severity of the laws. 67 Whenever they were invested with a
discretionary power, 68 they used it much less for the
oppression, than for the relief and benefit of the afflicted
church. They were far from condemning all the Christians who were
accused before their tribunal, and very far from punishing with
death all those who were convicted of an obstinate adherence to
the new superstition. Contenting themselves, for the most part,
with the milder chastisements of imprisonment, exile, or slavery
in the mines, 69 they left the unhappy victims of their justice
some reason to hope, that a prosperous event, the accession, the
marriage, or the triumph of an emperor, might speedily restore
them, by a general pardon, to their former state. The martyrs,
devoted to immediate execution by the Roman magistrates, appear
to have been selected from the most opposite extremes. They were
either bishops and presbyters, the persons the most distinguished
among the Christians by their rank and influence, and whose
example might strike terror into the whole sect; 70 or else they
were the meanest and most abject among them, particularly those
of the servile condition, whose lives were esteemed of little
value, and whose sufferings were viewed by the ancients with too
careless an indifference. 71 The learned Origen, who, from his
experience as well as reading, was intimately acquainted with the
history of the Christians, declares, in the most express terms,
that the number of martyrs was very inconsiderable. 72 His
authority would alone be sufficient to annihilate that formidable
army of martyrs, whose relics, drawn for the most part from the
catacombs of Rome, have replenished so many churches, 73 and
whose marvellous achievements have been the subject of so many
volumes of Holy Romance. 74 But the general assertion of Origen
may be explained and confirmed by the particular testimony of his
friend Dionysius, who, in the immense city of Alexandria, and
under the rigorous persecution of Decius, reckons only ten men
and seven women who suffered for the profession of the Christian
name. 75

66 (return) [ The conversion of his wife provoked Claudius
Herminianus, governor of Cappadocia, to treat the Christians with
uncommon severity. Tertullian ad Scapulam, c. 3.]

67 (return) [ Tertullian, in his epistle to the governor of
Africa, mentions several remarkable instances of lenity and
forbearance, which had happened within his knowledge.]

68 (return) [ Neque enim in universum aliquid quod quasi certam
formam habeat, constitui potest; an expression of Trajan, which
gave a very great latitude to the governors of provinces. * Note:
Gibbon altogether forgets that Trajan fully approved of the
course pursued by Pliny. That course was, to order all who
persevered in their faith to be led to execution: perseverantes
duci jussi.—M.]

69 (return) [ In Metalla damnamur, in insulas relegamur.
Tertullian, Apolog. c. 12. The mines of Numidia contained nine
bishops, with a proportionable number of their clergy and people,
to whom Cyprian addressed a pious epistle of praise and comfort.
See Cyprian. Epistol. 76, 77.]

70 (return) [ Though we cannot receive with entire confidence
either the epistles, or the acts, of Ignatius, (they may be found
in the 2d volume of the Apostolic Fathers,) yet we may quote that
bishop of Antioch as one of these _exemplary_ martyrs. He was
sent in chains to Rome as a public spectacle, and when he arrived
at Troas, he received the pleasing intelligence, that the
persecution of Antioch was already at an end. * Note: The acts of
Ignatius are generally received as authentic, as are seven of his
letters. Eusebius and St. Jerome mention them: there are two
editions; in one, the letters are longer, and many passages
appear to have been interpolated; the other edition is that which
contains the real letters of St. Ignatius; such at least is the
opinion of the wisest and most enlightened critics. (See Lardner.
Cred. of Gospel Hist.) Less, uber dis Religion, v. i. p. 529.
Usser. Diss. de Ign. Epist. Pearson, Vindic, Ignatianæ. It should
be remarked, that it was under the reign of Trajan that the
bishop Ignatius was carried from Antioch to Rome, to be exposed
to the lions in the amphitheatre, the year of J. C. 107,
according to some; of 116, according to others.—G.]

71 (return) [ Among the martyrs of Lyons, (Euseb. l. v. c. 1,)
the slave Blandina was distinguished by more exquisite tortures.
Of the five martyrs so much celebrated in the acts of Felicitas
and Perpetua, two were of a servile, and two others of a very
mean, condition.]

72 (return) [ Origen. advers. Celsum, l. iii. p. 116. His words
deserve to be transcribed. * Note: The words that follow should
be quoted. “God not permitting that all his class of men should
be exterminated:” which appears to indicate that Origen thought
the number put to death inconsiderable only when compared to the
numbers who had survived. Besides this, he is speaking of the
state of the religion under Caracalla, Elagabalus, Alexander
Severus, and Philip, who had not persecuted the Christians. It
was during the reign of the latter that Origen wrote his books
against Celsus.—G.]

73 (return) [ If we recollect that all the Plebeians of Rome were
not Christians, and that all the Christians were not saints and
martyrs, we may judge with how much safety religious honors can
be ascribed to bones or urns, indiscriminately taken from the
public burial-place. After ten centuries of a very free and open
trade, some suspicions have arisen among the more learned
Catholics. They now require as a proof of sanctity and martyrdom,
the letters B.M., a vial full of red liquor supposed to be blood,
or the figure of a palm-tree. But the two former signs are of
little weight, and with regard to the last, it is observed by the
critics, 1. That the figure, as it is called, of a palm, is
perhaps a cypress, and perhaps only a stop, the flourish of a
comma used in the monumental inscriptions. 2. That the palm was
the symbol of victory among the Pagans. 3. That among the
Christians it served as the emblem, not only of martyrdom, but in
general of a joyful resurrection. See the epistle of P. Mabillon,
on the worship of unknown saints, and Muratori sopra le Antichita
Italiane, Dissertat. lviii.]

74 (return) [ As a specimen of these legends, we may be satisfied
with 10,000 Christian soldiers crucified in one day, either by
Trajan or Hadrian on Mount Ararat. See Baronius ad Martyrologium
Romanum; Tille mont, Mém. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. part ii. p. 438;
and Geddes’s Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 203. The abbreviation of
Mil., which may signify either _soldiers_ or _thousands_, is said
to have occasioned some extraordinary mistakes.]

75 (return) [ Dionysius ap. Euseb l. vi. c. 41 One of the
seventeen was likewise accused of robbery. * Note: Gibbon ought
to have said, was falsely accused of robbery, for so it is in the
Greek text. This Christian, named Nemesion, falsely accused of
robbery before the centurion, was acquitted of a crime altogether
foreign to his character, but he was led before the governor as
guilty of being a Christian, and the governor inflicted upon him
a double torture. (Euseb. loc. cit.) It must be added, that Saint
Dionysius only makes particular mention of the principal martyrs,
[this is very doubtful.—M.] and that he says, in general, that
the fury of the Pagans against the Christians gave to Alexandria
the appearance of a city taken by storm. [This refers to plunder
and ill usage, not to actual slaughter.—M.] Finally it should be
observed that Origen wrote before the persecution of the emperor
Decius.—G.]

During the same period of persecution, the zealous, the eloquent,
the ambitious Cyprian governed the church, not only of Carthage,
but even of Africa. He possessed every quality which could engage
the reverence of the faithful, or provoke the suspicions and
resentment of the Pagan magistrates. His character as well as his
station seemed to mark out that holy prelate as the most
distinguished object of envy and danger. 76 The experience,
however, of the life of Cyprian, is sufficient to prove that our
fancy has exaggerated the perilous situation of a Christian
bishop; and the dangers to which he was exposed were less
imminent than those which temporal ambition is always prepared to
encounter in the pursuit of honors. Four Roman emperors, with
their families, their favorites, and their adherents, perished by
the sword in the space of ten years, during which the bishop of
Carthage guided by his authority and eloquence the councils of
the African church. It was only in the third year of his
administration, that he had reason, during a few months, to
apprehend the severe edicts of Decius, the vigilance of the
magistrate and the clamors of the multitude, who loudly demanded,
that Cyprian, the leader of the Christians, should be thrown to
the lions. Prudence suggested the necessity of a temporary
retreat, and the voice of prudence was obeyed. He withdrew
himself into an obscure solitude, from whence he could maintain a
constant correspondence with the clergy and people of Carthage;
and, concealing himself till the tempest was past, he preserved
his life, without relinquishing either his power or his
reputation. His extreme caution did not, however, escape the
censure of the more rigid Christians, who lamented, or the
reproaches of his personal enemies, who insulted, a conduct which
they considered as a pusillanimous and criminal desertion of the
most sacred duty. 77 The propriety of reserving himself for the
future exigencies of the church, the example of several holy
bishops, 78 and the divine admonitions, which, as he declares
himself, he frequently received in visions and ecstacies, were
the reasons alleged in his justification. 79 But his best apology
may be found in the cheerful resolution, with which, about eight
years afterwards, he suffered death in the cause of religion. The
authentic history of his martyrdom has been recorded with unusual
candor and impartiality. A short abstract, therefore, of its most
important circumstances, will convey the clearest information of
the spirit, and of the forms, of the Roman persecutions. 80

76 (return) [ The letters of Cyprian exhibit a very curious and
original picture both of the _man_ and of the _times_. See
likewise the two lives of Cyprian, composed with equal accuracy,
though with very different views; the one by Le Clerc
(Bibliothèque Universelle, tom. xii. p. 208-378,) the other by
Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. iv part i. p. 76-459.]

77 (return) [ See the polite but severe epistle of the clergy of
Rome to the bishop of Carthage. (Cyprian. Epist. 8, 9.) Pontius
labors with the greatest care and diligence to justify his master
against the general censure.]

78 (return) [ In particular those of Dionysius of Alexandria, and
Gregory Thaumaturgus, of Neo-Cæsarea. See Euseb. Hist.
Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 40; and Mémoires de Tillemont, tom. iv.
part ii. p. 685.]

79 (return) [ See Cyprian. Epist. 16, and his life by Pontius.]

80 (return) [ We have an original life of Cyprian by the deacon
Pontius, the companion of his exile, and the spectator of his
death; and we likewise possess the ancient proconsular acts of
his martyrdom. These two relations are consistent with each
other, and with probability; and what is somewhat remarkable,
they are both unsullied by any miraculous circumstances.]