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and is practised. Some who confessed their sect, were first seized, and afterwards, by their information, a vast multitude were apprehended, who were convicted, not so much of the crime of burning Rome, as of hatred to mankind. Their sufferings at their execution were aggravated by insult and mockery; for some were disguised in the skins of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs; some were crucified; and others were wrapped in pitched shirts,* and set on fire when the day closed, that they might serve as lights to illuminate the night. Nero lent his own gardens for these executions, and exhibited at the same time a mock Circensian entertainment; being a spectator of the whole, in the dress of a charioteer; sometimes mingling with the crowd on foot, and sometimes viewing the spectacle from his car. This conduct made the sufferers pitied; and though they were criminals, and deserving the severest punishments, yet they were considered as sacrificed, not so much out of a regard to the public good, as to gratify the cruelty of one man."

Our concern with this passage at present is only so far as it affords a presumption in support of the proposition which we maintain, concerning the activity and sufferings of the first teachers of Christianity. Now, considered in this view, it proves three things: 1st, That the Founder of the institution was put to death; 2dly, That in the same country in which he was put to death, the religion, after a short check, broke out again and spread; 3dly, That it so spread, as that, within thirty-four years from the author's death, a very great number of Christians (ingens eorum multitudo) were found at Rome. From which fact the two following inferences may be fairly drawn: first, that if, in the space of thirty-four years from its commencement, the religion had spread throughout Judea, had extended itself to Rome, and there had numbered a great multitude of converts, the original teachers and missionaries of the institution could not have been idle: secondly, that when the Author of the undertaking was put to death as a malefactor for his attempt, the endeavours of his followers to establish his religion in the same country, amongst the same

*This is rather a paraphrase, but is justified by what the Scholiast upon Juvenal says: "Nero maleficos homines tædâ et papyro et cerâ supervestiebat, et sic ad ignem admoveri jubebat."-Lardner Jewish and Heath. Test., vol. i., p. 359.

people, and in the same age, could not but be attended with danger,

Suetonius, a writer contemporary with Tacitus, describing the transactions of the same reign, uses these words: "Affecti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novæ et maleficæ."* "The Christians, a set of men of a new and mischievous (or magical) superstition, were punished." (d)

Since it is not mentioned here that the burning of the city was the pretence of the punishment of the Christians, or that they were the Christians of Rome who alone suffered, it is probable that Suetonius refers to some more general persecution than the short and occasional one which Tacitus describes.

Juvenal, a writer of the same age with the two former, and intending, it should seem, to commemorate the cruelties exercised under Nero's government, has the following lines:†

"Pone Tigellinum, tædâ lucebis in illâ,

Quâ stantes ardent, qui fixo gutture fumant,
Et latum mediâ sulcum deducit arenâ."

"Describe Tigellinus, (a creature of Nero,) and you shall suffer the same punishment with those who stand burning in their own flame and smoke, their head being held up by a stake fixed to their chin, till they make a long stream of blood and melted sulphur on the ground."

If this passage were considered by itself, the subject of allusion might be doubtful; but, when connected with the testimony of Suetonius as to the actual punishment of the Christians by Nero, and with the account given by Tacitus of the species of punishment which they were to undergo, I think it sufficiently probable that these were the executions to which the poet refers.

These things, as has already been observed, took place within thirty-four years after Christ's death, that is, according to the course of nature, in the lifetime, probably, of some of the apostles, and certainly in the lifetime of those who were converted by the apostles, or who were converted

* Suet., Nero., cap. 16.

(d) This word used by Suetonius (malefice) is the term constantly applied to magicians and their supposed exercise of supernatural powers. It has therefore been thought, with much reason, to attest the fact that a claim to miraculous powers was one main feature in the popular view of Christianity.-EDITOR. Forsan "deducis," [perhaps, "thou makest."]

+ Sat. i., ver. 155.

in their time. If, then, the Founder of the religion was put to death in the execution of his design; if the first race of converts to the religion, many of them, suffered the greatest extremities for their profession; it is hardly credible that those who came between the two, who were companions of the Author of the institution during his life, and the teachers and propagators of the institution after his death, could go about their undertaking with ease and safety.

The testimony of the younger Pliny belongs to a later period; for although he was contemporary with Tacitus and Suetonius, yet his account does not, like theirs, go back to the transactions of Nero's reign, but is confined to the affairs of his own time. His celebrated letter to Trajan was written about seventy years after Christ's death; and the information to be drawn from it, so far as it is connected with our argument, relates principally to two points. First, to the number of Christians in Bithynia and Pontus, which was so considerable as to induce the governor of these provinces to speak of them in the following terms: "Multi, omnis ætatis, utriusque sexus etiam; neque enim civitates tantùm, sed vicos etiam et agros, superstitionis istius contagio pervagata est." "There are many of every age and of both sexes; nor has the contagion of this superstition seized cities only, but smaller towns also, and the open country." Great exertions must have been used by the preachers of Christianity to produce this state of things within this time. Secondly, it relates to a point which has been already noticed, and which I think of importance to be observed, namely, the sufferings to which Christians were exposed, without any public persecution being denounced against them by sovereign authority. For, from Pliny's doubt how he was to act, his silence concerning any subsisting law on the subject, his requesting the emperor's rescript, and the emperor, agreeably to his request, propounding a rule for his direction, without reference to any prior rule, it may be inferred, that there was, at that time, no public edict in force against the Christians. Yet from this same epistle of Pliny it appears, that accusations, trials, and examinations, were, and had been, going on against them in the provinces over which he presided; that schedules were delivered by anonymous informers, containing the names of persons who were suspected of holding or of favouring the

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religion; that, in consequence of these informations, many had been apprehended, of whom some boldly avowed their profession, and died in the cause; others denied that they were Christians; others, acknowledging that they had once been Christians, declared that they had long ceased to be such." All which demonstrates that the profession of Christianity was at that time (in that country at least) attended with fear and danger; and yet this took place without any edict from the Roman sovereign, commanding or authorizing the persecution of Christians. This observation is further confirmed by a rescript of Adrian to Minucius Fundanus, the proconsul of Asia ;* from which rescript it appears, that the custom of the people of Asia was to proceed against the Christians with tumult and uproar. This disorderly practice, I say, is recognised in the edict, because the emperor enjoins, that, for the future, if the Christians were guilty, they should legally be brought to trial, and not be pursued by importunity and clamour.

Martial wrote a few years before the younger Pliny; and, as his manner was, made the sufferings of the Christians the subject of his ridicule.† Nothing, however, could show the notoriety of the fact with more certainty than this does. Martial's testimony, as well indeed as Pliny's, goes also to another point, namely, that the deaths of these men were martyrdoms in the strictest sense; that is to say, were so voluntary, that it was in their power, at the time of pronouncing the sentence, to have averted the execution, by consenting to join in heathen sacrifices.

The constancy, and by consequence the sufferings, of the Christians of this period, are also referred to by Epictetus, who imputes their intrepidity to madness, or to a kind of fashion or habit; and about fifty years afterwards, by Marcus Aurelius, who ascribes it to obstinacy.

*Lard., Heath. Test., vol. ii., p. 110.

+ In matutinâ nuper spectatus arenâ
Mucius, imposuit qui sua membra focis,
Si patiens fortisque tibi durusque videtur,
Abderitanæ pectora plebis habis ;

Nam cum dicatur, tunicâ præsente molestâ,
Ure‡ manum: plus est dicere, Non facio.

"Is it

[If Mucius, seen of late in the early games, who placed his limbs on the fire, seems to you patient, and brave, and firm, you are as foolish as the people of Abdera; for when it is said, with the hateful tunic in sight, Fill your hand with incense, it is a greater matter to say, I do it not.]

Forsan (perhaps) "Thure manum.”

possible (Epictetus asks) that a man may arrive at this temper, and become indifferent to those things, from madness or from habit, as the Galileans?"*( *(e) "Let this preparation of the mind (to die) arise from its own judgment, and not from obstinacy, like the Christians.Ӡ

CHAPTER III.

There is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct.

We

• Or the primitive condition of Christianity, only a distant and general view can be acquired from heathen writers. It is in our own books that the detail and interior of the transaction must be sought for. And this is nothing different from what might be expected. Who would write a history of Christianity but a Christian? Who was likely to record the travels, sufferings, labours, or successes of the apostles, but one of their own number, or of their followers? Now these books come up in their accounts to the full extent of the proposition which we maintain. We have four histories of Jesus Christ. have a history taking up the narrative from his death, and carrying on an account of the propagation of the religion, and of some of the most eminent persons engaged in it, for a space of nearly thirty years. We have, what some may think still more original, a collection of letters written by certain principal agents in the business, upon the business, and in the midst of their concern and connexion with it. And we have these writings severally attesting the point which we contend for, namely, the sufferings of the witnesses of the history, and attesting it in every variety of form in which it can be conceived to appear; directly and indi

Epict., 1. iv., c. 7.

(e) This contemptuous phrase is one of the many indirect confirmations of the gospel narrative." Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans?" was the remark of the provincial Jews on the day of Pentecost. Among the Jews of Palestine, whose knowledge of their country was more minute, the new sect were named from the residence of Jesus, Nazarenes. But among the Gentiles, they would be named, just as naturally, from the province, or tetrarchy, to which the apostles and most of the earliest disciples belonged, and where the new doctrine took its rise. Hence the surname used by Epictetus, Galileans.— EDITOR.

+ Marc. Aur., Med., 1. xi, c. 3.

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