BOOK I

FROM THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH BY NERO TO CONSTANTINE’S EDICT OF TOLERATION. A.D. 64-313.

 

CHAPTER I.

THE APOSTOLIC AGE

THE fullness of the time was come was proclaimed on earth. The way had been prepared for it, not only by that long system of manifest and special training which God had bestowed on his chosen people, but by the works of Gentile thought, employing the highest powers in the search after truth, yet unable to satisfy man’s natural cravings by revealing to him with certainty his origin and destiny, or by offering relief from the burdens of his soul. The Jews were looking eagerly for the speedy accomplishment of the promises made to their fathers; even among the Gentiles, vague prophecies and expectations of some great appearance in the East were widely current. The affairs of the world had been ordered for the furtherance of the Gospel; it was aided in its progress by the dispersion of the Jews, and by the vast extent of the Roman dominion. From its birthplace, Jerusalem, it might be carried by pilgrims to the widely scattered settlements in which their race had found a home; and in these Jewish settlements its preachers found an audience to which they might address their first announcements with the reasonable hope of being understood. From Rome, where it early took root, it might be diffused by means of the continual intercourse which all the provinces of the empire maintained with the capital. It might accompany the course of merchandise and the movements of the legions.

We learn from the books of the New Testament, that within a few years from the day of Pentecost the knowledge of the faith was spread, by the preaching, the miracles, and the life of the apostles and their associates, through most of the countries which border on the Mediterranean sea. At Rome, before the city had been visited by any apostle, the number of Christians was already so great as to form several congregations in the different quarters. Clement of Rome states that St. Paul himself, in the last period of his life, visited “the extremity of the West”—an expression which may be more probably interpreted of Spain (in accordance with the intention expressed in the Epistle to the Romans) than of our own island, for which many have wished to claim the honour of a visit from the great teacher of the Gentiles. The early introduction of Christianity into Britain, however, appears more certain than the agency by which it was effected; and the same remark will apply in other cases.

While St. Paul was engaged in the works which are related in the Acts of the Apostles, his brethren were doubtless active in their several spheres, although no certain record of their exertions has been preserved. St. Peter is said to have founded the church of Antioch, and, after having presided over it for seven years, to have left Enodius as his successor, while he himself penetrated into Parthia and other countries of the East, and it would seem more reasonable to understand the date of Babylon in his First Epistle (v. 13) as meaning the eastern city of that name than as a mystical designation of pagan Rome. Yet notwithstanding this, and although we need not scruple to reject the idea of his having held, as a settled bishop, that see which claims universal supremacy as an inheritance from him, it is not so much a spirit of sound criticism as a religious prejudice which has led some Protestant writers to deny that the apostle was ever at Rome, where all ancient testimony represents him to have suffered, together with St. Paul, in the reign of Nero.

St. Bartholomew is said to have preached in India and Arabia; St. Andrew in Scythia; St. Matthew and St. Matthias in Ethiopia. St. Philip (whether the deacon or the apostle is uncertain) is supposed to have settled at Hierapolis in Phrygia. The church of Alexandria traced itself to St. Mark; that of Milan, but with less warrant, to St. Barnabas. The church of Edessa is said to have been founded by St. Thaddeus; and this might perhaps be more readily believed if the story were not connected with a manifestly spurious correspondence between our Saviour and Abgarus, king of that region. St. Thomas is reported to have preached in Parthia and in India; the Persian church claimed him for its founder, and the native church of Malabar advances a similar claim. But the name of India was so vaguely used that little can be safely inferred from the ancient notices which connect it with the works of St. Thomas; and the more probable opinion appears to be that the Christianity of Malabar owes its origin to the Nestorian missionaries of the fifth century, who, by carrying with them from Persia the name of the apostle of that country, laid the foundation of the local tradition. The African church, which afterwards became so prominent in history, has been fabulously traced to St. Peter, and to St. Simon Zelotes; but nothing is known of it with certainty until the last years of the second century, and the Christianity of Africa was most probably derived from Rome by means of teachers whose memory has perished.

There may be too much hardness in rejecting traditions, as well as too great easiness in receiving them. Where it is found that a church existed, and that it referred its origin to a certain person, the mere fact that the person in question was as likely as any other to have been the founder, or perhaps more likely than any other, can surely be no good reason for denying the claim. We have before us, on the one hand, remarkable works, and on the other, distinguished names; and although tradition may be wrong in connecting the names with the works, it is an unreasonable skepticism to insist on separating them without examination and without exception.

The persecution by Nero is one of the circumstances in our early history which are attested by the independent evidence of heathen writers. It has been supposed that Christianity had once before attracted the notice of the imperial government; for it is inferred from a passage in Suetonius that disturbances among the Roman Jews on the subject of Christ had been the occasion of the edict by which Claudius banished them from Rome. But the persecution under Nero was more distinctly directed against the Christians, on whom the emperor affected to lay the guilt of having set fire to the city. Some were sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to be torn by dogs; some were crucified; others were covered with a dress which had been smeared with pitch, and was then set on fire, so that the victims served as torches to illuminate the emperor’s gardens, while he regaled the populace with the exhibition of chariot-races, in which he himself took part. Tacitus, in relating these atrocities, states that, although the charge of incendiarism was disbelieved, the Christians were unpopular as followers of an unsocial superstition; but that the infliction of such tortures on them raised a general feeling of pity. As to the extent of this persecution (which has been a subject of dispute) the most probable opinion appears to be that it had no official sanction beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the capital; but the display of Nero’s enmity against the Christian name must doubtless have affected the condition of the obnoxious community throughout the provinces of the empire.

Until the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the capital of God’s ancient people, the birthplace of the church, had naturally been regarded by Christians as a religious centre. It was the scene of the apostolic council, held under the presidency of its bishop, St. James “the Just”. And, as the embracing of the Gospel was not considered to detach converts of Hebrew race from the temple-worship and other Mosaic observances, Jerusalem had continued to be a resort for such converts, including the apostles themselves, at the seasons of the great Jewish festivals. But the destruction of the temple and of the holy city put an end to this connection. It was the final proof that God was no longer with the Israel after the flesh; that the Mosaic system had fulfilled its work, and had passed away. At the approach of the besieging army, the Christian community, seeing in this the accomplishment of their Master’s warning, had withdrawn beyond the Jordan to the mountain town of Pella. The main body of them returned after the siege, and established themselves among the ruins, under Simeon, who had been raised to the bishopric on the martyrdom of St. James, some years before; but the church of Jerusalem no longer stood in its former relation of superiority to other churches.

Christianity, as it was not the faith of any nation, had not, in the eyes of Roman statesmen, a claim to admission among the religions allowed by law (religiones licitae); it must, indeed, have refused such a position, if it were required to exist contentedly and without aggression by the side of systems which it denounced as false and ruinous; and thus its professors were always exposed to the capricious enmity of rulers who might think fit to proceed against them. Thirty years after the time of Nero, a new persecution of the church, wider in its reach, although of less severity than the former, was instituted by Domitian. The banishment of St. John to Patmos, where he saw the visions recorded in the last book of Holy Scripture, has generally been referred to this persecution. Nor does there appear to be any good reason for disbelieving the story that the emperor, having been informed that some descendants of the house of David were living in Judaea, ordered them to be brought before him, as he apprehended a renewal of the attempts at rebellion which had been so frequent among their nation. They were two grandchildren of St. Jude —the “brother” of our Lord, as he is called. They showed their hands, rough and horny from labour, and gave such answers as proved them to be simple countrymen, not likely to engage in any plots against the state; whereupon they were dismissed. The persecution did not last long. Domitian, before his assassination, had given orders that it should cease, and that the Christians who had been banished should be permitted to return to their homes; and the reign of his successor, Nerva (A.D. 96-8), who restored their confiscated property, was a season of rest for the church.

St. John alone of the apostles survived to the reign of Trajan. Of his last years, which were spent in the superintendence of the Ephesian church, some traditions have been preserved, which, if they cannot absolutely demand our belief, have at least a sufficient air of credibility to deserve a respectful consideration. One of these is a pleasing story of his recovering to the way of righteousness a young man who, after having been distinguished by the apostle’s notice and interest, had fallen into vicious courses, and had become captain of a band of robbers. Another tradition relates that, when too feeble to enter the church without assistance, or to utter many words, he continually addressed his flock with the charge—“Little children, love one another”; and that when some of them ventured to ask the reason of a repetition which they found wearisome, he answered, “Because it is the Lord’s commandment, and, if this only be performed, it is enough”. And it is surely a very incomplete view of the apostle’s character which would reject as inconsistent with it the story of his having rushed out of a public bath in horror and indignation on finding it to be polluted by the presence of the heretic Cerinthus.

Of the writings ascribed to this age, but which have not been admitted into the canon of the New Testament, the First Epistle of St. Clement is the only one which is generally received as genuine. The author, who was anciently supposed to be the Clement mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians (IV. 3), was bishop of Rome towards the end of the century. His epistle, of which the chief object is to recommend humility and peace, was written in consequence of some dissensions in the Corinthian church, of which no other record is preserved, but which were probably later than Domitian’s persecution. The Second Epistle ascribed to Clement, and two letters “To Virgins”, which exist in a Syriac version, are rejected by most critics; and the other writings with which Clement’s name is connected are undoubtedly spurious. The Epistle which bears the name of St. Barnabas (although it does not claim him for its author), and the “Shepherd” of Hermas, are probably works of the earlier half of the second century.

Before leaving the apostolic age a few words must be said on the subject of church-government, while some other matters of this time may be better reserved for notice at such points of the later history as may afford us a view of their bearings and consequences.

With respect, then, to the government of the earliest church, the most important consideration appears to be, that the Christian ministry was developed, not from below, but from above. We do not find that the first members of it raised some from among their number to a position higher than the equality on which they had all originally stood; but, on the contrary, that the apostles, having been at first the sole depositaries of their Lord’s commission, with all the powers which it conferred, afterwards delegated to others, as their substitutes, assistants, or successors, such portions of their powers as were capable of being transmitted, and as were necessary for the continuance of the church. In this way were appointed, first, the order of deacons, for the discharge of secular administrations and of the lower spiritual functions; next, that of presbyters, elders, or bishops, for the ordinary care of congregations; and, lastly, the highest powers of ordination and government were in like manner imparted, as the apostles began to find that their own body was, from its smallness, unequal to the local superintendence of the growing church, and as the advance of age warned them to provide for the coming times. An advocate of the episcopal theory of apostolic succession is under no necessity of arguing that there must have been three orders in the ministry, or that there need have been more than one. It is enough to say that those to whom the apostles conveyed the full powers of the Christian ministry were not the deacons, nor the presbyters, but (in the later meaning of the word) the bishops; and the existence of the inferior orders, as subject to these, is a simple matter of history.

Resting on the fact that the apostles were, during their lives on Earth, the supreme regulating authorities of the church, we may disregard a multitude of questions which have been made to tell against the theories of an episcopal polity, of a triple ministry, or of any ministry whatever as distinguished from the great body of Christians. We need not here inquire at what time and by what steps the title of bishop, which had originally been common to the highest and the second orders, came to be applied exclusively to the former, nor whether functions originally open to all Christian men were afterwards restricted to a particular class; nor in how far the inferior orders of the clergy, or the whole body of the faithful, may have at first shared in the administration of government and discipline; nor whether the commissions given by St. Paul to Timothy and to Titus were permanent or only occasional; nor at what time the system of fixed diocesan bishops was introduced. We do not refuse to acknowledge that the organization of the church was gradual; we are only concerned to maintain that it was directed by the apostles (probably acting on instructions committed to them by their Master during the interval between his resurrection and his ascension), and that in all essential points it was completed before their departure.

It is evident that the ministers of the church, beginning with St. Matthias, were usually chosen by the body of believers; but it seems equally clear that it was the apostolical ordination which gave them their commission—that commission being derived from the Head of the church, who had bestowed it on the apostles, that they might become the channels for conveying it to others.

Of the universal supremacy of the bishop of Rome it is unnecessary here to speak. In this stage of church-history it is a matter not for the narrator but for the controversialist; if, indeed, the theories as to the “development” of Christianity, which have lately been devised in the interest of the Papacy, may not be regarded as dispensing even the controversial opponents of Rome from the necessity of proving that, in the earliest times of the church, no such supremacy was known or imagined

CHAPTER II.

THE REIGNS OF TRAJAN AND HADRIAN, A.D. 98-138