116. Emperor from 117 conflicts with the ruling powers, we constantly appear to trace the character of the reigning sovereign. Of these emperors, Trajan possessed the most powerful and vigorous mind—a consummate general, a humane but active ruler: Hadrian was the proTrajan foundest stalesman, the Antonines the best men. The conduct of Emperor from Trajan was that of a military sovereign, whose natural disposition A. D. 98 to was tempered with humanity-prompt, decisive, never unnecessarily prodigal of blood, but careless of human life, if it appeared to stand in the way of any important design, or to hazard that Hadrian paramount object of the government, the public peace. Hadrian was inclined to a more temporising policy: the more the Roman to 138. empire was contemplated as a whole, the more the co-existence of multifarious religions might appear compatible with the general peace. Christianity might, in the end, be no more dangerous than the other foreign religions, which had flowed, and were still flowing in, from the East. The temples of Isis had arisen throughout the empire; but those of Jupiter or Apollo had not lost their votaries : the Eastern mysteries, the Phrygian, at a later period the Mithriac, had mingled, very little to their prejudice, into the general mass of the prevailing superstitions. The last characteristic of Christianity which would be distinctly understood, was its invasive and Antouinus uncompromising spirit. The elder Antonine may have pursued Pius Ein- from mildness of character the course adopted by Hadrian from 138 to 161. policy. The change which took place during the reign of Marcus Aurelius may be attributed to the circumstances of the time; though the pride of philosophy, as well as the established religion, might begin to take the alarm. peror from ity in Bi Christianity had probably spread with partial and very unequal success in different quarters its converts bore in various cities or districts a very different proportion to the rest of the population. No where, perhaps, had it advanced with greater rapidity than in the northern provinces of Asia Minor, where the inhabitants were of very mingled descent, neither purely Greek, nor essentially Asiatic with a considerable proportion of Jewish colonists, chiefly Christian of Babylonian or Syrian, not of Palestinian origin. It was here, in thynia and the province of Bithynia, that Polytheism first discovered the deadly cent pro- enemy, which was undermining her authority. It was here that vinces. the first cry of distress was uttered; and complaints of deserted temples and less frequent sacrifices were brought before the tribunal of the government. The memorable correspondence between Pliny and Trajan is the most valuable record of the early Christian history during this period (1). It represents to us Paganism already claiming the alliance of power to maintain its decaying influence; the adja A. D. 111, or 112. (1) The chronology of Pagi (Critica in Baronium) appears to me the most trustworthy. He places the letter of Pliny in the year cxi. or cxii.; the martyrdom of Ignatius or rather the peried when he was sent to Rome, in cxii., the time when Trajan was in the East, preparing for his Persian war.j Pliny. Christianity proceeding in its silent course, imperfectly understood by a wise and polite Pagan, yet still with nothing to offend his moral judgment, except its contumacious repugnance to the common usages of society. This contumacy, nevertheless, according to the recognised principle of passive obedience to the laws of the empire, was deserving of the severest punishment (1). The appeal of Letter of Pliny to the supreme authority for advice, as to the course to be pursued with these new, and, in most respects, harmless delinquents, unquestionably implies that no general practice had yet been laid down to guide the provincial governors under such emergencies (2). The answer of Trajan is characterised by a spirit of moderation. Answer of Trajan. It betrays a humane anxiety to allow all such offenders as were not forced under the cognisance of the public tribunals, to elude persecution. Nevertheless it distinctly intimates, that by some existing law, or by the ordinary power of the provincial governor, the Christians were amenable to the severest penalties, to torture, and even to capital punishment. Such punishment had already been inflicted by Pliny; the governor had been forced to interfere, by accusations lodged before his tribunal. An anonymous libel, or impeachment, had denounced numbers of persons, some of whom altogether disclaimed, others declared that they had renounced Christianity. With that unthinking barbarity with which in those times such punishments were inflicted on persons in inferior station, two servants, females-it is possible they were deaconesses-were put to the torture, to ascertain the truth of the vulgar accusations against the Christians. On their evidence, Pliny could detect nothing further than a "culpable and extravagant superstition (3).” The only facts which he could discover were, that they had a custom of meeting together before daylight, and singing a hymn to Christ as God. They were bound together by no unlawful sacrament, but only under mutual obligation not to commit theft, robbery, adultery, or fraud. They met again, and partook together of food, but that of a perfectly innocent kind. The test of guilt to which he submitted the more obstinate delinquents, was adoration before the statues of the Gods and of the Emperor, and the malediction of Christ. Those who refused he ordered to be led out to execution (4). Such was the summary process of the Roman governor ; and the approbation of the Emperor clearly shows, that he had not exceeded the recognised limits of his authority. Neither Trajan nor the senate had before this issued any edict on the subject. The (1) The conjecture of Pagi, that the attention of the government was directed to the Christians by their standing aloof from the festivals on the celebration of the Quindecennalia of Trajan, which fell on the year cxi. or cxii., is extremely probable. Pagi quotes two passages of Pliny on the subject of these general rejoicings. Critica in Bar. i, p. 100. (2) Pliny professes his ignorance, because he (3) Prava et immodica superstitio. tation. rescript to Pliny invested him in no new powers, it merely advised him, as he had done, to use his actual powers with discretion (1), neither to encourage the denunciation of such criminals, nor to proceed without fair and unquestionable evidence. The system of anonymous delation, by which private malice might wreak itself, by false or by unnecessary charges upon its enemies, Trajan reprobates in that generous spirit with which the wiser and more virtuous emperors constantly repressed that most disgraceful iniquity of the times (2). But it is manifest from the executions ordered by Pliny, and sanctioned by the approbation of the emperor, that Christianity was already an offence amenable to capital punishment (3), and this, either under some existing statute, under the common law of the empire which invested the provincial governor with the arbitrary power of life and death, or lastly, what in this instance cannot have been the case, the summum imperium of the Emperor (4). While then in the individual the profession of Christianity might thus by the summary sentence of the governor, and the tacit approbation of the Emperor, be treated as a capital offence, and the provincial governor might appoint the measure and the extent of the punishment, all public assemblies for the purpose of new and unauthorised worship might likewise be suppressed by the magistrate; for the police of the empire always looked with the utmost jealousy on all associations not recognised by the law; and resistance to such a mandate would call down, or the secret holding of such meetings after their prohibition, would incur any penalty, which the conservator of public order might think proper to inflict upon the delinquent. Such then was the general position of the Christians with the ruling authorities. They were guilty of a crime against the state, by introducing a new and unauthorized religion, or by holding assemblages contrary to the internal regulations of the empire. But the extent to which the law would be enforced against them-how far Christianity would be distinguished from Judaism and other foreign religions, which were permitted the free establishment of their rites-with how much greater jealousy their secret assemblies would be watched than those of other mysteries and esoteric religions-all this would depend upon the milder or more rigid character of the governor, and the willingness or reluctance of their fellow-citizens to arraign them (1) Actum quem debuisti în excutiendis causis eorum, qui Christiaui ad te delati fuerant, secu. tus es. Traj. ad Plin. est. (2) Nam et pessimi exempli, nec nostri sæculi (3) Those who were Roman citizens were sent for trial to Rome. Alii quia cives Romani erant, adnotavi in urbem remittendos. (4) This rescript or answer of Trajan, approving of the manner in which Pliny carried his law into execution, and suggesting other regulations for his conduct, is converted by Mosheim into a new law, which from that time became one of the statutes of the empire. Hæc Trajani lex inter publicas Imperii sanctiones relata (p. 234.). Trajan's words expressly declare that no certain rule of proceeding can be laid down, and leave almost the whole question to the discretion of the magistrate. Neque enim in universum aliquid, quod quasi certam formam habeat, constitui potest. Traj. ad Plin. not averse ments. before the tribunal of the magistrates. This in turn would depend on the circumstances of the place and the time; on the caprice of their enemies; on their own discretion; on their success and the apprehensions and jealousies of their opponents. In general, so long as they made no visible impression upon society, so long as their absence from the religious rites of the city or district, or even from the games and theatrical exhibitions, which were essential parts of the existing Polytheism, caused no sensible diminution in the concourse of the worshippers, their unsocial and self-secluding disposition would be treated with contempt and pity rather than with animosity. The internal decay of the spirit of Polytheism had little effect on its outward splendour. The philosophic party, who despised the popular faith, were secure in their rank, or in their decent conformity to the public ceremonial. The theory of all the systems of philosophy was to avoid unnecessary collision with the popular religious sentiment: their superiority to the vulgar was flattered, rather than offended, by the adherence of the latter to their native superstitions. In the public exhibitions, the followers of all other foreign religions met, as on a common ground. In the The Jews theatre or the hippodrome, the worshipper of Isis or of Mithra to theatrimingled with the mass of those who still adhered to Bacchus or to cal amuseJupiter. Even the Jews, in many parts, at least at a later period, in some instances at the present, betrayed no aversion to the popular games or amusements. Though in Palestine, the elder Herod had met with a sullen and intractable resistance in the religious body of the people, against his attempt to introduce Gentile and idolatrous games into the Holy Land, yet it is probable that the foreign Jews were more accommodating. A Jewish player, named Aliturus, stood high in the favour of Nero; nor does it appear that he had abandoned his religion. He was still connected with his own race; and some of the priesthood did not disdain to owe their acquittal, on certain charges on which they had been sent prisoners to Rome, to his interest with the Emperor, or with the ruling favourite Poppaa. After the Jewish war, multitudes of the prisoners were forced to exhibit themselves as gladiators; and at a later period, the confluence of the Alexandrian Jews to the theatres, where they equalled in numbers the Pagan spectators, endangered the peace of the city. The Christians alone stood aloof from exhibitions which, in their higher and nobler forms, arose out of, and were closely connected abstain with, the Heathen religion; were performed on days sacred to the deities; introduced the deities upon the stage; and, in short, were among the principal means of maintaining in the public mind its reverence for the old mythological fables. The sanguinary diversions of the arena, and the licentious voluptuousness of some of the other exhibitions, were no less offensive to their humanity and their modesty, than those more strictly religious to their piety. Christians from them. Still, as long as they were comparatively few in number, and did not sensibly diminish the concourse to these scenes of public enjoyment, they would be rather exposed to individual acts of vexatious interference, of ridicule, or contempt, than become the victims of a general hostile feeling their absence would not be resented as an insult upon the public, nor as an act of punishable disrespect against the local or more widely-worshipped deity to whose honour the games were dedicated. The time at which they would be in the greatest danger from what would be thought their suspicious or disloyal refusal to join in the public rejoicings, would be precisely that which has been conjectured with much ingenuity and probability to have been the occasion of their being thus committed with the popular sentiment and with the government,-the celebraIts danger tion of the birthday, or the accession of the Emperor. With the sions of ceremonial of those days, even if, as may have been the case, the political actual adoration of the statue of the Emperor was not an ordinary rejoicings. part of the ritual, much which was strictly idolatrous would be mingled up; and their ordinary excuse to such charges of disaffection, that they prayed with the utmost fervour for the welfare of the Emperor, would not be admitted, either by the sincere altachment of the people and of the government to a virtuous, or their abject and adulatory celebration of a cruel and tyrannical, Emperor. on occa connection This crisis in the fate of Christianity; this transition from safe and despicable obscurity to dangerous and obnoxious importance, would of course depend on the comparative rapidity of its progress in different quarters. In the province of Pliny, it had attained that height in little more than seventy years after the death of Christ. Though an humane and enlightened government might still endeavour to close its eyes upon its multiplying numbers and expanding influence, the keener sight of jealous interest, of rivalry in the command of the popular mind, and of mortified pride, already anticipated the time when this formidable anlagonist might balance, might at length overweigh, the failing powers of Polytheism. Under a less candid governor than Pliny, and an Emperor less humane and dispassionate than Trajan, the exterminating sword of persecution would have been let loose, and a relentless and systematic edict for the suppression of Christianity hunted down its followers in every quarter of the empire. Not only the wisdom and humanity of Trajan, but the military character of his reign, would tend to divert his attention from that Probable which belonged rather to the internal administration of the empire. of the It is not altogether impossible, though the conjecture is not coununder Pli. tenanced by any allusion in the despatch of Pliny, that the measures ny with adopted against the Christians were not entirely unconnected with the East. the political state of the East. The Roman empire, in the Mesopo persecution the state of |