them, of the sacred treasures of prophecy. It was Paganism made to utter, in its most hallowed language, and by its own inspired prophets, its own condemnation; to announce its own immediate downfall, and the triumph of its yet obscure enemy over both its religious and temporal dominion. The fifth and eighth books of the Sibylline oracles, are those which most distinctly betray the sentiments and language of the Christians of this period (1). In the spirit of the Jewish prophets, they denounce the folly of worshipping gods of wood and stone, of ivory, of gold, and silver; of offering incense and sacrifice to dumb and deaf deities. The gods of Egypt and of Greece,-Hercules, Jove, and Mercury,-are cut off. The whole sentiment is in the contemptuous and aggressive tone of the later, rather than the more temporate and defensive argument of the earlier, apologists for Christianity. But the Sibyls are made, not merely to denounce the fall of Heathenism, but the ruin of Heathen states and the desolation of Heathen cities. Many passages relate to Egypt, and seem to point out Alexandria, with Asia Minor, the cities of which, particularly Laodicea, are frequently noticed, as the chief staple of these poetico-prophetic forgeries (2). The following passage might almost seem to have been written after the destruction of the Serapeum by Theodosius (3). “ Isis, thrice hapless goddess, thou shalt remain alone on the shores of the Nile, a solitary Mænad by the sands of Acheron. No longer shall thy memory endure upon the earth. And thou, Serapis, that restest upon thy stones, much must thou suffer; thou shall be the mightiest ruin in thrice hapless Egypt; and those, who worshipped thee for a god, shall know thee to be nothing. And one of the linen-clothed priests shall say, Come, let us build the beautiful temple of the true (1) Lib. v. p. 557. (2) (3) 66 God; let us change the awful law of our ancestors, who, in their ignorance, made their pomps and festivals to gods of stone and clay; let us turn our hearts, hymning the Everlasting God, the Eternal Father, the Lord of all, the True, the King, the Creator and Preserver of our souls, the Great, the Eternal God." A bolder prophet, without doubt writing precisely at this perilous crisis, dares, in the name of Sibyl, to connect together the approaching fall of Rome and the gods of Rome. "O, haughty Rome, the just chastisement of Heaven shall come down upon thee from on high; thou shalt stoop thy neck, and be levelled with the earth; and fire shall consume thee, razed to thy very foundations; and thy wealth shall perish; wolves and foxes shall dwell among thy ruins, and thou shalt be desolate as if thou hadst never been. Where then will be thy Palladium? Which of thy gods of gold, or of stone, or of brass, shall save thee? Where then the decrees of thy senate? Where the race of Rhea, of Saturn, or of Jove; all the lifeless deities thou hast worshipped, or the shades of the deified dead? When the thrice five gorgeous Cæsars (the twelve Cæsars usually so called, with Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian), who have enslaved the world from east to west, shall be, one will arise silverhelmed, with a name like the neighbouring sea (Hadrian and the Hadriatic Sea) (1)." The poet describes the busy and lavish character of Hadrian, his curiosity in prying into all religious mysteries, and his deification of Antinous (2). "After him shall reign three, whose times shall be the last (3). * * * Then from the uttermost parts of the earth, whither (3) Lib. viii. p. 679. There is another allusion to Hadrian, lib. v. p. 552., much more laudatory. Εσται καὶ πανάριστος ἀνήει. Κόσμον ἐποπτεύων μιαρῷ ποδί, δῶρα πορίζων Καὶ μαγικῶν ἀδύτων μυστήρια πάντα μεθέξει, Παιδὰ Θεὸν δεικνύσει, ἅπαντα σεβάσματα λύσει.-Ρ. 689. One of these three is to be an old man, to beap up vast treasures, in order to surrender them to the eastern destroyer, Nero he fled, shall the matricide (Nero) return (1). And now, O king of Rome shalt thou mourn, disrobed of the purple laliclave of thy rulers, and clad in sackloth. The glory of thy eagle-bearing legions shall perish. Where shall be thy might? what land, which thou hast enslaved by thy vain laurels, shall be thine ally? For there shall be confusion on all mortals over the whole earth, when the Almighty Ruler comes, and seated upon his throne, judges the souls of the quick and of the dead, and of the whole world. There shall be wailing and scattering abroad, and ruin, when the fall of the cities shall come, and the abyss of earth shall open." In another passage, the desolation of Italy, the return of Nero, the general massacre of kings, are pourtrayed in fearful terms. The licentiousness of Rome is detailed in the blackest colours. Sit silent in thy sorrow, O guilty and luxurious city; the vestal virgins shall no longer watch the sacred fire; thy house is desolate (2)." Christianity is then represented under the image of a pure and heaven-descending temple, embracing the whole human race. Whether these prophecies merely embodied, for the private edification, the sentiments of the Christians, they are manifest indications of these sentiments; and they would scarcely be concealed with so much prudence and discretion, as not to transpire among adversaries, who now began to watch them with jealous vigilance if they were boldly published, for the purpose of con (1) The strange notion of the flight of Nero beyond the Euphrates, from whence he was to return as Antichrist, is almost the burthen of the Sibylline verses. Compare lib. iv. p. 520-525.; v. 573., where there is an allusion to his theatrical tastes, 619-714. The best commentary is that of St. Augustin on the Thessalonians. "Et tunc revelabitur ille iniquus. Ego prorsus quid dixerit me fateor ignorare. Suspiciones tamen hominum, quas vel audire vel legere de hac re potui, non tacebo. Quidam putant hoc de imperio dictum fuisse Romano; et propterea Paulum Apostolum non id apertè scribere voluisse, ne calumniam videlicet incurreret quod Romano imperio malè optaverit, cum speraretur æternum: ut hoc quod dixit, 'Jam enim mysterium iniquitatis operatur,' Neronem voluerit intelligi, cujus jam facta velut Antichristi videbantur; unde Lib. viii, 688. nonnulli ipsum resurrec'urum et futurum Anti- (2) Lib. v. p. 621. 1 the cir ces of the times. verting the Heathen, they would be still more obnoxious to the general indignation and hatred. However the more moderate and rational, probably the greater number, of the Christians might deprecate these dangerous and injudicious effusions of zeal, the consequences would involve all alike in the indiscriminating animosity which they would provoke; and, whether or not these predictions were contained in the Sibylline poems, quoted by all the early writers, by Justin Martyr, by Clement, and by Origen, the altempt to array the authority of the Sibyls against that religion and that empire, of which they were before considered almost the tutelary guardians, would goad the rankling aversion to violent resentment. The general superiority assumed in any way by Christianity, directly it came into collision with the opposite party, would of itself be fatal to the peace which it had acquired in its earlier obscurity. Of all pretensions, man is most jealous of the claim to moral supeChange in riority. II. The darkening aspect of the times wrought up this cumstan- growing alienation and hatred to open and furious hostility. In the reign of M. Aurelius, we approach the verge of that narrow oasis of peace which intervenes between the final conquests of Rome and the recoil of repressed and threatening barbarism upon the civilisation of the world. The public mind began to be agitaled with gloomy rumours from the frontier, while calamities, though local, yet spread over wide districts, shook the whole Roman people with apprehension. Foreign and civil wars, inundations, earthquakes, pestilences, which we shall presently assign to their proper dates, awoke the affrighted empire from its slumber of tranquillity and peace (1). The emperor Marcus reposed not, like his predecessor, in his Lanuvian villa, amid the peaceful pursuits of agriculture, or with the great jurisconsults of the time, meditating on a general system of legislation. The days of the second Numa were gone by, and the philosopher must leave his speculative school and his Stoic friends to place himself at the head of the legions. New levies invade the repose of peaceful families; even the public amusements are encroached upon, the gladiators are enrolled to serve in the army (2). Terror of It was at this unexpected crisis of calamity and terror, that superstiworld. tion, which had slept in careless and Epicurean forgetfulness of its the Roman gods, suddenly awoke, and when it fled for succour to the altar of the tutelar deity, found the temple deserted and the shrine neglected. One portion of society stood aloof in sullen disregard or avowed contempt of rites so imperiously demanded by the avenging gods. If, in the time of public distress, true religion inspires serene re (1) Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. ii. 593. voluptatibus vellet cogere ad philosophiam. Jul. Cap. p. 204. signation to the Divine will, and receives the awful admonition to more strenuous and rigid virtue; superstition shudders at the manifest anger of the gods, yet looks not within to correct the offensive guilt, but abroad, to discover some gift or sacrifice which may appease the Divine wrath, and bribe back the alienated favour of Heaven. Rarely does it discover any offering sufficiently costly, except human life. The Christians were the public and avowed enemies of the gods; they were the self-designated victims, whose ungrateful atheism had provoked, whose blood might avert, their manifest indignation. The public religious ceremonies, the sacrifices, the games, the theatres, afforded constant opportunities of inflaming and giving vent to the paroxyms of popular fury, with which it disburdened itself of its awful apprehensions. The cry of "The Christians to the lions!" was now no longer the wanton clamour of individual or party malice; it was not murmured by the interested, and eagerly re-echoed by the blood-thirsty, who rejoiced in the exhibition of unusual victims; it was the deep and general voice of fanalic terror, solemnly demanding the propitiation of the wrathful gods, by the sacrifice of these impious apostates from their worship (1). The Christians were the authors of all the calamities which were brooding over the world, and in vain their earnest apologists appealed to the prosperity of the empire, since the appearance of Christ, in the reign of Augustus, and showed that the great enemies of Christianity, the emperors Nero and Domitian, were likewise the scourges of mankind (2). 3. The of the Em peror. III. Was then the philosopher superior to the vulgar superstition? In what manner did his personal character affect the condi- character tion of the Christians? Did he authorise, by any new edict, a general and systematic persecution, or did he only give free scope to the vengeance of the awe-struck people, and countenance the timid or fanatic concessions of the provincial governors to the riotous demand of the populace for Christian blood? Did he actually repeal or suspend, or only neglect to enforce, the milder edicts of his predecessors, which secured to the Christians a fair and public trial before the legal tribunal (3)? The acts ascribed to Marcus Aurelius, in the meager and unsatisfactory annals of his · reign, are at issue with the sentiments expressed in his grave and lofty Meditations. He assumes, in his philosophical lucubrations, (1) The miracle of the thundering legion (see postea), after having suffered deadly wounds from former assailants, was finally transfixed by the critical spear of Moyle. (Works, vol. ii.) Is it improbable that it was invented or wrought up, from a casual occurrence, into its present form, as a kind of counterpoise to the reiterated charge which was advanced against the Christians, of having caused, by their impiety, all the calamities inflicted by the barbarians on the empire? (2) Melito apud Routh, Reliq. Sacr. 1. 111. Compare Tertullian, Apologet, v. (3) There is an edict of the Emperor Aurelian in the genuine acts of St. Symphorian, in which Pagi, Ruinart, and Neander (i. 106.), would read the name of M. Aurelius instead of Aurelianus. Their arguments are, in my opinion, inclusive, and the fact that Aurelian is named among the persecuting Emperors in the treatise ascribed to Lactantius (de Mort. Persecutor.), in which his edicts (scripta) against the Christians are distinctly named, outweighs their conjectural objections. |