which he dictated during his campaigns upon the Danube, the tone of profound religious sentiment, but proudly disclaims the influence of superstition upon his mind. Yet in Rome, he either shared or condescended to appear to share, all the terrors of the people. The pestilence, said to have been introduced from the East by the soldiers, on their return from the Parthian campaign, had not yet ceased its ravages, when the public mind was thrown into a state of the utmost depression by the news of the Marcomannic war, M. Aurelius, as we shall hereafter see, did not, in his proper person, countenance, to the utmost, the demands of the popular superstition. For all the vulgar arts of magic, divination, and vaticination, the Emperor declares his sovereign contempt; yet on that occasion besides the public religious ceremonies, to which we shall presently allude, he is said himself to have tampered with the dealers in the secrets of futurity; to have lent a willing ear to the prognostications of the Chaldeans, and to the calculations of astrology. If these facts be true, and all this was not done in sentiments mere compliance with the general sentiment, the serene compoperor, in sure of Marcus himself may at times have darkened into terror; his Medi- his philosophic apathy may not always have been exempt from the Private of the Em tations. influence of shuddering devotion. In issuing an edict against the Christians, Marcus may have supposed that he was consulting the public good, by conciliating the alienated favour of the gods. But the superiority of the Christians to all the terrors of death appears at once to have astonished and wounded the Stoic pride of the Emperor. Philosophy, which was constantly dwelling on the solemn question of the immortality of the soul, could not comprehend the eager resolution with which the Christian departed from life; and in the bitterness of jealousy sought out unworthy motives for the intrepidity which it could not emulate. "How great is that soul which is ready, if it must depart from the body, to be extinguished, to be dispersed, or still to subsist! and this readiness must proceed from the individual judgment, not from mere obstinacy, like the Christians, but deliberately, solemnly, and without tragic display (1)." The Emperor did not choose to discern that it was in the one case the doubt, in the other the assurance, of the eternal destiny of the soul, which constituted the difference. Marcus, no doubt, could admire, not merely the dignity with which the philosopher might depart on his uncertain but necessary disembarkation from the voyage of life, and the bold and fearless valour with (1) The Emperor's Greek is by no means clear in this remarkable passage. Tiny Tapárasiv is usually translated as in the text "mere obsti nacy." A recent writer renders it "ostentation or parade." I suspect an antithesis with idix κρίσεως, and that it refers to the manner in which the Christians arrayed themselves as a body against the authority of the persecutors; and should render the words omitted in the text wort xai ärλov reîoui, and without that tragic display which is intended to persuade others to follow our example. The Stoic pride would stand alone in the dignity of an intrepid death. which his own legionaries or their barbarous antagonists could confront death on the field of battle; but, at the height of his wisdom, he could not comprehend the exalted enthusiasm with which the Christian trusted in the immortality and blessedness of the departed soul in the presence of God. There can be little doubt that Marcus Antonius issued an edict by which the Christians were again exposed to all the denunciations of common informers, whose zeal was now whetted by some share, if not by the whole, of the confiscated property of delinquents. The most distinguished Christians of the East were sacrificed to the base passions of the meanest of mankind, by the Emperor, who, with every moral qualification to appreciate the new religion, closed his ears, either in the stern apathy of Stoic philosophy, or the more engrossing terrors of Heathen bigotry. It is remarkable how closely the more probable records of Christian martyrology harmonise with the course of events, during the whole reign of M. Aurelius, and illustrate and justify our view of the causes and motives of their persecution (1). It was on the 7th March, 161, that the elder Antoninus, in the charitable words of a Christian apologist, sunk in death into the sweetest sleep (2), and M. Aurelius assumed the reins of empire. He immediately associated with himself the other adopted son of Antonine, who took the name of L. Verus. One treacherous year of peace gave the hope of undisturbed repose, under the beneficent sway which carried the maxims of a severe and humane philosophy into the administration of public affairs. Mild to all lighter delinquencies, but always ready to mitigate the severity of the law; the Emperor was only inexorable to those more heinous offences which endanger the happiness of society. While the Emperor himself superintended the course of justice, the senate resumed its ancient honours. The second year of his reign, the horizon began to darken. During the reign of the first Antonine, earthquakes, which shook down some of the Asiatic cities, and fires, which ravaged those of the West, had excited considerable alarm; but these calamities assumed a more dire and destructive character during the reign of Aurelius. Rome itself was first visited with a terrible inundation (3). The Tiber swept away all the cattle in the neighbourhood, threw down a great number of buildings; among the rest, the magazines and granaries of corn, which were chiefly siluated on the banks of the river. This appalling event was followed (1) A modern writer, M. Ripault (Hist. Philosophique de Marc Aurele), ascribes to this time the memorable passage of Tertullian's apology -"Existiment omnis publicæ cladis, omnis popularis incommodi, Christianos esse causam. Si Tiberis ascendit in mania, si Nilus non ascendit in arva, si cælum stetit, si terra movit, si fames, si lues, statim Christianos ad leones." Tout ce qui suit les cultes de l'empire, s'élève de toutes parts contre les Chrétiens. On attribue à ce (2) Quadratus apud Xiphilin. Antonin. 3. A. D. 461. A. D. 162. Calamities pire. by a famine, which pressed heavily on the poorer population of the capital. At the same time, disturbances took place in Britain; the Catti, a German tribe, ravaged Belgium; and the Parthian war, which commenced under most disastrous circumstances, the invasion of Syria, and the loss of three legions, demanded the presence of his colleague in the empire. Though the event was announced to be prosperous, yet intelligence of doubtful and hard-won victories seemed to intimate that the spell of Roman conquest was A. D. 166. beginning to lose its power (1). After four years, Verus returned, of the en- bearing the trophies of victory; but, at the same time, the seeds of a calamity, which outweighed all the barren honours which he had won on the shores of the Euphrates. His army was infected with a pestilence, which superstition ascribed to the plunder of a temple in Seleucia or Babylonia. The rapacious soldiers had opened a mystic coffer, inscribed with magical signs, from which issued a pestilential air, which laid waste the whole world. This fable is a vivid indication of the state of the public mind (2). More rational observation traced the fatal malady from Ethiopia, and Egypt to the Eastern army, which it followed from province to province, mouldering away its strength as it proceeded, even to the remote frontiers of Gaul and the northern shores of the Rhine. Italy felt its most dreadful ravages, and in Rome itself the dead bodies were transported out of the city not on the decent bier, but heaped up in waggons. Famine aggravated the miseries, and, perhaps, increased the virulence, of the plague (3). Still the hopes of peace began to revive the drooping mind; and flattering medals were struck, which promised the return of golden days. On a sudden, the empire was appalled with the intelligence of new wars in all quarters. The Moors laid waste the fertile provinces of Spain; a rebellion of shepherds withheld the harvests of Egypt from the capital. Their defeat only added to the dangerous glory of Avidius Cassius, who, before long, stood forth as a competitor for the empire. A vast confederacy of nations, from the frontiers of Gaul to the borders of Illyricum, comprehending some of the best-known and most formidable of the German tribes, with others, whose dissonant races were new to the Roman ears, had arisen with a simultaneous movement (4). The armies were wasted with the Parthian campaigns, and the still more destructive plague. The Marcomannic has been (1) Sed in diebus Parthici belli, persecutiones Christianorum, quartâ jam post Neronem vice, in Asiâ et Galliâ graves præcepto ejus extiterunt, multique sanctorum martyrio coronati sunt. This loose language of Orosius (for the persecution in Gaul, if not in Asia, was much later than the Parthian war,) appears to connect the calamities of Rome with the persecutions. (2) This was called the annus calamitosus. There is a strange story in Capitolinus of an impostor who harangued the populace, from the wild fig-tree in the Campus Martius, and assert- martyr. A. D. 166. compared with the second Punic war, though, at the time, even in the paroxysm of terror, the pride of Rome would probably not have ennobled an irruption of barbarians, however formidable, by such a comparison. The presence of both the Emperors was immediately demanded. Marcus, indeed, lingered in Rome, probably to enrol the army; (for which purpose he swept together recruits from all quarters, and even robbed the arena of its bravest gladiators,) certainly to perform the most solemn and costly religious ceremonies. Every rite was celebrated which could propitiate the Divine favour, or allay the popular fears. Priests were summoned from all quarters; foreign rites performed (1); lustrations and funereal banquets for seven days purified the infected city. It was, no doubt, on this occasion that the unusual number of victims provoked the sarcastic wit, which insinuated that if the Emperor returned victorious, there would be a dearth of oxen (2). Precisely at Christian this time, the Christian martyrologies date the commencement of domis. the persecution under Aurelius. In Rome itself, Justin, the apologist of Christianity, either the same or the following year, ratified with his blood the sincerity of his belief in the doctrines for which he had abandoned the Gentile philosophy. His death is attributed to the jealousy of Crescens, a Cynic, whose audience had been drawn off by the more attractive tenets of the Christian Platonist. Justin was summoned before Rusticus, one of the philosophic teachers of Aurelius, the prefect of the city, and commanded to perform sacrifice. On his refusal, and open avowal of his Christianity, he was scourged, and put to death. It is by no means improbable that, during this crisis of religious terror, mandates should have been issued to the provinces to imitate the devotion of the capital, and every where to appease the offended gods by sacrifice. Such an edict, though not designating them by name, would, in its effects, and perhaps in intention, expose the Christians to the malice of their enemies. Even if the provincial governors were left of their own accord to imitate the example of the Emperor, their own zeal or loyalty would induce them to fall in with the popular current; and the lofty humanity which would be superior at once to superstition, to interest, and to the desire of popularity, which would neglect the opportunity of courting the favour of the Emperor and the populace, would be a rare and singular virtue upon the tribunal of a provincial ruler. The persecution raged with the greatest violence in Asia Minor. It was here that the new edicts were promulgated, so far departing (1) Peregrinos ritus impleverit. Such seems the uncontested reading in the Augustan history; yet the singular fact that at such a period the Emperor should introduce foreign rites, as well as the unusual expression, may raise a suspicion that some word, with an opposite meaning, is the genuine expression of the author. (2) This early pasquinade was conched in the form of an address from the white oxen to the Emperor. If you conquer, we are undone. O βόες οι λευκοί Μαρκῶ τῶ Καίσαρι, ἂν δὲ συ νικήσης, ἥμες ἀπωλόμεθα. Amm. Marc. xxv. 4. Persecu tion in nor. Polycarp. from the humane regulations of the former Emperors, that the prudent apologists venture to doubt their emanating from the imperial authority (1). By these rescripts, the delators were again let loose, and were stimulated by the gratification of their rapacity as well as of their revenge, out of the forfeited goods of the Christian victims of persecution. The fame of the aged Polycarp, whose death the sorrowing church of Smyrna related in an epistle to the Christian community at Philomelium or Philadelphia, which is still extant, and bears every mark of authenticity (2), has obscured that of the other victims of Heathen malice or superstition. Of these victims, the names of two only have survived; one who manfully endured, the other who timidly apostatised in the hour of trial. Germanicus appeared; was forced to descend into the arena; he fought gallantly, until the merciful, Proconsul entreated him to consider his time of life. He then provoked the tardy beast, and in an instant obtained his immortality. The impression on the wondering people was that of indignation rather than pity. The cry was redoubled, “Away with the godless! let Polycarp be apprehended!" The second, Quintus, a Phrygian, had boastfully excited the rest to throw themselves in the way of the persecution. He descended, in his haste, into the arena; the first sight of the wild-beasis so overcame his hollow courage, that he consented to sacrifice. Polycarp was the most distinguished Christian of the East; he had heard the Apostle St. John; he had long presided, with the most saintly dignity, over the see of Smyrna. Polycarp neither ostentatiously exposed himself, nor declined such measures for security as might be consistent with his character. He consented to retire into a neighbouring village, from which, on the intelligence of the approach of the officers, he retreated to another. His place of concealment being betrayed by two slaves, whose confession had been extorted by torture, he exclaimed, "The will of God be done;" ordered food to be prepared for the officers of justice; and requested time for prayer, in which he spent two hours. He was placed upon an ass, and on a day of great public concourse, conducted towards the town. He was met by Herod the Irenarch, and his father Nicetas, who took him, with considerate respect, into their own carriage, and vainly endeavoured to persuade him to submit to the two tests by which the Christians were tried, the salutation of the Emperor by the title of Lord, and sacrifice. On his determinate refusal, their compassion gave place to contumely; he was hastily thrust out of the chariot, and conducted to the crowded stadium. On the entrance of the old man upon the public scene, the excited devotion of the Christian spectators imagined that they (1) Melito apud Euseb. E. H. iv. 20. (2) In Cotelerii Patres Apostolici, ii. 195. |