66 heard a voice from heaven, "Polycarp, be firm!" The Heathen, in their vindictive fury, shouted aloud, that Polycarp had been apprehended. The merciful Proconsul entreated him, in respect to his old age, to disguise his name. He proclaimed aloud that he was Polycarp; the trial proceeded. "Swear," they said, "by the Genius of Cæsar; retract, and say, away with the godless." The old man gazed in sorrow at the frantic and raging benches of the spectators, rising above each other, and with his eyes uplifted to heaven, said, "Away with the godless!" The Proconsul urged him further-"Swear, and I release thee; blaspheme Christ." · Eighty and six years have I served Christ, and he has never done me an injury; how can I blaspheme my King, and my Saviour?" The Proconsul again commanded him to swear by the Genius of Cæsar. Polycarp replied, by avowing himself a Christian, and by requesting a day to be appointed on which he might explain before the Proconsul the blameless tenets of Christianity. “Persuade the people to consent," replied the compassionate, but overawed ruler. We owe respect to authority; to thee I will explain the reasons of my conduct, to the populace I will make no explanation." The old man knew too well the ferocious passions raging in their minds, which it had been vain to attempt to allay by the rational arguments of Christianity. The Proconsul threatened to expose him to the wild beasts. Tis weil for me to be speedily released from this life of misery." He threatened to burn him alive. I fear not the fire that burns for a moment; thou knowest not that which burns for ever and ever.' His countenance was full of peace and joy, even when the herald advanced into the midst of the assemblage, and thrice proclaimed-" Polycarp has professed himself a Christian.' The Jews and Heathens (for the former were in great numbers, and especially infuriated against the Christians) replied with an overwhelming shout, "This is the teacher of all Asia, the overthrower of our gods, who has perverted so many from sacrifice and the adoration of the gods." They demanded of the Asiarch, the president of the games, instantly to let loose a lion upon Polycarp. He excused himself by alleging that the games were over. A general cry arose that Polycarp should be burned alive. The Jews were again as vindictively active as the Heathens in collecting the fuel of the baths, and other combustibles, to raise up a hasty yet capacious funeral pile. He was speedily unrobed; he requested not to be nailed to the stake; he was only bound to it. 66 The calm and unostentatious prayer of Polycarp may be considered as embodying the sentiments of the Christians of that period. "O Lord God Almighty, the Father of thy well-beloved and ever blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the knowledge of thee; the God of angels, powers, and of every creature, and of the whole race of the righteous who live before thee, I thank thee that thou hast graciously thought me worthy of this day and this hour, that I may receive a portion in the number of thy martyrs, and drink of Christ's cup, for the resurrection to eternal life, both of body and soul, in the incorruptibleness of the Holy Spirit; among whom may I be admitted this day, as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as thou, O true and faithful God, hast prepared, and foreshown and accomplished. Wherefore I praise thee for all thy mercies; I bless thee; I glorify thee, with the eternal and heavenly Jesus Christ, thy beloved Son, to whom, with thee and the Holy Spirit, be glory now and for ever." The fire was kindled in vain. It arose curving like an arch around the serene victim, or, like a sail swelling with the wind, left the body unharmed. To the sight of the Christians, he resembled a treasure of gold or silver (an allusion to the gold tried in the furnace); and delicious odours, as of myrrh or frankincense, breathed from his body. An executioner was sent in to despatch the victim; his side was pierced, and blood enough flowed from the aged body to extinguish the flames immediately around him (1). The whole of this narrative has the simple energy of truth : the prudent yet resolute conduct of the aged bishop; the calm and dignified expostulation of the governor; the wild fury of the populace; the Jews eagerly seizing the opportunity of renewing their unslaked hatred to the Christian name, are described with the simplicity of nature. The supernatural part of the transaction is no more than may be ascribed to the high-wrought imagination of the Christian spectators, deepening every casual incident into a wonder. The voice from heaven, heard only by Christian ears; the flame from the hastily piled wood, arching over the unharmed body; the grateful odours, not impossibly from aromatic woods, which were used to warm the baths of the more luxurious, and which were collected for the sudden execution; the effusion of blood (2), which might excite wonder from the decrepit frame of a man at least a hundred years old. Even the vision of Polycarp himself (3), by which he was forewarned of his approaching fate, was not unlikely to arise before his mind at that perilous crisis. Polycarp closed the nameless train of Asiatic martyrs (4). Some few years after, the city of Smyrna was visited with a terribie earthquake; a generous sympathy was displayed by the inhatants of the neighbouring cities; provisions were poured in from all quarters; homes were offered to the houseless; carriages furnished to convey the infirm and the children from the scene of ruin. They received them as if they had been their parents or children. The rich and the poor vied in the offices of charity; and, in the words of the Grecian sophist, thought that they were receiving rather than confering a favour (1). A Christian historian may be excused if he discerns in this humane conduct the manifest progress of Christian benevolence; and that benevolence, if not unfairly ascribed to the influence of Christianity, is heightened by the recollection that the sufferers were those whose amphitheatre had so recently been stained with the blood of the aged martyr. If, instead of beholding the retributive hand of divine vengeance in the smouldering ruins of the city, they hastened to alleviate the common miseries of Christian and of Pagan, with equal zeal and liberality, it is impossible not to trace at once the extraordinary revolution in the sentiments of mankind, and the purity of the Christianity which was thus so superior to those passions which have so often been fatal to its perfection. At this period of enthusiastic excitement of superstition on the one hand, returning in unreasoning terror to its forsaken gods, and working itself up by every means to a consolatory feeling of the divine protection; of religion, on the other, relying in humble confidence on the protection of an all-ruling Providence; when the religious parties were, it might seem, aggrandising their rival deities, and tracing their conflicting powers throughout the whole course of human affairs; to every mind each extraordinary event would be deeply coloured with supernatural influence; and whenever any circumstance really bore a providential or miraculous appearance, it would be ascribed by each party to the favouring interposition of its own god. the thun. Such was the celebrated event which was long current in Chris- Miracle of lian history as the legend of the thundering legion (2). Heathendering historians, medals still extant, and the column which bears the legion. name of Antoninus at Rome, concur with Christian tradition in commemorating the extraordinary deliverance of the Roman army, during the war with the German nations, from a situation of the utmost peril and difficulty. If the Christians at any time served in the imperial armies (3)—if military service was a question, as seems extremely probable, which divided the early Christians (4), some considering it too closely connected with the idolatrous practices of an oath to the fortunes of Cæsar, and the worship of the (1) Tillemont, Hist des Emp. ii. p. 687. The philosopher Aristides wrote an oration on this event. (2) See Moyle's Works, vol. ii. Compare Routh, Reliq. Sacræ, i, 153, with authors quo ted. (3) Tertullian, in a passage already quoted, states distinctly militamus vobiscum. (4) Neander has developed this notion with his usual ability, in this part of his History of the Church. standards, which were to the rest of the army, as it were, the household gods of battle; while others were less rigid in their practice, and forgot their piety in their allegiance to their sovereign, and their patriotism to their country; at no time were the Christians more likely to overcome their scruples than at this critical period. The armies were recruited by unprecedented means; and many Christians, who would before have hesitated to enroll themselves, might less reluctantly submit to the conscription, or even think themselves justified in engaging in what appeared necessary and defensive warfare. There might then have been many Christians in the armies of M. Aurelius,—but that they formed a whole separate legion, is manifestly the fiction of a later age. In the campaign of the year 174, the army advanced incautiously into a country entirely without water; and, in this faint and enfeebled state, was exposed to a formidable attack of the whole barbarian force. Suddenly, at their hour of most extreme distress, a copious and refreshing rain came down, which supplied their wants; and while their half recruited strength was still ill able to oppose the onset of the enemy, a tremendous storm, with lightning and hailstones of an enormous size, drove full upon the adversary, and rendered his army an easy conquest to the reviving Romans (1). Of this awful, yet seasonable interposition, the whole army acknowledged the preternatural, the divine, origin. By those of darker superstition, it was attributed to the incantations of the magician Arnuphis, who controlled the elements to the service of the Emperor. The medals struck on the occasion, and the votive column erected by Marcus himself, render homage to the established deities, to Mercury and to Jupiter (2). The more rational Pagans, with a flattery which received the suffrage of admiring posterity, gave the honour to the virtues of Marcus, which demanded this signal favour from approving Heaven (3). The Christian, of course, looked alone to that one Almighty God whose providence ruled the whole course of nature, and saw the secret operation of his own prayers meeting with the favourable acceptance of the Most High (4) "While the Pagans ascribed the honour of this deliverance to their own Jove," writes Tertullian," they unknowingly bore testimony to the Christian's God." The latter end of the reign of Marcus Aurelius (5) was signalised (1) In the year after this victory (A. D. 175.), the formidable rebellion of Avidius Cassius disturbed the East, and added to the perils and embarrassments of the empire. (2) Mercury, according to Pagi, appears on one of the coins relating to this event, Compare Reading's note in Routh, 1. c. (3) Lampridius (in vit.) attributes the victory to the Chaldeans. Marcus, de Seipso (1. i. c. 6.), allows that he had the magician Arnuphis in his army. Chaldæa mago ceu carmina ritu (4) In Jovis nomine Deo nostro testimonium reddidit. Tertullian ad Scapulam, p. 20. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. v. 5. (5) If we had determined to force the events of this period into an accordance with our own view of the persecutions of M. Aurelius, we might have adopted the chronology of Dodwell, who by another scene of martyrdom, in a part of the empire far distant from that where persecution had before raged with the greatest violence, though not altogether disconnected from it by the original descent of the sufferers (1). Vienne. The Christians of Lyons and Vienne appear to have been a reli- Martyrs of gious colony from Asia Minor or Phrygia, and to have maintained. D. 177. a close correspondence with those distant communities. There is something remarkable in the connection between these regions and the East. To this district the two Herods, Archelaus and Herod Antipas, were successively banished; and it is singular enough, that Pontius Pilate, after his recall from Syria, was exiled to the same neighbourhood. There now appears a Christian community, corresponding in Greek with the mother church (2). It is by no means improbable that a kind of Jewish settlement of the attendants on the banished sovereigns of Judæa might have been formed in the neighbourhood of Vienne and Lyons, and maintained a friendly, no doubt a mercantile, connection with their opulent brethren of Asia Minor, perhaps through the port of Marseilles. Though Christianity does not appear to have penetrated into Gaul till rather a late period (3), it may have travelled by the same course, and have been propagated in the Jewish settlement by converts from Phrygia or Asia Minor. Its Jewish origin is, perhaps, confirmed by its adherence to the Judæo-Christian tenet of abstinence from blood (4). The commencement of this dreadful, though local persecution, was an ebullition of popular fury. It was about the period when the German war, which had slumbered during some years of precarious peace, again threatened to disturb the repose of the empire. · Southern Gaul, though secure beyond the Rhine, was yet at no great distance from the incursions of the German tribes; and it is possible that personal apprehensions might mingle with the general fanatic terror, which exasperated the Heathens against their Christian fellow-citizens. The Christians were on a sudden exposed to a general attack of the populace. Clamours soon grew to perso→ nal violence; they were struck, dragged about the streets, plundered, stoned, shut up in their houses, until the more merciful hostility of the ruling authorities gave orders for their arrest and imprisonment until the arrival of the governor. One man of birth and rank, Vettius Epagathus, boldly undertook their defence against assigns the martyrs of Lyons to the year 167; but the evidence seems in favour of the later date, 177. See Mosheim. Lardner, who, if not by his critical sagacity, commands authority by his scrupulous honesty, says, " Nor do I expect that any learned man, who has a concern for his reputation as a writer, should attempt a direct confutation of this opinion." Works, 4to edit, i. 360. (1) Euseb. Eccl. Hist. v. 1. (2 Epistola Viennensium et Lugdunensium, in Routh, i. 265. (3) Serius Alpes transgressa, is the expression of a Christian writer, Sulpicius Severus. (4)" How can those eat infants to whom it is not lawful to eat the blood of brutes ?" Compare, however, Tertullian's apology, ch. 9., and Origen contra Celsum, viii.; from whence it appears that this abstinence was more general among the early Christians. |