Fortunately for the cause of Jesus, and the best inter ests of mankind, our holy religion had acquired a consi derable degree of stability before any laws were enacted against it. The Christians were at first almost univer sally regarded as a sect of the Jews, and they escaped from persecution under the general toleration which had been extended to the Hebrew people. The distinction, however, between Christianity and Judaism, came in time to be known. The followers of Jesus made such open and zealous attacks upon the Paganism with which they were surrounded, that the populace considered them as atheists; and this opinion, most incorrect and injurious in itself, having been once entertained, speedi ly gained strength and currency, because it was per ceived that the Christians had no temples, altars, or sa crifices. They held likewise their meetings in secret ; they often assembled in the night ; and it was sagacious ly inferred that they withdrew from the public eye, in order to practise some abominable rites, which they were afraid or ashamed to disclose.
In these circumstances, the Emperor Nero set fire to the city of Rome, and reduced a great part of it to ashes. This wanton act excited the indignation of the people. The emperor, anxious, as it seems, for his popularity, laid the guilt, and all the odium connected with it, to the charge of the Christians. He commenced a very severe persecution against them. He inflicted upon them the most cruel punishments. Some of them were crucified, others were impaled, some were thrown to the wild beasts ; and not a few, having been wrapped in clothes smeared with pitch and sulphur, were burnt during the night, and made to serve as torches for illu minating the gardens of the emperor. In the meantime, this prodigy of inhumanity entertained the people with Circensian games, and was himself an unblushing spec tator of the whole ; sometimes walking about in the dress of a charioteer, and mingling with the crowd, and at other times viewing the exhibitions from his car. But all his attempts were without effect ; neither his largcsses, nor his concern for the honour of the gods, nor his merciless severity towards the unhappy followers of Christ, were sufficient to remove from him the imputation of having given orders to set the city on fire. And accordingly he has been transmitted to us by the pen of Tacitus, in the double character of an incendiary and a persecutor ; and his very name is proverbial for all that is tyrannical, cruel, and brutal, and for all that is malignant, perfidious, and mean. After this persecution, which took place about the year 64, and during which St Paul was be headed at Rome, the churches had rest for a time. Un der many of the succeeding emperors, however, they were exposed to the resentment of their enemies. In the reign of Domitian, the apostle John was banished to the island of Patmos, where he wrote his Apocalypse. And a countless multitude of individuals, whose names no history records, and who have long ago passed away out of the memory of man, boldly avowed their attach ment to the faith " once delivered to the saints," and rejoiced that they were counted worthy" to suffer or to die in the cause of Christianity.
Even the Emperor Trajan, who has been described as a mild and accomplished prince, is to be numbered among the persecutors of the church; and mild and ac complished as he undoubtedly was, when compared with his predecessors, he appears to have meditated nothing less than the extinction of the Christian name. There has come down to us a correspondence between this emperor and the younger Pliny, who was governor of Bithynia, and it refers to the very subject which now occupies our attention. The correspondence in question is deserving of particular notice, both because it shows its how the Christians were treated in those modes of investigation to which the name of trial has been given, and because it affords us the testimony of a Roman magistrate, to the purity and simplicity of their manners.
After expressing to the emperor his doubts with regard to the plan of conduct which he ought to follow, the pro curator of Bithynia, the enlightened and philosophic Pliny, thus declares what he had already done ; (Pliny's Epistles, vol. x. p. 97, 98.) " In the mean time," says he, " this has been my method with respect to those who were brought before me as Christians. I asked them if they were Christians : if they pleaded guilty, I interro gated them twice afresh, with a menace of capital pun ishment. In case of obstinate perseverance, I ordered them to be executed. For of this I had no doubt, what ever was the nature of their religion, that a sullen and inflexible obstinacy called for the vengeance of the ma gistrate." Strange conduct this for a judge, and a very extraordinary mode of trial indeed ! Vet such was the treatment of the Christians at the tribunal of the younger Pliny ; a man whose character for benevolence, and even for justice, is perhaps the most unexceptionable of any which pagan antiquity can furnish. The testimony, how ever, given by the same distinguished person to the sim plicity and purity of the Christian manners, must not be hastily passed over. " And this," says he, " was their account of the religion which they professed, whe ther it deserves the appellation of a crime or an error, namely, that on a stated day, they were accustomed to assemble before sunrise, and to repeat among themselves a hymn to Christ in the character of a God, (Christo quasi Deo,) and to bind themselves, by an oath, not to commit any wickedness, but, on the contrary, to abstain from thefts, robberies, and adulteries ; not to violate their pro mise or deny a pledge : after which," continues the judge, " it is their custom to separate, and then to meet again, sitting down to a harmless meal, of which all are invited to partake." We are proud of this testimony : it comes from one who evidently believed the statement to be correct ; it comes from a man of education and dis cernment, and it is to be found in a confidential letter from this man to the emperor, acknowledging his inex perience, and begging to be informed how he should act in so peculiar a case. And it puts to flight, for ever, all the accusations which interest and malice have brought against the tendency of the Christian doctrine, and the purity of the Christian assemblies. The persecution, however, with some restrictions, went on. " The Chris, tians," says the emperor in his reply, " are not to be sought for ; but if any are brought before you, and con victed, they are to be punished." Indeed the human mind revolts at the sufferings which the followers of Christ were doomed in many places to experience. They were publicly whipped till their bones and sinews appeared ; their flesh was torn from them with pincers ; they were consumed in a slow lire, care fully prevented from reaching the vital parts; they were tortured in iron chairs, made red hot, and kept glowing to receive them. The aged and venerable Polycarp was put to death ; the excellent and learned Justin obtained the crown of martyrdom. In the beginning of the third century, Irenxus, bishop of Lyons, scaled his testimony with his blood. Pontamixna, a woman of great beauty, was condemned to suffer on account of her religion, and, with Marcella her mother, was burnt to death, melted pitch having been poured over their naked bodies. The time would fail us should we attempt to enumerate the victims of superstition. Neither age nor sex was spared. The arm of power was lifted up ; the genius of man was exhausted in the invention of tortures; and to a hasty observer, it might seem, that the hour was at length come when Christianity, subdued and worn out with sufferings, would r..sign 11...r name and her place among men.