arose the opprobrious names of Sacrificers, Incensers, and Certificated', by which the lapsed were designated.2 § 4. From the prevalence of Christian defection under Decius, great commotions and embarrassing contentions arose every where in the church. For the lapsed wished to be restored to Christian fellowship, without submitting to that severe penance which the laws of the church prescribed; and some of the bishops favoured their wishes, while others opposed them.3 In Egypt and Africa, many persons, to obtain more ready pardon of their offences, resorted to the intercession of the martyrs, and obtained from them letters of recommendation 4, that is, papers in which the dying martyrs declared, that they considered the persons worthy of their communion, and wished them to be received and treated as brethren. Some bishops and presbyters were too ready to admit offenders who produced such letters. But Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, a decided and strenuous man, though far from willing to derogate from the honour of the martyrs, was nevertheless opposed to this excessive lenity, and wished to limit the effects of these letters of recommendation. Hence there arose a sharp contest between him and the martyrs, confessors, presbyters, the lapsed and the people; from which he came off victorious. 5 tici. 1 Sacrificati, Thurificati, and Libella * See Prudentius Maran, Life of Cyprian, prefixed to Cypriani Opp. § vi. p. liv. &c. [For an interesting account of the sufferings of Christians in this persecution, the English reader is referred to Milner's Hist. of the Church, cent. iii. ch. 8, p. 257, and ch. 11, p. 293, ed. Boston, 1822, vol. i.-This persecution was more terrible than any preceding one, because it extended over the whole empire, and because its object was to worry the Christians into apostacy by extreme and persevering torture. The Certificated, or Libellatici, are supposed to be such as purchased certificates from the corrupt magistrates, in which it was declared that they were pagans, and had complied with the demands of the law, when neither of these was fact. To purchase such a certificate was not only to be partaker in a fraudulent transaction, but it was to prevaricate before the public in regard to Christianity, and was inconsistent with that open confession of Christ before men, which he himself requires. On the purport of these letters, see Mosheim, de Rebus Christ. &c. p. 482-489. Tr.-It is said in the latter of these pages, that we have no mention of the libellus, or bill of security, before the persecuting edict of Decius. Ed.] 3 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. c. 44. Cyprian, Epistolæ, passim. [Libelli pacis. Letters of reconciliation and peace. Macl.] 5 Gab. Albaspinæus, Observat. Eccles. lib. i. obs. xx. p. 94. Jo. Dallæus, de Panis et Satisfactionibus humanis, 1. vii. c. 16, p. 706. The whole history of this controversy must be gathered from the Epistles of Cyprian. [Tertullian, de Pudicitia, cap. 22. and ad Martyres, cap. 1, makes the earliest mention of these letters; whence it is conjectured, that they first began to be used about the middle of the second century.-By martyrs here must be understood persons already under sentence of death for their religion, or, at least, such as had endured some suffering, and were still in prison and uncertain what would befall them. 5. The successors of Decius, namely, Gallus and his son Volusian, renewed the persecution against the Christians, which seemed to be subsiding: and, as their edicts were accompanied by public calamities, particularly by a pestilential disease which spread through many provinces, the Christians had again to undergo much suffering in divers countries. For the pagan priests persuaded the populace that the gods visited the people with so many calamities on account of the Christians. The next emperor Valerian, stilled the commotion, A. D. 254, and restored tranquillity to the church. 8 § 6. Till the fifth year of his reign, Valerian was very kind to the Christians; but suddenly, in the year 257, by the persuasion of Macrianus, a most superstitious person, who was his prime minister, he prohibited the Christians from holding meetings, and ordered the bishops and other teachers into exile. The next year he published a far more severe edict; so that no small number of Christians, in all the provinces of the Roman empire, were put to death, and often exposed to punishments worse than death. Eminent among the martyrs in this tempest were Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, Sixtus, bishop of Rome, Laurentius, a deacon at Rome, who was roasted before a slow fire, and others. But Valerian being taken captive, in a war against the Persians, his son Gallienus, in the year 260, restored peace to the church." § 7. Under Gallienus, therefore, who reigned with his bro In that age, when martyrs were almost idolized, and the doctrines of repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, imperfectly understood; the propriety of such letters was unquestioned, and their influence very great. Yet the abuses of them were felt by the more discerning. Dr. Mosheim (de Rebus Christ. &c. p. 490-497,) has collected the following facts respecting their misuse. (1) They were given, with little or no discrimination, to all applicants. Cyprian, Ep. 14, p. 24, ep. 10. p. 20.-(2) They often did not express definitely the names of the persons recommended, but said, "Receive A. B. (cum suis) and his friends." Ibid. ep. 10, p. 20, 21.-(3) Sometimes a martyr, before his death, commissioned some friend to give letters, in his name, to all applicants. Ibid. ep. 21, p. 30, ep. 22, p. 31.--(4) Some presbyters obeyed these letters without consulting the bishop, and thus subverted ecclesiastical order. Ibid. ep. 27, p. 38. ep. 10, p. 20, ep. 40, p. 52, ep. 22, p. 31, 32. It is easy to see what effects would follow, when the almost deified martyrs, of every age, and sex, and condition, felt themselves to possess authority almost divine, and were besieged by a host of persons writhing under the rigours of the ancient discipline. Tr.] 6 [A. D. Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. c. 1. See Cyprian, Liber ad Demetrianum. [Milner's Hist. of the Church, cent. iii. ch. 12, p. 308. Tr.] Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. 1. vii. cap. 10, 11. Acta Cypriani, in Ruinart's Acta Martyrum sincera, p. 216. Cyprian, Epist. lxxvii. p. 178, epist. lxxxii. p. 165, ed. Baluz. [Milner's Hist. of the Church, cent. iii. ch. 16, p. 347. Tr.] ther eight years', and under his successor Claudius, who reigned two years, the condition of the Christians was tolerable, yet not altogether tranquil and happy. Nor did Aurelian, who came to the throne A. D. 270, undertake to disquiet them during four years. But in the fifth year of his reign, prompted either by his own superstition, or by that of others, he prepared for war against them. But before his edicts had been published over the whole empire, he was assassinated in Thrace, A. D. 275.3 Hence, few Christians were cut off under him. The remainder of this century-if we except some few instances of the injustice, the avarice, or the superstition of the governors1 -passed away, without any great troubles or injuries done to Christians living among Romans. § 8. While the emperors and provincial governors were assailing Christians with the sword and with edicts, the Platonic philosophers, before described, fought them with disputations, books, and stratagems. And the more was to be feared from them, because they approved and adopted many doctrines and institutions of the Christians, and, following the example of their master, Ammonius, attempted to amalgamate the old religion and the new. At the head of this sect, in this century, was Porphyry, a Syrian, or Tyrian, who composed a long work against the Christians, which was afterwards destroyed by the imperial laws. He was undoubtedly an acute, ingenious, and learned man, as appears from his works which are extant; but he was not a formidable enemy to the Christians. For he had more imagination and superstition than sound argument and judgment; as his books that remain, and the history of his life, will show; without recurrence to the fragments of his work against the Christians, which are preserved, and which are unworthy of a wise and upright man. toti orbi exoriens, p. 154. J. F. Buddeus Isagoge in Theologiam, lib. ii. p. 877, &c. [and Ja. Brucker's Hist. Crit. Philos. tom. ii. p. 236, &c. His fifteen Books against the Christians were condemned to be burned by Theodosius II. and Valentinian III. A. D. 449, (see the Codex Justinianus de Summa Trinitate, 1. i. tit. i. cap. 3.) The work was answered by Methodius, Eusebius, Apollinaris, and Philostorgius; but the answers are lost. Of the work of Porphyry, extracts are preserved by Eusebius, Jerome, and others. Tr.] § 9. Among the wiles and stratagems, by which this sect endeavoured to subvert the authority of the Christian religion, this deserves to be particularly mentioned, that they drew comparisons between the life, miracles, and transactions of our Saviour, and the history of the ancient philosophers; and endeavoured to persuade the unlearned and women, that those philosophers were in no respect inferior to Christ. With such views, Archytas of Tarentum, Pythagoras and Apollonius Tyanæus, a Pythagorean philosopher, were brought again upon the stage, and exhibited to the public dressed very much like Christ himself. The life of Pythagoras was written by Porphyry. The life of Apollonius, whose travels and prodigies were talked of by the vulgar, and who was a crafty mountebank, and the ape of Pythagoras, was composed by Philostratus, the first rhetorician of the age, in a style which is not inelegant. The reader of the work will readily perceive, that the philosopher is compared with our Saviour; and yet he will wonder, that any man of sound sense could have been deceived by the scandalous tales and fictions of the writer.7 § 10. But as nothing is so irrational, that it cannot find patrons among the weak and ignorant, who regard words more than arguments, there were not a few who were ensnared by these silly attempts of the philosophers. Some were induced by these stratagems to abandon the Christian religion which they had embraced. Others, being told that there was little difference between the ancient religion, rightly explained and restored to its purity, and the religion which Christ really taught, not that corrupted form of it which his disciples professed, concluded it best for them to remain among those who worshipped the gods. Some were led by those comparisons of Christ with the ancient heroes and philosophers, to frame for themselves a kind of mixed or compound religion. Witness, [And in the next century by Jamblichus. That both biographers had the same object, is shown by Lud. Küster, Adnot. ad Jamblich. cap. 2, p. 7, and cap. 19, p. 78. Schl.] See Godfr. Olearius, Præfat. ad Philostrati vitam Apollonii; and Mosheim, Notes on Cudworth's Intellectual System, p. 304. 309. 311. 834. [also J. Brucker's Historia Crit. Philos. tom. ii. p. 98, &c. and Enfield's Abridgment of Brucker, vol. ii. p. 42, &c. N. Lardner's Works, vol. viii. p. 256-292.Apollonius was born about the beginning, and died near the close, of the first century. He travelled over all the countries from Spain to India; and drew much attention by his sagacious remarks, and by his pretensions to superhuman knowledge and powers. He was a man of genius, but vain-glorious and a great impostor. Tr.] among others, Alexander Severus, who esteemed Christ, Orpheus, Apollonius, (and who not?) all worthy of equal honour. 11. The Jews were reduced so low, that they could not, as formerly, excite in the magistrates any great hatred against the Christians. Yet they were not wholly inactive, as appears from the books written by Tertullian and Cyprian against them. There occur also in the Christian fathers several complaints of the hatred and the machinations of the Jews. During the persecution of Severus, one Domninus abandoned Christianity for Judaism, undoubtedly to avoid the punishments that were decreed against the Christians. Serapion endeavoured to recall him to his duty by a particular treatise. This example shows, that while the Christians were in trouble, the Jews were in safety and, therefore, though greatly depressed, they had not lost all power of doing injury to the Christians. 8 [The emperor. Tr.] Hippolytus, Sermo in Susann. et Daniel, Opp. tom. i. p. 274. 276. 1 Eusebius, Historia Eccles. lib. vi. cap. 12. |