at another, the judges waited till some one came forward to accuse them. Sometimes the confessing or convicted Christians were hurried forthwith to execution, if they did not renounce their religion at other times, the magistrates laboured, by various species of torture and cruelty, to induce them to apos

tatize.

§ 10. Those who fell in these perilous days of the church under punishments of various kinds, were called Martyrs; a term borrowed from the sacred writings, and denoting that they were witnesses for Christ. Those who risked life in professing Christ before the magistrates, or for his sake incurred the loss of health, or goods, or honours, were denominated confessors. Both obtained immense veneration and influence among the Christians; which gave them prerogatives and honours, altogether peculiar and extraordinary; such, indeed, as might furnish matter for a volume that would be useful in various respects. These prerogatives were undoubtedly conferred to make others more readily encounter evils of every kind for Christ's sake. But as all peculiar privileges, by the fault of men, have a tendency to degenerate into sources of evil, so these too, not unfrequently, were improperly used: they found likewise food for superstition and other evils.

§ 11. That a great number of persons of every kind and condition suffered death for the sake of Christ, during the first three or four centuries, no impartial person acquainted with those times can entertain a doubt. But, since Henr. Dodwell ventured upon shaking this ancient opinion, there have been many who maintain with him, that only a few actually suffered death on account of the Christian religion; others, however, vehemently oppose this view as a reflection on assistance from above. Those who take the middle path between these two extremes, will

Protest. tom. iv. lib. v. Decretal. Tit. i. $ 32.

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[This seems quite too philosophical an account of this matter. The early

Christians did not, thus coldly, calculate distant consequences and effects, in order to determine what place in their affections, and what rank in the church, they should give to their brethren and pastors who suffered and died for their religion. Nature, religion, and all the ties which united them to Christ, to the church, and to one another, combined to render these holy men and consistent Christians

venerable and lovely in their eyes; and of course to procure them a rank and privileges in the church altogether peculiar. Whoever reads the most authentic accounts of the ancient martyrs, of Polycarp, for instance, will see abundant evidence of the operation of these causes; but nothing of that calculating policy of which Dr. Mosheim speaks. Tr.]

8 In his noted dissertation, de Paucitate Martyrum, which is the eleventh among his Dissertt. Cyprianica.

probably come nearest to the truth. The martyrs were not so numerous as they were anciently supposed to be, and as some still account them; but they were more numerous than Dodwell and his friends suppose them. Into this opinion, I think, they will the more readily come, who may observe that ancient books. do not represent all Christians whatsoever as promiscuously harassed and put upon their trials, even in the church's most arduous times. Persons in the humbler conditions of life were generally more safe; while greater danger impended over the rich, (whose wealth had charms for the judges,) over the learned also, the doctors and heads of churches, lastly, over such as were talented and eloquent."

§ 12. The words and actions of the martyrs, from the time of their arrest till their last moments, were carefully committed to writing, with a view of reading them on certain days as models to posterity. But only a few of these Acta Martyrum have reached us1; much the greater part of them having been committed to the flames, during the ten years' war of Diocletian against the Christians, when imperial orders required all the books and papers of Christians to be collected and burned. From the eighth century, indeed, both Greeks and Latins have used much diligence in compiling lives of the ancient martyrs; that most of them relate fables coloured with an infusion of rhetoric, is admitted by the sounder heads even in the Roman church. Nor is more credit due to those catalogues of saints, called Martyrologies, which have either been compiled by ignorant and incompetent men, or since much falsified. Hence this part of ecclesiastical history enjoys very little light.

§ 13. Nero was the first emperor that persecuted the Christians; and his cruelty was extreme. He accused those innocent people of a crime which he himself had committed; namely, that of setting fire to the city of Rome. To make, therefore, punishment correspond with crime, he caused many of them to illumine the streets of his capital, at night, by enveloping their

9 [See Martyrium Polycarpi, § 12. Acta Fructuosi, in Ruinart's Acta Martyr. sincera, p. 219. Cyprian, Epistt. v. and xiv. p. 10 and 23, ed. Benedict. and many others. Mosheim, de Rebb. Christ. ante C. M. p. 106. Tr.]

1 Such of them as are not wholly unworthy of credit were collected in a

moderate size folio, by Theod. Ruinart, Selecta et sincera Martyrum Acta, Amstelod. 1713.

2 See the two French dissertations of Alph. de Vignoles, on the cause and the commencement of Nero's persecution; in Phil. Masson's Histoire critique de la République des Lettres, tom. viii. p.

bodies in a mass of fire.3 Others he slew in various other ways. This persecution began in the middle of November A. D. 64.4 In it, the ancients tell us, Paul and Peter suffered death at Rome: but many cannot bring themselves to believe this, because of its repugnance to chronology. This persecution terminated at the death of Nero, who is well known to have been

his own executioner, A. D. 68. For about four years, therefore, the Christian suffered every species of cruelty at his hands.

§ 14. How far the persecution under Nero extended, is not agreed among the learned. For, while the greater number suppose it to have spread over the whole Roman empire, there are not wanting others who bound it by the limits of the capital. The former opinion, which is the ancient one, appearing the better supported, we have no hesitation in agreeing with such as think that public laws were enacted against the whole body of Christians, and sent moreover into the provinces. To this opinion we are led, among other reasons, by the authority of Tertullian, who clearly intimates that Nero and Domitian enacted laws against the Christians which Trajan so much mitigated as to render them inoperative. The noted Spanish or Portuguese inscription, in which Nero is commended for having purged the province of the new superstition, being suspected by the Spaniards themselves, I am unwilling to accept as evidence. The Christians moreover were condemned rather as incendiaries, than on religious grounds. But who can suppose that a sect,

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5 The first who rejected the common opinion, so far as I know, was Fran. Baldwin, [an eminent civilian of Paris, who died A. D. 1573,] in his Comment, ad edicta Imperator. in Christianos, p. 27, 28. After him, Jo. Launoi, in Diss. qua Sulpitii Severi locus de prima martyrum Galliæ epocha vindicatur, § 1, p. 139, 140, tom. ii. pt. i. of his works. Still more learned, and on the same side, was Henry Dodwell, Diss. xi. in his Dissertt. Cyprianice, § xiii. p. 59, whom many others have followed: [among whom, are Jo. le Clerc, Hist. Eccles. N. T. Century i. p. 428, Joach. Lange, Hist. Eccles. p. 360. Nicol. Gurtler, Syst. theol. prophet. p. 491. Baumgarten, Auszug der Kirchengesch. vol i. p. 376 (who supposes the persecution extended only so far as the power of the Prætorian Præfect.) D. Semler, Sel. Capita Hist. Eccles. tom. i. p. 24. (Also J. E. C. Schmidt, Handbuch der christl. Kirchengesch. vol. i. p. 120, and A. Neander, Algem. Gesch. de christl. Kirch. vol. i. pt. i. p. 137. Tr.)

- The arguments for both opinions are stated in J. G. Walch, Hist. Eccles. p. 548, who thinks the question to be altogether doubtful. Jablonsky was of the same sentiment, Institutt. Historia Christ. antiq. p. 40. Schl.]

6 Tertullian, Apologet. cap. iv. p. 46, edit. Havercamp.

This inscription may be seen in J. Gruterus, Inscriptionum tom. i. p. ccxxxviii. n. 9. [It is this: "Neroni, ob provinciam latronibus et his qui novam generi humano superstitionem inculcabant, purgatam." Tr.] But the best Spanish

writers do not venture to defend the authority of this inscription; because it has not been seen by any one; and Cyriac of Ancona, who first produced it, is acknowledged by all to be unworthy of credit. I will subjoin the decision of that excellent and judicious historian of Spain, Jo. de Ferreras, Histoire générale d'Espagne, tom. i. p. 192. "I cannot refrain from remarking, that Cyriac of Ancona was the first that published the inscription, and that from him all others had derived it. But as the credibility of this writer is suspected in the judgment of all the learned, and as not a vestige nor any recollection of this inscription remains, in the places where it is said to have been found, and no one knows now where to find it; every one may form such opinion of it as he pleases.'

8 See Theod. Ruinar, Præf. ad Acta Martyrum sincera et selecta, p. xxxi. &c.

which the emperor charged with so great an enormity, was tolerated by him patiently out of Rome ??

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§ 15. Nero being dead, the fury of this first war against the

[Nearly all the facts relating to this persecution, except the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, we owe to Tacitus, the Roman historian. Annals, lib. xv. c. 44. After describing the conflagration, which utterly consumed three of the fourteen wards, and spread ruin in seven others, and likewise the efforts of Nero to soothe the indignant and miserable citizens, he says, "But no human aid, no munificence of the prince, nor expiations of the gods, removed from him the infamy of having ordered the conflagration. Therefore, to stop the clamour, Nero falsely accused and subjected to the most exquisite punishments, a people hated for their crimes, called Christians. The founder of the sect Christ, was executed in the reign of Tiberius, by the procurator Pontius Pilate. The pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, burst forth again; not only through Judea, the birth-place of the evil, but at Rome also, where every thing atrocious and base centres and is in repute. Those first seized, confessed; then a vast multitude, detected by their means, were convicted, not so much of the crime of burning the city, as of hatred to mankind. And insult was added to their torments; for being clad in skins of wild beasts, they were torn to pieces by dogs; or affixed to crosses to be burned, were used as lights, to dispel the darkness of night, when the day was gone.

Nero devoted his gardens to the show, and held Circensian games, mixing with the rabble, or mounting a chariot, clad like a coachman. Hence, though the guilty and those meriting the severest punishment suffered; yet compassion was excited, because they were destroyed, not for the public good, but to satisfy the cruelty of an individual." -It appears from this account that a vast multitude (multitudo ingens) suffered at Rome, and suffered in a most inhuman manner;- that they were falsely accused, and by Nero's instigation; not because he had any thing against them, but because they were a despised people, and he hoped to avert the public odium from himself. But the case was too plain; their innocence was known, and Nero's fiend-like merriment only raised compassion towards them, and increased the odium against him. It is

clear from this account, that the Christians, in the opinion of Tacitus, deserved to be exterminated for their religion; yet that Nero did not proceed on this ground, but on the false charge of their having kindled the fires of Rome. Lactantius, then, (de Mortibus Persecutorum, cap. ii.) erred in attributing other designs to Nero, namely, the extermination of the Christian religion. The commencement of this persecution is determined by the time of the conflagration, which Tacitus says (Annals, xv. 33, 41,) began the 18th of July, A. D. 65, (or xiv. Kalend. Sextiles, C. Lecanio et M. Licinio Coss.) and lasted six days. Some time after, but in the same year, the persecution broke out. But how long it continued, is uncertain. If Paul and Peter suffered in the very last year of Nero's reign, as the fathers state, (Eusebius, Chronicon; and Jerome, de Viris illustr. c. i. and v.) the persecution doubtless ceased, only on Nero's death. But if they suffered earlier, then we have no proof of the continuance of the persecution so long. As to the extent of the persecution, it is wholly in the dark. If we consider simply the description of it, or the causes from which it originated, and the feelings of Nero towards the Christians, we have no reason to suppose it extended beyond the city of Rome and its neighbourhood. Yet the general impression in former ages, and the belief of many in this age, make the persecution a general one. The only argument of much plausibility for this opinion is derived from a passage in Tertullian, (Apologet. cap. iv. p. 46, ed. Havercamp.) where he speaks of the persecuting laws of the empire, as being enacted by the very vilest and most odious among the emperors, and mentions Nero as the first that "drew the sword" against the Christians; and Domitian as the second who did so.

Whence it is inferred, that Nero, as well as Domitian, must have enacted public laws against the Christians; and of course, that the persecution in Nero's reign must have been general, or throughout the empire. But considering the fervid, rhetorical style of Tertullian, this seems to be a slender foundation, on which to ground a conclusion, that has no support from well-attested facts. Tr.]