The History of Christianity - John S. C. Abbott (bookstand for reading .txt) 📗

the teachings of Jesus have wrought the most astonishing and salutary changes in the world. It is not too much to say, that pagan Rome in its palmiest days was far below Christian Rome in its greatest degeneracy. Christianity has introduced refinement of manners, more equitable laws, and morals immeasurably superior to any thing which existed around the shrines of idolatry. And yet these are only the incidental blessings, over and above the salvation of the souls of those who became spiritually the disciples of Jesus, accepted him as their Saviour, and who brought their hearts and lives into sympathy with his teachings. There were millions of such, who are now in the realms of glory, of whom history made no record.

The soldiers took a boy thirteen years of age, and, bearing him triumphantly to the camp, jocosely made him emperor. The senate, with sixteen thousand swords at its throat, was compelled to ratify their choice. Soon, however, an ambitious general, named Philip, poisoned the boy, and induced the soldiers to proclaim himself emperor.

It is said that this Philip had once professed Christianity, but, having yielded to the temptations which surrounded him, had been excluded from the Church for his crimes. He had an enlightened conscience; but his Christian character, as in many other cases, fell a sacrifice to his ambition. He was a weak man. Though he did not directly persecute the Christians, he did not venture to protect them. His reign was short,—only five years.

The army on the Danube chose one of their generals—Decius—emperor. The two rival armies, under their several sovereigns, soon met near Verona, and engaged in terrible mutual slaughter. Both sides were equally bad. God left them to scourge and torture and devour one another. It is thus that he often punishes wicked nations, by leaving them to destroy themselves. Philip’s soldiers were routed. They turned upon him, cut off his head, and joined the conqueror. Decius marched triumphantly to Rome, where the senate and people welcomed an emperor who could enforce his title with so many glittering swords.

To the eye of reason, nothing can seem more absurd than the doctrine of hereditary descent of power. That a babe, a feeble girl, a semi-idiot, or a monster of depravity, should be invested with sovereign power over millions, merely from the accident of birth, appears preposterous. But, if there be neither intelligence nor virtue in a nation, the chance of birth may give as good a ruler as the chance of popular suffrage.

Rome had become so dissolute, that had every name in the empire been cast into the wheel of a lottery, and the first one thrown out been accepted as emperor, the result could not have been more disastrous than that which ensued from the vote of the army and the senate.

In wolfish bands, savage hordes from the forests of the north came pouring across the Danube, plundering, burning, and putting to the sword all before them. Rome, weakened by division, was poorly prepared to resist such a foe. Decius marched timidly to meet the inrolling flood of barbarians. With hyena yells they rushed upon him, scattering his forces as wolves scatter sheep. Scaling the walls of Philippopoli, they slaughtered in cold blood the whole population, amounting to a hundred thousand souls. This was the first successful irruption of the barbarians into the Roman empire. This momentous event took place in the year of our Lord 250. No tongue can tell the dismay which thrilled all hearts in Rome as the appalling tidings reached them that the barbarians had conquered and annihilated a Roman army, and were on the triumphant march to the capital.

Decius was slain: his body, trampled into the mire of a morass, was never found.

Under the reign of Decius there was a dreadful persecution of the Christians, which was commenced in Alexandria. We can infer its character from the following incidents. A young Christian, named Matran, was first scourged with terrible severity; his eyes were then burned out with red-hot irons; he was then stoned to death. A Christian young lady, by the name of Quinta, had a long rope tied about her feet; then the brutal mob, seizing the rope, dragged her upon the run, with yells of derision and rage, over the rough pavement, till life was extinct, and the poor mangled body had lost all semblance of humanity. But we cannot proceed with this recital. It would be inflicting too much pain upon the sensibilities of our readers to have faithfully pictured to them the sufferings of the maiden Apollonia, of Sempion, and of many others, whose martyrdom history has minutely recorded.

Decius published a bloody edict against the Christians, and sent it to the governors of all the provinces. They were ordered vigilantly to search out Christians, and to punish them with the utmost severity,—by scourging, by burning at the stake, by beheading, by tossing them to wild beasts, by the dungeon, by seating them in iron chairs heated red-hot, by tearing out the eyes with burning irons, by tearing the flesh from the bones with steel pincers. Demoniac ingenuity was devised to lure them to sin, or to force them to renounce their Saviour.

In Smyrna, two eminent Christians, Pionius and Metrodore, underwent a rigorous examination. We have a record of the questions and the answers. Every effort was made by promises and by threats to induce them to recant; but they remained firm in their Christian integrity. They were then nailed to crosses, cruel spikes being driven through their hands and their feet. The crosses were planted in the ground, and heaps of combustibles were piled around for the funeral pyre. Before the torch was applied, they were again entreated to deny Christ.

“If you will do so,” said the proconsul, “the spikes shall immediately be drawn out, and your lives shall be preserved.”

Their only reply was a prayer to the Lord Jesus to receive their spirits. The flames crackled and roared around them, enveloping them as in a fiery furnace. In the chariot of fire, their united spirits ascended to the martyr’s crown. Page after page might be filled with similar recitals; but enough has already been said to give an idea of the frantic yet unavailing efforts which wicked men have made to obliterate Christianity from the world. These scenes remind one of the revelation written by the “beloved apostle” to the “angel,” or pastor, of the church in Smyrna:—

“These things saith the First and the Last, which was dead, and is alive: I know thy works and tribulation and poverty (but thou art rich); and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.... He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.”175

Upon the death of Decius, the senate, terrified by the destruction of the army and by the approach of the barbarians, again chose two emperors. Hostilianus was invested with the civil, and Gallus with the military command. Rome, Christianity-persecuting Rome, had already sunk so low, that Gallus was compelled to the ignominy of purchasing peace with the barbarians on the most degrading and revolting terms. They were permitted to retire unmolested with all their plunder and with all their captives, consisting of thousands of Romans, young men and beautiful women, to till the soil, and serve in the harems of the barbarian Goths. By the law of retribution, this was right. Rome had made slaves of all nations: it was just that Rome should drink of the cup of slavery herself.

Gallus, the military emperor, wished to reign alone: he therefore poisoned Hostilianus. There was a Roman army on the Danube. The soldiers there proclaimed their general, Æmilianus, emperor. Gallus marched to meet him; but his soldiers despised his weakness, and slew him and his son, and then joined the army of Æmilianus.

The Roman empire at this time, about the middle of the third century, consisted of a belt of territory about a thousand miles in breadth, encircling the Mediterranean Sea as a central lake. All beyond were unknown savage wilds. Throughout all this vast region, Paganism was assailing Christianity with the most malignant and deadly energies.

And yet the zeal of the Christians was such, that while some, yielding to the terrors which threatened them, denied Christ, many went gladly to martyrdom. No one could tell how soon his hour would come. The life of the Christian was in daily peril from the executioner or from the mob; and yet many of those Christians, inspired with supernatural zeal and courage, devoted themselves entirely to the open and earnest preaching of the gospel.

“I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves,” said Christ. They accepted the mission. In the thronged streets of the city, like Paul at Athens, while some gnashed their teeth with rage, and others heard them gladly, they proclaimed salvation through faith in an atoning Saviour. Two and two they penetrated the villages, and wandered through the sparsely-settled country, with the sublime and astounding doctrine, that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, had suffered upon the cross to make an atonement for sin; and that now all who wished to reach heaven were to acknowledge this Saviour, and live according to his teachings, at whatever hazard.

Thus, notwithstanding the persecutions, converts were multiplied. For every one who was slain, perhaps two rose to take his place. The persecutors themselves, like Saul of Tarsus, often became converts, and preached that faith which they had once endeavored to destroy. Even the unbelieving Gibbon, who seldom loses an opportunity to show his hostility to the religion of Jesus, admits that the zeal of the early Christians in preaching the gospel, their fortitude under the most dreadful sufferings, the purity of their morals, and their love for one another, were among the potent influences which enabled Christianity to triumph over the imperial power of the Cæsars and the malignity of the mob, to overthrow all the gorgeous altars of paganism, and to establish itself firmly upon the ruins of the most imposing system of idolatry the world has ever known.