The Great Apostasy - James E. Talmage (historical books to read TXT) 📗

has given to man his agency; and that fact implies that one man is as free to act wickedly as another is to do righteousness. Cain was as free to murder his brother as that brother was to worship God; and so the pagans and Jews were as free to persecute and murder the Christians as the Christians were to live virtuously and worship Christ as God. The agency of man would not be worth the name if it did not grant liberty to the wicked to fill the cup of their iniquity, as well as liberty to the virtuous to round out the measure of their righteousness. Such perfect liberty or agency God has given man; and it is only so variously modified as not so thwart His general purposes." (B. H. Roberts, "A New Witness for God," pp. 47, 48.)

3. Early Persecutions by the Jews. "The innocence and virtue that distinguished so eminently the lives of Christ's servants the apostles, the purity of the doctrine they taught, were not sufficient to defend them against the virulence and malignity of the Jews. The priests and rulers of that abandoned people not only loaded with injuries and reproach the apostles of Jesus and their disciples, but condemned as many of them as they could to death, and executed in the most irregular and barbarous manner their decrees. The murder of Stephen, of James the son of Zebedee, and of James surnamed the Just, bishop of Jerusalem, furnished dreadful examples of the truth of what we here advance. This odious malignity of the Jewish doctors against the heralds of the gospel, was undoubtedly owing to a secret apprehension that the progress of Christianity would destroy the credit of Judaism, and bring on the ruin of their pompous ceremonies." In a footnote to the foregoing, references appear as follows. "The martyrdom of Stephen is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles 7:55; and that of James the son of Zebedee, Acts 12:1, 2, and that of James the Just, bishop of Jerusalem, is mentioned by Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities, book XX, chap. 8; and by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, book II, chap. 23."—(Mosheim, "Ecclesiastical History," Cent. I, Part I, 5:1.)

4. Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. "A rebellious disturbance among the Jews gave a semblance of excuse for a terrible chastisement to be visited upon them by their Roman masters, which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 71. The city fell after a six months' siege before the Roman arms led by Titus, son of the Emperor Vespasian. Josephus, the famous historian, to whom we owe most of our knowledge as to the details of the struggle, was himself a resident in Galilee and was carried to Rome among the captives. From his record we learn that nearly a million Jews lost their lives through the famine incident to the siege; many more were sold into slavery, and uncounted numbers were forced into exile. The city was utterly destroyed, and the site upon which the temple had stood was plowed up by the Romans in their search for treasure. Thus literally were the words of Christ fulfilled, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.—(Matt. 24:1, 2; see also Luke 19:44.)" (The Author, "The Articles of Faith," Lecture 17:18.)

CHAPTER V.

**Causes of Apostasy.—External Causes, Continued**.

1. As already pointed out, it is convenient to study the causes leading to the great apostasy as belonging to two classes, external and internal, or (1) causes due to conditions operating against the Church from without; and (2) causes arising from dissension and heresy within the Church itself. We have summarized external causes under the general term persecution; and we have drawn a distinction between Judaistic and pagan persecution waged against the Church. Having dealt with the opposition suffered by the early Christians at the hands of the Jews or through Jewish instigation, we have now to consider the persecution brought upon the believers in Christ by pagan nations.

**Pagan Persecution**.

2. The term "pagan" as here used may be taken as a synonym of "heathen," and is to be understood as referring to persons or peoples who did not believe in the existence of the living God, and whose worship was essentially idolatrous. The motives impelling non-believing Jews to oppose the establishment and spread of Christianity may readily be understood, in view of the fact that the religion taught by Christ appeared as a rival of Judaism, and that the growth and spread of one meant the decline if not the extinction of the other. The immediate motive leading to bitter and widespread persecution of the Christians by heathen peoples is not so easy to perceive, since there was no uniform system of idolatrous worship in any single nation, but a vast diversity of deities and cults of idolatry, to no one of which was Christianity opposed more than to all. Yet we find the worshipers of idols forgetting their own differences and uniting in opposition to the gospel of peace,—in persecution waged with incredible ferocity and indescribable cruelty.—(See Note 1, end of chapter.)

3. Unfortunately, historians differ widely in their records of persecution of Christians, according to the point of view from which each writer wrote. Thus, in a general way, Christian authors have given extreme accounts of the sufferings to which the Church and its adherents individually were subjected; while non-Christian historians have sought to lessen and minimize the extent and severity of the cruelties practiced against the Christians. There are facts, however, which neither party denies, and to which both give place in their separate records. To make a fair interpretation of these facts, drawing just and true inferences therefrom, should be our purpose.

4. Among pagan persecutors of the Church, the Roman empire is the principal aggressor. This may appear strange in view of the general tolerance exercised by Rome toward her tributary peoples; indeed, the real cause of Roman opposition to Christianity has given rise to many conjectures. It is probable that intolerant zeal on the part of the Christians themselves had much to do with their unpopularity among heathen nations. This subject is conservatively summed up by Mosheim as follows:

5. "A very natural curiosity calls us to inquire, how it happened that the Romans, who were troublesome to no nation on account of their religion, and who suffered even the Jews to live under their own laws, and follow their own methods of worship, treated the Christians alone with such severity. This important question seems still more difficult to be solved, when we consider, that the excellent nature of the Christian religion, and its admirable tendency to promote both the public welfare of the state, and the private felicity of the individual, entitled it, in a singular manner, to the favor and protection of the reigning powers. One of the principal reasons of the severity with which the Romans persecuted the Christians, notwithstanding these considerations, seems to have been the abhorrence and contempt with which the latter regarded the religion of the empire, which was so intimately connected with the form, and indeed, with the very essence of its political constitution. For, though the Romans gave an unlimited toleration to all religions which had nothing in their tenets dangerous to the commonwealth, yet they would not permit that of their ancestors, which was established by the laws of the state, to be turned into derision nor the people to be drawn away from their attachment to it. These, however, were the two things which the Christians were charged with, and that justly, though to their honor. They dared to ridicule the absurdities of the pagan superstition, and they were ardent and assiduous in gaining proselytes to the truth. Nor did they only attack the religion of Rome, but also all the different shapes and forms under which superstition appeared in the various countries where they exercised their ministry. From this the Romans concluded, that the Christian sect was not only insupportably daring and arrogant, but, moreover, an enemy to the public tranquillity, and every way proper to excite civil wars and commotions in the empire. It is probably on this account that Tacitus reproaches them with the odious character of haters of mankind, and styles the religion of Jesus as destructive superstition; and that Suetonious speaks of the Christians and their doctrine in terms of the same kind.

6. "Another circumstance that irritated the Romans against the Christians, was the simplicity of their worship, which resembled in nothing the sacred rites of any other people. The Christians had neither sacrifices, nor temples, nor images, nor oracles, nor sacerdotal orders; and this was sufficient to bring upon them the reproaches of an ignorant multitude, who imagined that there could be no religion without these."—(Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. 1, Part 1, ch. 5:6, 7.)

7. Persecution of the Church by Roman authority may be said to have begun in the reign of Nero (A. D. 64) and to have continued to the close of Diocletian's reign (A. D. 305.) Within this range of time there were many periods of diminished severity, if not of comparative tranquillity; nevertheless, the Church was the object of heathen oppression for about two and a half centuries. Attempts have been made by Christian writers to segregate the persecutions into ten distinct and separate onslaughts; and some profess to find a mystic relation between the ten persecutions thus classified, and the ten plagues of Egypt, as also an analogy with the ten horns mentioned by John the Revelator.—(See Rev. 17:14.) As a matter of fact attested by history, the number of persecutions of unusual severity was less than ten; while the total of all, including local and restricted assaults, would be much greater.—(See Note 2, end of chapter.)

8. Persecution under Nero. The first extended and notable persecution of Christians under the official edict of a Roman emperor was that instigated by Nero, A. D. 64. As students of history know, this monarch is remembered mostly for his crimes. During the latter part of his infamous reign, a large section of the city of Rome was destroyed by fire. He was suspected by some of being responsible for the disaster; and, fearing the resentment of the infuriated people, he sought to implicate the unpopular and much-maligned Christians as the incendiaries, and by torture tried to force a confession from them. As to what followed the foul accusation, let us consider the words of a non-Christian writer, Tacitus, whose integrity as a historian is held in esteem.

9. "With this view, he (Nero) inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men who, under the vulgar appellation of Christians, were already branded with deserved infamy. They derived their name and origin from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius had suffered death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate. For a while this dire superstition was checked but it again burst forth; and not only spread itself over Judea, the first seat of this mischievous sect, but was even introduced into Rome, the common asylum which receives and protects whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious. The confessions of those that were seized discovered a great multitude of their accomplices, and they were all convicted, not so much for the crime of setting fire to the city, as for their hatred of human kind. They died in torments, and their torments were embittered by insults and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts and exposed to the fury of dogs; others, again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race, and honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the Christians deserved indeed the most exemplary punishments, but the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration, from the opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed, not so much to the public welfare as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant."—(Tacitus, Annals, Book 15, ch. 44.)

10. There is some disagreement among historians as to whether the Neronian persecution is to be regarded as a local infliction, practically confined to the city of Rome, or as general throughout the provinces.—(See Note 3, end of chapter.) The consensus of opinion favors the belief that the provinces followed the example of the metropolis, and that the persecution was common throughout the Church.

11. This, the first persecution by Roman edict, practically ended with the death of the tyrant Nero, A. D. 68. According to tradition handed down from the early Christian writers, the Apostles Paul and Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome, the former by beheading, the latter by crucifixion, during this persecution; and it is further stated that Peter's wife was put to death shortly before her husband; but the tradition is