LIBRARY OF THE University of California. L.^^Wyb^^rWO. //ka^L^u-:r:L.^3^..w£ki Class ^"^ 7J4e^ THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION THE YALERIAN PEllSECUTION a .^tuDp of tl)t iltdation^ tJcttuccu ^Ijurcl) and Mate in tlyc €l)irD Ccuturp a» 2D* BY The Reverend PATRICK J. :pEALY, D. D. OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITy OF AMEBIOA BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 1905 ^ v"^ ^ ^ <^^ Nihil obstat : EDMUND T. SHANAHAN Censor Deputatiis Imprimatur : JOHN J. WILLIAMS Archbishop Apeil 11, 1905 0^~ COPYRIGHT 1905 BY PATRICK J. HEALY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published September iqoS TO THE REVEREND MICHAEL C. O'FARRELL RECTOR HOLY INNOCENTS' CHURCH NEW YORK CITY PREFACE Recent investigation into the relations between the Christian Church and the Roman State during the first three centuries of our era has thrown much new light on the history of this long period of persecution, and has served to show that the op- position to Christianity on the part of the Roman authorities arose from a deep-seated adherence to time-honored state policy rather than from blind hatred for the followers of the new religion. This view of the subject does not tend to diminish belief in the intensity and bitterness of the struggle, while it brings into clearer light the herculean task which confronted the first Apostles of Chris- tianity in promulgating doctrines which were to revolutionize all old ideas regarding the political, social, moral, and religious relations of mankind. Bearing in mind the peculiar character of pagan society in antiquity, its cohesiveness and absolu- tism, and its claims to complete domination over all human affairs, it will be manifest how easily a pro- paganda which aimed at disintegrating this auto- cratic exercise of power could be construed into treason to the state. viii PREFACE The persecution which took place during the reign of the Emperor Valerian was, in a sense, the most critical period in the history of the Church during the first three centuries. The policy of com- plete extermination formulated by the Emperor Decius, which was the first systematic attempt to destroy Christianity, was never adequately tested, as the premature death of that Emperor prevented the full carrying out of his plans. In the case of Valerian the same policy prevailed ; it was in force for a longer period; and it was put into operation at a time when the Church was still staggering under the blows inflicted by Decius. The meagre list of martyrs whose names are known to us as victims of this persecution affords no indication as to the actual number of those who suffered death, banishment, or confiscation at the hands of the Eoman authorities. There is no complete history in English of these three centuries of Christian trial. In fact, outside the pages of M. Paul Allard's monu- mental work on the Persecutions there is no sys- tematic presentation of the subject in any language. The author takes this opportunity to acknowledge his indebtedness to M. Allard for the help and guidance afforded by his works in treating a sub- ject which would otherwise have offered insuper- able difficulties. Realizing very thoroughly the many imperfections of the work, the author is loath PREFACE ix to mention the names of those from whom he re- ceived aid and advice ; but justice no less than thankf uhiess compels him to acknowledge the many obligations which he is under to Doctor Shahan, Professor of Church History at the Catholic Uni- versity, without whose aid, never failing kindness, and ever ready advice and encouragement the achievement, slight as it is, would not have been possible. The work was in typewritten manuscript before the author had an opportunity to examine some of the more recent publications dealing with this por- tion of history, such as Harnack's " Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten," and especially Lecrivain's" Etudes sur I'Histoire Auguste ; " but a close examination of these and some other works on the same subject has convinced him that they contain nothing which would call for modification or change in any of the conclusions at which he has arrived. PATRICK J. HEALY. Washington, D. C, April 11, 1005. CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE PAGE Christianity and the old order incompatible — Causes of per- secution — Religious conditions in the Roman Empire — Eclecticism — Multiplication of gods — Adoption of for- eign cults — Paganism inclusiye, Christianity exclusive — Pagan creeds national, Christianity universal — Pagan- ism external and formal, Christianity internal and spirit- ual — Attempts to fuse Christianity with paganism — Christianity a social revolution — Christians confounded with Jews — Nero persecuted the Christians — Accusa- tions against the Christians — Persecutions under Titus and Domitian 1-29 CHAPTER II THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE (Continued). End of persecution under Domitian — Church in the second century — Reign of Trajan — Christians in Bithynia-Pon- tus — Letter of Pliny — Trajan's reply — Legal proce- dure settled — Laws against Christians — Mommsen's view — Contrary opinion — Nero author of first edict — Text of this edict — Rapid spread of Christianity — Ha- drian's rescript — Attitude of Hadrian towards Christian- ity — Popular outbreaks against Christians in the reign of Antoninus Pius — Christians punished illegally during the entire second century — Instances of leniency on the part of some provincial governors — Christian apologists — Literary persecution — Era of the Antonines favorable to such a movement — Christians blamed for all the ca- lamities and misfortunes in the Empire — Christians under xii CONTENTS Commodus — Marcia — Social and political upheaval in the third century — Changes beneficial to Christianity — Septimius Severus — New edict of persecution — Burial clubs — Were the Christians enrolled as a Collegium Fu- neraticium ? — Caracalla follows the policy of his father — Elagabalus — Syncretism of Alexander Severus — Maxi- minus the Thracian — The Gordians and Philip — Long peace intensifies opposition between Church and State — Foreign cults popular in Rome — Christianity becomes a social and intellectual factor in Roman life — Paganism, though imitating many Christian forms, becomes more hostile — Political cataclysm in Rome — Illyrian Emper- ors — Decius issues edict which defines clearly the abso- lute incompatibility of Christianity and the heathen Ro- man State — The Church itself, not individuals, aimed at — Death of Decius — End of persecution — Gallus . 30-74 CHAPTER III VALERIAN Family — Holds important places in civil and military afPairs — Elected censor — Duties of censor — Decius lauds Va- lerian — Practically colleague of Emperor — Loyalty of Valerian — Gallus — Valerian made Emperor — Accept- able to all factions — Character — Fitness for position — Gallienus made co-regent — Empire in disorder, invasions, famine, pestilence — Plague decimates population — Mea- sures proposed for relief of panic-stricken people inade- quate — Disorganization of army — Invasions by barba- rians assume new character — Gallienus intrusted with defence of western portion of the Empire — Valerian as- sumes command in the East — Franks — Alemanni — Goths — Internal reforms — Restoration of national reli- gion 75-104 CHAPTER IV CHKISTIANITY IN THE FIRST YEARS OF VALERIAN'S REIGN Laws of Decius still in force — Not executed — Schisms in the Church — Novatus — Novatian — Christians at the court of Valerian — Valerian favors them — Valerian CONTENTS xiii changes his attitude towards the Church — Macrianus — Aub^'s opinion of Macrianus — Denis of Ak^xandria — Is Aube's opinion the correct one ? — Why Macrianus was procLiimed Emperor by his troops — His character — Was he a believer in magic ? — Veneration of Macrian family for Alexander the Great — This was an Egyptian cnlt, hence a religion of magic — Valerian was influenced by Macrianus — Human sacrifices not unknown in Rome — Conditions of public affairs led to renewed superstitions — Legal, political, and religious motives for persecuting the Christians — Economic condition of the Empire led to the same result — Financial prosperity of the Church — The Greek martyrs — Chrysanthus and Daria . . 105-129 CHAPTER V FIKST EDICT Text lost — Reconstruction from Proconsular Acts of St. Cyprian and letter of Denis of Alexandria — Clauses of edict — New spirit in anti-Christian legislation — Abjura- tion of Christ not required — Cemeteries confiscated — Purpose of edict — Aimed principally at hierarchy — Effect of edict — St. Stephen — Tarcisius — Unknown martyrs of the crypt of Chrysanthus — Cyprian exiled to Curubis. — Visited by many Christians — Vision — Let- ters to confessors in the prisons and mines — Sufferings of exiled Christians — Aided by Cyprian and Quirinus — Denis of Alexandria — Exiled to Kephron — Makes many converts — General survey 130-154 CHAPTER VI SECOND EDICT PERSECUTION IN ROME Peace restored to Roman Empire in 257 — Borani repulsed — Valerian holds brilliant levee at Byzantium in 258 — Purpose of this gathering — War against the Persians — Shahpur captures Antioch — Valerian proceeds against him — Issues new edict against the Christians — Harsher measures adopted — Reason for increased severity — Did the council at Byzantium have any connection with this new law — Christians did not provoke harsher measures xiv CONTENTS — Barbarians took many Christian prisoners — No alliance between the Christians and the enemies of the Empire — New edict a development of old one — Probable text — Christians in Rome — Changes in the Catacombs — Mar- tyrdom of Pope St. Xystus — St. Laurence — St. Eugenia — SS. Rufina and Secunda — Protus and Hyacinthus — St. Pancratius the boy martyr 155-187 CHAPTER VII ST. CYPRIAN AND THE AFRICAN MARTYRS St. Cyprian receives tidings of new rescript — Warns the Christians of Africa — Summoned to Utica by Galerius Maximus, who had succeeded Aspasius Paternus as pro- consul — Withdraws into hiding — Returns to his villa when the proconsul comes to Carthage — Arrest — Con- demnation — Death — Massa Candida — Sources : St. Au- gustine, Prudentius — Legend or history — Cruelty of proconsul towards Christians of Carthage — Large num- bers massacred — Arrest of Lucius, Montanus, Flavianus, Julianus, Victoricus, Renus — Acts of these martyrs — Long imprisonment — Visions — Other Christian prisoners — Trial — Execution — Martyrs in Numidia — Marianus and James — Agapius and Secundinus — Sufferings of Marianus and James — Visions — Trial and condemna- tion — Sent to Lambesa — Execution — Other Christian confessors 188-232 CHAPTER VIII PERSECUTION IN THE WEST AND THE EAST Tarragona — Caesar worship abandoned — St. Fructuosus — Esteemed by pagans and Christians — Arrest — Trial — Death at the stake — Martyrdom of Augurius and Eulo- gius on the same day — Martyrs in Gaul — The Orient — Death of Priscus, Malchus, and Alexander — St. Cyril of Caesarea in Cappadocia — Nicephorus of Antioch in Syria — Condemnation and death of St. Paregorius — St. Leo of Patara in Lycia 233-248 CONTENTS XV CHAPTER IX FALL. OF VALERIAN — EDICT OF GALLIENUS Barbarians renew inviusions in 258 — Berbers and Quinquegen- tanei in Africa — Gaul — Postumus revolts — Franks cross the Rhine — Ingenuus assumes the purple in Moesia — Defeated by Gallienus — Alemaniii invade Lombardy — Borani again attack Pontus — Goths devastate Bithynia — Valerian returns from the East to repulse them — Retraces his steps — Encounters Shahpur — Captured — His captivity and death — Empire in disorder — Thirty Tyrants — Revolt in Sicily — Gallienus unmoved — Issues edict of toleration — Analysis of edict — Effect — Gen- eral summary 249-272 Bibliography 273-281 Index 283-285 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION CHAPTER I THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE Christianity and the old order incompatible — Causes of persecu- tion — Religious conditions in the Roman Empire — Eclecti- cism — Multiplication of gods — Adoption of foreign cidts — Paganism inclusive, Christianity exclusive — Pagan creeds national, Christianity universal — Paganism external and for- mal, Christianity internal and spiritual — Attempts to fuse Christianity with paganism — Christianity a social revolution — Christians confounded with Jews — Nero persecuted the Christians — Accusations against the Christians — Persecu- tions under Titus and Domitian. A SURVEY of the history of primitive Christianity brings to light two considerations of the utmost im- portance for a thorough imderstanding of the rela- tions which subsisted between the Christian Church and the Roman State during the first three centuries of our era. In the first place, it was impossible that any system of belief and morality such as that taught by the Christians could coexist with the Roman Empire as then constituted, or that the social revo- lution which Christianity aimed at could be accom- plished without arousing the most determined op- position on the part of the Roman authorities. In 2 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION the second place, since Christianity struck at the very existence of the pagan creeds and cults and sapped the foundations of political and social life, the hostility it provoked came from such causes and was of such a nature that it could never cease imtil such time as Christianity had triumphed over the established order or had itself been annihilated. Christianity and Heathenism were too widely different in essentials to allow of any compromise. Toleration was equally impossible : the old polythe- istic religion had become so much a part of the life of the people that the acceptance of the new creed, even by some, implied a complete transformation of the old order and a profound upheaval of exist- ing conditions. The struggle for supremacy which this incompati- bility engendered is without parallel in the history of mankind. On the one side was all the strength and power of a magnificent empire, identified with a system of religion dear to the hearts of its patri- otic citizens and closely interwoven with their his- tory and traditions ; on the other was this new creed, destitute of earthly grandeur and possessing neither temples nor history. It is doubtful if any conflict was ever waged in which the contending parties were so unequally equipped, and certainly no strug- gle was ever carried on with so much bitterness. For two centuries and a half all the resources at the THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 3 command of the citizens of a vast empire were di- rected against a body of men whose only weapons were the doctrines they preached, and whose strong- holds were the virtues they inculcated and practised. No means at the disposal of a people skilled in the arts and refinements of all the civilizations of anti- quity were left untried to win the Christians from their adherence to the teachings of the obscure Founder of their religion. The wit of poets and rhetoricians, the arguments of philosophers and statesmen, the jeers of the mob, scorn, contempt, and social ostracism were all in turn directed against the Christian sectaries. More potent than these, however, and more important in a historical sense, was the enactment of laws which made Christianity a felony and its punishment death. The general causes underlying this strife always remained the same ; but a closer acquaintance with Christianity and a fuller comprehension of its an- tagonism to the existing order not only suggested new methods of repression to the pagan authorities, but also changed completely the spirit of the contest- ants. A struggle lasting for more than two centuries and fought out over such a wide area necessarily changed its character and assumed new features as time went on. The bloody persecutions which were the acute manifestation of the irreconcilable oppo- sition between Christianity and Heathenism mark 4 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION the steps in this progression. Time and progress, while they served to make the contestants better acquainted, were powerless to eliminate the many- points of contention which existed, and tended only to intensify the bitterness and to render compromise more hopeless. The persecutions which took place in the reigns of Decius and Valerian are the high- water mark of the antagonism between Christianity and the religious forms of pagan Rome. Each side seemed to have attained to a full realization of the fact that it contained in it qualities destructive of vital elements in the other, and that, notwithstand- ing the changes time had wrought, no lasting peace could be hoped for until one side or the other was completely eradicated. The struggle under Valerian paved the way for the final adjustment under Dio- cletian. It was not a decisive encounter, nor was it merely a preliminary skirmish. It was a combat which taxed the entire strength of the opposing forces. When a truce was declared, it contained no assurance of ultimate peace, but seemed rather to promise a sterner and more conclusive struggle. In order to understand fully the character of the war waged by Valerian against the Christians, it will be necessary both to consider briefly the main causes which produced this contention and to take a sum- mary glance at the history of the persecutions during the two preceding centuries. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 5 From the very outset the political and religious conditions which prevailed in the Roman Empire were, on the whole, decidedly imfavorable to the spread of Christian ideas. In fact, the Roman Em- pire as then constituted could scarcely coexist with any considerable organization of Christians. The territory embraced by this Empire was naturally the scene of the first labors of the Christian Apos- tles. Within its boundaries was comprised almost the entire civilized world, and under its sway were nearly all the peoples of antiquity distinguished for culture or refinement. Extending from the Rhine and the Danube to the deserts of Africa, and from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, the vast posses- sions of the Caesars were a imit in their opposition to the reforms which Christianity implied. Brought under the sway of the Romans by a series of gradu- ally extended conquests, this vast domain was not a mere physical union of different nations and different peoples living under one centralized gov- ermnent and held in check by the power of the legions. It was a closely knit, weU-compacted union of peoples with one mind, common aspira- tions, and a common culture. Many causes had contributed to bring about this unity and cohesion. There was the universal understanding of the two leading languages, Latin and Greek, conunon law, common interests, and rapid and easy means of com- 6 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION munication throughout the whole Empire. With the political and administrative unity of the Empire the influence of the Eomans ceased. They could subjugate nations, break down the barriers which separated tribes and peoples, but in the presence of the older civilizations of Greece and the Orient they were powerless. If the march of the legions was irresistible, not less so was the tide of manners and customs which flowed back on Rome from the conquered peoples. Hence it was that the culture of the period was not merely Roman : it was some- thing broader and deeper; it was a blending of Greek, Roman, and Oriental elements. From the continuous and universal clash of manners and mind, inseparable from such a condition of affairs, there had resulted a tendency towards eclecticism, which was nowhere more strongly manifested than in mat- ters of religion. With the absorption of so many nationalities into the Empire the old national or sectarian spirit had very largely passed away.^ To this change the primitive religion of the Romans lent itself very readily. ^ From the beginning it was a dry, cold, formal, matter-of-fact worship of the personified forces of nature.^ Its gods were abstrac- tions having neither traditions nor history.* This 1 Marquardt-Monunsen, Bomische Staatsverwaltung, vi, pp. 56 seq. 2 Boissier, La Religion Romaine, vol. i, pp. 37 seq. 3 Dollinger, Heidenthum und Judenthum, p. 468. 4 Bouchd-Leclercq, Manuel des Institutions Romaines,-ppA61 seq. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 7 lack of poetical and legendary endowment^ was fully compensated for by the number and variety of the deities to whom the Romans paid their ado- ration .^ If it were permissible to judge of the piety of a people by the multitude of their gods, the Ro- mans were undoubtedly the most religious of the peoples of antiquity .3 They had gods for all the different phases of human life and activity * and for all the phenomena of nature.^ They had found dei- ties for each condition and each occupation in life,^ and they were careful that each new need in the life of the individual or the development of society should receive its guardian deityJ So numerous ^ Elle n'a ni cosmogonie, ni mythologie proprement dite, ni enseignement metaphysique ou moral d'aucune sort. Bouch^- Leclerq, he. cit. p. 459. 2 The names of the Roman deities were kept in special lists called Indigitamenta. Ibid. p. 437; Marquardt-Mommsen, loc. cit. p. 7. 2 Nostri majores, religiosissimi mortales. Salliist, Cat. 12. * Varro commemorare et enumerare deos coepit a conceptione hominis . . . deinde coepit deos alios ostendere qui pertinerent non ad ipsum hominem, sed ad ea quae sunt hominis, sicuti est victus, vestitus et quaecumque alia quae huic vitae sunt necessaria. St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, vi, 9. ^ Vaticanus watched over the child's first cry ; Fabulinus taught it to speak ; Educa to eat ; Potina to drink, etc. 6 Annona was the goddess of the wheat crop ; Insitor the god of sowing ; Obarator covered the grain ; Occator harrowed the ground, etc. "^ Pecunia was the goddess of money, while cattle were the me- dium of exchange. With the introduction of copper coins came Aesculanus ; afterwards, when silver was introduced, a new god, Argentinus, the son of Aesculanus, was foimd. Dollinger, loc. cit. p. 469; Marquardt-Mommsen, loc. cit. p. 31. 8 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION were these gods that the country was like an Olym- pusji so peopled with gods that it was easier to find a god than a man.^ Besides this adaptation of their theology to the new needs of every-day life, the Komans extended their religion by the forcible naturalization of strange gods,^ or pretended that the deities of the peoples they conquered were identical with those of Rome.* The extensive journeys undertaken by some Romans and the general craving for travel made known many new deities.^ The provincials who flocked to Rome introduced strange gods ; ^ and the slaves from all parts of the world not only practised their native rites, but initiated many of their pupils and charges ; ^ while the legionaries from Rome and the provinces habitually worshipped the gods and performed the ceremonies of the countries in which they were stationed.^ The character of the Roman religion was in itself a powerful incentive to the adoption of new creeds and strange rites. Dry, narrow, formal, and based on the scrupulous per- 1 Varro, in St. Aug. Be Civ. Dei, iv, 22. 2 Petronius, Sat. 17. 3 Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxviii, 4, 18. In oppugnationibus ante omnia solitum a Romanis sacerdotibus evocari deum in cujus tutela id oppidum esset, promittique illi eumdem aut ampliorem apud Ro- manos cultum. The Form of Evocation is given by Macrobius, Sat. iii, 9, 7. * Caesar, De Bello Gallico, vi, 17 ; Pliny, Hist. Nat. vi, 22. s Boissier, loc. cit. pp. 350 seq. ^ Tacitus, Ann. xv, 44. 1 DoUinger, p. 481. « c. I. L. ii, 3386 j iii, 75. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 9 formance of a multiplicity of minute observances, it was utterly unsuited to satisfy the emotional side of himian nature.^ This deficiency was abundantly supplied by the religions of Egypt and the Orient. As early as the days of the republic, Egyptian rites were practised in all the cities along the Mediter- ranean, while some of the gods and goddesses of the East had been solemnly transported to Rome.^ In the midst of this spiritual and religious chaos it is possible to discern two distinct and well-defined tendencies. In the first place, there was a craving for closer personal union with the deity; in the second, a general drift towards a vague monotheism or pantheism. 3 This trend towards belief in the unity of the deity was fostered by statesmen * and philosophers,^ and reached its culmination in the deification of the Emperors. To accord divine hon- ors to a man yet living was at first rather repug- nant to some classes in the Empire, but as time went on Emperor-worship lost its peculiar personal character, and the reigning prince came to be con- sidered as the personification of Roman power rather than as being a divinity himself.^ ^ Boissier, loc. cit. pp. 20 seq. 2 Lafaye, Histoire du Culte des Divinity d* Alexandrie hors de VEgypte, chap. 1. 2 Dollinger, loc. cit. p. 4G9. * Boissier, loc. cit. p. 351. ^ Ibid. pp. 339 seq. ^ Beurlier, Essai sur le culte rendu aux Empereurs Romaijis, p. 36 ; Boissier, loc. cit. i, pp. 117-208. 10 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION At first sight it might appear that this lack of definite conviction in matters of religion, coupled with the unusual craving for new creeds, would naturally pave the way for the spread of Christianity. Such, however, was not the case. The reason for this lay with Christianity itself. The new religion ran directly counter to the prevailing tone and tendency of the age. It was a time when the widest liberty consistent with any fixed belief in the super- natural was permitted in the selection and worship of new deities.^ Paganism was running its logi- cal course, and no contradiction or impossibility appeared in the amalgamation and absorption of innumerable rites .^ To this development and syn- cretism Christianity was utterly foreign. Whereas a pagan might acquire new gods every day without failing in his allegiance to the old, a Christian was expressly taught to look on all Gentile creeds as mere superstitions. The exclusiveness to which Christianity laid claim put it in the position of de- nying and repelling all existing forms of worship, and thus multiplying indefinitely the difficulties and opposition it was likely to encounter. Paganism was in possession, and would not be likely to cede its position without a determined struggle. The double onus, therefore, rested on the Christian 1 Uhlhorn, The Conflict of Christianity and Paganism, pp.26 seq. 2 Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, vi, 7, Civitas omnium numinum cultrix. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 11 teachers of making good their claims before a higlily prejudiced public, and of dislodging a system of religion which had twined itself so closely round ancient life and manners that they had grown to- gether. All human affairs were pervaded with the spirit of paganism. Its symbols were everywhere. Its influence was as potent in public matters as in the affairs of private and family life.^ The Em- peror was the supreme pontiff ; the magistrates were priests ; the worship of the state gods was the touch- stone of loyalty .2 A system so elaborate and all- embracing required for its maintenance an organi- zation correspondingly large and well equipped.^ This was provided for by the colleges of priests,* augurs,^ and haruspices,^ whose principal duties were the superintendence of the ritual, the preser- vation of the lists of the gods, and the interpreta- tion of the will of the higher powers.' Inseparably bound together as were the state and its religion, the power of the one was reflected in the splendid processions, costly sacrifices, and magnificent tem- ples which ministered to the glory of the other.^ From this it will appear how hopeless must have 1 Marquardt-Mommsen, loc. cit. p. 119 seq. 2 Bouche-Leclercq, pp. 481 seq. 8 Marquardt-Mommsen, loc. cit. pp. 119-225. 4 Ibid. pp. 227-380. 6 Ibid. pp. 381-390. 6 Ihid. pp. 393-398. " Dollinger, p. 517. 8 Dollinger, p. 483 ; Marquardt-Mommsen, loc. cit. pp. 184-207. 12 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION seemed the task of the first Christian teachers. With no weapons but those of the soul they entered a new land, the citadels of which were held by their enemies, with the express purpose of disseminating doctrines so revolutionary that no pagan could ac- cept them except at the cost of being a renegade to the immemorial beliefs and traditions of his race. If we would measure how revolutionary of old ideas was Christianity, it will be sufficient to keep in mind the peculiar national character which at- tached to the religions of antiquity.^ In those times the state and religion were coextensive and synonymous. The principle of unity in the politi- cal as well as the social order was derived from the worship of the same deity .^ As the members of a family were those who grouped themselves around a domestic altar, the citizens were those who worshipped the state gods and performed acts of religion at the state altars.^ The entire scheme of life was based on the theory that each god pro- tected exclusively some state or family and took no interest in any other.* Such contracted ideas 1 Fustel de Coulanges, La CiU Antique, pp. 131 seq. 2 Cicero, De Legibus, ii, 8. Separatim nemo habessit deos : neve novos sive advenas, nisi publice adscitos, privatim colunto. ^ Fustel de Coulanges, loc. cit. pp. 166 seq. * Ihid. pp. 173 seq. Si Ton veut d^finir le eitoyen des temps antiques par son attribut le plus essential, il faut dire que ce'st rhomme qui poss^de la religion de la cit^ ; c'est celui qui honore les mgmes dieux qu'elle. Ibid. p. 227. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 13 of the functions of the higher powers necessarily precluded the possibility that citizens of different states would worship the same god.^ As a conse- quence of this, it did not enter in to the plan of the ancients to win converts to their religion. Such a thing would, of course, in the circumstances, have been an absurdity, and hence it is that proselytism was utterly unknown among them.^ If they had to travel through what might be called the juris- diction of a strange god, it is true they took pains to propitiate him ; but even then they never showed any missionary spirit.^ Christianity was the anti- thesis of paganism in this. It was not the religion of any caste or tribe, and came on the scene with neither political nor national affiliations.* It ignored the barriers of race and nationality, and entering the conflict as a divine revelation, it re- quired but one condition for admission to its fold, namely, that of a common humanity.^ A doctrine so extraordinary and so repugnant to the ideas and customs of the time must have appeared to all who cherished the old custom as a thing contrary to nature and threatening the dissolution of all existing order .^ If the Christians had claimed that 1 Fustel de Coulang-es, loc. cit. 2 Boissier, loc. cit. p. 337. « Ibid. * Fustel de Coulanges, loc. cit. p. 459. 6 St. Matthew xxviii, 19, 20. 6 Bollinger, The First Age of the Church, Eng. tr. p. 379. 14 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION theirs was the religion of some tribe or people, or that a nation had grown up around the worship of their God, their claims would have found accept- ance more readily ; but a new religion neither of the Jews nor any other people was an unheard of innovation.^ The declaration that there was no difference between Jew and Greek, between slave and freeman, cut at the root of society and threat- ened the stability of all government.^ So contrary was this to current opinion that we are not sur- prised it aroused at first derision, afterwards fear : for to base religion on humanity alone necessarily meant the disintegration of the established order and a thorough readjustment of the relations be- tween the individual and the state.^ The peculiar position which the state occupied in the economy of ancient life and the functions it ar- rogated to itself were extremely burdensome to the individual. The state was founded on religion. The gods it worshipped were part of itself. For a citi- zen of these times the maintenance of this composite of human and divine elements was a duty at once human and divine. This was the purpose of life, the goal of all effort. In a society established on such a basis it is not to be wondered at that human 1 Unde hoc tertium genus. Tertull. Scor. 10 ; Ad Nat. 1, 8, 20 ; Clem. Alex. Strom, vi, 39, 41. 2 St. Paul, Gal. iii, 28. Cf. Mommsen, Expositor, 1893, p. 4. 3 Fustel de Coulanges, loc. cit. p. 459. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 15 life was absorbed in civic duties, that the personal unit was lost in the political unit. That this concep- tion of the relations between the citizen and the state was not a mere speculative theory, but the practical principle of every-day life, is seen from the system which held sway.^ The state enjoyed full jurisdic- tion over the lives and possessions of its citizens. It regulated marriage, destroyed weak and deformed children, supervised education, and all with a view to its own ultimate benefit. Nor did its authority stop short at a man's physical being ; it extended to his thoughts and beliefs, and prescribed for him his religion. It was the duty of every citizen to believe in and worship the state gods, to be present at the sacred banquets, and to join in the processions. In a word, all the elements of human life were fused together, and the conglomerate resulting therefrom was known as the state. The application of the solvent contained in the words " Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," must have meant to the pagan mind inextricable confusion and direst calamity. Never before had such words been heard.^ They were anarchistic. For the first time human intelli- gence was fully awakened to the fact that while men had certain duties towards the body politic, 1 Cicero, Pro Domo, i ; Fustel de Coulanges, loc cit. pp. 265 seq. '^ De Coulanges, loc. cit. p. 401. 16 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION there were spheres of thought and activity to which the power of the state did not extend. In the sphere of man's relations to God equally- important changes were introduced. Under the in- fluence of Christianity the whole nature and scope of religion were transformed. Hitherto, for the Eomans especially, religion had meant nothing but a dry ritualism, from which sentiment and intention were altogether lacking.^ Men kept their accounts with the gods with business-like fidelity .^ The essence of religion consisted in the punctilious per- formance of certain rites,^ whereas the state of the soul while performing those acts was a matter of no importance.* The most religious were those who were best acquainted with the ritual and who most closely and exactly followed its prescriptions.^ Theirs was a religion of fear, consisting of endless expiations and propitiations, in which there was no thought of purifying or elevating man, but of using the most efficacious means to avert the anger of the gods or to enlist their aid for some future undertak- ing.^ From the first, Christianity was a reversal of this system. Men were exhorted not to employ 1 Boissier, loc. cit. p. 13. 2 Plautus, iv, 2, 25. ^ Est enim pietas justltia adversus deos ; sanctitas autem scientia colendorum sacrorum. Cicero, De Nat Deorum, i. * DoUinger, Heidenthum und Judentktim, p. 367. ^ Boissier, loc. cit. p. 15. 6 Servius, Aen. ii, 715. Connexa enim sunt timer et religio. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 17 frequent repetitions of prayer,^ but to seek for a closer union with God by the elevation of the soul and the purification of life. Instead of the manifold and minute external observances of paganism, God was to be worshipped in spirit and in truth.2 The differences between Christianity and Pagan- ism were too numerous and too essential, and the attitude of aloofness incumbent on Christians too noticeable, to escape observation in the Roman Em- pire. In a conmiunity so largely given to religious observances no considerable number of citizens could hold themselves apart from the public wor- ship and practice a strange cult without exciting suspicion and incurring censure.^ In the case of the Christians these difficulties and dangers were increased by their resistance to the syncretistic tendencies of the times, and by their refusal to have their religion united with the other religions of the Empire. Impossible as tliis union was, several Emperors are said to have desired it. The first attempt was that made by Tiberius. Moved by the account given by Pilate of events which had "clearly shown the truth of Christ's 1 St. Matthew vi, 7, 8. 2 gt. John iv, 23, 24. 3 All the incidents of public and social life, both civil and popular, were thoroughly interpenetrated by heathen customs, and colored by the prevalent worship ; its symbols met the Chris- tian at every step, and he was often entangled in religious acts before he recollected himself or could draw back. Dollinger, The First Age of the Church, p. 377. 18 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION Divinity," he is said to have made a formal propo- sition to the Senate that Christ be received among the Koman gods. The Senate, however, rejected the proposal.^ The apocryphal writers and Malalas testify that Nero wished to be informed of the new religion, and from the beginning was favorable to it : a fact in substance quite credible, attested by Paul's appeal to Rome, the sentence of liberation he received, and his subsequent relations with the faithful of the house of Caesar.2 Lampridius, a pagan, is witness for the fact that Hadrian wished to erect a temple to Christ and to give Him a place among the gods. He was diverted from his purpose by the complaint that if he did this everybody would become a Christian and all the other temples would be deserted.^ While these accounts are vague and conjectural and open to doubt, it is certain that in the third century the palace of the Caesars was the scene of more than one attempt to fuse Christianity with pagan superstitions. Elagabalus, in order to make his god (Heliogabalus) the only deity of the Romans, constructed a temple on the Palatine near the imperial residence which was to be the centre 1 Tertull. ApoL c. 5, 29. 2 Cf. De Rossi, Bullettino, January 15, 1867. ^ Christo templum facere voluit eumque inter deos recipere, quod et Hadrianus cogitasse f ertur . . . sed prohibitus est ab is qui coDsulentes sacra reppererant omnes Christianos futuros, si id fecisset, et templa reliqua deserenda. Vita Alex. Severi, c. 43. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 19 of the new cult. He transferred thither the altar of Vesta, the Palladium, and the sacred bucklers. He intended also to have the rites of the Jews and Samaritans observed there, and even the ceremonies of the Christian Church, so that the priests of Heliogabalus might possess the secrets of all reli- gions.^ His cousin and successor, Alexander Se- verus, went still farther. He showed the greatest favor to the Christian s,^ was an open admirer of the Church discipline,^ and in his lararium he kept the image of Christ, together with those of Abraham, Orpheus, and Apollonius.^ He had con- ceived so much admiration for the Founder of the Christian religion that at one time he intended to build a temple in His honor.^ He frequently- repeated the sentence, " Do not to others what you do not wish to be done to you." This he had learned from the Jews or Christians, and such was his love for it that he had it inscribed on the walls of his palace and other places.^ This desire on the part of the Roman Emperors to amalgamate Christianity with the other religions of the State was but one phase of the prevailing reli- 1 Dicebat praeterea Judaeorum et Samaritanorum religiones et Christianam devotionern illuc transferendam, ut omnium cultura- rum aecretum Heliog^abali sacerdotium teneret. Lampridius, Vita Heliog. ?>. '^ Lampridius, Vita Alex. Severi, c. 49. 3 Ibid. 45. * Ibid. 29. «^ Ibid. 43. c md. 51. 20 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION gious syncretism which manifested itself in the attempts made by the early heresiarchs to effect an intellectual union between the tenets of Chris- tianity and the teachings of various philosophical systems.^ The latter was as unsuccessful as the for- mer. As long as the Christians were insignificant numerically, the exclusiveness which kept them sep- arate from the rest of the people, and the fact that they worshipped a new deity, was a matter of per- fect indifference to the great mass of the pagans.^ Outside of the Jewish communities the new wor- ship was looked on if not with favor, at least with complete unconcern. One more god added to the populous pantheon could attract little notice. But Christianity was something more than the worship of a new god. It was a new scheme of life. It was a revolution of the social order. Long before men in some places had commenced to take even a pass- ing intellectual interest in the new religion, their attention was drawn to it not as a religious innova- tion, but as a disturbing element in commercial and business affairs. The discovery that Christianity was a menace to social order and to the established rehgion " was made in a homely way familiar to us all ; viz. through the pocket." ^ In Philippi the 1 Cf. Neander, Church History, vol. i, p. 469. 2 Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire before A. D. 170^ p. 130. 3 Ibid. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 21 cure of a girl possessed by a spirit of divination caused an outbreak against Paul and Silas. When the masters of the girl saw " that their hope of gain was gone," they denounced Paul and his companion as Jews who had disturbed the city by their preach- ing and by inciting people to violate the Roman iaws.i Similarly at Ephesus,^ when the silversmiths and other tradesmen engaged in the manufac- ture of shrines, to be used as dedicatory offer- ings in the temple of Artemis, saw their business decreasing, they broke into tumult and denounced Paul as a seducer of the people.^ The opposition to Christianity thus engendered does not, however, by any means explain the intense hatred afterwards felt for the Christians by all classes in the Empire, especially in view of the fact that the Christians were not then regarded as a distinct body. For a long time the pagans were in the habit of considering the Christians as a mere Jewish sect.* Suetonius relates that Claudius, in the last years of his reign, expelled the Jews from Rome because of the numerous tumults which had taken place at the instigration of a certain Chrestus.^ There can be no 1 Acts xvi, 19. "^ Acta xix, 24-40. 8 See Ramsay, loc. cit. p. 134, on the subject of silver shrines as dedicatory offerings. * Mommsen, Expositor, 1893, p. 2. ^ Judaeos, impulsore Chresto, adsidue tumultuantes Roma ex- pulit. Suetonius, Vita Claudi, c 25. 22 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION doubt that this Chrestus is none other than Christ, whose name, occurring frequently in the disputes between the orthodox Jews and the Jewish Chris- tians, led the Eoman police to mistake Him for the leader of the tumult.^ While the error of con- founding the Christians with the Jews diverted for a time the attention of the public from Christianity as a separate religion, it nevertheless made the Christians heirs of all the hatred and contempt long felt for the Children of Israel by the people of the Occident. The confusion, however, did not last long. It could not do so in Rome. The edict of Claudius directed against the Jews, showed clearly that the Gentile converts who remained in Rome after the expulsion of the Jews, and who practised ♦' Jewish customs," were not Jews. St. Paul's open disavowal of any connection with the synagogue was proof positive of the same fact.^ The Jews them- selves, under the ban because of their refusal to live peaceably with the believers in the New Mes- siah, could be relied upon when occasion arose to denounce Christianity as a troublesome and dan- gerous organization.^ The complete separation of Christianity from Judaism could have only one result — increased 1 BatifEol, " L'Eglise Naissante," Eevue Biblique, 1894, pp. 503 seq. 2 Acts XXV, 10. 8 St. Justiu, Dial, cum Trypho, 10, 18. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 23 hatred and animosity for the Christians. How rapidly the feeling of hostility developed among the people, and how well it served the purposes of Nero, was proved in the first fierce outbreak, which, strangely enough, took place in the metropolis of the world. ^ Popular rumor made Nero the author of the con- flagration which destroyed the greater part of the city of Rome in July, A. D. 64. To divert from himself the anger of the people, Nero caused the blame for this crime to be laid on the Christians. An immense number of them were seized and put to death with unheard-of cruelty. For the amuse- ment of the excited and wrathful populace their punishment was turned into a spectacle. Some were crucified, others were sewn in the skins of wild beasts to be torn to pieces by wild dogs, while others were reserved for tragic roles in the dramatic repre- sentations, the dreadful realism of which required that Ixion should really be broken on the wheel ; that Icarus should drop from the clouds ; and that Hercules should die in the flames.^ At night Chris- tians attached to crosses and covered with some in- flammable stuff were set on fire and used as torches to illuminate the gardens of Nero on the Vatican, 1 Tacitus, Annals, xv, 44. 2 Cf. Allard, Histoire des Persecutions pendant les deux premiers Siecles, p. 28 ; Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, pp. 232 seq. 24 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION in which the festivities were held. This carnival of murder did not placate the excited populace nor allay the suspicion that Nero was the real incendi- ary. Tired with the slaughter, the people com- menced to have compassion on the wretched victims who were executed rather to satisfy the cruelty of one man than through zeal for the public welfare.^ The change in public feeling necessitated a change in the accusations brought against the Christians. The hatred against them arising from the crimes of which they were supposed to be guilty was all summed up in the charge of hatred for the human race (odium humani generis) .^ For the Romans, the humanum genus meant not humanity at large, but the Roman people ; the Christians, therefore, were public enemies, hostile to the State and civilization.^ In the excited state of public feeling at the time such a charge would be sure to find ready credence. It was not necessary, however, that a new accusation should be made to turn the minds of the people against the Christians. Tacitus says they were always hated because of the horrible crimes which they committed.^ To the pagan, ^ Unde quamquam adversus sontes et novissima exempla meri- tos miseratio oriebatur, tamquam non utilitate publica sed in saevitiam unius absumerentur. Tacitus, Annals, xv, 44. 2 Ihid. ^ Cf . Ramsay, loc. cit. * Quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos adpellabat. Tac- itus, loc. cit. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 25 Christianity and crime seem to have been sy- nonymous. It must be concedecl that the revo- hitionary character of Christianity and the method of life followed by its votaries gave ample ground for misconception and suspicion. Strange and in- explicable must have appeared the influence which could effect such a reformation as that wrought in its converts by Christianity, and dangerous to pub- lic safety any organization which could inspire such enthusiastic devotion and unswerving resolu- tion.i Christianity, moreover, put a new value on human life, and by the reforms it instituted in hu- man affairs gave color to the suspicion that society was in danger. The consequence of this misunder- standing was that for three centuries a constant stream of vituperation was directed against the followers of the new religion. By withdrawing from public life and abstaining from the pleasures of the heathen, the Christians appeared as a people " skulking and shunning the light, silent in public but garrulous in corners.^ They were despised as ignorant ^ and the outcasts of society.* They led gloomy and joyless lives.^ They took no part in the public banquets ; they did not visit the shows and were never present in the 1 Dollinger, The First Age of the Church, p. 394. 2 Minucius Felix, Octavius, c. 8. 3 Origen, Contra Ctlsum, vi, 14. 4 Tertull. Ad Nationes, c. ii. ^ Min. Fel. c. 8. 26 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION solemn processions.^ " Wretched, they pity, if they are allowed, the priests : half naked themselves, they despise honors and purple robes." ^ The lan- guage they used was barbarous.^ They were the enemies of science and knowledge.* They had no respect for the dead, whose sepulchres they never crowned with flowers ; ^ and, useless members of so- ciety, they bore none of the duties and obligations of citizenship.^ The religion of the Christians seemed to the pleasure-loving pagans an anomaly. It had neither altars, temples, nor sacrifices : ^ therefore it had no god, and its votaries were atheists.^ Their pre- tended belief in an invisible omnipresent deity was an absurdity.^ Instead of this troublesome inquisi- tive god of their imagination ^^ the Christians as an offshoot of Judaism were rather the adorers of the head of an ass.^^ It was inconceivable to the pa- gans that such a body of fanatics could remain to- gether except on the supposition that they practised magical rites.^^ They were accused of taking dread- ful oaths, and of being initiated by the slaughter and blood of an infant. ^^ Their meetings were said I Min. Fel. c. 12. 2 Xbi^, c. 8. ^ j^^ Autoly. c. i. 4 Contra Celsum, in, 75. ^ Min. Fel. c. 12. ^ Contra Celsum, viii, 64. ' Athenagoras, Legatio, c xiii. 8 St. Justin, Apol c. vi. ^ Min. Fel. 10. 1° Ibid. II Tacitus, Hist, v, 3 ; Tertullian, Apol c. 16. 12 Tertullian, Adv. Marc, c xxix. 13 Min. Fel. c. 9. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 27 to be conventicles of lewdness, the scenes of Oedi- podean orgies and Tliyestean feasts.^ The greatest danger to the Christians lay in the fact that many of the slanders circulated against them were political in character and made them appear as transgressors of the laws of the Empire. They were accused of being enemies of the State and the people, of being guilty of treason and sac- rilege, and of striving to overthrow the republic.^ They were branded as conspirators who met in secret to plot the destruction of the State and its religion.^ Afterwards, commencing with the reign of Domitian, the refusal of the Christians to comply wdth the established worship of the Empire, which was the touchstone of loyalty, became the basis of persecution and proscription. Nero's action in bringing the Christians to trial gave official sanction to these slanders and at the same time inaugurated a new era in the relations be- tween Christianity and the State. The general prin- ciple had been affirmed that certain acts of which all Christians were supposed to be guilty merited death. Henceforth there was no course open to a magis- trate in the Roman dominions but to follow the precedent laid down by the Emperor, whose action was necessarily the official guide in such cases.* 1 TertuU. Apol c. 3. 2 jf^ij^ g. 42. 8 Ibid. c. 3. ^ Cf. Ramsay, loc cit. p. 334. 28 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION The confusion and anarchy which filled the Em- pire after Nero's death naturally diverted the atten- tion of the rival emperors from Christianity. The old hostility, however, manifested itself as soon as the Flavian djmasty was firmly established in power. Titus destroyed the temple of Jerusalem in order that the religion of the Jews and Christians might be completely eradicated ; for these two religions, al- though opposed to one another, had the same origin. The Christians had sprung from the Jews, and if the root was destroyed the stem would quickly perish.^ The fact that Christianity remained intact and continued to flourish after the fall of Jerusalem ought to have shown that it was independent of all connection with Judaism, yet we find that this fact escaped the notice of Domitian, or was purposely overlooked by him. In order to replenish the trea- sury exhausted by his extravagance, he decreed that all who lived after the manner of the Jews should pay the Jewish poll-tax, which had been collected for the benefit of the imperial treasury since the time of the Jewish war.^ There can be no doubt that this edict was aimed at the Christians as well as the Jews.3 Their persistent refusal to comply ^ Sulpicius Severus, ii, 30, who reproduces a lost page of Tac- itns. 2 Dion Casaius, Ixvii, c. 14. 3 Cf. Neumann, Ber Edmiscke Staat und die Allgemeine Eirchej p. 27. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 29 with the provisions of this enactment could leave no doubts in the official mind that they constituted a separate religion, nevertheless it brought on them a persecution so fierce that it merited for Domitiau the name of a second Nero in cruelty.^ 1 Tertull. c. 5. CHAPTER II THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE (Continued). End of persecution under Domitian — Church in the second cen- tury — Reign of Trajan — Christians in Bithynia-Pontus — Letter of Pliny — Trajan's reply — Legal procedure settled — Laws against Christians — Mommsen's view — Contrary opinion — Nero author of first edict — Text of this edict — Rapid spread of Christianity — Hadrian's rescript — Attitude of Hadrian towards Christianity — Popular outbreaks against Christians in the reign of Antoninus Pius — Christians pun- ished illegally during the entire second century — Instances of leniency on the part of some provincial governors — Christian apologists — Literary persecution — Era of the Antonines favorable to such a movement — Christians blamed for all the calamities and misfortunes in the Empire — Christians under Commodus — Marcia — Social and political upheaval in the third century — Changes beneficial to Christianity — Septimius Severus — New edict of persecution — Burial clubs — Were the Christians enrolled as a Collegium Funeraticium ? — Caracalla follows the policy of his father — Elagabalus — Syncretism of Alexander Severus — Maximinus the Thracian — The Gordians and Philip — Long peace intensifies opposition between Church and State — Foreign cults popular in Rome — Christianity be- comes a social and intellectual factor in Roman life — Pagan- ism, though imitating many Chiistian forms, becomes more hostile — Political cataclysm in Rome — Illyrian Emperors — Decius issues edict which defines clearly the absolute incom- patibility of Christianity and the heathen Roman State — The Church itself, not individuals, aimed at — Death of Decius — End of persecution — Gallus. A REVULSION of feeling similar to the change in popular sentiment under Nero brought the persecu- THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 31 tion of Domitian to a sudden stop.^ The Emperor himself, before his death, experienced such a change of heart that he suspended hostilities against the Christians,^ and granted full pardon to those who had been condenmed to exile.^ With Domitian the Flavian line ended. His successor, the wise and prudent Nerva, a man far advanced in years when he ascended the throne, set himself the task of cor- recting the abuses and irregularities which had crept in under Domitian. Among his reforms was an act of the Senate granting full amnesty to all who were in banishment, and putting an end to proceedings in the case of those who were charged with the crime of sacrilege.* At the beginning of the second century a marked change had already taken place in the situation of the Christian Church. With the complete separa- tion from Judaism and the ever increasing acces- sions of Gentile converts, Christianity had taken its place as an independent religion. In some places a generation of Christians born in the faith belonged to the Church. AU these things tended to bring 1 Juvenal, Sat. iv, 151-153, says of Domitian : — Tempora saevitiae, claras quibus abstnlit urbi niustresque animaa impune, et vindice nullo, Sed periit, postquam cerdonibus esse timendus Coeperat. 2 Hegesippus in Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, iii, 20. 3 Restitutis etiani quos relegaverat. Tertnll. Apol. c. 5. * Eusebius, loc. cit. ; Dion Cassius, Ixviii, c. 1. 32 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION the new religion into closer touch with the pagan world, and to infuse into it some touches of the cul- ture of the Graeco-Roman civilization. This cen- tury, too, was the culminating point in Roman great- ness. With Nerva the imperial power passed into the hands of men who represented all that was best in the national character, a fact which had a very important bearing on the growth and development of Christianity. From Nerva to Marcus Aurelius the sceptre was held by rulers who were strongly attached to the old order, and whose only ideal was the rigid enforcement of law and discipline. For them the majesty of the law was as dominant in the realm of thought as in that of action, as binding on the worshipper as on the soldier.^ Trajan the adopted son and successor of Nerva was a man eminently qualified by education and experience to carry out the plans inaugurated dur- ing the preceding reign and to restore the Roman State to its former greatness and power. His schemes of reorganization and reform naturally revealed to him the extent and influence of Christianity, and though he was a man more inclined to clemency than to harshness, he allowed no opposition to the laws to go unpunished. He is the first emperor to whom we can attribute with absolute certainty any special legislation on the subject of Christianity. ^ Ampere, L* Empire Romain d. Borne, vol. ii, p. 196. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 33 By a rescript given in the year 11 2,^ he settled definitely the procedure to be followed by magis- trates in dealing with the followers of Christ. The occasion of this rescript was a letter 2 addressed to Trajan by the younger Pliny, who had been sent on a special mission as direct representative of the Emperor to restore order in the province of Bi- thynia-Pontus,3 which was sadly disorganized by the maladministration and corruption of the proconsuls who had formerly governed it. Appreciating the difficidties of the task to which he was somewhat unwillingly assigned, Pliny ob- tained from the Emperor permission to consult him frequently in regard to the details of his administra- tion.* Among the many difficidties which he sub- mitted to the judgment of the Emperor, there was none which caused him graver anxiety than how to deal with the Christians, who were niunerous not only in the cities but even in the villages and coun- try districts,^ and by mere force of numbers had already become a very troublesome element in social ^ Goyau, Chronologie de V Empire Eomain, p. 185. 2 The authenticity of this letter is now incontestable. Vide Boissier, Retme Archeologique, 1876, pp. 114-126. 2 "The province which Pliny governed, officially entitled ' Bithynia et Pontus,' was of very wide extent, reaching from the river Rhyndacos on the West to beyond Amisos on the East." Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 224. * Pliny, Epistle 32, bk. x. ^ Neque civitates tantum, sed vicos etiam atque agros super- stitionis istius contagio pervagata est. Pliny, Epistle 96, bk. x. 34 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION matters and a disturbing influence in some branches of trade. Tbe temples of the gods were abandoned, the solemnities of the pagan cult were not observed, and the sale of fodder for the victims in the temples, from which a considerable revenue was derived, had almost ceased.i Accusations were brought against the Christians as the authors of this state of things, and Pliny at once took steps to repress them. When they were brought before him for a trial, he first asked each one separately whether he was a Chris- tian, repeating this question three times and threat- ening severe punishment .^ All who remained un- shaken in their declarations were put to death, unless they enjoyed the benefits of Roman citizen- ship and the right of appeal to Caesar, of which some availed themselves.^ In the course of the proceedings difficulties arose because of some new phases which the cases offered, and because of an anonymous document which the legate received de- nouncing many persons as Christians.* Some of 1 Prope jam desolata templa . . . sacra solerania diu inter missa . . . pastumque victimaruin cujus adhuc rariasimus emptor inveniebatur. Pliny, Epistle 96, bk. x. 2 Interim in iis, qui ad me tamquam Christiani deferebantur, hunc sum secutus modum. Interrogavi ipsos an essent Christiani. Confitentes iterum ac tertio interrogavi, supplicium minatus : perseverantes duci jussi. Ibid. 3 Fuerunt alii similis amentiae quos quia cives Romani erant, adnotavi in urbem remittendos. Ibid. * Propositus est libellus sine auctore multorum nomina con- tinens. Ibid, THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 35 those who were accused denied the charge ; others at first acknowledged their guilt, but through fear and because of the threats of the governor they afterwards contradicted themselves and said they had been Christians at one time, but had recanted many years before. All these gave earnest of the sincerity of their denial by offering libations and burning incense before the statues of the Emperor, and by conforming to the pagan ritual.^ These latter cases puzzled the legate. As long as the culprits openly acknowledged their faith he knew how to proceed, but when they recanted he was at a loss as to what course he should follow. Though he was a lawyer, and had been consul and praetor, and taken part in many famous trials,^ his practice had all been before the Decemviral courts,^ and he knew nothing of the methods fol- lowed in dealing with the Christians.* In his per- plexity he addressed a letter to the Emperor asking for instructions on three separate heads : whether the age of the culprits should be considered ; whether abjuration merited pardon ; and whether the crime of the Chi'istians consisted of merely the " name," or the criminality implied in the name.^ 1 Pliny, Epistle 96, bk. x. 2 Egi magnas et graves causas. Epistle 89, bk. v. 2 In arena nostra, id est apud centuraviros. Epistle 12, bk. v. * Cognitionibus de Christianis interf u inunquam. Epistle 9('>, bk. x. ^ Sitne aliquoJ Jiscriaieu aetatum an quamlibet teneri nihil a 36 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION Trajan's reply did not contain a specific answer to each of these three queries, and though evasive in its tenor, it was sufficient to settle the doubts which had been set forth by Pliny. The Emperor ap- proved fuUy of the methods followed by Pliny, and though he affirmed that no general principle is ap- plicable to all cases, he laid down the rule that no search was to be made for the Christians, but when any of them were brought before the tribunals and accused openly, not anonymously, they were to be punished.^ An exception, however, was to be made in the case of those who recanted and proved their sincerity by offering worship to the gods.^ This edict settled definitely the jurisprudence and procedure in regard to Christianity, and was the principle and rule of action followed by all magistrates in their treatment of the Christians during the whole of the second century. The of- fence and its punishment were clearly defined. The action of the legate in Bithynia prior to the receipt of the rescript and the subsequent action of the robustioribus differant, detur paenitentiae venia an ei, qui om- nino Christianus fuit, desisse non prosit, nomen ipsum, si flagi- tiia careat, an flagitia cohaerentia nomini puniantur. Epistle 96, bk. X. 1 Conquirendi non sunt ; si def erantur et arguantur, puniendi sunt. Sine auctore vero propositi libelli nullo crimine locum ha- bere debent. Trajan to Pliny, Epistle 97, bk. x. 2 Qui negaverit se Christianum esse idque re ipsa manifestum f ecerit, id est supplicando diis nostris . . . veniam ex paenitentia impetrat. Ibid. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 37 authorities in all parts of the empire showed that there was no vagueness in the conmiand Puiiiendi sunt. Henceforth no course was open to a judge in any tribunal in the Empire but to inflict the death penalty whenever any one, accused according to due form of law, refused to abjure the Chris- tian religion.^ Here arises the important question whether any law directly and explicitly proscribing Christianity as a capital offence existed prior to the time of Trajan. Of late this subject has received a great deal of attention and study. Mommsen and many others have taken the position that before the edict of Decius no direct legislation existed on the sub- ject of Christianity ,2 and that the plenary powers possessed by all Roman governors to take whatever steps they deemed necessary to maintain order and to safeguard religion entitled them to adopt harsh methods in suppressing it. This right, the jus coercitionis, was, according to Monmasen, the basis of all the actions against the Christians, who were thus simply dealt with according to the ordinary 1 Duchesne, Les Origines Chritiennes, p. 109. 2 Mommsen, " Der Religionsf revel nach Romischen Recht," Historische Zeitschrift, 1890, t. Ixiv, pp. .389-429. The same article, "Christianity in the Roman Empire," Expos- itor, 1890, t. viii. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, pp. 207-210 ; Expos- itor, 1893, p. 5, and Hardy, Christianity and the Roman Government^ passim, substantially agree with Mommsen. 38 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION police regulations, which entitled the heads of pro- vinces to adopt harsh measures, whenever good order or the public peace seemed to be in danger. In the opinion of many other writers on this sub- ject 1 Mommsen's view is altogether too broad, and while in the main it is correct, it goes back to a period in Roman law when there was no Jewish question and no Christian question.^ It is by no means improbable that at some time prior to the reign of Trajan, perhaps in the days of Nero, special edicts were issued against the Christians, who, it was decreed, were to be treated as dangerous outlaws, and deserving only of complete extermination. Sul- picius Severus makes express mention of the fact that Nero passed laws against the Christians during the time he was persecuting them.^ Melito of Sar- dis speaks of decrees of the governors of provinces 1 Duchesne, Bulletin Critique., Nov. 15, 1890 ; Allard, Histoire des Persecutions pendant les Deux Premiers Siecles, pp. 164-167; Kneller, " Hat der Roroische Staat das Christenthum verfolgt ? " Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, vol. Iv, pp. 1 seq. ; Theodor Mommsen, " Ueber die Christenverfolg'ungen," Ibid. pp. 276 seq.; " Die Mar- tyrer und das Romische Reeht," Ibid. pp. 34-39 seq.; Batifoll, " L'Eglise Naissante," Bevue Biblique, 1894, pp. 503 seq. ; Calle- waert, " Les Premiers Chretiens, f urent-ils persecutes par edits Generaux ou par Mesures de Police," Bevue d''IIistoire Ecclesias- tique, Oct. 15, 1901, and January 15, 1902. All these are author- ities for the belief that special laws existed on the subject of Chris- tianity from the time of Nero. 2 Duchesne, loc. cit. ^ Post etiam datis legibus religio vetabatur, palamque edictis propositis Christianos esse non licet. Chron. ii, 29. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 39 which couhl be nothing but instructions or inter- pretations of existing laws.^ TertuUian in several passages of his works insists strongly on the iniqui- tous character of the laws which oppressed his co- religionists.^ Lactantius relates that the juriscon- sult Ulpian, prime minister of Alexander Severus, collected and codified those laws in the seventh book of his treatise " De Officio Proconsidis." ^ Origen defends the Christians accused by Celsus as violators of the laws by saying the laws they transgressed were " Scythian " in their harshness. The text and tenor of the laws to which these authors refer will probably never be known with absolute certainty. It is remarkable, however, that Severus,^ Tertullian,^ and Origen '^ when referring to them use precisely the same expression, Non licet esse Christianos. The pagan author Lampri- dius, speaking of the toleration shown to the Chris- tians by Alexander Severus, says, Christianos esse ^ Melito, in Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastical iv, 26. 2 M. Callewaert, he. cit., has submitted Tertullian's works to a profound and critical study on this point. 3 Domitius (Ulpian), De officio proconsuUs, libro septimo, re- scripta principum nefaria coUegit ut doceret quibus poenis affici oporteret eos qui se cultores Dei confiterentur. Lactantius, Instil. Div. V. 2. * Origen, Contra Celsum, i, 1. 5 Ibid. ^ Jam primum cum jure definitis non licet esse vos. Apol. 4. "^ Decreverunt legibus suis ut non sint Christiani. Ilom. 9, in 40 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION passus est^ A strong reason for holding that this was official language is found in the fact that the decree of Galerius putting an end to the persecu- tions against the Christians began with the words, Denuo sint Christiani? The similarity of the lan- guage employed by so many writers of different periods leads to the conviction that they all bor- rowed from a common source. The use of exactly the same terms can scarcely be a mere coincidence. It allows of no alternative but the supposition that they were all acquainted with the law couched in Eoman brevity, Non licet esse Christianos.^ The vague and general character of such a law neither fully defining the crime nor indicating any regular procedure will readily explain the difficulty which Pliny experienced in executing it.* Neither the fear of death nor the incentive to apostasy in Trajan's legislation seemed to have had any appreciable effect on the rapid spread of Chris- tianity, or to have caused any diminution in the num- ber of martyrs. Nor did Pliny's letter exculpating the Christians from all suspicion of wrongdoing ^ 1 Judaeis privilegia reservavit, Christianos esse passus est. Alex. Sev. 22. 2 Lactantius, De Mortibus Persec. 34. ^ Cf. Gaston Boissier, "La Lettre de Pline au sujet des Chre- tiens," Revile ArcMologique, 1876, pp. 114-126, for the matter of this whole passage. * La r^ponse de Trajan n'^tait pas une loi, mais elle supposait des lois et en fixait I'interpr^tation. Renan, Les Evangiles, p. 483. ^ Adfirmabant (Christiani) . . . se sacramento non in scelus ali- THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 41 put a stop to the calumnies directed against them.^ As the church gained in numbers and influence the hatred of the pagans became more intense and their slanders more virident. The pagans banded them- selves togfether to resist the encroachments of the new religion. The worst passions of the populace were aroused. Mob violence took the place of legal repression and tumults broke out every day in all parts of the Empire. Riotous crowds assailed the proconsuls of the different provinces, demanding that the Christians be put to death and their reli- gion extirpated. The Emperor Hadrian was ap- prised of this state of things by the reports sent him by the proconsuls. One of these, Licinius Grani- anus, the governor of Asia, deploring the injustice done the Christians and regretting the violence to which they had been subjected, went almost as far as suggesting the revocation of all laws against them. 2 St. Justin has preserved Hadrian's rescript in an- swer to this report. For some reason the Emperor delayed his reply, and it was addressed not to Granianus but to his successor, Minicius Fundanus.^ quod obstringere, sed ne furta, ne latrocinia, ne adulteria commit- terenL, ne fidem fallerent, ne depositum appellati abnegarent. — Nihil aliud inveni quam superstitionera pravam, immodicara. Epistle 96, bk. x. 1 Compare the works of the Apologists, Justin, etc. 2 Vide, Eusebius, Chronicon, Olymp. 226. 8 St Justin, Apol i, 68. 42 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION The new rescript was substantially the same as that of Trajan and added nothing to the existing legislation. While studiously avoiding all mention of what constituted the crime in the case, the Emperor declared it was his intention that innocent persons should not be molested and that informers should have no opportunities to exercise their villainy. If the provincials wished to bring charges against the Christians, they must do so in the open courts, and not by petitions and tumultuous outbreaks which the governors were charged to suppress. In the courts proof should be given that the Christians had violated the laws. If it was not forthcoming, and if the accuser failed to establish his case, he must be punished for calumny. The sole concern of the Emperor was that public order should be preserved and the laws strictly enforced.^ He desired to con- fine judicial action on the subject of Christianity within the limits laid down by his predecessor, but strangely enough, and perhaps advertently, his re- script makes no allusion to the subject of religion. This is quite in keeping with what we know of the religious temper of the Emperor and his attitude towards Christianity. His interest in the religions of the Empire arose solely from political motives. These two were so closely linked that he knew they would stand or fall together. Personally he had 1 AUard, Le Christianisme et VEmpire Bomain, p. 42. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 43 the profoundest contempt for the national gods. In his roamings back and forth through the Em- pire he constructed those inscriptionless temples without images which, because they were dedicated to no divinity, and for want of a better name, were known as Hadrianic.^ He despised all religions, and saw in the conflicts of the sects nothing but a sub- ject for mirth and raillery. In a biting, epigram- matic letter ^vritten in a fit of pique from Alexan- dria to his brother-in-law Servianus he showed his contempt for Paganism and Christianity alike. " Here," he says, " the worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and they who call themselves bishops of Christ worship Serapis. Every archisynagogus of the Jews, every Samaritan, and every Christian presbyter is an astrologer, a soothsayer, or a quack doctor." 2 He saw no danger to the stability of the State in Christianity itself, and with lofty disdain he sneered at all the religions, saying, " They have one god, Money, worshipped alike by Christian, Jew, and Gentile." ^ 1 Qui (Hadrianus) templa in omnibus civitatibus sine simulacris jusserat fieri, quae hodieque idcirco, quia non habent numina, dicuntur Hadriani. Lampridius, Vita Alex. Sever, c. 43. '^ Illic qui Serapem colunt, Christiani sunt et devoti sunt Serapi, qui se Christi episcopos dicunt, nemo illic archisynagogus Judae- orum, nemo Samarites, nemo Christian orum presbyter non mathe- maticus, non haruspex, non aliptes. Vopiscus, Vita Saturnini, c. 8. 3 Unus illis deus nummus est, hunc Christiani, hunc Judaei, hunc omnes venerantur et gentes. Ibid. 44 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION The popular outbreaks which marked the reign of Hadrian continued during the reign of his suc- cessor, Antoninus Pius,i and occasioned fresh re- scripts on the subject of Christianity. Antoninus introduced no change in the laws, and contented himself with maintaining the procedure inaugurated by Trajan. In the letters he addressed to the Larissaeans, Thessalonians, Athenians, and the Greek cities in general ^ he condemned strongly the riotous action of the people and refused to allow it to take the place of regular legal proceedings. This ordinance, simply a confirmation of Hadrian's rescript requiring legal proof of the guilt alleged against the Christians, shows that in the mind of the Emperor, the judicial system of persecution still in force was a sufficient guarantee against the dangers and encroachments of Christianity.^ In spite of the comparative leniency of these Emperors, and the formal legal procedure which they insisted on, the situation of the Christians during the entire period was one of extreme danger. The risk of being denounced and dragged before the tribunals hung over their heads at aU times, ^ For the causes of these outbreaks, cf . Ramsay, The Church in the. Boman Empire before A. D. 170, pp. 326, 327, 332. ^ These letters are mentioned by Melito in an apology ad- dressed to Marcus Aurelius, a fragment of which is preserved by Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, iv, 26. ^ Cf. Ramsay, loc. cit. p. 331. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 45 and the death penalty awaited them in case they persevered in the profession of their faith. Though the law required that whoever accused a Christian should substantiate his charge by proof in the courts, the whole course of the proceedings in the second century shows that this ordinance was constantly violated. The existence of such a statute, however, had a tendency to check the wholesale denunciation of the Christians and to repress the activity of in- formers. For, besides the popular hatred for dela- tores in general, and the fear which the Christians inspired in many places by mere numbers, the in- former ran the risk of severe punishment if he failed to make good his accusation. This danger was especially to be feared in cases brought against the Christians, to whom recantation always offered a loophole for escape. Instances are not wanting to show that the gov- ernors of some provinces found the execution of the laws against the Christians extremely difficult or distastefid. In a letter written to Scapula, proconsul of Africa, demanding that he should exercise less cruelty in his dealings with the Christians, Tertul- lian mentions several cases of this kind. Among them is that of Arrius Antoninus, proconsul of Asia, whose severity aroused the Christians to such a pitch of desperation that they presented themselves in a body before his tribunal one day, asking that 46 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION they should all instantly be executed. The procon- sul sentenced some of them and dismissed the others saying, " Wretched men, if you wish to die, you have precipices and halters." Quite different is the case of Cincius Severus, who suggested such answers to the Christian prisoners as would lead to their acquittal. Asper openly expressed his disgust with such cases, and refused to compel a Christian prisoner who had recanted under torture to offer sacrifice. Others resisted the clamors of the mob, as Vespronius Candidus, who declared such tumults illegal, and Pudens, who refused to try a case with- out the presence of a formal accuser, as to do so would be a violation of the commands of the Em- peror.i Isolated cases such as these, however, extending over a whole century, do not prove that the laws were allowed to fall into abeyance as a general rule, or that the position of the Christians was more se- cure because of the reluctance of some governors to execute the will of the mob. The Christians themselves were keenly alive to the precarious po- sition they held in the eyes of the law. Time after time they protested against the injustice to which they were subjected. Commencing with the reign of Hadrian, a long line of apologists addressed letters to the Emperors in their defence, pleading for some ^ Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, cc. iv, v. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 47 mitigation of the burdens under which they labored. The aim of the apologists, from Quadratus and Ar- istides i to Tertullian, was not to obtain any change in the legislation. They demanded that such mod- ifications be introduced into the procedure followed by the magistrates as would ensure for the Chris- tians a fair trial on specific charges, and constantly complained that the Christians were condemned for the mere name without any proof that they were guilty of crime or wrongdoing. To strengthen their plea for justice, the apologists did not confine them- selves to the legal aspects of the case. They repelled the accusations made against Christianity, and re- futed the calumnies and slanders so industriously cir- culated among the people, by explaining the teaching of the Church, and showing its high moral tone and the loyalty of all its members to the State and Em- perors. What impression these apologies made on the Emperors, and whether they affected public opinion in any way, will perhaps always remain a matter of conjecture. The action of the Antonines in refusing to have the charges against the Christians investi- gated and in adhering to the rule laid down by Trajan might be considered a proof that they placed no credence in the accusations to which they were 1 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, iv, 3; Harris, The Apology of Aristides, Cambridge, 1891. 48 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION forced to listen. It is significant, however, that an active literary and intellectual opposition to Chris- tianity manifested itself at this epoch. The preva- lence of Christian ideas rendered it impossible for the pagans to ignore any longer the intellectual force in the Christian teaching. Crescens, the philosopher, disputed openly with St. Justin in Rome;i Fronto, the rhetorician and preceptor of Marcus Aurelius, attacked the Christians in a pub- lic discourse ; ^ Lucian, the satirist, held them up to ridicule as a set of credulous fanatics ; ^ and Celsus, in a leng-thy work entitled the True Word,* showing a most intimate acquaintance with Chris- tianity, employed all his skill as a dialectician in gathering together the calumnies and arguments which he hoped would make the acceptance of Christianity by his fellow-pagans, or the toleration of it by the Roman authorities, an impossibility. The era of the Antonines was especially favor- able to a literary propaganda against a new reli- gion. Greek philosophy, notwithstanding the pre- judice and opposition it encountered in the days of Cicero and Seneca, had gradually extended its sway over the best minds in the Empire, until it finally ^ Justin, Second Apology., chap. 3. 2 Minucius Felix, Octavius, cc. 9, 31. ^ Dialogues, especially. * Origen, Contra Celsum. Keim, Celsus Wahres Wort, Zurich, 1873, has attempted a reconstruction of this work. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 49 reached the throne in the person of Marcus Aure- lius.^ There was too, at this time, a revival of old Roman customs, a Renaissance political as well as literary, but the long peace from the death of Domi- tian to the reign of Marcus, which made this period the most happy and prosperous in the history of the world,2 had introduced a taste for ease and lux- ury which unfitted men for the serious occupations of life. The heathen themselves were conscious of the degeneracy of the age, and the attempted resto- ration was a failure. Superstition and scepticism took the place of religion, while philosophy gave way to rhetoric.3 The widespread corruption and licentiousness were gradually undermining the last vestiges of ancient virtue and morality. The reign of Marcus Aurelius marks the end of the old Roman world.^ The long period of tranquillity which the State had enjoyed was ended by a series of unprecedented calamities and disasters.^ Foreign and civil wars, earthquakes, inundations, famine, and pestilence brought sorrow and suffering to every part of the Empire and filled the public mind 1 Boissier, La Religion Romaine, vol. ii, p. 93. 2 Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire^ chap. iii. 3 Boissier, loc. cit. p. 105. * Renan, Marc-Aurele et la Jin du Monde Antique, Preface, p. ii. La mort de Marc-Aur61e peut d'ailleurs gtre consid^rde comme marquant la fin de la civilization antique. ^ Julius Capitolinus, Vita Marci Antonii, cc. 8, 11, 13, 17, 21, 22, 24. 50 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION with terror and foreboding. The terrified and superstitious masses saw in these misfortunes a manifestation of the anger of their gods, whose fa- vor had been alienated by the Christian atheists.^ These open and avowed enemies of the national deities were the authors of all the calamities the people suffered, and the fanatic terror of the mob dictated they should be offered as victims to ap- pease and propitiate the outraged deities. Chris- tianos ad hones seemed to promise relief from all evils and became the cry of the fear-stricken pagans. The philosopher Emperor was not superior to pop- ular superstition. Yielding to the clamors of the people, he issued new rescripts, which reversed the policy of his predecessors and inaugurated a new era in the persecutions.^ The text of this rescript no longer exists. Sufficient evidence is found in contemporary writings, however, to prove what its tenor was.^ The Christians, it was commanded, should be sought out and punished. In order to make the pursuit more active and effective, it was decreed that the informers should be rewarded from the property of the condemned. The stimulus 1 Tertullian, Apology, 40 ; Ad Nationes, 1, 9. 2 Melito, in Eusebius, Historia Ecdesiastica, iv, 26. 3 Celsus; Orig-en, Contra Celsum, viii, 69; Melito, loc. cit. ; Athenagoras, Legatio pro Christian! s, c. 1, says the Christians were harassed, plundered, and persecuted. The Acts of the mar- tyrs (Lyons and Vienne, and Justin) show that the Christians were " sought out." THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 51 offered to violence and rapacity by this decree made the persecution under Marcus more severe than any that had preceded it. At this time the apolo- gist Justin, and the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne, whose sufferings are told in the touching letter addressed to the churches of Asia and Phrygia, became victims of pagan malice and barbarity. When Marcus Aurehus, dying of the plague, re- proached his friends for weeping for him instead of thinking about the pestilence and the general mis- ery ,i there was nothing, perhaps, that caused him greater anguish of spirit than the character of the man who was to succeed him on the throne. It is recorded that he wished for the death of Commo- dus, in whom he saw traits that promised a return of the worst days of Nero, Caligula, and Domitian.2 The dire forebodings of the dying Emperor were fulfilled. The brutal and degenerate Commodus so disgraced the imperial purple that one is in- clined to believe the historian who calls this child of the wayward Faustina the son of a gladiator.^ 1 Capitolinus, Vita Marci Aur. ch. 28. Quid de me fletis et non magis de pestilentia et communi morte cogitatis ? When he was asked to whom he would commend his son, he answered, " Vobis si dignus fuerit et diis immortalibus." Ihid. 2 Fertur filium mori voluisse, cum eum talem videret futurum, quaUs exstitit post ejus mortem, ne, ut ipse dicebat, similis Ne- roni, Caligixlae et Domitiano esset. Ihid. ^ Aiunt quidam, quod et verisimile videtur, Commodum Anto- ninum . . . non esse de eo natum sed de adulterio. Ibid., ch. 19. 52 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION Wholly immersed in the degrading sports of the arena, and caring nothing for the national gods, he was incapable of devoting himself to delicate questions either of state or of religion. No new edicts were issued, but the laws enacted in previ- ous reigns were still in force, and the Christians were as much as ever exposed to persecution by hostile governors. The Emperor himself does not seem to have been personally hostile to the Chris- tians, and tolerated the presence of large numbers of them at his court.^ His favorite Marcia ob- tained from Pope Victor a list of the Christians condemned to exile in the mines of Sardinia, and so influenced Commodus in their favor that he gave orders for their liberation.^ The civil wars, caused by the conflicts among the claimants for the throne after the death of Commodus, transformed completely the social and political condition of the Roman world. The nar- row aristocratic spirit of the ruling class disap- peared entirely before the growing sense of union and equality among the different peoples in the Empire. Caracalla broke down the distinction between Roman and barbarian, between conquered and rulers, by extending the rights of Roman citi- zenship to all the free inhabitants of the Roman 1 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. iv, 30. 2 Philosophumena, ix, 7. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 53 dominions.! The changed tone of the period is most noticeable in the wearers of the purple. Dur- ing the whole of the third century the destinies of Eome were controlled by men who owed their elevation to the throne to military genius or the capricious will of the soldiers. Dynasties changed as frequently as rulers. None of the many ad- venturers who attained imperial honors succeeded in establishing an hereditary succession. In this condition of things there was no possibility of any continuity of policy in regard to the internal affairs of the State. After the Senate, the one element of conservatism, had been shorn of its authority by Septimius Severus, all the power in the Empire centred in the man who retained the good will of the legions.^ For the Christians the turmoil in the Empire and the frequent changes of dynasty were a source of security and strength. The Africans, Syrians, Arabs, and Thracians, who successively wielded the sceptre, had no sympathy with the traditions nor reverence for the gods of Rome. For some of them it would have been as easy and natural to accept the teaching of the gospel as to become worshippers at the shrine of Jupiter or Janus. Septimius Seve- rus was the first of these military despots. In the 1 Ulpian, Digest, i, 5, 17. * Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. v. 54 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION beginning of his reign he was favorably disposed towards Christianity, and is even said to have been its defender and protector.^ His son Caracalla had a Christian nurse, while the Emperor himself owed his life to a Christian slave, Proculus, who cured him of some malady by anointing him with oil.^ A further reason for treating the Christians with leniency may be found in the fact that during the conflicts for the throne they wisely abstained from taking sides with either Claudius, Niger, or Albinus.^ The good will of the Emperor, however, did not lead him to revoke the laws against the Christians, or to discountenance the circulation of the most atrocious slanders against them. Severus spent little time in Kome.* The greater part of his life as emperor was passed in the East. During a visit to Palestine in the year 202 he promulgated a new edict, which forbade any one to become a Jew under severe penalties, a prohibition which he also ex- tended to Christian converts. ^ Sed et clarissimas feminas et clarissimos viros Severus sciens Lujus sectae esse, non modo non laesit varum et testirnonio exor- navit, et populo furenti in nos palam restitit. Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, iv. 2 Ibid. 3 Tertullian, Apol. c. 35; De Idololatria, 15. * Schiller, Geschichte der Ito7nischen Kaiserzeit, vol. i, pt. 2, pp. 705 seq. ^ In itinere Palaestinis plurima jura f undavit. Judaeos fieri sub gravi poena vetuit, idem etiam de Christianis sanxit. Spartianus, Vita Severi, c. 16. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 55 Many reasons can be assigned for the change of attitude on the part of Severus : the rapid spread of Christianity counteracting the work of the uni- fication of the Empire ; ^ the influence of the Em- peror's Syrian wife, Julia Domna ; ^ or more prob- ably the maledictory and threatening tone noticeable in the apocalyptic literature which emanated so abundantly from Christian and Jewish sources at this time.3 The belief in the millennium still pre- vailed, and consequently many Christians were not averse to looking on the disasters and the confusion of the times as forerunners of the abolition of pa- ganism and the dissolution of the Roman Empire. Besides, the Christians themselves were beginning to chafe under the severities practised against them, and notwithstanding the frequent protestations of loyalty which Tertullian makes, there is evident in some parts of his writing a tone of menace which leads to the conclusion that in some quarters the doctrine of passivity was losing force.* According to a theory proposed by De Rossi, which for a long time met with general approval, none of the reforms introduced by the successors of the Antonines had a more important bearing on 1 Duchesne, Les Origines Chrkiennes, chap. 23. 2 Philostratus, who attempted to set up a heathen Christ, was one of her prot^gds. 3 Cf. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, chap. vii. * Apd. c. o7 ; Ad Bcapulam, e. 5. 56 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION the developing and strengthening of Christianity than the decree of Septimius Severus, which ex- tended to the people of the provinces the right pos- sessed by the inhabitants of Eome under a law of the first century to form funeral societies or burial clubs.^ Through this law people of the poorer classes were allowed to organize such clubs without special authorization from the Senate, in order to secure for themselves by small monthly contribu- tions a decent funeral and a final resting-place.^ By the same law, those who organized such a so- ciety had the right to hold property in common, to have a common treasury, to be represented by an actor or syndic, and to receive gifts and legacies.^ In the opinion of De Rossi the Christians took this opportunity of acquiring a legal corporate existence by being enrolled as a funeral society.* There was 1 Permittitur tenuibus stipem menstruam, conferre dum tamen semel in mense coeant conf erendi causa ; sed religionis causa coire non prohibentur, dum tamen per hoc non fiat contra Senatus con- sultum quo illicita collegia arcentur . . . quod non tantum in Urbe sed in Italia et in provinciis locum habere divus quoque Severus rescripsit. Digest, xlvii, 22, 1. 2 By the Lex Julia Augustus suppressed the collegia and laid down new conditions for the formation of burial clubs, among which was the express permission of the Senate, C. I. L. vi, 2193. Compare Waltzing, Etude Historique sur les Corporations Profes- sionnelles chez les Romains, tom. i, p. 267. ^ Digest, iii, 4, 1. 4 De Rossi, Bull, di Arch. Cris. 1864, pp. 57 seq. ; 1865, p. 90; 1866, pp. 11, 22 ; 1870, pp. 35-36; 1877, p. 25 ; 1885, pp. 83-84; Rom. Sott. tom. i, pp. 161, 209, 210; tom. ii, pp. 8 seq., 370 THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 57 no reason why they should not do so. Such a simple way of avoiding conflict with the laws and of pro- tecting their burial places would very naturally com- mend itself to the persecuted followers of Christ. The many striking resemblances between these collegia tetiulonan^ and the Christian Church woidd make this legal fiction less objectionable. Like the pagan societies, the Christians had a com- mon fund supported by monthly contributions,^ out of which they provided for the decent inter- ment of their dead associates ^ and the construc- tion and mamtenance of their cemeteries. In one case as in the other the society was largely re- cruited from among the ranks of the poor and lowly, from artisans and slaves. The custom in the collegia tenuiorum of electing the leaders by general suffrage prevailed also to a certain extent among the Christians.^ The holding of meetings seq. See, also, Northcote and Brownlow, Rom. Sott. vol. i ; Al- lard, Histoire des Persecutions, vol. ii, c. i ; Le Christianisme et V Empire Eomain, pp. 76-89 ; Boissier, " Les Chretiens devant la legislation Romaine," Revue des Deux Mondes, April 15, 1876; Religion Romaine, torn, ii, pp. 300-306 ; Waltzing, loc. cit. torn, i, pp. 149-153 ; Neumann, Der Romische Staat und die AUgemeine Eirche, vol. i, p. 101. 1 Called by Mommsen, " fnneraticia," a name unknown to tbe ancients. Waltzing, loc. cit. torn, i, 143. 2 Modicam unusquisque stipem menstrua die, vel cum velit ; et si modo velit et si raodo possit apponit. Tertullian, Apol. c. 39. 8 Ibid. * Praesident probati quique seniores, honorem istum non pretio, sed testimonio adepti. Ibid. 58 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION on certain anniversaries and of congregating fre- quently for religious purposes was common to both.^ The pagans honored their dead by feasts and ban- quets,2 the Christians celebrated the agape in their assemblies. The first deacon among the Christians corresponded to the syndic among the pagans in that both were charged with the administration of the temporal affairs of their respective societies.^ There would of course be something repugnant to the Christians in the pagan name collegium^ and hence they preferred to be known as the Ecclesia Fratrum, Fratres, Fraternitas, Sodales Fratres, 'AB€k(fiOL/AS€Xcl)6Trj<;^ names which are found on in- scriptions dating from a period earlier than the time of Constantine.* Presumably in imitation of the pagan custom of forming clubs under the pat- ronage of some deity, the members of which were known as Cultores Jovis, Cultores Hercuhs, etc.,^ a certain Christian who founded a cemetery for his brethren at Caesarea called himself a cultor VERBi.^ The description of the Church given by 1 Waltzing, torn, i, p. 295. 2 Ibid. torn, i, p. 488 ; torn, iv, p. 675. S Ibid. torn, i, p. 395 ; torn, ii, pp. 446, 468. 4 De Rossi, Bom. Soft torn, iii, pp. 37-42, 507, 573 ; BuHetina^ 1877, pp. 47-49. Compare Waltzing, loc. cit. torn, i, p. 151. 5 Waltzing, loc. cit. torn, i, pp. 37, 47, 260-265. ^ Aream ad sepulclira cultor Verbi contulit et eellam struxit suis cunctis sumptibus. Ecclesiae Sanetae hanc reliqnit memo- riam. Ecclesia fratrum hunc restituit titulum. Vide De Rossi, THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 59 Tertullian, showing its resemblance in many salient features to the burial clubs of the pagans, was, it was conjectured, drawn with a view to proving that the Church had a legal right to existence under the form of a burial society.^ These strik- ing analogies, taken in connection with the fact that the Church first appears as the corporate owner of property precisely at the time when funeral associations were being multiplied in the Roman world under the wider liberty granted by Severus, convinced De Rossi that the Christians took advantage of this act to obtain a legal footing in the Empire.^ Another argument in support of this theory was found in the fact that the names of the Popes in the Philocalian Catalogue, drawn up about 336, and the lists of the " depositions " of bishops and martyrs added to this catalogue, must have been borrowed in great part from the records of the urban prefect rather than from the Church archives, thus proving that there existed in the prefecture a register in which it was thought the popes had been enrolled as heads (^actores, syndici) of the ecdesia fratrum in Rome.^ Recent writers, Bvlletino, 1864, p. 28 ; Bom. Sott. torn, i, pp. 96, 107 ; Waltzing, loc, cit. torn, i, 213. 1 Apol. c. .39. 2 Waltzing, loc. cit. vol. i, p. 151 ; Dnchesne, Les Origines Chrkiennes, loc. cit. ; Allard, Hist, des Persecutions, vol. ii, p. 9 ; Boissier, La Beligion Romaine, vol. ii, p. 300. 8 Bom. Sott. torn, ii, pp. 6-9 ; Duchesne, loc. cit. 60 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION however, foUowing in the wake of Duchesne, have abandoned this theory altogether, or content them- selves with regarding it as an unproved hypothesis. In the first place, it is pointed out that the right which the Christians undoubtedly possessed at the beginning of the third century of holding property in common may with equal plausibility be regarded as a concession due to the tolerance of such an emperor as Commodus. And in the second place, if the Christians had accepted this legal fiction, it is difficult to understand the attitude of Tertul- lian ^ and St. Cyprian ^ towards such societies, or to explain how the police would have shut their eyes to such manifest evasion or perversion of the law. More difficult still is it to understand how the Christians of Home, Antioch, Alexandria, or Carthage, whose numbers in these cities must have been between thirty and fifty thousand, could have prevailed on the public authorities to permit them to enroll themselves as a burial club when such clubs usually consisted of a small number of poor persons. " Is it possible to imagine St. Fabian, St. Cyprian, or St. Denis of Alexandria, presenting himself at the prefecture to be registered as the head of a coUege of Cultores Verbi, consisting of 50,000 members banded together to procure proper interment? It is more easy to believe that if the 1 Apol c. 39. 2 Ep. 67. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 61 Church enjoyed a long interval of peace after the death of Marcus Aurelius, and was allowed to hold property apparent to everybody and of consider- able value, it was because it was tolerated or even openly recognized without any legal fiction as a church or rehgious society." If the names of the Popes were enrolled in the public registers, this merely proves that they were recognized as the heads of the Church, but by no means that they were regarded as chiefs or syndics of burial clubs. This negative view is still further strengthened by the fact that no written records contain any sus- picion or evidence of legal fictions, titles to pro- perty, or burial societies.^ The policy pursued by Septimius Severus for the repression of Christianity was continued by his successor Caracalla for about two years, after wliich the persecution came to an end.^ From this time until the reign of Decius, a period of nearly forty years, the Church enjoyed peace broken only by a short outbreak during the reign of Maximin. These were years of chaos for the Roman State. Caesarism and militarism had destroyed public spirit, and the last vestiges of national pride van- ished when Elagabalus, a priest of the Syrian Sun- 1 Duchesne, Les Origines Chr^tiennes, chap. 23, sec. 4 ; Lowrie, Monuments of the Early Church, pp. 58-61. 2 Milman, History of Latin Christianity, chap. viii. 62 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION god, was raised to the throne.^ The black conical stone worshipped at Emesa as a symbol of the sun was transferred in solemn procession to Eome and installed in a magnificent temple on the Palatine.^ It is not to be wondered at, that popular antipathy to the Christians diminished when the Emperor attempted to make the worship of this god the centre of all religions, and when, in furtherance of his scheme for a universal religion which included Jews, Samaritans, and even Christians, he trans- ferred to the temple of Heliogabalus the most sacred symbols of the gods of Rome.^ The syncretism of the next Emperor, Alexander Severus, took a somewhat different form. While he honored and respected all the gods of the Empire, domestic * and foreign,^ his lararium^ in which he offered his private devotions, contained, together with the statues of Abraham, Orpheus, and Apollo- nius of Tyana, a bust of the Founder of the Chris- tian religion.^ The devotion and rectitude of Alex- ander, and certainly the success of his reign, were due in large measure to the influence of his mother, ^ Aelius Lampridius, Vita Antonini Heliogabali, c. 1. 2 Ibid. c. 2. 3 if)i^^ * Aelius Lampridius, Vita Alexandria c. 43 : Capitolium sep- timo quoque die, cum in urbe asset, aseendit, templa frequentavit. ^ Ibid. c. 26. Isium et Serapium decanter ornavit additis sig- nis et deliacis et omnibus mysticis. 6 Ibid. c. 29. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE G3 Mammaea,^ who, during a sojourn in Antioch, had conversed with and received instructions from the great Origen.^ Notwithstanding the fact that the laws against Christianity were codified during his reign, 3 Alexander showed the greatest toleration to the followers of Christ,* large numbers of whom were ever present at his court .^ He evinced his ad- miration for the Christian custom of publicly pro- posing the names of candidates for ordination by insisting that the same method should be followed in appointing provincial governors,^ and he went so far as to recognize the right of the Christians to hold property by awarding to them a piece of land to which a body of victuallers laid claim, saying that it was '' better that this land should be devoted to the worship of God in any form than that it should be diverted to profane uses." ^ 1 Lampridius, loc. cit. c, 26. In matrera Mammaeam unlce plus fuit. - Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, vi, 21. ^ Lact. bk. V, c. 2. Ut doeeret, quibus oportet eos poenis affici, qui se cultores Dei confiterentur. * Lampridius, loc. cit. c. 22, Judaeis privilegia reservavit, Christianos esse passus est. ^ Eusebius, loc. cit. vi, 28. ^ Lampridius, loc. cit. c. 45. Dicebat grave esse, cum id Chris- tiani et Judaei facerent in praedieandis sacerdotlbus, qui or- dinandi sunt, non fieri in provinciarum rectoribus, quibus et fortu- nae hominum committerentur et capita. ^ Ibid. c. 49. Cum Christiani quemdam locum, qui publicus fuerat occupassent, contra popinarii dicerent sibi eum deberi, re- scripsit melius esse, ut quemadmodumcumque illic deua colatur quam popinariis dodatur. 64 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION The peace which the Church enjoyed under Alex- ander Severus was rudely interrupted by his suc- cessor, Maximinus, a rude barbarian from Thrace whom the soldiers elevated to the purple. The fact that the Christians had enjoyed the friendship of his predecessor afforded Maximinus sufficient rea- son for persecuting them.^ In order quickly and effectively to destroy Christianity, he directed his attacks against the heads of the Church; but death intervened to prevent more than the partial accomplishment of his purpose. Under the Gor- dians there was a return to the policy of Alexander Severus, and the Christians once more tasted the sweets of tranquillity. The reign of Philip the Arab, who is said to have been the first Christian Emperor,2 was uneventful for the Christians, and remarkable in Roman annals principally from the celebration of the Saccular Games in commemoration of the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of Rome. This long peace could end only in a violent storm. With the uninterrupted growth and thor- 1 Eusebius, Historia Ecchsiastica, vi, 28. 2 Eusebius, vi, 34 ; Chron. Olymp. S56. Primus omnium ex Romanis imperatoribus Christianus fuit. Among modern histori- ans this is still an open question ; Allard (Hist, de Persec. vol. ii, chap. 6) and Duchesne [Les Origines Chretiennes, chap. 28, sec. i), maintain the affirmative ; Neumann, Der Romische Staat und die Allegemeine Kirche, vol. i, pp. 246-260, the negative. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 65 ough organization of the Church all its latent hos- tility to the old order was fully developed. Although the interaction between Paganism and Christianity during more than two centuries of contact had pro- duced a certain approximation of doctrine and ritual, the line of demarcation between them was still too plainly marked, and the opposition too intense, to offer any hope that the day of final reckoning could be long deferred. The tendency to religious syn- cretism, which was a necessary outgrowth of the formation of the Empire, had by the middle of the third century reached its culmination, and the national deities were almost entirely superseded by foreign gods. The last blow to the predominance of the purely Roman cultus was administered by the Oriental emperors. It is probable that the world never saw such a flood of superstition, never so many soothsayers, charlatans, astrologers, sellers of charms, philtres, and amulets as appeared at this time. Men lived in constant dread of the demons and hobgoblins which filled the earth and air, and which could be prevented from exercising their malicious tricks only by the use of constant incan- tations and the wearing of charms and amulet s.^ All this extravagance and folly was merely a sign of the spiritual unrest of the period and the desire 1 Cf . Gasket, " Le Culte et le3 Myst^res de Mithra," Revue des Deux Mondes, April, 1899. 66 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION to satisfy the acute craving of a newly aroused re- ligious consciousness. The soul was a prey to the torments of the unknown ; it suffered from the bit- terness of guilt and aspired for salvation. Hence the widespread popularity of the various mysteries, and the lustrations and expiations of the dread Tauro- bolia and Kriobolia.i The Egyptian and Oriental religions profited most by this spiritual ferment. Serapis, Osiris, and Anubis, whose statues had been broken and whose altars had been thrown down by the Consul Gabinius in the last days of the Republic, gradually received new adherents until they were adored wherever the Romans set up their standards.^ The worship of the Persian god of light, Mithra, whose name was hardly known in Italy before the end of the first century,^ took such a hold on the minds ^ The Taurobolium and Kriobolium were common to the mys- teries of Mithra and Cybele. This rite was a kind of pagan bap- tism, in which the novice, dressed in symbolic garments and placed in a sort of trench covered with boards, was purified through the blood of bulls or rams. These animals were sacrificed on the boards which covered the trench or vault, and the novice received as ranch as he could of the blood which dropped through the cracks and holes, stretching out his arms and receiving the saving drops in his eyes, ears, and mouth. He had to wear his bloody garments for some time afterwards, and considered himself eternally regen- erated, in aeternum renatus, and restored to the condition of primi- tive purity. The words in aeternum renatus occur in inscription C. I. L. vi, 510. Cf . Gasguet, loc. cit. ; Sayou, " Le Taurobole," Mev. de VHist. des Religions, 1887. ^ Vide Laf aye, Histoire du Culte des Divinites d^Alezandrie hors de VEgypte, pp. 45, 162. ^ Cumont, " La Propagation des Myst6res de Mithra dans I'Em- THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 67 of the people that in the opinion of Harnack it be- came in the third century the most powerful rival of Christianity.! The growing importance of Chris- tianity as a religious factor is evident from the ex- tent to which it penetrated the thought and life of the Empire and the influence it exercised on Paganism itself. This power manifested itself first in tho growth and spread of Gnosticism, which, if it was a " Hellenizing of Christianity," was not the less an acute Christianizing of Hellenic and Oriental speculations.2 The same influence is shown in the rise and growth of Neo-Platonism, which was, as Schaff says, " a direct attempt of the more intelli- gent and earnest heathenism to rally all its nobler energies, especially the forces of Hellenic and Ori- ental mysticism, and to found a universal religion, a pagan counterpart of Christianity." ^ Not less dominant was the power which Christianity ex- ercised over the rites and ceremonies of the newer heathenism. There were curious resemblances to the Christian sacraments which the early Fa- thers considered to be a caricature suggested by the demons to perplex the faithful and to throw pire Romain," Revue d''Histoire et de Litterature Rdigieuses, vol. ii, 1897 ; Les Mysteres de Mithra, Paris, 1902. 1 History of Dogma, Eng. tr. vol. i, p. 118, note. 2 Orr, Neglected Factors in the Study of the Early Progress of Christianity, p. 196. 2 Church History, vol. i, p. 99. 68 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION confusion over the divinely revealed things of God.i AU the fundamental concepts of Christian the- ology, mediation, sacrifice, baptism, immortality, resurrection, expiation, were now to be met with in the pagan system, which tended more and more to monotheism, and even inculcated the necessity of a divine Kedeemer.2 There was a heathen Heaven, a heathen Bible,^ and even a heathen Christ, Apol- lonius of Tyana, whose life was written by Philo- stratus with the purpose of setting up a rival and counterpart of the Founder of Christianity.^ This imitation, unconscious perhaps, of Christian ideas and practices was by no means an indication that the pagans were growing more friendly, or that their intense hatred for Christianity as a body of doctrine, was diminishing. On the contrary, the newer heathenism, which was a synthesis of all the forces, intellectual, moral, and religious, offered by 1 Tertullian, De Praescriptione, c. 40, De Corona Militis, c. 15 ; Justin, Dial, cum Trypho, c. 66. 2 Harnaek, Hist. Dogma, vol. i, Eng. tr. pp. 116 seq. 8 The terms "Heathen Heaven" and *' Heathen Bible" are borrowed from Uhlhorn, Conflict of Christianity and Paganism, pp. 321, 380, Eng. tr., who justifies the first name by the senti- ments expressed in inscriptions on the tombs which he cites, and the second by references to Porphyry's Book of Oracles and Divine Utterances. * Newman, Life of Apollonius of Tyana — Historical Sketches, vol. i; Wallace, " The Apollonius of Philostratus," Westminster Beview, October, 1902. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 69 the complex life aiid wide intercourse among the peoples of the Empire, was actuated by fresh philo- sophical and historical motives to eradicate the only system of thought or religion which resisted the prevailing syncretism, and for the first time Chris- tianity, the thing, came under the ban. This uni- fication of forces, which was fostered by the intel- lectual and social conditions, was made absolutely imperative by the deplorable political state of the Empire. Within, everything was in disorder, and without, the imminent danger from the attacks of the barbarians was causing graver fears every day. The crisis gave rise to a concerted movement, which, perhaps owing to the recent celebration of the Mil- lennial under Philip, or to a general consciousness of degeneracy, was towards a restoration of the old Koman virtues and customs, a return to the order of things when the State and its religion were one. In response to this general tendency, or perhaps in accordance with the law of supply and demand, the leaders of the movement came from the only place in which the old manners and discipline were to be foimd, that is, in the army. The efficiency of the legions, unimpaired by the universal corruption, was maintained by the custom of drawing on the provinces for recruits, while the necessity of being constantly in action against the barbarians pre- served the army from the general deterioration and 70 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION made it the nursery not only of great generals but of very competent emperors. Bringing to the throne the same qualities which had made them preeminent in the field, these soldier-emperors had the merit of staying, if they did not avert, the total ruin of the Empire.^ Decius, the first of the lUyrian line, although a provincial by birth, had received his training in the camp and was imbued with a thoroughly Roman spirit. Filled with the desire of restoring all the an- cient power and prestige of Kome, he boldly faced the double task with which he was confronted, and as soon as he reached the purple set about effecting the necessary internal reforms and repelling the enemies on the frontiers. It seemed to him that the salvation of the Empire lay in the restoration of old customs and old governmental methods, which had very largely fallen into abeyance. Christianity of course was an obstacle to the realization of such an ideal, and Decius at once took the resolution of extirpat- ing it and gave orders for a general persecution .^ The text of the edict containing this bloody mes- sage has not been preserved, but to judge by the 1 Vide Freeman's essay on " The lUyrian Emperors and their Land," Historical Essays, third series, p. 22. 2 Eusebius, Historia Ecdesiastica, vi, 39, says that Decius per- secuted the Christians in consequence of his hatred for his prede- cessor, Philip. Vide Allard, Histoire des Persecutions pendant la Premiere Moitie' du Troisicme Siecle, p. 275. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 71 manner in which it was executed, it would seem that all who belonged to the Christian Church were com- manded to offer sacrifice to the gods, or to give proof of their willingness to conform to the national cultns. The provincial governors and the heads of the different municipalities were made responsible for the execution of the edict. In the beginning, except in the case of bishops, capital punishment was not inflicted, as the object of the Emperor seemed to be to force the Christians to recant rather than to punish them for the profession of their faith. The property of those who were known to be Christians was at once confiscated ; they were dragged before the tribunals and threatened with the direst penal- ties ; they were racked and tortured and then cast into vile prisons, where many died. These vigorous measures caused consternation among the Christians, many of whom held high offices and were possessed of great wealth. During the long peace an appalling amount of corruption and laxity had crept into the Church, so that to some the persecution seemed to be a judgment on the shameful lives led by both laity and clergy.^ The effect which this new out- 1 Dominua probari familiam suam voluit, et quia traditam no- bis divinitus disciplinam pax longa corruperat, jacentem fidem et paene dixeram dormientem censura coelestis erexit, cumque nos peccatis nostris amplius mereremur, clementissimus Dominua sic cuncta raoderatiis est ut boc omne qnod cfestiim est exploratio potius quam persecutio \'ideretur. St. Cyprian, De LapsiSy 5. 72 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION break of hostilities produced on the Christians, and the disgraceful scenes which took place before the tribunals in Carthage and Alexandria, are elo- quently described by Denis of Alexandria and St. Cyprian. Numbers of Christians did not wait to be summoned, but presented themselves voluntarily and burned incense or ate of the meat of the victims. Others yielded to the solicitations of their friends and crept, pale and trembling, to the altars, as if they were not to sacrifice but to become victims them- selves. Some weakened under torture and recanted ; while others resorted to the expedient of buying certificates from the magistrates attesting that they had complied with the edict. Numerous as were the defections, there were not wanting examples of the most heroic Christian virtue ; and Rome, Antioch, Carthage, Alexandria, Jerusalem, — in fact, every city and village in the Empire, witnessed the perse- verance and sufferings of countless martyrs. The constancy and endurance of the Christians provoked the pagans to greater atrocities, and the persecution continued with unabated violence until the spring of 251, when the campaigns of the Goths in Thrace and the danger of losing all the Danubian provinces compelled the Emperor to put himself at the head of the legions. In November of the same year De- cius lost his life in an ambuscade or through treach- ery, and with his death the persecution ceased. It THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE 73 was renewed the following year by Gallus, when the Christians refused to take part in the great sac- rifices which were offered to appease the gods because of the famine and plague which were de- vastating the Empire. The persecution of Decius was the severest trial which the Church had yet undergone. Besides the multitudes of Christians who had been put to death, large numbers had apostatized, and when peace was restored, the problem of deciding the condi- tions on which the lapsed should be readmitted to membership plunged the whole Christian body into dissension and resulted in two dangerous schisms. The issue, however, had been clearly de- fined. With an instinct of self-preservation com- mon to peoples as well as individuals, inherent in races and institutions as in those who compose them, it was plainly set forth that the coexistence of the pagan Roman State with Christianity was an impossibility. Mutually exclusive, one or the other should be eliminated, and the final struggle was merely a question of time and opportunity. No concerted policy was possible in the years im- mediately following the death of Decius. The struggles among the numerous claimants for the throne brought the Empire to the verge of disin- tegration, and rendered ineffective all attempts at internal reforms. It was necessary that the differ- 74 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION ent factions should be placated, and that the su- preme power should be lodged in the hands of some man acceptable to all parties, before the work inaugurated by Decius could be taken up again with any prospect of a successful issue. The mur- der of Gallus placed on the throne an old man, Valerian, whose life and reign, and whose attempts to deal with the complex question of Christianity, will form the subject of the remaining chapters. CHAPTER III VALERIAN Family — Holds important places in civil and military afPairs — Elected censor — Duties of censor — Decius lauds Valerian — Practically collea^e of Emperor — Loyalty of Valerian — Gallus — Valerian made Emperor — Acceptable to all factions — Character — Fitness for position — Gallienus made co-regent — Empire in disorder, invasions, famine, pestilence — Plague decimates population — Measures proposed for relief of panic- stricken people inadequate — Disorganization of army — In- vasions by barbarians assume new character — Gallienus intrusted with defence of western portion of the Empire — Va- lerian assumes command in the East — Franks — Alemanni — Goths — Internal reforms — Restoration of national religion. PuBLius LiciNius Valerianus became ruler of the Roman Empire in August, A. D. 253. As far as can be judged from the scanty historical materi- als we possess concerning Valerian, he was a man of ample fortune and noble birth.^ When he was born and consequently at what age he assumed the purple are matters which are shrouded in obscurity ^ Parentibus ortus splendidissimis — Aur. Vic. Epitome, c. 32 ; Genere satis claro — De Cues. c. 32. Valerian was related to Valerius Flaccinus, whom Probus rescued from the Quadi, — Quo quidem tempore Valerium Flaccinum, adulescentem nobilem, parentem Valeriani, e Quadonim liberavit manu. Vopiseus, Vita Probi, c. 6. Tillemont, by a curious mistake regarding the word "parens," makes this Valerius the father of Valerian. See Forcellini, sub verbo. 76 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION and uncertainty. A passage in Trebellius Pollio speaks of his "praiseworthy life during seventy years." While this passage scarcely admits of more than one interpretation, Tillemont and other his- torians are inclined to think that those seventy years embrace the life of Valerian up to the time of his captivity, not to that of his accession to the throne.^ On the other hand, Aurelius Victor says he was in the prime of life when he fell into the hands of the Persians, a statement which could scarcely be made of a man beyond the age of seven ty.^ There can be no doubt, however, if we bear in mind some other facts which history has left us regarding Valerian, that he was far advanced in years when the legionaries forced him to shoulder the cares of the Empire. None but the most meagre details are available regarding the early history and family life of Va- lerian. Zosimus declares that he had enjoyed the honor of the consulship before 237.^ Aurelius Victor says that his high station did not prevent him from leading the life of a soldier,^ and it was with a great deal of pride that Valerian himself re- ^ Haec sunt digna cognitu de Valeriano, cujus per annos septua- ginta vita laudabilis in earn conscenderat gloriam, ut post omnes honores et magistratns insigniter gestos imperator fieret. Vita Valerianic c. 5. Cf. Tillemont, HisU des Emper., note 1 on Vale- rian, vol. iii, p. 685. ^ Loc. cit. aetate robustiore. ^ History, book i, chap. 14. * Loc. cit. VALERIAN 77 ferred to the fact that his hair was already white before he received command of the Third Legion Felix.i Military affairs, however, did not absorb all the energies of Valerian, or unfit him for a high place in civil life. As early as the days of Maximinus Thrax, we find him chosen from the large body of senators to occupy the place of Princeps Senatus.^ While the gi-adual change in the Roman Constitu- tion, because of the centralization of power in the hands of the Emperor, had doubtless deprived this office of much of its significance and had de- tracted somewhat from its original high character, yet even in the last days of the Empire, the chief of the Senate enjoyed the unique distinction of being the first to give his opinion on matters which were brought before this august body, and possessed the right of being the first to register his vote.^ Valerian was twice married. The name of his first wife, the mother of the Emperor Gallienus, is not known. The second wife, conjectured by some to have been Mariniana, also left one son. Valerian II."^ The younger Valerian was a man gifted with strik- ing qualities of body and mind. He received the 1 Vopiscus, Vita Probi, c. 5. 2 Capitolinus, Vita Gordiani, c. 9. 3 Greenidge, Roman Public Life, p. 269. 4 Tillemont, Hist, des Emp. p. 390. 78 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION title of Caesar from his brother while Valerian the Emperor was absent from the city, but beyond this, as the historian informs us, there was nothing note- worthy in his life except his noble birth, his solid education, and his miserable end.^ The capable manner in which Valerian discharged his duties in the many exalted offices he held mer- ited for him the highest honors.^ Nothing, how- ever, reflected so much glory on him and indicated so well the deep esteem entertained for his character and virtues as the manner in which he was elected censor. From small and insignificant beginnings, this office, instituted about 443 b. c. to relieve the consuls of some of their onerous duties, or rather, perhaps, as a means of excluding the plebeians from a share in the supreme power of the State, had grown in importance until in the last days of the Eepublic it became the most venerable magistracy in Kome, the "apex of a political career." Although Augustus twice assumed the title without perform- ing the duties of censor, the " occasional " nature of the office and its peculiarly republican character did not accord with his ambitions, and he allowed the censorship to lapse. It was afterwards revived, in its old temporary form, by Claudius and Vespasian, but lost its distinctive character when Domitian, in order to obtain complete control of the Senate, 1 Pollio, Vita Valerianic c. 8. 2 n^i^^ g, 5, VALERIAN 79 assumed the position of censor for life (^Censor Perpetuus) } Under the Roman Constitution the character and scope of the censorship, on which depended in large measure the success of the public administration and the tone of national life, raised it to a position of unique importance. Besides the census, which included the registration of citizens and the valua- tion of property, the censors enjoyed the right of drawing up the list of those who were to constitute the Senate (^Lectio Senatus)^ and of deciding the question of membership in the Equestrian Order (^Recognitio Equituni) ; they exercised a general supervision over the morals of the people (^Regi- men moruiii), with a view, principally, to determine who were fit to hold public office ; and were the guardians of the national and traditional customs of the people (iT/os Majorum). Their edicts had the force of laws, and inasmuch as they farmed the public revenues and were charged with the care and maintenance of public property, they were vested with certain administrative powers. Possessed of such extraordinary fimctions, the censorship was hedged round with statutory re- strictions which alone prevented it from becoming 1 Vide Greenidge, Roman Public Life, pp. 216 seq., 347-374 ; Taylor, A Constitutional and Political History of Borne, pp. 99, 428, 482, 487, 488. 80 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION an intolerable despotism. The censors were elected at intervals of five years, and though they held office for only eighteen months, their ordinances were valid during the entire lustrum. No censor was eligible for reelection. Simultaneous election and joint tenure were essential requisites of the office, and it was furthermore insisted that the action of a censor had no force unless concurred in by his colleague.^ Such was the office which to the mind of Decius seemed adequate to counteract the flood of disorder and corruption which had spread over the Empire, and which was obliterating the last vestiges of public virtue and ancient tradition.^ The project of reviving the censorsliip was long in forming ; for it was not until the last year of his reign that the Emperor decided on it. The necessity of be- ing away with the army so frequently, doubtless aroused him to the fact that no schemes of internal reform could be successful unless some one endowed with plenary powers could be in a position to give them all his time and energy. In the autumn of 251 A. D., Decius was engaged with the army driving back the Gothic forces which had passed the Rhine and devastated nearly all of Moesia and 1 Vide Greenidge, Boman Public Life, pp. 216 seq., 347-374; Taylor, A Constitutional and Political History of Borne, pp. 99, 428, 482, 487, 488. 2 Trebellius Pollio, Fragmentum Vitae Valeriani, c. 5. VALERIAN 81 Thrace.i From there he wrote letters to the Senate apprising them of his determination, and proba- bly as a concession to popular sentiment he relin- quished his imperial prerogative and left the choice of censor to the will of the Senate. The letters of the Emperor were sent to the praetor, who, on the 27th day of October, convoked the Senate in the temple of Castor and Pollux and read the instructions he had received. Following the usual custom, he declared the matter open for dis- cussion ,2 and turning to the " chief of the Senate " (Pinjiceps Senatus)^ for Valerian, to whom this position belonged, was away with the army, he asked, " What do you advise ? " ^ Weighty as were the con- sequences implied in this question, and knowing the dangers to which a hasty decision would expose the Republic, there was no time allowed for debate. No opinions would be listened to, and the customary order of voting had to be suspended. From all sides of the chamber came cries and acclamations, designating Valerian for the coveted position. " The hfe of Valerian is a perpetual censorship. Let him be judge of all who is best of all. Let him be arbiter of the Senate who is free from guilt. Va- 1 For the date of these events see Goyau, Chronologie de V Em- pire Romain, p. 301. 2 Quid vobis videtur, Patres Conscripti, de Cenaore deligendo ? Pollio, loc. cit. 8 Quid censes ? Vide Greenidge, p. 269. 82 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION lerian by his blameless life is already censor, a man above reproach and competent to pass sen- tence on our lives, lie is a modest, grave, and pru- dent senator, the friend of the good and an enemy of tyrants. He is a hater of crime and wickedness. We shall wiUingly receive him as censor and strive to imitate him. A man of noble race, unblemished life, singular probity, and somid judgment, he is a living example of the best virtues of antiquity." The high encomiums passed on Valerian by his colleagues and the honor of being unanimously elected to a position of such importance seem to have met with the cordial approval of Decius. When the resolution (^Senatus consultum) contain- ing the will of the Senate reached the Emperor, he assembled the chiefs of the army and the members of his suite and in their presence notified Valerian of his appointment, and outlined the duties and dif- ficulties of his office. " Happy Valerian," said the Emperor, " happy in the approbation of the whole Senate, happy in the love and esteem of the whole world. Eeceive the censorship conferred on you by the Roman Republic, which you alone deserve, and judge of the morals of all and of our manners. You will select those who ought to continue mem- bers of the Senate; you will restore the Equestrian Order to its old place. The census will be made under your direction. It will be your duty to im- VALERIAN 83 prove the revenue and to see that financial burdens are equitably imposed ; all the public property will be under your charge. Everything you decree shall have the force of a written law. The army, the pal- ace, the ministers of justice, and the prefects are all subject to your tribunal. None are exempted, except the Prefect of the city of Rome, the ordi- nary consuls, the King of the Sacrifices, and (unless for unchastity) the Eldest of the Vestal Virgins. Even those who are not under your jurisdiction will strive to merit your approval." This episode brings into prominence not less the high respect felt for Valerian as a citizen than the merits and courage of Decius as an emperor. It was a bold and patriotic move to invest a subject with such extraordinary powers at a time when the security of the throne depended not so much on public prosperity and morality as on the caprice of a turbulent soldiery. The readiness of the Senate to conform to the will of the reigning prince arose probably from subserviency rather than from a desire to adopt radical measures of reform. The list of duties imposed on Valerian is a sufficient in- dication of the difficulty of his task, the futility of attempting which is evident from the impossibility of applying measures feasible in republican Rome, still strong with the vigor of youth and conflict, to an effete non-Roman Empire grown old with 84 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION ease and luxury. It was with a mind filled with thoughts of the difficulty as well as the danger of being elevated to a rank which made him practi- cally the colleague of the Emperor that Valerian deprecated his fitness for the censorship and ques- tioned the advisability of such a departure. " Do not, I beseech you, Most Sacred Emperor," he pleaded, "lay me under the necessity of being judge of the people, the soldiers, and the Senate, of everybody, even judges, tribunes, and generals. These duties are inseparable from the imperial dignity, and be- cause of them you bear the exalted title Augustus. They transcend the capability of a feeble subject ; therefore I beg to be exempted because my life does not fit me for burdens which I lack confi- dence to undertake. The times are not suitable for such an innovation, and the office of censor cannot change the corrupt nature of man." ^ Such remonstrances could avail little with a man of Decius' inflexible temperament. It is prob- able, however, that the project was never put into execution. Decius died before the end of the year in an attempt to inflict a crushing blow on the Goths, and was succeeded by the dissolute and 1 These speeches and remarks are all reported by Pollio, who adds : Poteram multa alia et Senatus consulta et judicia prin- cipum de Valeriano proferre, nisi ut vobis pleraque nota essent, et puderet altius virum extollere, qui fatali quadam necessitate superatus est. Loc. cit. VALERIAN 85 careless Galliis, under whom the office of censor would have been an anomaly. Loyalty to constituted authority was a marked trait of the character of Valerian, in consequence of which he enjoyed the favor and confidence of more than one prince during his long career. He was sent as special envoy by the Gordians to announce to the Senate in Rome that they had taken the sceptre in opposition to the brutal Maximin.^ He was in thorough accord with the plans of Decius, whose dowTifall does not seem to have affected in any way his standing at court, and indeed the trust reposed in him by Gallus contributed indi- rectly to his elevation to the purple. The apathy and pusillanimity of Gallus were in such striking contrast to the sterling qualities of his predecessor that the soldiers soon tired of him and pro- claimed Aemilian, the successful general of the Pannonian legions, emperor in his stead. This re- volt aroused Gallus to a sense of danger, and he despatched Valerian to bring the legions of Gaul and Germany to his assistance. Aemilian fore- stalled this movement by leading his troops di- 1 Capitolinns, Gordiani Tres, c. 9. Missa deinceps leg-atio Ro- mam est cum litteris Gordianorum haec, quae gesta fuerant in Africa, indicans quae, per Valerianura . . . gratanter accepta est. Tillemont, Hist, des Emp. torn. iii. p. 685, note, shows that Va- lerian was the bearer of this message, and not, as Capitolinus' words might indicate, the one by whom the delegation was re- ceived. 86 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION rectly to Eome. Gallus and his son advanced from Rome as far as Umbria to meet the pretender. When the armies came in sight of each other it was seen that the numerical advantage rested with Aemilian. The Emperor was slain by his own followers, who were disgusted with him and passed over to his rival.^ The death of Gallus and his son Volusian gave Aemilian a brief triumph. The Senate conferred on him the name Augustus with the other titles of imperial dignity, and his authority was recognized in many parts of the Empire. His reign, however, lasted only four months, for the legions which Va- lerian had assembled refused to acknowledge his supremacy and declared Valerian Emperor. The two armies met at Spoleto. The soldiers of Aemil- ian, never sincerely attached to his person, and dreading the result of a conflict with the superior forces of Valerian, slew their leader and threw down their arms.^ By singular good fortune the strength of all the various factions was now united under the banner of Valerian, who, though his 1 Tillemont, Hist, des Emp. pp. 383 et seq. ^ Aurelius Victor gives a different account of the death of Aemilian, in De Caesaribus, c xxxi. Aemilianus tres menses usus modesto imperio, morbo absumptus est; quum proceres primo hostem, dein, exstinctis superioribus, pro fortuna, ut solet, Augustum appellavissent. We have followed here the narrative of Tillemont, which is based juincipally on Zonaras and Zosimus. VALERIAN 87 way to the throne had been marked by revolutions, was in no sense guilty of disloyalty to the man whom he supplanted. The circumstances surrounding Valerian's ac- cession were extremely auspicious. He possessed the sincere attachment of all orders in the State, and reached his high position not through popular tumidts, or by the clamors of the soldiers, but by the unanimous will of the whole Roman world. If all men, PoUio adds, had been allowed to choose an emperor, they would have selected no one but Valerian.^ So very little is known about the character of Valerian that there seems to be a disposition among historians to measure his capabilities by the calamities which happened during his reign, and to attribute the failure of his administration to incompetency. AureHus Victor says he was stupid and sluggish, and lacking in the prudence and execu- tive talent necessary for public offices.^ Eutropius considered that the reign of Valerian and his son was disastrous, and almost the ruin of the State, either because of untoward circumstances or by reason of the worthlessness of the rulers themselves.^ Pollio, 1 Si data esset omnibus potestas promendi arbitrii, quern im- peratorem vellent, alter non esset electus. Vita Valerianic c. 5. 2 Stolidus tamen, et multum iners, neque ad usum aliquem publici officii consilio sen p^estis accomodatus. Epit. c. 32. 3 Horum imperium Romano nomini perniciosum et paene ex- itiabile fuit vel infelicitate prineipum vel ignavia. Breviarium, lib L\, c. 7. 88 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION on the contrary, either of himself, or when reporting the sayings of contemporaries, says he was " full of bravery but most unfortunate," ^ and that no one could fill his place ; and Vopiscus, when enumerat- ing the small number of worthy emperors who had occupied the Roman throne, says that Valerian, the best of all, was prevented by misfortune from rank- ing with Augustus, Vespasian, Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Sep- timius Severus, Alexander Severus, Claudius, and the divine Aurelian.^ Crevier ^ applies to Valerian what Tacitus said of Galba : " Major privato visus dum privatus f uit, et omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperasset," * and Gibbon says : " Perhaps the merit of the Emperor was inadequate to his reputa- tion ; perhaps his abilities, or at least his spirit, were affected by the languor and coldness of old age." ^ In the face of such contradictory testimony and such unsatisfactory estimates by later writers, it is extremely difficult to arrive at any definite conclu- sion regarding Valerian's ability as a ruler. To judge by his acts, however, one is more inclined to follow the opinion of Pollio, and to consider Valerian as a man whose failure arose from circumstances which were beyond his control. He was a conscien- 1 Trig. Tyr. xu, 1. 2 Vopiscus, Vita Aureliani, c 42. 8 Hist, des Emp. torn, v, p. 420. * Hist, i, 49. ^ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. x. VALERIAN 89 tious ruler with a fine sense of the responsibilities of his office, who attained his ends less through brilliancy and genius than by a painstaking adher- ence to duty. Notwithstanding the small measure of success that attended his efforts, he was possessed of many qualities that go to make the competent leader and thorough administrator. Pie was prompt to recognize and reward merit, and, contrary to the usual custom, he promoted young men to positions of trust in the army. Because of their marked ability he made the two sons of Macrianus tri- bunes,^ and promoted Probus while yet a beardless youth to the same position and subsequently placed him at the head of a legion.^ With uncommon wisdom and disinterestedness he chose as his chief lieutenants the ablest and most talented men in the Empire, among whom were Regilianus, Claudius, Aurelianus, Ingenuus, Macrianus, Posthumus, and Aureolus, " who all merited the purple and died in it, for it was an extraordinary thing," as Pollio ob- serves, " that all those whom Valerian made gen- erals were afterwards raised to the throne by the soldiers, which shows that the old Emperor in the choice of his leaders was what the prosperity of the State demanded." ^ His high office and auto- 1 PoUio, Trig. Tyr. c. 12. 2 Vopiscus, Vita Prohi, cc. 3, 4, 5. 8 Pollio, loc. cit. c. 10. 90 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION cratic powers did not prevent Valerian from readily receiving good advice whenever it was offered ;i but while this quality in a man of independent spirit is very commendable, it lays one enfeebled by age and oppressed with unaccustomed responsibilities open to the influence of designing and vicious courtiers. One of the first acts of Valerian after he became emperor was to raise his son Gallienus to the posi- tion of co-regent and to confer on him the title of Augustus.2 The government of the Empire was di- vided between them, Valerian going to the East, and Gallienus remaining in control of the Western sec- tion. While no actual partition of the Roman do- minions took place, this was practically the inception of the policy which Diocletian found it necessary to adopt in order to preserve the Empire, which was already commencing to break up of its own weight.^ There was, besides, at that period a growing convic- tion that the Emperor should be a general as well as an administrator, and that his place was as much the field as the cabinet. Macrianus considered that his advanced years and feeble health were a sufficient reason for declining the purple after the death of 1 Pollio, loc. cit. c. 18. 2 Zosimus, bk. i, c. 30. ^ The same policy was advocated in the reign of Maximin by one of the senators, who pleaded the necessity of having an em- peror at home and one in the field. Cf . Duruy, History, vol. vii, p. 228. VALERIAN 91 Valerian ; ^ and the Senator Tacitus pleaded his un- fitness for the throne beeanse a man whose arms were no longer able to wield the javelin and to strike the shield was unworthy of the sceptre .^ The judiciousness of Valerian's selection, which Gibbon regrets,^ was in accord with the general custom of the period, when all those who reached the throne conferred on their children honors and titles which were not theirs by birth. Gallienus was then a youth of not more than twenty years,* and leaving out of sight his vices and his indifference to the fate of the Empire, which he had scarcely had a chance to manifest, there was no one better fitted by talent and education to hold the supreme power.^ That the Roman power did not disappear and the whole Empire become a prey to the hordes of barbarians who beset it at this epoch, from causes that were beyond the reach of administrative reme- dies, is a tribute to the enduring qualities of Roman 1 PoUio, Trig. Tyr. c. 12. 2 Vopiscus, Vita Taciti, c. 4. 3 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. x. Duruy says : " Instead of taking as his colleague one of tho many valiant and experienced generals at this time in the Roman army, Valerian chose his son Gallienus, who was too young to possess authority and too effeminate to employ it well if he had had it." History, vol. vii, sec. 1, p. 235. * Cf. Tillemont, Hist, cles Emp. tom. iii, p. 989, note 8. 5 The character of Gallienus is excellently depicted by Benson, Life of St. Cyprian, p. 458. 92 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION institutions and the power of organization possessed by Valerian. At the time he assumed the supreme control the whole Empire was plague-stricken. About the year 250 this frightful pestilence com- menced its ravages in Numidia, and descending thence to the cities of Egjrpt and Africa, it was car- ried to other cities and spread death and desolation from east to west.^ For upwards of twenty years it wasted the flower of the Roman legions, and in its destructive path spared neither high nor low.^ It carried off the young Hostihanus, only surviving son of the Emperor Decius, in 251,^ and as late as 270 the Emperor Claudius died of it in the fuU flush of his victories over the Goths.* It proved more effective against the army of Valerian than the swords of the Persians, and checked the inroads of the Goths more effectively than the Roman le- gions. For a time the number of victims in Rome and Achaia reached the appalling total of five thou- sand a day.^ In Alexandria it has been computed by Gibbon that more than half the inhabitants died 1 Zonaras, Annals, torn, iv, sub. Volusiano. 2 Zonaras says it lasted only fifteen years ; loc. cit. 2 Aurelius Victor, De Caesar ibus, c. 30. Zosimus says that Hostilianus was put to death by Gallus, who feared that the people would revolt in his favor. Ibid. c. 25. * Pollio, Vita Claudii, c. 12. ^ Pollio, Gallieni Duo, c. 5. The passage in Pollio is very obscure : Nam et pestilentia tanta extiterat vel Romae vel Acha- icis urbibus, ut uno die quinque milia hominum pari morbo peri- rent. VALERIAN 93 of plague, and, adds the same author, " could we ex- tend the analogy to the other provinces we might com- pute that war, famine, and pestilence had consumed in a few years the moiety of the human species." ^ It is difficult to state precisely the nature of this disease. The name " plague " or " pestilence " was usually given to any epidemic in antiquity, such as that which attacked the Greeks at the siege of Troy, or which wrought such havoc in Rome and the Grecian states during the fifth century before Christ. The neglect of proper hygienic and quarantine measures was no doubt responsible for the large mor- tality during these visitations, and contributed in large measure to their frequent recurrence. Plagues occurred in Rome in 363 b. c, 295 b. c, 175 b. c, during the reigns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, all of which were doubtless of the same nature as that of the third century. That which occurred during the reign of Justinian received the name of pestis inguinaria or glandulm^a by which it was known until the seventeenth century. From the im- 1 Gibbon's estimate is based on a passage in Denis of Alexan- dria, wlio, speaking- of the plague, says : " This great city no longer contains as many inhabitants, from tender infants to those most advanced in life, as it formerly contained of those whom it called hearty old men. But the men from forty to seventy years of age were then so much more numerous that their number can- not now be filled out, even when those from fourteen to eighty years are enrolled and registered for the public allowance of food." Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, vii, 21. 94 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION perfect diagnosis and the faulty descriptions given by contemporary authors, and the fact that Eutro- pius ^ says it was accompanied with a multiplicity of diseases, it is extremely difficult to decide whether the pest of which we are treating was malignant typhoid fever, cholera, smallpox, or bubonic plague. The course of the disease was rapid, and generally fatal.2 Those who were attacked suffered at first from nervous depression and ulceration of different parts of the body, especially the mouth and throat.^ The next stage was one of incessant sickness accom- panied by diarrhoea, constant vomiting, and high fever. Any who survived the assaults of this malady generally bore permanent traces of its severity either in the loss of one or more members, in blindness, or in total deafness.^ 1 Sola pestilentia et morbis atque aegritudinibus notns eorum principatus fuit. Breviarium, lib. ix, c. 5. 2 Iiinumeros per diem populos ad suam quemque sedem abrupto impetu rapiens, continuatas per ordinem domos vtdgi trementis invasit. Pontius, Vita Cypriani, c. 9. 8 " But when a grievous pestilence raged at Rome, so great was the violence of this distemper and its effects so dreadful on Plotinus, as Eustochius informed Porphyry, who was then absent, that through a very great hoarseness all the clear and sonorous vigor of his musical voice was lost ; and what was still worse, his eyes were darkened, and his hands and feet were covered with ulcers." Translated and abridged from Porphyry's Xt/e o/ P/oft- nus by Taylor, Introduction to Select Works of Plotinus, p. xliv. * Hoc quod nunc corporis vires solutus in fluxum venter evis- cerat, quod in f aucium vulnera conceptus medullitus ignis exaestuat, quod adsiduo vomitu intestina quatiuntur, quod oculi vi sanguinis inardescunt, quod quorundam vel pedes vel aliquae membrorum VALERIAN 95 The fear of contagion and death produced the most abject terror and consternation among the pagans.^ Descriptions of what took place in Car- thage and Alexandria will, without any abuse of historic parallel, apply to other cities and other por- tions of the Roman dominions. There the ties of kindred and friendship seem to have been entirely forgotten, and the plague-sufferers, when the first symptoms of disease manifested themselves, were cast out of doors by their relatives and allowed to die in the street without comfort or attention. In this condition of affairs public order ceased, and though the streets were cumbered with dead bodies and the air was heavy with the stench of putrefac- tion, and though there was not a home where there was not one dead, robbery and violence were of daily and hourly occurrence.^ The period was, besides, one of violent physical partes contagio morbidae putredinis amputantur, quod per jacturas et damna corporum prorumpente languors vel debilitatur incessus, vel auditus obstruitur, vel caecatur aspectus. Cyprian, Be Mortal- itate, c. 14. 1 Cf. Benson, Life of Cyprian, pp. 240 seq. ^ Horrere omnes, fugere, vitare contagium : exponere suos impie : quasi cum illo peste morituro etiam mortem ipsam posset aliquis excludere. Jacebant interim in tota civitate, non jam cor- pora, sed cadavera plurimorum et misericordiam in se euntium contemplatione sortis mutuae flagitabant. Nemo respexit aliud praeterquam lucra crudelia. Nemo similis eventus recordations trepidavit : nemo fecit alteri, quod pati voluit. Pontius, Vita Cyp. c. 9. See, also, Denis of Alexandria, in Eusebius, Uist. Eccl. lib. vii, 21 and 22. 96 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION disturbances, whicli occur so frequently in connec- tion with plague. There were seasons of protracted drought followed by terrific hailstorms and torna- does, which ruined the crops, killed the vines, and uprooted the olive groves.^ In the train of these evils came famine, which carried off thousands.^ While these visitations were not continuous, they were not confined to any one part of the Empire. At Kome the Tiber overflowed its banks, and doubtless produced misery such as that which hap- pened in the days of Marcus Aurelius.^ Earth- quakes hurled down buildings in many cities and buried the inhabitants in the ruins. While the shocks were most severe in the Orient, they were felt at Rome and even in distant Libya. Many who had escaped death by faUing buildings died from fear of the horrid rumblings of the earth. Great fissures filled with salt water appeared in places, and some coast towns were overwhelmed with enor- mous tidal waves.^ 1 Et tu miraris aut quaereris in hac obstinatione et contemptu vestro, si rara desuper pluvia descendat, si terra situ pulveris squaleat, si vix jejunas et pallidas herbas sterilis gleba producat, si vineam debilitet grando eaedens, si oleam detruncet turbo sub- vertens, si f ontem siccitas statuat, aerem pestilens aura corrumpat. Cyprian, Ad Bern. c. 7. 2 De sterilitate ac fame quaereris, quasi f amem majorem siccitas quara rapacitas f aciat. C. 10 ; vide c. 2, ibid. 3 Statimque Tiberis adulta aestate diluvii facie inundavit. Aurelius Victor, JDe Caesaribus, c. 32. * Trebellius PoUio, Duo Gallieni, c. 5. VALERIAN 97 The measures adopted to bring relief to the ter- rified and plagne-stricken masses make manifest the utter inability of the Roman government to deal with great crises. Besides decreeing enormous sac- rifices and issuing new coins dedicated to Apollo Salutaris and Jupiter Salutaris,^ nothing was done, as far as history records, with the exception of the humane efforts of Gallus and Volusian, who took steps that all victims of the plague should be pro- perly interred.2 In the present instance, however, concerted action of any kind was an impossibility. The army, the only organized and disciplined body in the Empire, was in a state of complete disorder. The changes in the military regulations intro- duced by Septimius Severus and continued under his successors had deprived the army of much of its old- time efficiency. Numerically it was far below its nor- mal standard. The frequent civil wars and the desire to reduce the strain on the treasury had crippled the legions, and taken from the army strength and resources which the present chaotic condition of public affairs required. While the duties along the frontiers were daily multiplied, the legions in the German provinces were reduced from eight to four, which, with a few thousand auxiliaries, brought the total number of men fit for active service to not ^ Cyprian, Ep. lix. 2 Aureliua Victor, De Caesaribus, o. 30. 98 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION more than 20,000.^ The discipline and loyalty of the army had also in large measure disappeared. In Africa a revolt of the troops in 253 assumed such alarming proportions that the safety of the whole province was seriously endangered.^ The system of local recruiting and permanent camps made the sol- diers sedentary and effeminate, and utterly destroyed the mobility so necessary in time of danger. This concentration of troops, added to the fact that the Romans were badly supplied with cavaby, rendered their operations futile against an enemy who fought in guerrilla bands along an extended frontier. At this juncture, however, the nature of the ex- peditions undertaken by the barbarians assumed a new and more dangerous character.^ The withdrawal of the Gallic and Rhenish legions after the death of Decius to support the claims of the many usurpers gave the Teutonic tribes an opportunity for move- ments which originated more in necessity than from choice.* The pressure from other tribes and peoples, and the growing consciousness of power derived 1 Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France depuis les Origines jusqu^dt la Revolution, fasc. i, p. 257. 2 This is the revolt mentioned by Cyprian in his letter to the Bishops of Numidia, in which he deplores the captivity of the Christians seized by the barbarians, and for whose ransom he sent 100,000 sesterces. Ep. Ixii. Vide Cagnat, VArm^e Romaine d^Afrique, pp. 53-54. 3 Mommsen, Roman Provinces, vol. i, p. 264 ; Lavisse, loc. cit. p. 249. * Lavisse, ibid. VALERIAN 99 from contact with the Romans, made the Germans desirous of seizing new territory within the Roman Empire in order to establish themselves in new homes. The period of piratical raids and marauding expeditions for plunder or revenge had passed, and the Roman Empire was just commencing to feel the first effects of the great migratory movements among the Teutonic people which were to result in its overthrow. In no other way is it possible to ex- plain the simultaneous movement of all the enemies of Rome across her frontiers. The Franks, the Alemanni, the Marcomanni, and the Goths poured into the rich territory south of the Rhine and Danube, and pillaged the cities of Europe and Asia Minor. In the East the Persians, peaceful since the time of Philip, took up arms and laid waste the provinces near the Euphrates. The struggle with these nmnerous enemies made the reign of Valerian and Gallienus one continued scene of warfare and strife ; but the details and order of their various campaigns are hidden in confusion and obscurity because of the unsatisfactory records which we pos- sess. Gallienus, who was entrusted with the defence of the western portion of the Empire, found that the most dangerous enemies of the Roman power in the provinces bounded by the Rhine and upper Danube were the Franks and Alemanni. The former are first mentioned in the reign of Cara- 100 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION calla,^ while the latter do not appear for more than thirty years, when they assume great importance in the days of Gordian II.2 The Franks occupied the territory which stretched along the right bank of the Rhine from the North Sea to the river Main, and the Alemanni the region situated between the Main and the Alps. A great deal of uncertainty exists as to the origin and character of these two groups of people. Some are inclined to consider them as confederations of various German tribes : ^ others see in them neither a new tribe nor a confederation of tribes, but an association of soldiers and warriors which had become through various causes an ethnic unit, such as that composed of the followers of Ariovistus. Based on a passage in Tacitus of doubt- ful interpretation, this theory explains the names of these organizations: Alemanni, or men of all nations ; Franks, an epithet alluding either to their vagabond courses or to their valor.* These two peoples had been a standing menace to the power of the Romans for several years. The armies of Alexander and Maximinus, of Philip and 1 213 A. D. See Goyau, Chronologie de VEmpire Bomain, p. 261. 2 241 A. D. Lavisse, loc. cit. ^ Sie waren die Nachkommen der Sug-ambern und Chamaven, unter welchen seit dem Ende des 2 Jahrhunderts auch die Chatten auf gegangen waren und zu denen sich Amsivarier, Chattuarier und Teile der Brukterer gesellt batten. Scbiller, Geschichte der Bo- mischen Kaiserzeit, p. 813. * Lavisse, loc. cit. p. 250. VALERIiVN 101 Decius, had vanquished but not subdued them ; and it was against them that Gallienus had directed his first efforts. In the beginning he gained many vic- tories, with the result that in 257 he had established the supremacy of Rome in the Rhenish provinces.^ His success, however, was more in the nature of a compromise than a victory. He allowed a large number of Marcomanni to settle in a portion of Pannonia, and, to bind the treaty by which these new settlers engaged themselves to repel all invaders, Gallienus married Pipa, or Pipara, the daughter of one of their chiefs.^ While the Franks and Alemanni were overrun- ning the Rhenish provinces, the Goths and Marco- manni were devastating the region along the lower Danube.^ Valerian himself in all probability per- sonally conducted the campaigns against these ma- rauders. Nothing is known as to the details and 1 This is the date assigned by Schiller {Geschichte, p. 814), who bases his opinion on the fact that the medals of Gallienus for this year bear the title Restitutor Galliarum, Gennauicus Maximus, Germanicus Maximus ter et v, etc. Eckhel vii, 401 seq. ; Cohen, 181-191, 562-576. 2 Gallienus quidem in loco Cornelii filii sui Solonianura alterum filium subrogavit, amori diverso pellicum deditus, Saloninae conjugis et concubinae, quam per pactionera, concessa parte superioris Pannoniae, a patre Marcomannorum rege, matri- monii specie susceperat, Pipam nomine. Aurelius Victor, Epitome^ c. 33 ; De Cues, xxxiii, G. Perdite dileiit, Piparam nomine, barbaram regis iiliam. Pollio, Gall. 21. 8 SchiUer, loc. cit. p. 816. 102 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION chronology of his movements before the year 256. It seems likely, however, that the Teutons and their allies were forced to abandon Koman territory, for in a letter which Valerian addressed to the Prefect of the City of Rome in 256, Aurelian, who after- wards became Emperor, is styled the Liberator of Illyria and Restorer of Gaul.i Valerian's manifold duties as general in com- mand of the legions did not prevent him from making some attempts at reform within the State itself. Though few instances of his activity in this respect have been preserved, there can be little doubt that he aimed constantly at restoring the army to its old-time efficiency. In the year 256 he sent letters to Albinus, the prefect of Rome, in which he announced that the inflexible Aurelian, whose sever- ity the Emperor himself f eared,^ in recognition of the signal services he rendered as general, had been appointed inspector-general of the army, and that inasmuch as he woidd at once enter on his duties by inspecting all the camps, proper provision should be made for his reception in Rome.^ The famous Third Legion, for many years the bulwark of Roman power in Africa, which had been ordered to Italy and separated into various detachments 1 Liberator Illyrici, Restitutor Galliarum. Aurel c. 9. 2 Me etiam timuisse. Vopiscus, Vita Aurel. c. 8. 8 Ibid. c. 9. VALERIAN 103 during the struggle with Aureliaii, was restored to its former standing and sent back to its old camp at Lambesa.^ Acting on the advice of Ballista, Vale- rian ordered the provincial governors to quarter troops only in places where their presence would not be a hardship to the inhabitants, and to exact as tribute only those things which the various pro- vinces produced in abundance.^ As a result of these regulations, Valerian was able to boast of the efficiency and high standing of his soldiers, '* among whom there was not a man who was not a fighter." ^ These instances are indications, at least, that Valerian was determined to follow the policy of his predecessor, Decius, and that he was thoroughly convinced of the necessity of effecting some radi- cal changes in the internal affairs of the State. In such circumstances, questions regarding the national religion could not be overlooked, and it is not sur- prising that shortly after he found an opportunity to undertake the reorganization of the army, Vale- 1 Cagnat, VArm^e Eomaine d^Afrique, p. 171. 2 Pollio, Trig. Tyr. c. 18. Provinciales non gravet. . . . Nee est ulla alia provisio melior, quam ut in locis suis erogentur quae nascuntiir, ne aut vehiculia aut sumptibus rem p. gravent. ^ This is contained in a letter of Valerian, in which he acknow- ledges his indebtedness to Ballista for sound advice : Gaudens quod ejus consilio nullum adscripticium, id est vacantem, haberet et nullum stipatorem, qui non vera aliquid ageret, nullum mili- tem qui non vero pugnaret. Ihid. 104 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION rian should be brought into contact with the large body of citizens composing the Christian congre- gations, whose persistent refusal to acknowledge the state gods was an insuperable obstacle to state unity. CHAPTER IV CHRISTIANITY IN THE FIRST YEARS OF VALERIAN'S REIGN Law8 of Decius still in force — Not executed — Schisms in the Church — Novatus — Novation — Christians at the court of Valerian — Valerian favors them — Valerian changes his atti- tude towards the Church — Macrianua — Aub^'s opinion of Ma- crianus — Denis of Alexandria — Is Aube's opinion the correct one? — Why Macrianus was proclaimed Emperor by his troops — His character — Was he a believer in magic ? — Veneration of Macrian family for Alexander the Great — This was an Egyptian cult, hence a religion of magic — Valerian was influenced by Macrianus — Human sacrifices not unknown in Rome — Condition of public affairs led to renewed super- stitions — Legal, political, and religious motives for persecut- ing the Christians — Economic condition of the Empire led to the same result — Financial prosperity of the Church — The Greek martyrs — Chrysanthus and Daria. Though the laws against the Christians which were framed by Decius remained in force after his death, there was no opportunity to put them into execu- tion. The struggles among the rival claimants for the throne, the internal suffering and disorder, and the necessity for constant vigilance against the many enemies along the frontiers rendered it impossible to carry on any fixed policy of repression or per- secution. To draw order from chaos was the first duty of Valerian, but in the face of so many dangers from outside he could find little time for internal 106 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION reforms. During the first years of his reign the Church was never molested. A spirit of insubordi- nation, however, within the Church itself gave rise just then to two dangerous schisms, which threatened the disruption of the entire Christian organization. At Carthage a party of priests who had opposed Cyprian's advancement to the episcopate took ad- vantage of the troubles arising out of the Decian persecution to renew the old discussion in regard to the penitential discipline of the Church. They accused Cyprian of undue severity in his treatment of those who had abjured Christ during the perse- cution. In accordance with the well-established custom in the Church, Cyprian refused to allow the "lapsed" to return to the fold before they had performed the prescribed penance. Not even those who had received " libelli " from the martyrs and confessors were exempt from this decree. Under the leadership of Novatus a strong party was formed in opposition to Cyprian. In defiance of Cyprian Novatus and his followers received the "lapsed" without imposing the customary penances. In a council of the African bishops Cyprian excommuni- cated the schismatics, who in retaliation proceeded to have one of their number, Fortunatus, consecrated as head of the See of Carthage.^ With a view to ^ Hergenrother, Kirchengeschichte, vol. i, pp. 280 seq. ; Blanc, Cours d^Histoire Ecdesiastique^ vol. i, p. 303 ; Hefele, Concilien- geschichte, vol. i, p. 111. RENEWAL OF CONFLICT 107 enlisting as much aid as possible, Novatus went to Rome, where a similar schism was in existence, with the difference that there the schismatics accused the bishop of undue laxity. Headed by Novatian, this party had attempted to prevent the election of Pope Cornelius on the ground that he had shown himseK too lenient to the apostates. The learning and blameless life of Novatian had dra^vn many priests to his standard, and by the dissemination of calumnies regarding Cornelius he finally induced three Italian bishops to consecrate him Bishop of Rome. By a strange perversity, Novatus threw in his lot with the Novatians. The schism assumed such alarming proportions that Synods were held, encyc- lical letters exchanged, and various other means adopted to check the growing disorder.^ A reversal of Valerian's policy, however, soon put an end to the strife. After years of toleration the Emperor had decided to take up the unfinished work of Decius and uproot Christianity from his dominions. In the face of greater dangers the Christians forgot their differences. The ban of proscription must have found them unprepared. *' It is wonderful," says Denis of Alexandria, " what took place in Valerian, and especially when we consider the condition of the man before this, how kind and friendly he was 1 Hergenrother, Kirchengeschickte, vol. i, pp. 280 seq. ; Blanc, Cours d'Histoire Ecclesiastique, vol. i, p. 303 ; Hefele, Concilien- geschickte, vol. i, p. 111. 108 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION towards the pious. For never was there any of the Emperors before him so favorably and benevolently disposed towards them ; not even those who were openly said to be Christians, so plainly received them, with such excessive civility and friendship as he did in the commencement of his reign. All his house was likewise filled with pious persons, and was indeed a congregation of the Lord." ^ This account fits in admirably with what we know of the character of Valerian. A man of high moral purpose and blameless life, what more natural than that he should be attracted by the virtues and irre- proachable conduct so strikingly manifested by the Christians. The instinctive regard for personal worth which led liim to promote none but the de- serving would also guide him in the selection of those who were to compose his household, among whom it is not astonishing that there were many Christians. Valerian, though he wished to decline the office of censor, was doubtless in sympathy with the plan of Decius, and must have felt that the first step in the restoration of the old Koman glory was to abolish the vice and corruption which were de- stroying private virtue and public honor. Besides these, other influences may have been at work. His court was the home of the eclectic philosophy of the period, and if his daughter-in-law was a Christian, ^ Ep. ad Hermammon; Euseb., Historia Ecdesiastica, vii, 10. RENEWAL OF CONFLICT 109 she was doubtless also a Christian advocate.^ The very wording of his decree against the Christians when he undertook to persecute them, the fact that the Caesarlani are expressly mentioned, is proof positive that the Christians of Caesar's household were at least numerous enough to deserve the desig- nation of a church.2 A question very naturally arises here. If Vale- rian was brought into such intimate relations with the Christians and had extended to them such sig- nal marks of favor, what could have induced him to proscribe them ? The answer is furnished by Denis of Alexandria, who says : " But the master and chief ruler of the Egyptian Magi (Macrianus) persuaded him to abandon this course, exhorting him to persecute and slay these pure and holy men as enemies and obstacles to their wicked and detest- able incantations. For there were and still are men who, by their very presence or when seen, and only breathing and speaking, are able to dissipate the artifices of wicked demons. But he suggested to him to study rites of initiation, and abominable arts of sorcery, to perform execrable sacrifices, to slay unhappy infants, and to sacrifice the children of wretched fathers, and to search the bowels of new- born babes, and to mutilate and dismember the 1 AUard, Les Dernieres Persecutions du Troisieme Steele, p. 36. 2 iKKX-qaia is the word used by Denis, loc. cit. 110 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION creatures of God as if by doing this they should obtain great felicity." ^ This explanation of Valerian's change of attitude towards the Christians has met with scorn and ridi- cule from many later writers. M. Aube, in particu- lar, has taken great pains to show that it is worthy of no credence, and utterly incompatible with the general tone of Roman life and inconsistent with the character of Macrianus. In the opinion of M. Aube, " Macrianus was one of the principal men in the entourage of Valerian. He was a man important as well by his rank and his enormous wealth as by his notable services to the State. His courage had mer- ited for him the highest honors in the army, and his reputation was that of an honest and brave man. When Valerian set out for the war with the Per- sians, he wrote to the Senate that he had entrusted the care of the Republic to Macrianus. After 260, when Valerian was taken prisoner, Macrianus took the purple on the invitation of Ballista, one of the few honest men of the time. His soldiers cried out that there was no one more fit to govern the Empire on which GaUienus had brought dishonor. This is the arch-magician of whom Denis speaks, — the pretended immolator of infants." ^ This summary of the character and achievements 1 Denis, loc. cit. 2 VEglise et VEtat dans la Seconde MoitU du Troisieme Siecle^ p. 337. RENEWAL OF CONFLICT 111 of Macrianus, which M. Aubc considers sufficient reason for branding the account of a contemporary witness as a collection of '' the sayings of the terri- fied and angiy Christians, who hid in caves and re- galed themselves with the most ridicidous and most foolish rumors," ^ is taken from the Augustan His- tory. In his zeal to exonerate Macrianus, M. Aube has altosrether mistaken or misunderstood the words of Pollio. In the first place great stress is laid on the fact that Macrianus received from the soldiers under his command the honor of a nomination to the throne. This was not an extraordinary occurrence at that time, and gives no indication whatsoever as to his character. The way to the throne was easy when the supreme power was in the hands of a man whose manifest unfitness for affairs of state had merited for him the contempt and hatred of all classes in the Empire.^ The desire to supplant Galiienus after the capture of his father was so widespread that revolts took place wherever there were large bodies of troops. So many were ad- vanced at this time that the names of all are not known to history.^ The rapidity with which some 1 Ihid. 2 Gallienum non solum viri sed etiam mulieres contemptui haberent. Pollio, Trig. Tyr. c. 1. ^ Tanta obscuritas eorum hominum fuit, qui ex diversis orbis partibus ad imperium convolabant . . . uti eorum nee nomina frequententur. Ibid. c. 1. 112 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION of these ephemeral rulers were deprived of life by the men who conferred on them the imperial insig- nia would even indicate that in many cases the soldiers selected their leaders from the office as a protest against Gallienus rather than from the de- sire to see those leaders occupy the throne. Victo- rinus Junior was no sooner hailed as Caesar than he was put to death.^ Marius the blacksmith was so contemptible in the eyes of his own soldiers by reason of his humble origin that one of them slew him after he had enjoyed the purple for three days with the remark, — " And this sword he made him- self." ^ The excellent Saturninus, on the day he re- ceived the imperial peplum, warned his followers that they had spoiled a good soldier to make a wretched Emperor, and in a few days he was slain because he attempted to exercise the privileges of his office.^ In such circumstances it is not extraor- dinary that Macrianus was among the number of those who were proclaimed Emperor. Pollio, the only author who speaks of that event, has nothing but contempt for Macrianus' actions on that occa- sion. From him we learn that after Valerian had fallen into the hands of the Persians, the disloyalty of the soldiers to his son GaUienus and the fact 1 PoUio, Trig. Tyr. c. 7. ^ Hie est gladius quern ipse fecit. Ibid. c. 8. « Ibid. c. 23. RENEWAL OF CONFLICT 113 that a usurper had already appeared in the j^erson of Aureolus rendered it imperative that some one should be selected for the tlirone who would be ac- ceptable to the people and capable of carrying on the administration. The choice lay between Bal- lista, who held the position of prefect under Vale- rian, and Macrianus, who was the first among the duces} Ballista, in a speech which has been pre- served by one of his auditors,^ deprecated his fitness for the position, saying to Macrianus : " My age, training, and my desires compel me to refuse the office, because I cannot deny I desire a good ruler, who is capable of taking the place of Valerian, a man such as you are, brave, constant, honorable, well tried in state affairs, and, what is of more im- portance, rich. Take the place which you have de- served, and as long as you wish it let me be your prefect." In his reply Macrianus agreed with Bal- lista as to the qualifications which an emperor should possess at the time, but pleaded that his age and infirmities and the enjoyment of riches, which had long before withdrawn him from the career of a soldier, proved his unfitness for such arduous duties. Younger men must be selected, he said, not one, but two, or even three, who would restore the republic which Valerian through fate, and Gallienus by his 1 Primus Ducum. Pollio, loc cit. c. 12. 2 Maeonius Astyanax qui concilio interf uit. Ibid. 114 THE VALERIAN PERSECUTION dissolute life, had lost. The hint was not lost on Bal- lista.^ " Give us your sons, Macrianus and Quietus," he said ; " they were made tribunes by Valerian, and because of their worth they will never be safe as long as Gallienus rules." Seeing that he had been understood, Macrianus acceded, and ordered that the soldiers should receive double wages, to be paid out of his private purse. The safety of the Empire no longer troubled him. He left the East in a state of confusion to take issue with Gallienus, but was slain together with his sons in Illyricum or Thrace, where he encountered the forces of Aureolus. This episode is in itself scarcely sufficient to exonerate Macrianus from the charges made against him by the Bishop of Alexandria, and proves nothing more than that Macrianus was possessed of a large amount of duplicity, and that in the circumstances it would be extraordinary if a man of his disposi- tion was not made emperor. The encomiums of Macrianus came from one who did not possess the most essential requisite for the office, namely wealth, and who doubtless knew how short his tenure would be when a rival such as Macrianus was to be reck- oned with. Of the charge that Macrianus was chief of the ^ Intellexit eum Ballista sic agere, ut de filiis suis videretur cogitare. Pollio, loc cit. The account of his advancement to the throne given by Denis agrees admirably with Pollio's narrative. Eusebius, loc. cit. vii, 10. RENEWAL OF CONFLICT 115 magicians of Egypt, M. Aubc has this to say: "This means nothing more than that Macrianus belonged to the little body of enraged conserva- tives of the time, who were very much attached to the old manners and customs of the Empire, and especially to the religious customs of their ances- tors, which he saw, not without anger, attacked and destroyed by the encroa enus, 268. Christianity, regarded as a Jew- ish sect, 21 ; incompatible with the Roman State, 5 ; opposed to syncretism, 17 ; a barrier to reform, 123. Christians, calumnies against, 25 ; laws against, 32 ; popular outbreaks against, 41 ; treated leniently by some magistrates, 45 ; apologies for, 47 ; accused of public calamities, 122 ; con- demned to mines, 149 ; not disloyal, 165, 265 ; barbarians friendly to, 167 ; forbidden to use cemeteries, 175. Chrysanthus, 128. Church, freed from Judaism, 32 ; wealth of, 124 ; charities of, 125. Claudius, Emperor, expels Jews from Rome, 22. Claudius, martyr, 185. Collegia Funeraticia, see Burial clubs. Commodus, 51. Crescentius, 185. Cyprian, St., and the lapsi, 106 ; Acta of, 130 ; exiled to Curu- bis, 146 ; writes letters to the confessors in the prisons and mines, 148 ; trial, condemna- tion, and death, 190. Cyril, 242. Dana, 128. 284 INDEX Decius, 70 ; laws of, 105 ; op- poses election of new pope, 122. Denis of Alexandria, 121 ; ac- cused Macrianus of magic, 109 ; exiled to Kephron, 150 ; trial and condemnation, 153. De Rossi, 176. Diocletian, 265. Domitian, 28. Donatianus, 206. Elagabalus, 18, 61; offers chil- dren in sacrifice, 120. Empire, invaded by barbarians, 92. Eugenia, 186. Eulogius, 235. Eusebius, 127. Faustina, 120. Felicissimus, 179. Flavian dynasty, 28. Flavianus, 206. Fortunatus, 105. Fructuosus, 235. Gallienus, 90, 111 ; character of, 265 ; promulgates edict of tol- eration, 266. Gnosticism, 67. Goths, invade Asia Minor, 256. Greek martyrs, 126. Gregory Thaumaturgus, 165. Hadrian, 18 ; rescript to Mini- cius Fundanus, 41 ; letter to Servianua, 43. Hadrias, 126. Herennianus, 214. Hippolytus, 126, 183. Human sacrifices in Rome, 120. Ingenuus, 254. Jacobus, 224. Jauuarius, 179. Jews, expelled from Rome, 21 ; persecute the Christians, 23. Julianus, 206. Laurence, St.,martyrdom of, 179. Laws against Christians, 32 ; text of first law, 39. Leo, 247. Liminius, 240. Lucius, 206. Macrianus, induces Valerian to persecute the Christians, 109 ; death of, 114; magical prac- tices of, 115 ; Valerian praises, 120. Magnus, 179. Malchus, 241. Marcellus, 127. Marcia, 51. Marcus Aurelius, 49; consults Chaldean magicians, 120. Maria, 126. Marianus, 224. Martyrs of the crypt of Chry- santhus and Daria, 144. Massa Candida, 201. Matrons, Christian, persecuted in Rome, 185. Maximinus Thrax, 61, 64. Mommsen, views regarding laws against Christians, 37. Montanist martyrs, 241. Montanus, 206. Neo, 126. Neo-Platonism, 67; of Galli- enus, 270. Nero, 18 ; persecutes the Chris- tians, 23. Nerva, 31. Nicephorus, 243. INDEX 285 Novatian schism, 107. Novatus, 105. Paganism, effect of, on Christian- ity, 05 ; reaction of Christian- ity on, 08; attempt at amalga- mation with Cliristianity, 17. Pancratius, 187. Paregorius, 240. Patroclus, 240. Paul, 200. Paulina, 120. Persecution, causes of, 3; first outhreaks, 20 ; of Nero, 23 ; of Domitian, 28 ; of Trajan, 32 ; of Hadrian, 41 ; of Anto- ninus Pius, 44; of Marcus Aurelius, 50 ; of Commodus, 51 ; of Septimius Severus, 53 ; of Caracalla, 01 ; of Maximi- nus, 04 ; of Decius, 70 ; liter- ary, 48. Persians, invasions of, 100, 258 ; influence of, in Rome, 205. Philip the x\rabian, 04. Plagues in the Roman Empire, 49, 92. Pliny, letter to Trajan, 33. Pontius, life of Cyprian, 140. Pontius of Cimiez, 239. Primolus, 200. Priscus, 241. Privatus, 240. Protus and Hyacinthus, ISO. Quartillosa, 214. Quinquegentanei, 250. Quirinus, 150. Renus, 200. Roman Empire, social, economic, and political condition of, dur- ing Valerian's reign, 123 ; in- vaded by barbarians, 157. Romans, repel the barbarians, 155. Romanus, 185. Rufina, 180. Salonina the Empress, was she a Christian, 271. Sapricius, 244. Sarmatians, invade the empire, 254. Septimius Severus, 53, 234. Severus, 185. Shahpur, conquers Valerian, 200. Stephanus, 179. Stephen, Pope St., 127. Successus, 200. Syncretism, 0, 17, 20, 03, 137. Tarcisius, 143. Tarragona, persecution in, 233. TertuUa, 229. Teutons, invade the Empire, 251. Thirty Tyrants, 111, 262. Trajan, 32. Valerian, family and history of, 75 ; made censor, 78 ; be- comes emperor, 80; perse- cutes the Christians, 107 ; first edict of, 130 ; second edict of, 155; holds levee at Byzan- tium, 158 ; takes command of eastern army, 160 ; conquered by Shahpur, 200 ; captivity and death, 201. Victoricus, 200. Vincentius, 179. Visions of martyrs, 147, 211, 215, 226, 230. Xystus, becomes Pope, 143 ; martyrdom of, 177. Electrotyped and printed by H.O. Houghton &> Co. Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. UNI 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This This book is due on the last date stamped below or on the date to which renewed. Renewals only: i> . J^^' No. 642-3405 ^ Renewals may be made 4 days prior to date due. Kenewed books are subject to immediate recall. Du3 and cf FAIL Quarter ^»^.^ ^ q^ it^^ -^/V2 6l9f" LI RE HOV 9961 f RE m I S LD 21-lC" JAN 2 51973 4g BEC CHL DEC 1 W* LD2lA-40m-3,'72 (Qll73sl0)476-A-32 9 R C C'DLD rCDl773-lgA'^:^ -^ PW f04T ^S General Librarr University of Caiifomia Berkeley ea ' ) *-U>-; u