But the numbers of the martyrs? Here we shall not find it easy to form any probable estimate. If it was the tendency of ancient hagiologers greatly to exaggerate these numbers, it is not less the tendency of modern critics unduly to underrate them. Nor is this a question of great moment. It may possibly be true that throughout the ten persecutions which ecclesiastical historians have recorded, the total num ber of martyrs was not so great as of those victims who were sacrificed to the ruthless policy of their Spanish masters during one single reign in the Nether lands in the sixteenth century, or of those soldiers who lost their lives on the battlefields of France in one single bloody campaign two years ago. Numbers are no adequate measure of the significance of any great event in history. The architectural effect of a building depends far more on the disposition of its parts and the fitness of its decorations, than on the hugeness of its masonry. I cannot consent to regard the battle of Marathon as a poor and insignificant atom in history, hardly worthy of attention, because the Greeks did not muster more than 10,000 men, and the number of their slain did not exceed 200. I feel bound to measure the importance of historical events by their moral significance and their moral results. And at Marathon I see the magnificent spectacle of a huge barbarian army under a bar barian tyrant repulsed and driven into the sea by a small band of courageous patriots, the champions of a free and progressive race; while the alternative which hung on the issue of those few hours' fighting with those scanty numbers in that circumscribed plain was not less critical than this, whether the freedom and civilization of Greece or the barbaric despotism of Persia was to shape the future destinies of the human race. And in the far more momentous conflict which we are now reviewing the standard must be the same. We measure its significance by the spirit of the combatants - their undaunted courage, their lofty self-devotion, their simple faith, their joyous hope.
It is enough that, whenever a sacrifice was demanded, a sacrifice was ready; that feeble girls and young children in the presence of death were nerved with the courage of heroes; that the Chris tian leaders not infrequently interposed to check the ardour which impelled men and women alike to rush headlong into martyrdom; that the heathen magistrates often desisted from sheer weariness when they saw the crowds pressing forward to suffer death for their religion. "Miserable wretches," said a Roman proconsul, baffled by their numbers, "if you want to die, you have precipices and ropes." It did seem strange that they would give their lives rather than conform, when conformity demanded so little - just to scatter a pinch of incense on the fire, or to swear by the genius of the emperor, or to say (they might unsay it the next moment if they wished) that they were not Christians. It was a new phenomenon this strength made perfect in weakness. It arrested attention, and it compelled inquiry.
For no spectator could look on unmoved and indifferent at these scenes—whether it was the old man Ignatius, burning for the hour when he should confront the wild beasts in the Roman amphitheatre, entreating his friends not to intercede and rob him of the crown of martyrdom, trembling lest he should be found unworthy of this last seal of discipleship, uniting in himself the courage of a hero with the humility of a child; or the still more aged Polycarp, refusing to revile his Lord in that memor able saying, "Eighty-and-six years have I served Him, and He has done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?" and dying at the stake with the words of prayer and thanks giving on his lips; or the boy Origen, thinking to lay down his life for his faith, his mother hiding his clothes that he might not expose himself to danger, and he himself writing to his father in prison to face death bravely and not to think of his family; or the slave girl Blandina, scourged, racked, and tortured day after day to extort a confession of guilt, thrown at length to the wild beasts, but protesting resolutely to the end, "I am Christian, and nothing wicked is done among us"; or that brave Christian wife who, when brought up to the altar by her pagan husband and forced to offer sacrifice, cried out indignantly, "I did not do it; you did it."
I wish that time would allow me to linger over these scenes, but I must draw to a close. Before concluding, however, I cannot forbear to direct your attention to a narrative, which is at once the most detailed, the most authentic, and the most touching of these early martyrologies. I only regret that the necessary abridgment will prevent me from doing justice to this simple and pathetic story.
The scene is Carthage or the neighbourhood; the probable year 202 A.D., during the reign of Severus; the occasion the Ides of March, the birthday of the Emperor's son the Cæsar Geta, when the amphitheatre demanded some human victims to grace the festival and to appease the populace. The victims certain Christians, young men and young women. Among them Perpetua, a girlish matron of good birth, twenty-two years of age, with an infant child in her arms, and Felicitas, a female slave, herself also soon to become a mother. The martyrology consists partly of a diary written by the sufferers themselves while in prison, partly of an account drawn up by a Christian bystander, who witnessed the actual scene in the arena.
Perpetua was arrested. Her father, a heathen, entreated her to repudiate her faith. She pointed to an earthen vessel that stood by, and asked him, "Can you call this anything else but a pitcher?" "No." "Neither can I call myself by any other name than that which I am, a Christian." She was put into prison. "I was horrified," she writes in her diary, "for I had never experienced such dark O the cruel day! the oppressive heat from overcrowding! the insolent extortions of the soldiers! Above all I was racked with anxiety for my baby." But she soon recovered herself. "My prison," she says, "suddenly became like a palace, so that I would sooner have been there than anywhere else."
Then comes the record of a vision in answer to a prayer. She saw a golden ladder reaching to heaven. Its sides bristled with dangerous imple ments, knives, hooks, lances, which tore the flesh of any one who attempted to mount, if he were at all careless. At its foot was a huge dragon, lying in wait to scare away all who approached. She planted her foot on the monster's head, invoking the name of the Lord Jesus. She was helped up the ladder by a fellow-sufferer Saturus; and when she had mounted she was received and welcomed by one dressed like a shepherd, with white hair and of great stature. "So we knew," she adds, "that we must die, and we began to surrender all hope in this present world."
But her father continued to ply her with en treaties. He besought her to pity his gray hairs; to think of her brothers, of her mother, of her aunt, of her infant child who could not long survive her. He asked her to spare them all the disgrace of having a relation condemned as a criminal. He kissed her hand, threw himself at her feet, called her not his daughter, but his lady. She tried to comfort him, saying that she was in God's hands, not her own.
Then the day of trial came. The prisoners were placed in the dock. Again her father appeared, this time with her infant in his arms, entreating her to pity the child. The magistrate joined in his entreaties. He put the usual test questions, desir ing to elicit an answer which might save her. But all in vain. "Offer sacrifice for the health of the Emperor." "I will not offer it." "Art thou a Christian?" "I am a Christian." She and her companions were condemned to the wild beasts, "And," she adds, "we went down to our prison glad of heart."
Then follows the record of visions, simply told, but instinct with beauty and meaning. They would perhaps be held superstitious by some. I dare not apply this term to them. They would well bear repeating, if time would allow.
At this point the interest of the narrative passes from Perpetua to her companion Felicitas. Felicitas is grieved lest her execution should be deferred on account of her condition. Her fellow-martyrs are very sad at the thought that they shall lose so dear a companion on their glorious journey. She and they pray that her delivery may be hastened. Their prayers are answered. A child is born in the prison. In the midst of her agony she cries out. "If you suffer so much pain now," says one of the attendants, "what will you do then when you are thrown to the wild beasts?" She answers, "Now I myself suffer what I suffer; but then there will be another in me who will suffer for me, because I shall suffer for Him."
The evening before the execution, according to Roman custom, a supper was provided for the criminals with a cruel mockery of kindness, that they might forget their troubles in revelry. By these Christians this meal is converted, as far as circumstances permit, into an agape, or love- feast, the symbol and bond of Christian brotherhood. On such occasions the public were admitted that they might gratify a ghastly curiosity in scanning the looks and anatomizing the feelings of the miserable victims. Saturus, one of the martyrs, turned round fiercely upon these inquisitive bystanders. "Ay," said he, "note our features carefully, that you may know us again in that great day of Judgment." They were cowed by this rebuke; they retired; and many, we are told, believed.
The day came. Even the spectators shuddered when these two delicate women were led into the amphitheatre. Perpetua was the first victim. She was tossed by a furious heifer. Regaining her consciousness, she gathered her dress about her, and bound up her dishevelled hair, that she might not appear as one mourning in this her hour of glory. Then she gave a hand to her companion Felicitas, who had also been tossed, and raised her from the ground. Then, as if waking from sleep, she asked when they would be exposed to the furious creature. In her spiritual ecstasy she was unaware of what had happened. At length the signal was given by the spectators that they should receive the coup de grace. They rose up gladly, exchanged the last kiss of peace, and presented themselves to the executioner. The gladiator entrusted with this task was a novice; he wounded Perpetua slightly in the side by an ill aimed blow; she directed the weapon in his hand towards her throat, and so she died.
Here I must close. Even this very imperfect treatment of an important subject will not have been without its use, if only for a few minutes this evening we have realized the presence of the noble army of martyrs, the great cloud of witnesses who throng round the arena of our conflicts, the silent but sympathetic spectators of our trials and our victories.
Lecture 3
On the two preceding Tuesdays I discussed the relations of the early Christian to the world with out, first as a member of society, and secondly as a unit in the State. In this third and concluding lecture I shall consider his relations to the Church. We have watched him hitherto in the heat of the conflict with external powers; we shall see him now arming himself for the struggle in the privacy of the Christian brotherhood. My subject this evening will be Christian life within the Christian body, and more especially Christian worship as the soul of that life.
To the careless heathen bystander this inner life of the Christian was strangely anomalous and per plexing Such glimpses as he might accidentally obtain revealed a state of things of which he had no experience, and to which he could attach no mean ing. He found nothing on which the eye or the hand could fasten. It was all so vague, so unsub stantial, so intangible and elusive. There were no external emblems and no imposing rites, without which religion seemed to him to be an impossibility.
Again and again the heathen antagonists of Christianity give expression to their surprise in the same taunting language, "You have no images, no altars, no temples." The principal squares and streets of Rome or Athens were lined with sanctu aries and dotted with altars; public thoroughfares and private houses were thronged with statues of gods and demigods; the language of the common people bristled with invocations of deities; the air reeked from time to time with the fat of victims or the fumes of incense. When Caligula ascended the imperial throne the festivities extended over three whole months, and 160,000 victims were sacrificed in Rome alone. When during the reign of M. Aurelius a deadly pestilence broke out, the Emperor summoned to the metropolis the priests of all reli gions, national and foreign, and the city was given over to lustrations, sacrifices, and rites of every kind and every country. To all this the bald simplicity of Christian worship stood in marked contrast.
Even the Jews presented a religious problem which the heathen found it difficult to solve. He was perplexed to learn that they had no external object of worship. But at all events they had a temple rich with marble and gold; they had altars smoking with sacrifices; they had priests arrayed in priestly robes. Here was something which he could understand. But in Christianity he found nothing of the kind. A silent mysterious gathering at stated times in some obscure private dwelling was seemed to exhaust the religion of this anomalous sect.
His inference, though strangely at fault, was not altogether unnatural. These Christians, he supposed, were Atheists. Under cover of religion they were hatching some vile conspiracy. He had stumbled on another of those secret clubs, those illegal associations, which his jealous suspicions were ever on the watch to detect.
This strange misconception he persistently main tained. Atheism the indictment brought against Flavius Clemens, the cousin of Domitian, when he was condemned to death for his adhesion to the new faith. "Away with the Atheists!" was the common war-cry of the persecutor. In vain the Apologists attempted to explain. "What image can I make of God," wrote one, "when rightly considered man himself is God's image? What temple can I build to Him, when the whole world wrought by His handiwork cannot contain Him?... The offering acceptable to Him is an honest spirit and a pure mind and a sincere conscience. These are our sacrifices; these are God's rites. Thus with us he is the better worshipper who is the more upright man. By this we believe that God is, because we can apprehend Him, though we cannot see Him." To all such explanations the heathen had a ready answer, "Show us your God." This seemed to put an end to the controversy. The Christian could not satisfy the test. He had nothing to show; nothing which in the eyes of the heathen counted for religion; nothing but a firm faith and a heroic courage and clean hands and a blameless life.
From these notices it is evident that during the early centuries the ritual of the Christians was very simple. One point at least seems clear, that they were not yet in the habit of erecting buildings devoted solely to divine worship.
This, however, was not a principle of their faith, but rather a necessity of their position. corporation they were not recognized by the law; it was therefore impossible for them to hold corporate property. Moreover, common prudence would deter them from any display which might arouse the fury of the populace, or invite the repression of the magistrates. Hence there is not, so far as I am aware, any explicit notice of a church erected either at Rome or in the provinces before the close of the second century. Beyond the limits of the Empire the case would be different. In Syria, for instance, where the kings of Edessa early embraced Christianity, no such restraints would be imposed upon the Christians. Accordingly, as early as the year 202, when a sudden inundation swept over the city of Edessa, destroying the royal palace, the city walls, and other important buildings, the "temple of the Church of the Christians" is mentioned among the edifices thus demolished.. The expression points to a building of some pretensions. How long it had been standing we do not know; but there is no reason to suppose that it was either the first or the only erection of the kind. But meanwhile, in the Metropolis and in the great cities of the Empire, the meetings for public worship would be held in a commodious room attached to the residence of some private Christian. "Where do you assemble?" asks the Roman prefect of Justin Martyr, when brought before him for trial. "Where each man will and can; thinkest thou that we all meet in the same place?" is the reply. "Tell me," the prefect urges again, "where do you assemble; in what place dost thou gather thy disciples together?" "I have lodged," he replies, "over the house of Martin at the Timotine bath during the whole of my present stay. This is my second visit to the city of Rome; and I know no other place of meeting besides his house." A period of a century and a quarter has now elapsed since those first gatherings of the Apostles after the Resurrection; yet still the disciples, as of old, meet in an upper room, for fear, not now of the Jews, but of the Gentiles.
But when the first quarter of the third century had run out, their condition was much improved. The favour which Alexander Severus showed to wards them could not fail to produce an immediate effect. The answer of this emperor, when a dispute arose between the Christians and the licensed victuallers about the possession of a certain piece of ground in Rome, is well known. "It is better," he said, "that God should be worshipped in the place in whatever manner, than that it should be given over to the victuallers." Such a verdict from such lips would naturally give a great impulse to church building Yet notwithstanding, so long as they were unrecognized by the law, their tenure was altogether precarious. The disability, however, was soon removed. About the year 260 the Emperor Gallienus issued a rescript prohibiting any inter ference with the Christians, and expressly restoring to them their "places of worship." By this rescript all obstacles to the multiplication of churches were at length removed.
Thus we find ourselves confronted by a broad fact, which cannot fail to suggest important reflections. During the first century and a half of its existence, Christianity in the Roman Empire had no churches, as we understand the term; while throughout the next half- century such buildings were rare and unobtrusive. Yet all this while its numbers were rapidly increasing, till it had invaded every part of the Empire, and counted its converts in every rank and department of life.