honey and jellies, and in a basket fastened to the p of a pole, exposed him to the hottest beams of the sun, and to the fury of such little insects as would be sure to prey upon him. Sometimes they were put into a rotten ship, which being turned bout to sea was set on fire. Thus they served an rthodox presbyter under Valens the Arian empeor; the same which Socrates reports of fourscore pious and devout men, who by the same emperor's command were thrust into a ship, which, being brought into open sea, was presently fired, that so by this means they might also want the honour of a burial.1 Indeed the rage and cruelty of the Gentiles did not only reach the Christians while alive, but extended to them after death, denying them (what has been otherwise granted amongst the most barbarous people) the conveniency of burial, and exposing them to the ravage and fierceness of dogs and beasts of prey, a thing which we are told the primitive Christians reckoned as not the least aggravation of their sufferings. Nay, where they had been quietly buried, they were not suffered many times (as Tertullian complains) to enjoy the asylum of the grave, but were plucked out, rent and torn in pieces.3 But to what purpose is it any longer to insist upon these things? Sooner may a man tell the stars, than reckon up all those methods of misery and suffering which the Christians endured. Eusebius, who himself was a sad spectator of some of the later persecutions, professes to give over the account, as a thing beyond all possibility of ex 1 Id. Orat. 20, p. 416, lib. iv. c. 16, p. 227. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. c. 1, 165. et de Martyr. Pal. c. 9, p. 334. Apol. c. 37, p. 30. 3 2 pression; the manner of their sufferings, and the persons that suffered, being hard, nay, impossible to be reckoned up.' The truth is, (as he there observes, and Cyprian plainly tells Demetrian of it,) their enemies did little else but set their wits upon the tenters to find out the most exquisite methods of torture and punishment. They were not content with those old ways of torment which their forefathers had brought in, but by an ingenious cruelty daily invented new, striving to excel one another in this piece of hellish art, and accounting those the wittiest persons that could invent the bitterest and most barbarous engines of execution. In this they improved so much, that Ulpian, master of records to Alexander Severus the emperor, and the great oracle of those times for law, writing several books de Officio Proconsulis, (many parcels whereof are yet extant in the body of the civil law,) in the seventh book collected together the several bloody edicts which the emperors had put out against the Christians, that he might show by what ways and methods they ought to be punished and destroyed, as Lactantius tells us. But this book as to what concerned Christians is not now extant, the zeal and piety of the first Christian emperors having banished all books of that nature out of the world, as appears by a law of the emperor Theodosius, where he commands the writings of Porphyry, and all others that had written against the Christian religion, to be burned-the reason why we have no more books of the heathens concerning the Christians extant at this day. 2 Cypr. ad Demetr. p. 200. 1 Lib. viii. c. 12, p. 307. Having given this brief specimen of some few of those grievous torments to which the primitive Christians were exposed, we come next to consider what was their behaviour and carriage under them. This we shall find to have been most sedate and calm, most constant and resolute; they neither fainted nor fretted, neither railed at their enemies, nor sunk under their hands, but bore up under the heaviest torments, under the bitterest reproaches, with a meekness and patience that was invincible, and such as every way became the mild and yet generous spirit of the Gospel. So Justin Martyr tells the Jew: "We patiently bear," says he, "all the mischiefs which are brought upon us either by men or devils, even to the extremities of death and torments, praying for those that thus treat us, that they may find mercy, not desiring to hurt or revenge ourselves upon any that injures us, according as our great Lawgiver has commanded us." Thus Eusebius, reporting the hard usage which the Christians met with during the times of persecution, tells us that, "they were betrayed and butchered by their own friends and brethren; but, as courageous champions of the true religion, accustomed to prefer an honourable death in defence of the truth before life itself, little regarded the cruel usage they met with in it: but rather as became true soldiers of God, armed with patience, they laughed at all methods of execution; fire and sword, and the piercings of nails, wild beasts, and the bottom of the sea, cutting and burning of limbs, putting out eyes, and mutilation of the whole body, hunger, and digging in mines, 1 Dial. cum Tryph. p. 236. chains and fetters; all which for the great love that they had to their Lord and Master they accounted sweeter than any happiness or pleasure whatsoever. Nay the very women in this case were as courageous as the men, many of whom undergoing the same conflicts, reaped the same rewards of their constancy and virtue.' But this will more distinctly appear in a few particular cases. First, Whenever they were sought for in order to their being condemned and executed, they cared not to make use of opportunities to escape. Polycarp at his apprehension refused to fly, though going but into the next house might have saved his life. Cyprian it is true withdrew from Carthage when the officers were sent to take him and carry him to Utica, yet he did it (as he tells his people) by the advice of some friends but for this reason, that when he did suffer, he might suffer at Carthage whereof he was bishop, and that those truths which he had preached to them in this life, he might seal before them with his blood; a thing he earnestly and daily begged of God, and which was granted to him afterwards. And if he did not run away from suffering, much less did they oppose it, and make tumults and parties to defend themselves; no, they were led as lambs to the slaughter, and as a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so opened not they their mouth;' but 'committed their cause to him that judges righteously,' and who has said, 'vengeance is mine, and I will repay it.'3 "None of us," says Cyprian to the 'Orat. de laudib. Constant. c. vii. p. 622. 2 Epist. 83, p. 161. 3 Isai. liii. 7; Acts, viii. 32; Rom. xiii. 36; xii. 19. governor, "when apprehended makes resistance, nor revenges himself for that unjust violence, that you offer to us. We patiently acquiesce in the assurance of a future vengeance; knowing for certain that whatever we now suffer shall not remain unpunished; for never was any wicked attempt made against Christians, but a divine vengeance was soon at the heels of it."1 But though they thus resolutely stood to it, when the honour of their religion lay at stake, yet it must not be denied that in some cases they held it lawful and convenient to fly in times of persecution. Tertullian indeed in a book purposely written on this subject maintains it to be simply and absolutely unlawful for Christians to fly at such a time: an assertion which, with all the subtleties of his wit, and the flourishes of his African eloquence he endeavours to render fair and plausible.* But, besides the strictness and rigid severity of the man at all times, this book was composed after his complying with the sect of the Montanists, whose peculiar humour it was to outdo the orthodox by overstraining the austerities of religion, as appears not only in this, but in the case of marriages, fasts, penances, and such-like. Otherwise before his espousing those opinions he seems elsewhere to speak more favourably of shunning persecution. But whatever he thought in the case, it is certain the generality of the Fathers were of another mind; that Christians might and ought to use prudence in this affair, and at sometimes withdraw to avoid the storm when it was coming, especially in these two cases: 1 Ad Demetrian. p. 202. 2 Lib. de fug. in persecut. 3 De patient. c. xiii. p. 147. |