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STUDIES
Of
Church History,
mr
REV. REUBEN PARSONS, D. D.
That a theologian should be well versed in history. Is shown by the fauj of those who, through ignorance of history, have fallen Into
error Whenever we theologians preach,
argue, or explain Holy Writ, we enter the do- main of history.— ”
mxlchior Camus, Lot. ThtoiL , B. XI., c. &
■VOX.. X.
OENTUKIKS I. -VIII.
Second Edition.
FR. PUSTET & CO.,
NEW YORK AND CINCINNATI.
lOOO
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imprimatur :
* MICHAEL AUGUSTINUS,
Archiepiscopus Neo- E boracensis.
Coptbight, 1886,
KEY. REUBEN PARSONS, D. D.
W4* 1 8 19J5
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V ■ \ BRIEF OF APPROBATION
FROM HIS HOLINESS, POPE LEO Tin.
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Dileoto Fmo, Beuben Parsons,
Presbytero Neo-Eboracensi :
DILECTE FHI, SALUTEM ET APOSTOUCAM BENEDICTIONEM !
Senis voluminibus quce nuper edita ad Nos misisti , duplicem assequutus es laudem , et utramqe merito ; alteram alacris ingenii magnceque eruditionis , alteram incensi studii ad Catholicum Nomen ah osorum calumniis vindicandura . Mens tibi in operoso labor e exantlando ea unice fuit9 ut , depulsis erroribus ex historia qucesitis9 facilius qui dissident ad Catholica Sacra adducantur. Hanc tibi mentem , Dilecte Fill, fortunet Deus ! Nihil enim optatius Nobis est quam ut omnes unico Christi ovili , quotquot Ejus Sanguine redempti su?it, contineantur. Quo vero officii gratiam rependamus , Apostolicam Benedictionem Nostram , tibi caritatis testem , amantissime impertimus.
Datum Romos apud S. Petrum die XX. Maii , Anno MCMI., Pontificatus Nostri Anno vicesimo quarto.
{ TRANSLATION .)
To Our Beloved Son, Beuben Parsons,
Priest of the Archdiocese of New York :
Beloved Son : Health and Apostolic Blessing !
For the six volumes which you have recently published, and which you have sent to Us, you have received two encom- iums, both of which you have deserved ; one because of your spirited talent and great erudition, the other because of your fervent zeal in defense of the Catholic cause from audacious calumny. In the execution of your laborious design, you have had only one object in view ; namely, such a refutation of historical errors as would impel separatists to enter into the Catholic Fold. May God second your endeavors, dear son ! Nothing is nearer to Our heart than the hope that the One Fold of Christ may soon shelter all who have been redeemed by His Blood. And now, mindful 6f the privilege of Our office in your regard, we accord Our Apostolic Bless- ing to you most lovingly, as a testimony of our affection for you.
Given at St. Peter’s in Borne on the Twentieth Day of May, in the Year MCML, the Twenty-fourth Year of Our Pontificate.
Leo PP. XTTL
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APPROBATION OF
MT. REV. MICHAEL AUGUSTINE CORRIGAN, D.D. ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK.
ABOHBISHOP’8 HOUSE,
New York, Jan. 22, 1901.
Rev. Dear Doctor :
Permit me to congratulate you most sincerely on the successful completion of the Herculean task of publishing your “ Studies In Church History.” The six ample volumes which, under this modest title, embody the results of your labors, will remain a monument of your zeal, your great learning, and your unflinching perseverance. Im - probu8 labor omnia vincit . In these volumes you offer light and valuable guidance regarding all the knotty questions and controverted points of Church History ; and you supply an arsenal whence may be drawn unfailingly ammunition for the defence of the Church against oft-repeated calumnies and mis- statements of facts. Moreover, with this wealth of erudition in vindicating the truth, there runs through the entire work a beautiful docility to the See of Peter — in fine, that Roman spirit which is like a sixth sense, instinctively pointing to what is right, and guarding from error. While I felicitate you on the accomplishment of the greatest literary work ever undertaken by a priest of this Diocese, I thank you for the good example which you have thereby given to your Breth- ren in the Clergy ; and I trust that it may stimulate others to devote their talents and their leisure to promoting the greater glory of Him who is the Immortal King of Ages, and the World’s Redeemer.
1 am, my dear Doctor,
Very faithfully yours,
Abp. of New York,
Rev. Db. Parsons,
Yonkers, N. Y.
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PREFACE.
Of all branches of history, none is* so pregnant with mat- ter for controversy as that which treats of the career of the Church ; none excites such wide-spread interest, or causes such intense feeling. “ Theological hate ” is proverbially strong ; and it influences the person of superior culture as effectively as it does one of ordinary attainments. To all who are animated by this sentiment, ecclesiastical history furnishes teen and powerful weapons. But to those who are actuated by simple yearning for truth, to those who feel that the career of a society must show whether it be of God or of m m, this branch of science is of first importance. In our day, especially, appeals to ecclesiastical history are not merely of last resort— certain thinking men are influenced by its lessons when they ignore other authority in religious matters, agreeing with Fenelon that “He is profoundly ig- norant of the nature of religion, who does not perceive that she is all historical ” ( Education c. vi).
In publishing the following dissertations, we are act- uated by a desire to supply a want in our English eccle- siastical literature. Histories of the Church we have in abundance, but no one work which treats exhaustively, and nearly exclusively, of the many controverted points which are of interest alike to Catholic, Protestant, and in- cfedulist. We claim no merit for having thrown new light upon subjects, many of which have been fully illustrated by master-minds, whose writings are familiar to the ex- perienced ; but zeal and conscientiousness have united in an endeavor to lessen the labors of the student in a most
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PREFACE.
important branch of ecclesiastical lore. We are not with- out hope that our pages will be read witli interest and profit by many of the Catholic laity, as well as by many of our separated brethren ; for while we have not designed to produce a “ popular ” book, it would have been difficult, in a just treatment of the subject matter, to confine ourselves more carefully to the vernacular, and to avoid more rigidly the technicalities of theologians and canonists. All may not be pleased with the numerous references and quotations, which they may deem an encumbrance to the page ; but it seemed injudicious, if not absurd, to expect the reader to receive, on the author’s unsupported authority, citations and assertions which might affect, and sometimes wound, one’s prejudices. During the course of our disquisitions we are too frequently compelled to rebuke such presump- tion. Again, the experienced student will appreciate the method adopted, and will not regard it as an affectation of erudition. He knows that by referring to the designated authority, he will derive, in the majority of instances, ad- ditional and valuable information concerning the matter treated in the text.
We issue our work as a sincere, albeit inadequate, token of our devotion to that Roman Church which the light of his- tory reveals to us as One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic ; as the True Spouse of Our Lord Jesus Christ, solely intrusted by the Divine Master with the deposit of truth, which she is to guard and communicate until the end of time.
New York,
Feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Rome, 1886.
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STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY.
CHAPTER L
THE ROMAN PONTIFICATE OF SAINT PETER THE APOSTLE.
The occupant of the Papal chair may be regarded in four different ways. He is pastor of the Universal Church, patri- arch of the West, bishop of Rome, and a temporal sovereign. As ruler of the Pontifical States, most Protestants would prefer his deposition, simply because they are averse to any- thing which adds to the dignity of his position. As bishop of Rome, the Schismatics of the East and the Anglicans are willing to recognize him ; dissenting Protestants are willing he should be so styled, so long as his diocesans are content with the episcopal system. As patriarch of the West, the oriental Schismatics readily acknowledge him, while Protes- tants scarcely know of the title. But when the Pontiff asserts his authority as supreme pastor of Christendom, then all the separatist bodies, schismatical and heretical, prelatic and anti-prelatic, unite in rejecting his words. This office of Head of the Church is claimed by the Pope as -the suc- cessor of St. Peter. The adversary of the Papacy, who devotes his energies to the undermining of this position, is so far logical, and he manifests an appreciation of the value of time. Could the Pontiff be dislodged from it, there would be left him no vantage-ground, the occupation of which would enable him to retrieve his loss. Now, the simplest way of proving that the bishop of Rome is not the successor of St. Peter, is not by showing that he has no legitimate title of succession, riot by contending that the wickedness or even heresy of his predecessors entailed a forfeiture of that suc- cession ; but by establishing, as a stubborn and eloquent
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fact, that St. Peter himself, the presumed source of the Pa- pal claims, never was bishop of Rome — in fine, that he never was in the Eternal City. In many and various ways, the ad- versaries of Rome have endeavored to prove this, and the object of the present dissertation is to show that the Prince of the Apostles did proceed to Rome, and that he there founded his Primatial see.
The first to cast doubt upon St. Peter’s coming to Rome was Marsilius of Padua, a partisan of Louis the Bavarian, and excommunicated as a schismatic and heretic by an express Bull of Pope John XXII. in 1327. From his time to that of the Lutheran movement we meet no author of note who held such a view. The antiquarian Leland (d. 1557), among his many ways of pleasing his patron, Henry YIII., chose the publication of the adverse opinion. The rank and file of Protestant writers have either absolutely denied the Roman Pontificate of St. Peter, or have affected to regard it as du- bious. There are not wanting, however, Protestant authors who defend our thesis, and they are among the most celebra- ted of tlieir class. Such are Pearson, Usher, Young, Ham- mond, Blondel, Basnage, J. Scaliger, Grotius, Casaubon, Leclerc, Sir Isaac Newton, Leibnitz, Chamier, Papp, Ittig, Schrokh, Bertlioldt. Neamler, Gieseler, and even the Centu- riators of Magdeburg. The younger Scaliger contradicts himself in this matter, for while in his Annotations to th r 18th Chapter of the Apoeahjpse he asserts that no instructed person will believe in the voyage of St. Peter to Rome, he contends against Eusebius (1) that the Apostle came to Rome, not in the fourth year of Claudius, but in the second. Basnage ( 2) and Leclerc (3) agree that assent cannot be refused to the testimonies in favor of the Roman voyage, that only some objections of a chronological nature can be presented, and that the martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul, in the reign of Nero, is an incontestable fact. But they hold that. St. Peter was no more bishop of Rome than of any other place, and that there are stronger reasons for supposing St. Paul to have been bishop of the Eternal City, than there are for St. Peter’s having exercised that office. We shall treat of this.
(1) Animadversion* (m the Chronicle of Eusebius. (2) History, />. 7, c. 3. (3) Year 168, » ^
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matter when we have established the reality of the Roman voyage. Hugo Grotius, than whom Protestants can produce few more learned writers, says (1), “As regards Babylon, there is a controversy between the ancient and modern inter- preters. By it the ancients understand Rome, where no true Christian will doubt Peter to have been; the moderns hold that by it is meant Babylon of Chaldea. I agree with the ancients.” Neander (2) says that it would be “ hyper- critical to doubt the tradition of Christian antiquity, that Peter was in Rome.” Among Catholic authors, Pagi, Pape- brock, Baluze, Valois, Calmet, Alexandre, and many others, dispute as to the precise year of St. Peter’s arrival in Rome, but all agree that he came there, established there the Prima- cy, and there suffered martyrdom.
We contend that the following events are asserted and be- lieved to have happened, on as convincing grounds as those upon which rests any undisputed fact in history. After the ascension of our Lord, Simon Bar-Jona (son of John), to whom Christ had given the name of Peter, having preached the Gospel in many places of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, went to Antioch in the year 36, and there established an episcopal see. In the year 42, the second of Claudius, he came to Rome, and there definitively fixed his Priraatial see, suffering martyrdom in the twenty-fifth year of his Roman Pontificate, namely, in the year 66. No one disputes the voyage to Antioch, for nothing is to be gained by so doing. As for the Apostle’s presence in Rome, the first witness we call is St. Peter himself. In his first Epistle, chap. 5, he says : “ The Church that is in Babylon . . . saluteth you,” in which place, we contend, Rome is understood by Babylon, in accordance with that figurative mode of signifying, by that name, any great but wicked city, which is in vogue even in our own day. So this passage of St. Peter was under- stood by Papias, a disciple of the Apostles, for he says, 44 Peter mentions this Mark in the first Epistle which he is said to have written at Rome ; which Epistle he indeed shows to have been written there, when, by a translation of
(1) On the 5th Chapter of St. Peter's 1st Epistle.
(2) General History of the Christian Religion and Church , v. 1, p. 1.
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the word, he calls that city Babylon. ”(1) That the Apostles sometimes designated Rome by the name of Babylon, we learn from St. John’s Apocalypse, for, in chap. 17, great Baby- lon is said to sit upon seven hills, and to hold sway over the kings of the earth. Now, in St. John’s time, no other widely-ruling city than Rome was built upon seven hills. But why did St. Peter call Rome by the name of Babylon? Why does any man use figurative language? we may retort. But there was a reason, in the Apostle’s case, for not men- tioning the place of his residence. He had just escaped from his prison in Jerusalem, and it was prudent, lest his letter should fall into the hands of his enemies, to disguise the name of the place whence it went. (2) Again, it was advisa- ble that the quick increase of the Christian numbers in the capital should not be known, lest the emperor Claudius, who studied to please Agrippa, should more severely persecute them. But if, by Babylon, the Apostle did not mean Rome, from what city did he write his letter? Our adversaries answer, the real Babylon. In those days, there were two places of that name, one in Assyria and one in Egypt. Now, the Babylon of the text cannot be theBabylon of the Assyr- ians, for we know from Josephus (3) that, a few years before this time, the Jews had all — to a man — been either killed, or expelled from the city. Nor could the Babylon of Egypt have been the place of St. Peter’s residence at the time he wrote his Epistle . That Babylon, we learn from Strabo (4), was a small and insignificant place, not worthy the name of town or village, for it is styled a castle. The letter in question speaks of a flourishing church, which would certainly imply a place of some note. (5)
(1) In Eusebius : History , b. 2, c. 14. (2) St. Luke used the same economy, when. In the Acts, he said that St. Peter went to another place.
(3) Antiquities, b. 18. (4) Book 17.
(5) During the first five centuries of the Christian era, not one author understands any 'Other place than Rome by the Babylon of the text. Among those who explicitly declare that St. Peter wrote his Epistle at Rome, we cite Tertulllan ( Against the Jews, c. 9) ; Clem- ent of Alexandria ( Institutions , b. vL, in Eusebius, b. 2, c. 15) ; Eusebius, ibid ; St. Jerome, ( Ecclesiastical Writ ax'!. Those who believe that St. Peter was "bishop of Babylon in Chal- dea, should remember that it has always been the tradition of the Chaldeans that their first bishop was St. Thomas the Apostle, who, after six years of administration, was succeeded by Addeus or Thaddeus. In the Catalogue of Chaldean patriarchs , first published in the West by Assemani, and continued to our own days by G Uriel (Rome, 1860), we find the -name of St. Thomas at the head. We may also cite Martin Luther's opinion In our favor
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St. Paul furnishes us with, if not a positive argument, at least a good reason for supposing the presence of St. Peter in the Eternal City. In his Epistle to the Romans, written, says the Protestant Paley, in the year 53, he speaks of the Church as being in a flourishing condition in Rome. Some one of the Apostles had therefore preached the Gospel there several years before the advent of St. Paul. There are no traces of any other Apostle than Peter having been there, while the Biblical indie itions point at least to his presence. Again, St. Mark, a disciple of St Peter, wrote his Gospel at Rome. St. Clement of Alexandria, in his Hyputiposeon , says, 4i When Peter had publicly preached the word of God in the city of Rome, and, filled with the Holy Ghost, had promul- gated the Gospel, many who were present requested Mark, as one who had but lately followed Peter, and had his sayings by memory, that he would write down that which the Apostle had preached.” Therefore, St. Peter was at Rome. ( 1 )
Our adversaries particularly insist upon the silence of St. Paul as to St. Peter, when he writes to the Romans. Wrhen saluting so many by name, he would not have omit- ted a remembrance to Peter, had he been in Rome. And nevertheless, when St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he did not salute their bishop, Timothy ; when he wrote to the Hebrews, he made no mention of St. James, who was bishop of Jerusalem. When Theodoret, a most critical investiga- tor, commented upon this Epistle, far from concluding from it that St. Peter never went to Rome, he noted, in his first chapter, that St. Paul speaks of “confirming” the faith of the Romans, because St. Peter had already preached the Gospel to them. “ Because the great Peter, ” says Theo- doret, “had first given them the Gospel, he necessarily said
for one of his attacks on the Roman Church Is entitled “ The Captivity of Babylon.” An- other reason for refusing to recognize the Chaldean city as the Babylon of the text, may be found in the utter silence of Scripture and of all ecclesiastical writers as to St. Peter’s ever having passed the Euphrates.
(1) The following writers also assert that St. Mark was a faithful disciple of St. Peter, and that he wrote his Gospel at Rome, with the approval of the Apostle : Irenaeus (Here- tics, b. 3, c. 1), Origen ( Commentary on Matthew, in Eusebius, b. 2, c. 25), Tertullian (Mar- cion, IV., 5), Jerome (Isaias, LXV., 24), Epiphanlus (Heresies, 46), Theodoret (Epistle 86, to Flavian).
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* to confirm you.’ For he says, 1 1 do not wish to bring you another doctrine, but to confirm that already given, and to water the tree already planted.’” But there was a good reason why St. Paul did not salute the Prince of the Apos- tles in this Epistle ; he was absent from Rome at the time. We know, from Suetonius and Josephus, that in the 9th year of Claudius, that is, in the year of our Lord, 50, the entire Jewish population had been sent into exile. The next year was that of the Council of Jerusalem, at which St. Peter presided. He did not return to Rome un- til after the death of Claudius, in the year 54. Now, St. Paul's Epistle was written at Corinth, shortly after the Council, as he passed through that city, on his last visit ta Jerusalem (1). Therefore, he, quite naturally, made no al- lusion to St. Peter. A very interesting argument against the Roman Pontificate of St. Peter is drawn from the Bi- ble, as follows : If Peter was at Rome when St. Paul ar-
rived, the latter was very injurious to the former, or else we must say that St. Peter behaved in a very unchristian- like manner to his co-apostle. For, St. Paul, writing from Rome to the Philippians, says ( Chap . 2) that there they all look after their own affairs, not those of Christ ; and ho says to Timothy that all abandoned him to his own de- fence when he was arrested. Further, when St. Paul was entering Rome (Acts, 28), the brethren went out to meet* him, as far as the Three Taverns, but there was no St. Peter among them. To this reasoning we may say, with Alexandre, that we do not' contend that St. Peter was^ always in Rome, that he was faste i^d there like Prome- theus on Caucasus. His very v'ti. e entailed upon him the necessity of travelling considerably, leaving the care* of the Roman Christians to his vicars, from time to time. But. with regard to the argument tasen from Philij >- pians, the context shows that the Apostle only alludes to those whom lie could have sent on his errand ; certainly, he could not have sent Peter as a messenger : “ And I hope-
(1) That St. Paul’s Epistle to the Homans was written at Corinth, shortly after the Coun- cil of Jerusalem (year 51), Is proved hy Origen with the following arguments. It was sent by the hands of Phoebe, a deaconess of Cenehris, a suburb of Corluth. The Apostle calls Cains, who was living at Corinth, his host. In the salutations of ('hap. 16, h* -*»eaks of hla. companions In the Jerusalem journey, who were with ’dm at Corinth.
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in tlie Lord Jesus to send Timothy unto you shortly, that I also may be of good comfort, when I know the things con- cerning you. For I have no man so of the same mind, who with sincere affection is solicitous for you.’* In writing to Timothy, the saint complains of being abandoned by those who might have helped him with Caesar, and among those St. Peter is not to be counted, for he was placed in the same danger as St. Paul. Another objection is founded on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, 1 and 2, where the Apostle makes no mention of having conversed with St. Peter in Pome, although he tells us of their having met at Jerusa- lem and at Antioch. But such mention could not be made in an Epistle which was written before St. Paul's visit to Pome. He arrived in Rome in the year 59, and the Epis- tle to the Galatians was composed at Epln sus in 57, as is shown by the journey of the saint, and by the arguments prefixed to the Epistle in the Latin codices.
The silence of St. Luke, in his history ol ihe Apostles, is also adduced by our adversaries to prove that St. Peter was never in Pome. But this silence is easily explained, and in such a way as to show that it in no way favors our oppo- nents. St. Luke's principal object was the narration of the Acts of his preceptor, St. Paul, and not those of the other Apostles. With the exception of those events which hap- pened between the death of Christ and the conversion of St. Paul, which he narrates as a kind of introduction to his main purpose, and Peter’s conversion of < .u nolius, which was the commencement of the vocation of . ** Gentiles, to which St. Paul was specially called, St. L ke, in the whole course of his history, makes no mention any of the other Apostles, unless where St. Paul is concern* 1. He is silent even as to St. Paul s journey to Jerusal * ^ see St. Peter ;
lie says nothing of the meeting of the t -v Antioch, and
nothing of St. Paul’s journey to Galatia. * den noting this silence of St Luke, St. Jerome did not * i d it as an ar- gument against St. Peters residence at P i » ; on the con- trary, be contended that, because it wa - n tain that St. Peter resided both at Antioch and at Rome, therefore it was manifest that the author of the Acts omitted many things.
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Speaking of tlie dissension between the two Apostles upon the legal observances, the great doctor says, in his first book on Galatians , treating of the second chapter, “ It is not strange that Luke is silent as to this matter, since he used the license of a historiographer to omit many other things which Paul performed ; and there is no contradiction, if what one man thinks proper to relate, another leaves aside. We know that Peter was the first bishop of Antioch, and that afterwards he removed to Rome, a fact which Luke al- together omitted/'
St. Clement of Rome, who became Pontiff about the year 90, was a disciple of St. Peter. In an epistle which he wrote to the Corinthians shortly after the persecution of Domitian, commemorating the glorious sufferings of the Roman Christians, he says, ‘‘ Let us place the glorious Apostles before our eyes. Peter did not undergo one or two, but many, sufferings, on account of wdcked jealousy ; and being made a martyr, he departed to the merited place of glory. Tij rough emulation, Paul obtained the reward of patience . . . and coming to the far West, suffered mar- tyrdom under the princes, and migrated from the world. . . To these heroes, who entered upon divine life, was joined a great multitude of the elect, who, suffering in rivalry many contumelies and many torments, were a beautiful example among us.” The authority of St. Clement is of indispu- table historical value, and is readily accepted as such by Pearson, Junius, Basnage, and other Protestants. But some regard his testimony as defective, inasmuch as he does not explicitly state that St. Peter died at Rome. But it is certain, in the first place, that St. Clement’s letter was written in Rome, for the inscription leaves no doubt on the matter, and as such it was regarded by Dionysius of Cor- inth, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. The saint speaks of the great sufferings which had been undergone by his people, and which served as a beautiful example to all , among these sufferings, he places those of Sts. Peter and Paul, and the whole context shows that the “ great multi- tude ” and the two Apostles wrere martyred in the same place and about the same time. He speaks of St. Paul “ com-
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ing to the far West ” to be martyred “under the princes,” and in such close connection is this remark with that upon St. Peter, that the latter’s presence in the far West, and his suffering under the princes, are fully implied. The “ great multitude” of Roman martyrs is “joined ” not only to St. Paul, suffering in the far West, but to “ these heroes,” of whom, he tells us, St. Peter was one. Tiie context seems — to us, at least — so plainly indicative of the martyrdom in Rome of both the Apostles, that an attempt to render it more clearappears as unnecessary as it is futile. (1) We have already read the testimony of Papias, bishop of Hierapo- lis, in connection with the belief that St. Mark wrote his Gospel at Rome, at the dictation of St. Peter. Papias was a contemporary of St. John the Evangelist, and probably his disciple, and when he tells us that St. Peter wrote his first Epistle in Rome, his assertion should not be rashly contemned.
St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, was a pupil of St. Poly- carp, a disciple of St. John. In his work on Heresies , b. 3, c. 1, he says, “ But because it would take too long a time to- enumerate, in this volume, the successions of all the churches, we will confound all who, in any way, gather out- side the vineyard, by indicating the Apostolic tradition, and the faith preached to men, and handed down to us by the succession of bish* ps of the greatest, and most ancient, and most noted Church, that one founded and established in Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul.” Caius, a Roman priest who lived at the end of the second, and in the beginning of the third century, is quoted by Eusebius, Hist., />., 2, c. 15, as saying, “ I, however, can show the monuments of the Apostles. For, whether you go to the Vatican, or along the Ostian Way, you will meet the monuments of those who founded that Church.” The testi-
(1) Pearson, Anglican bishop of Chester (d. 1686), answers tills objection by asking how Ciement could have asserted the martyrdom of St. Peter, if he was ignorant of the place where it occurred, as the objection implies. How did he know that the Apostle sulTered on ac- count of his own zeal, and the Jealousy of his enemies? Clement therefore knew that the martyrdom took place at Rome, but did uot expressly state the fact, as there was no ne- cessity for so doing, it being too notorious to demaud mention when the text did not require it. This purely negative argument is so puerile, that a scholar of the calibre of Saumaise (its author) would not be expects to adduce it. Were we to write a eulogy of the late- Pope Pina IX., and not state that he died at Rome, it would not be said that we were igno- rant cf the place of his death.
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raony of Tertullian (b. 150) is remarkably clear (1). “ Come, then, you who wish to better satisfy your curiosity in the affair of your salvation ; look around the Apostolic Church, in which the very chairs of the Apostles yet hold their places, and in which their own authentic letters are yet re- cited, sounding the voice, and representing the face of each one of them. If Achaia is near you, you have Corinth; if you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi and Tliessalonica ; if you can trip it to Asia, you have Ephesus ; if you are in the neighborhood of Italy, you have Rome, whence we, too, have authority in readiness. How happy is that Church upon which the Apostles poured the whole doc- trine with their blood; where Peter shared the passion ot the Lord, where Paul was crowned !” And (2) Nero first shed blood upon the growing faith in Rome. Then was Peter led by another, when he was fastened to the cross.” Again (3), 44 Let us hear what the Romans say, they to whom Peter and Paul left the Gospel sealed with their blood.” And (4) 44 Nor does it matter anything t q those whom John immersed in the Jordan, and Peter in the Tiber.” Eusebius, in B. 2, c. 24, gives us a very clear testimony of Dionysius of Corinth, who died :n the second century, and is often confounded with the Areopagite. In an epistle to the Romans, the holy bishop says, “ By a certain impulse of prudence, you have placed in one spot Peter and Paul, who first brought the Romans and the Corinthians into the Church of Christ. For both, when they had founded our Church of Corinth, and yours of Rome, and had indoctrinated our souls and yours with the same doctrinal precepts, at the same time suffered martyrdom.” Hegesippus, who lived in the first half of the .second century, and must have known some of the disciples of the Apostles, says (5), “ And returning, he came back to the city, and being taken by the persecutors, was sentenced to the cross. He requested that he might be affixed to the cross head downwards, because he was unworthy to suffer in the same manner as the Son of God; this having been granted, either that the prediction of Christ might be fulfill-
(1) Prescriptions, c. 26. (2) Scorpiace , c. 15. (8) MarcUm, b. 4, c. 5. (4) Baptirtn.
(5) Destruction of Jerusalem , c. 1.
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ed, or because a persecutor is not unwilling to allow an in- crease of torture, lie was killed by tlie cross, and Paul by the sword.” Julian the Apostate may also be cited in favor of our thesis, for St. Cyril of Alexandria tells us, B. 10, that Julian had conjectured that St. John was led to proclaim the Divinity of Jesus “ because lie iound that a large number of persons, in many cities of Greece and Italy ” believed in it, r and because lie had heard “ that the monuments of Peter and Paul, though secretly indeed, were venerated. ** To which assertion of Julian, St. Cyril answers, “ John was not led to say that Christ was God by having seen the veneration paid to the monuments of Peter and Paul.” St* Jerome (1) tells us, “After his episcopacy of the Church of Antioch, and his preaching to those of the dispersion who were con- verted from Circumcision, in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, Simon Peter came to Rome, in the second year of Claudius, to defeat Simon Magus, and there kept his priestly chair for twenty-five years, until the last year of Nero, that is, until the fourteenth.” And again (2),
“ I am joined in communion with your Blessedness, that is, with the Chair of Peter, following no other, unless Christ, before you. Upon that rock I know the Church is built.” Optatus of Milevi (3) says, “ There is a unique Chair, the first in prerogatives. In it first sat Peter,” etc. St. Cyprian (4) writes to Rome that liis opponents “ dare to have recourse to the Chair of Peter, to carry to the principal Church, from which sacerdotal unity is derived, letters from schismatics and the profane, not reflecting that there they are Romans (whose faith was praised by the Apostle), to whom deceit can have no approach.” St. Augustine (5) thus urges a here- tic, “ Even though all, throughout the world, were such as you vainly declare, what has been done for you by the Church of Rome, in which Peter sat, and in which Anasta- sius now presides ? Or by Jerusalem, where James sat, and where to-day John rules ? We are joined in Catholic unity to these, from whom your nefarious frenzy has separated
(1) Ecclesiastical Writers , art. Peter. (2) Epist . 57.
(8) Against Parmenian , b. 2. (4) Epist. 56, to Pope SL Cornelius.
(6) Against the Letters of Petilian the Donat ist, b. 2, c. 61.
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you.” St Prosper (1) sings, “ Whatever Pome, the see of Peter, does not hold by arms, she acquires by religion, being made the source of pastoral honor for the world.” St. Epipha- nius (2) says that “ Peter and Paul were the first Bishops and Apostles of Rome.” Paul Orosius (3) speaking of Claudi- us, says that, in the beginning of his reign, “ Peter, Apostle
of our Lord Jesus Christ, came to Rome From that time
there began to be Christians in Rome.” Lactantius (4) says of Christ and the Apostles, that “ they predicted all which Peter and Paul taught in Rome, and that preaching re- mained fixed in memory. In it, among other wonders, they declared that it would soon come to pass that God would send a ruler who would punish the Jews and level their
cities to the ground And so, after their demise, Nero
having put them to death, Vespasian destroyed the Jewish race and name.” St. Athanasius (5) writes that " Peter also, who had lain hidden for fear of the Jews, and the Apostle j’aul, who had escaped in a basket, when they understood they were to be martyred at Rome, did not refuse the jour-, ney, but rather undertook it with joy.” St. Gregory of Nazianzen (6) says that “Peter and Paul gained their vic- tory in Rome.” The poet Dracontius (7) tells us, “ In order that Rome might not any longer ignore the benefits of Christ, Peter obeyed the divine commands, and, in com- pany with Paul, went thither.” These testimonies, none later than the fifth century, and most of them of an earlier date, ought to convince any candid mind of the historical reality of St. Peter’s residence in Rome. Scarcely one of the cited authors has not spoken to the same purpose in dozens of other passages, and we have quoted but a few of the many who are available for our thesis. The reader may consult the following, also not later, any of them, than the be- ginning of the fifth century, and most of them of the fourth. St Ambrose ( Sermon on Basilicas ), St. John Chrysostom (2 d HomVy on the Acts of the Apostles ), Prudentius (12 th Hymn on the Martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul ), Sulpicius Severus
(1) Poem on “ The Ungrateful." (2) Heretic*. 27. (3) D. 7, c. 4.
(4) Divine Institutions , b. 4, c. 11. (5) Apologu for his Flight. (6) Poem XIT
(7) On God , b. 3, r. 227, etc.
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( History , 6. 2, c. 28), St Paidmus (Poem 19, v. 55, dec .), St, Maximus of Turin (>&rraa7i 61).
We would now draw attention to the ancient Catalogues of the Homan Pod tiffs. The first chronologist in the mat- ter of the Roman succession was Hegesippus, a converted Jew, who, about the year 170, came to Rome for instruction,
• and while there drew up a catalogue of the Popes. “ While I was at Rome,” he says (1), “ I composed a succession down to Anicetus, to whom Eleutherius was deacon. To Anicetus succeeded Soter, and after him came Eleutherius.” It was from this Hegesippus that Eusehius derived his catalogue, and at its head we read the name of St. Peter. The Angli- can Pearson asks, when speaking of Hegesippus (2), why he arranged this succession, more than that of any other city, unless it meant something. Towards the end of the second century, St. Irenaeus also wrote a catalogue, and in it St. Peter holds the first place. The authority of St. Irenaeus is great indeed, for his preceptor was St. Polycarp, a disci- ple of St. John. He tells us (3) that “the Blessed Apostles, founding and instructing the Church, delivered the epis- copal administration to Linus ” The third catalogizer was Tertullian (4), who defied the heretics of his day to prove the Apostolic origin of their sects as did the Roman Church her descent from St. Peter. “Let the heretics,” he says, “ publish the origins of their churches ; let them display the order of their bishops in a flowing succession from the beginning, so that (we may see whether) their first bishop had, for author and predecessor, an Apostle or one of the Apostolic men. For in that manner does the Roman Church show Clement, ordained by Peter.” The fourth chronologist was St. Hippolytus, bishop of Porto, at the end of the second, and beginning of the tli.rd century (5).
(1) In Eusebius, h 4. c. 11. (2) Succession of the First liishops of Home.
(8) Here, it % />. 3, c. 3. (4) Prescriptions, c. 32.
(5) In the year 1842 there wus i’seovered in the monastery of Mt. Attics an anonymous work entitled PhUosuphumemt , *hich was declared by Jacobi, Bunsen, and the Auglican canon Wordsworth, to be from the cand of this saint and martyr. The discovery was of importance to the adversaries of Rome, for the I'hihmrphumcni&t was a bitter enemy c f the Roman Pontiffs Zephyrinus an t Callixtus. But he was soon proved to have been a very different man from the holv bishop of Porto, and to have been a heretic of the third century. One of the most erudite invent (rations in the matter was accomplished by Prof. Torquato Armelllni, of the Roman College, and published in 1862. We allude to the Z7ii- Umphumena , because of the following passage in favor of our thesis. In the 6th Book, the author, speaking of Simon Magus, says tlmt he “ betook himself to Rome, and opposed him- aelf to the Apostles ; he deceived many with his magical arts, but against him Peter mode much resistance.”
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His testimony is found in the catalogue known as the Bu- cherian, from the name of its first editor, and as the Liberian, from the name of the last PontiflF mentioned in it. This catalogue was composed about the middle of the fourth cen- tury, and, according to the Protestant Mommsen, consists of two distinct parts, one ending with Pope Pontianus (y. 235), and another finishing with Liberius. As we know, says Mommsen (1), that the catalogue of St. Hippolytus ended with Pontianus, we may infer that it is the basis of the Liberian. This document begins with these words, “ During the reign of Tiberius Ctesar, our Lord Jesus Christ suffered, on the 8th of the Calends of April, in the Consu- late of the two Gemini ; and after His ascension, the Most Blessed Peter assumed the episcopacy. From that time, is shown by succession who was bishop, how many years he ruled, and under what emperor.” After the Liberian cata- logue comes that of Eusebius, in the Chronicle and in the History ; then that of Optatus, ending with Pope Siricius ; that of St. Jerome, as a continuation of Eusebius; that of St. Augustine, terminating with Anastasius ; that of Victor, edited by Scaliger ; that of St. Prosper, published by Labbe ; that of Marcellin ; that of the time of St. Sylvester; that of Felix IV. ,* that of the Vatican, in the time of St. Gregory the Great. The more modern ones we may omit. In all of these documents, authentic as any ever handled by his- torian or critic, the name of St. Peter invariably heads the list of Roman Pontiffs.
The traveller who has visited Rome with an eye, not bent upon mere sources of pleasure or of distraction, but direct- ed to what cau instruct and improve the intellectual man, must have been impressed with the tradition, so vivid, uni- versal, and absolutely held by the people, of the Roman Pontificate of St. Peter. In a dissertation of this kind, we can do no more, at best, than allude to the monuments of the Eternal City, which, from the earliest days of Christi- anity, have attested and perpetuated this tradition (2).
{DHUtoi'ico-PhiloloQicat Dissertations of the Royal Saron Society of Sciences, vol.' I .
< 2 ) In 1804, the learned Jesuit theologian, the late Prof. John Perrone, published a little book designed for popular, rather than for learned people’s use, entitled *‘.s7. Peter in Rome .” Although meant merely as an antidote to the poisons, then as now, being disseminated in
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Christian Koine has ever been an intellectual, as well as a religious, city. Nor has its intellectual culture been con- fined to the ecclesiastical element of its population ; its liter- ary and artistic history — and it is fuller than that of any other city in the world — shows that the Roman laity, even though guided and encouraged by the clergy, have ever been ! capable of, as they were always inclined to, independent investigation. And ye t this Roman laity, fully as firmly as any of the clergy could wish, have always believed in the authenticity of the traditions connected with their “ holy places,” as they call, by excellence, the spots sanctified by the blood of the Apostles. Commencing at our own day. and going back to the time when Constantine gave freedom to the church, we find a constant succession of Roman writers proclaiming this belief. Nay, further back than that happy day, even in the midst of the persecutions of the second century, we hear Caius praising the glories of the Vatican and the Ostian Way. Nor are the Romans ever disturbed in their proud confidence of possessing the relics of the Apostles, in the glory that the Roman soil was moistened with their blood. No other place ever claims to have been the site of their martyrdom ; no other place boasts of guard- ing their bodies. On the contrary, from all lands there is a constant succession of pilgrimages, on the part of priest and layman, king and peasant, the learned and the illiterate, to the tombs of the Vpostles. In the second century, we behold Polycarp, Hegesippus, Justin, Irenaeus ; in the third, Origen, Te nullum, Peter of Alexandria. The writ- ings of the first three centuries, Pagan as well as Christian, frequently attest the seizure of persons known as Christians from the fact of their being seen at prayer in the holy places. There was Mauius.an African, who, under Numerian, was taken “at the tombs of the Apostles ” in the year 184, as we read in the ancient Marty rology. Sts. Marius and | Martha, with their sons, Audifax and Abacus, Persians,
the fair land of Italy, there is much in it to repay the siuaent for its perusal. The nutl.or de rotes i-onsiderable space to the arehtcoIoB’ioal proofs of St. Peter’s presence In Rome. :uid OfwWs particular attention to the sarcophagi, cc.ncterlal vims, inscriptions, Ac., which n. i> studied in the catacombs and various museums. These objects have an eloquence pecul- l%r to themselves, and while primarily serving to confirm the faith of the devout Catholic, necessarily command the notice of the archteo legist, and the student of history.
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were captured while “at prayer/’ and when interrogated by Claudius, they declared that they had ** come to pray to the servants and Apostles of Jesns Christ.” St. Paternus, coming from Alexandria, was arrested by the tribune under the same circumstances (1). So were Sts. Tranquillinus and Zoe (2). And this devotion to the tombs of the Apostles has never grown torpid in the course of time. While in the early ages, we discover an emulation in the work of praising the Apostles. R^ad the words of Athanasius, Greg- ory, Chrysostom, Germanus, in the East, and of Cyprian, Augustine, Fulgentius. Hilary, Prudentius. Isidore, in the West ; we find that the succeeding centuries are no less fer- vent in the task. It was this firm persuasion that the Ro- man Pontiff was the successor of St. Peter, that caused Constantine, Theodosius, Gratian, and Valentinian, to give such splendid proofs of affectionate veneration for the Holy See. Equally devout to Rome, because equally persuaded of her splendid prerogatives, were Clodoveus, Pepin, and Charlemagne, of the Franks; Otho and Henry in the new Empire ; Ina, Offa. and Aidulphus, among the Saxons ; De- metrius of Russia ; Bertrand of Provence; Aiphonsus ol Portugal. It would be superfluous to enumerate the more modern sovereigns who distinguished themselves by theii veneration for the “ Confession of St. Peter.” And as for pil- grimages to the Roman shrines, their antiquity and univer- sality are too well known to need more than allusion (3).
It has been asserted that the ambition of the Roman See gave rise to the opinion that St. Peter was its founder. In that case, the ambition is certainly as old as the See itself, as is shown by the testimonies already adduced. But, if Rome propagated and nourished tha! opinion, when there was no historical foundation for it, how comes it that, in the olden times, there was no one to rebuke such audacity? Not one of the ancient heretics, so hotly pressed by the au- thority and prestige of the name of St. Peter, ever alleged that Rome had no right to invoke tli t name. Not one of the ancient patriarchates ever presumed to dispute Rome's
(1) Bollandists; v. 4, August. (2) Idem , r. 2. July .
(3) Tbe old ScLron Chronielr remarks, as an extraordinary fact, that. In the year 689, no pilgrims went to Rome, and Alfred’s letters had to be sent by messengers.
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precedence on the ground that her Pontiff was not the suc- cessor of St. Peter. Even the proud church of Constanti- nople, in her most arrogant moments, never contested the historical claims of Rome, as deduced from the Prince of the Apostles. In the height of their frenzy, some of the Byzan- tine schismatics held that Rome had lost her supremacy on account of the “ heresy ” touching the Holy Ghost ; certain others claimed that Rome’s jurisdiction had accrued to the " New Rome,” on the transfer thereto of the imperial govern- ment. But none of the would-be “cecumenicals” ever alleg- ed that Rome had falsely presented herself as heiress of St. Peter’s authority. Again, it is a noteworthy fact that, of all the noted writers of the first three centuries, who attest St. Peter’s coming to Rome, nearly all are Orientals ; very few belong to the West, still fewer are Romans. Orientals were Ignatius, Papias, the Author of the “Apostolic Con- stitutions,” Dionysius of Corinth, Hegesippus, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Caius, Origen, Firmilian, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem. Of the West- ern testimonies, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, and Optatus, were Africans ; Lactantius may have been an Italian, but he was certainly no Roman ; Philaster of Brescia was probably a Spaniard. There remains then, among all these witnesses, only one who was certainly a Roman, Pope Clement I. This preponderance of foreign testimony would certainly indi- cate some other origin than Roman ambition for the asser- tion we defend.
Many historical writers have lamented the fact of their being so frequently obliged to wrestle with difficulties of chronology. Few suffer so much from this matter as he who devotes himself to ecclesiastical history. To say noth- ing of the chronological mysteries of the Old Dispensation, one is taken aback on being confronted by such, at the very outset of one’s investigations into the history of the New. And yet, because learned critics cannot satisfy him as to the precise year in which Christ was born, the student does not rush to the conclusion that the Word did not become man. So, in the matter of the present question of St. Peter’s Roman Pontificate, our adversaries should not claim a verdict be-
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cause our witnesses differ as to the date of St. Peter’s arrival in the Eternal City. It is true that Lactantius asserts that the Apostle entered Rome “ during the reign of Nero ; ” that Orosius assigns as the date, “ the beginning of the reign of Claudius ; ” that St. Jerome puts it down as “ the second year of Claudius ; ’* that the Book of Dotes ascribes it to the fourth year of the same. But the dissension among these authors, Lactantius excepted, is more apparent than real. Is not the “ second year of Claudius ” of St. Jerome very easily reconciled with the “ beginning of the reign” assigned by Orosius (1) ? The erudite have no confidence in the chronological authority of the Book of Dotes. As for Lac- tantius, he is alone in his opinion, but he is as firm as any other author in the assertion that St. Peter was martyred at Rome. His words are (2), “ During the reign of Nero, Peter came to Rome, and having performed, by the power of God, certain miracles, he converted many to justice, and established for God a faithful and permanent temple. When Nero heard of this, and learned that, not only at Rome, but everywhere, multitudes were abandoning the worship of the idols and, despising antiquity, were passing to the new religion, execrable and cruel tyrant as he was, he rushed to the destruction of the heavenly temple, and to the abolition of justice, and becoming the first persecutor of the servants of God, he fastened Peter to the cross, and also killed Paul.”
Claude de Sauwaise (3j contended that St. Peter could never have been in Rome, because St. Paul declares that he himself was the Apostle of the Gentiles, while St. Peter was accredited to the children of the Circumcision. Alexan- dre allows St. Jerome to answer this difficulty Commenting upon the text, Got., c. 2, r. 7, 8, and 9, the holy doctor says, “ Did Peter therefore, when he met any Gentiles, not lead them to the faith ? And if Paul encountered any of these
(1) The arrival of SI. Peter In Home during the second year of Claudius. Is assfitwl by Eusebius (Chi on ivh \ St. Jer-rn » • < innt h Writer*. A Mo of Vienne ( Mnrt i/mbum) . with them agree those who say the \;m Ce was martyred in Nero’s 14th year, after ruling for 25 years, riz.. Damasus, Isidore, Bede, and others.
(2) Deaths of tin Penn uhn:.
(3) A famous Fretieh Protestant scholar of the 17th century. His “Defense of Charles l.,“ written to please Charlt*s II., then a refugee in Holland, was the occasion of Milton’s Issuing h;s “Defence of the English People.”
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of the Circumcision, did he not impel them to the Baptism of Christ? This question is answered, if we say that eacli (Apostle) received a principal commission in regard to the •Jews and Gentiles ; so that they who defended the Law might have one to follow, and they who preferred Grace to the Law, might not want a teacher, and a forerunner. How- ever, they had this in common, that they should establish a Church for Christ from among all peoples. For we read that the Gentile Cornelius was baptized by St. Peter, and that Christ was very often preached by Paul in the syna- gogue of the Jews.” And does not St. Peter himself answer the objection of Saumaise when he tells his colleagues in the Council of Jerusalem that God had decreed that the Gentiles should hear the Gospel by his mouth (1) ? And even though St. Peter had been commissioned to preach only to the Jews, it by no means follows that he did not go to Rome. We know that the Eternal City contained, at that time, a large Jewish population (2) ; why should not St. Peter have gone there to evangelize it ? But the special credential to the Jews given to St. Peter cannot be understood as imply- ing an exclusion of jurisdiction over the Gentiles. However, as this matter does not, properly speaking, pertain to the historical domain, we shall dismiss it with the remark that no Christian denies the universal jurisdiction of our Lord, and yet He is specially designated as “ Minister of the Circumcision.”
We come now to the nature of the office exercised by our Apostle at Rome. Samuel Basnage, Leclerc, and very many other Protestant authors, contend that, while it is certain that St. Peter died at Rome, it cannot be shown that he was bish- op of that city. Some indeed hold that lie exercised €*pi.s- copal authority, but they uphold, on the part of St. Paul, a
(1) Ads. 15, 7.
(2) Josephus tells us, />. 17, r. 12, that after the death of Herod, when an embassy of the “ Libertine ” synagogue at Jerusalem was sent to Rome, “ more than eight thousand of the Jews in the city received them.” Philo, in his Ltyntum l<> ( Yiimx, testifies that Augustus allowed the Jews 1 6 exclusively occupy a large quarter In the city. Tacitus says that, in the sixth year of Tiberius, four thousand Jews were carried to the island of Sardinia, and the rest ordered to leave Italy unless, by a certain day, they abandoned their religion. After this expulsion, the Jews soon returned to Rome, for after the death of Sejanus, their enemy, Tiberius favored them, t'nder Claudius, they were so numerous that Dio savs the emperor feared to use force against them ; he finally did exj**l them, hut the edict vvas re- voked. perhaps by himself, perhaps by Nero, and under the latter emperor, they were so secure and bappy, that they could publicly celebrate their festivals. See Persius : Satire 5.
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joint jurisdiction. Others go so far as to assert the incom- patibility of the Apostolate with a tenure of a particular episcopal see. There would be some truth in this last as- sertion, if we did not know that when St. Peter’s Apostolic duties called him from his special diocese, he left its care to a vicar (1). In order to prove the Roman episcopacy of St. Peter, it is not necessary to go beyond the testimonies al- ready adduced to prove his residence in Rome, for they nearly all speak of him as Rome’s first bishop. But with regard to the joint jurisdiction claimed for St. Paul, the as- sertion merits special consideration. Many of the fathers seem to regard St Paul as the equal of St. Pete ; and, to this day, the Roman Pontiff issues his decrees, indulgences, <tc., “By the authority of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own.” Again, on the seals of the Pontifical Diplomas, we always find the effigies of the two Apostles, with no discrimination as to the post of honor ; sometimes one is on the right, sometimes the other. All these things appear to show a perfect equality between Sts.Peter and Paul. Indeed, there have been Catholic writers who contended that St. Paul was a colleague of St. Peter in the Roman Episcopacy. We remark, before we proceed to an analysis of these objections, that while some Catholic au- thors have held that St Paul exercised in Rome a co-juris- diction with St. Peter, all agree in the teaching of Pope Innocent X., when, in 1647, he condemned as heretical the proposition asserting tc a perfect equality between St. Peter and St. Paul, without a subordination and subjection of St. Paul to St. Peter, in the supreme power and gov- ernment of the Universal Church” (2). If we carefully attend to the manifest sense of the passages of the fathers which are alleged to assert the equality of the two Apostles, we shall find that they do not militate for our opponents.
(1) Epipiiamts : 7/r resaw, 27.
(2) The First declaration of St. Paul's entire equality with St. Peter seems to have been
made by Claude of Turin, aSpnnir.nl, seated in that episcopal chair In K23, by Louis the Com- pliant. ’ This piclmc is pr *is<*l by end Mosheim as one of th<» forerunners of Prot-
estantism, and in culled bv them the founder of the Waldeases of Piedmont. But if Claude left uny followers in the Piedmontese vsdevs, history makes no mention of them until 1185. Afluln, when Pope Lucius III. condemned the Vsldensian errors, he made no mention of the chief doctrines of Claude, NVstnrlaiilsni.il ml Adoptianlsm. However, we do not deny that Claude was a heretic; for, besides these t vo errors he made war on devotion to the Salute and declared that only a virtuous priest could validly officiate.
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Thus St. Irenaeus (1) is introduced, saying that “ The Roman Church was instituted and founded by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul.” But how does it follow from this that St. Paul was a co-governor of that church, and much less of the Church Universal ? St. Epiphanius (2) tells us that “at Rome Peter and Paul were the first Apostles, as well as Bishops.” Alexandre concedes the truth of this assertion, if it be taken as regarding the local episcopacy of Rome, and that Epi- phanius spoke only of that, and not of the government of the whole Church, is evident from the saint’s object at the time he wrote the words. He wished to show that the par- ticular Church ol Rome had always preserved the purity of doctrine, and that, to learn what was sound teaching, it was only necessary to recur to Rome, which had been indoc- trinated by Sts. Peter and Paul. St. Paul may have been a co- bishop in Rome with St. Peter, on account of his Apostolate, which certainly gave episcopal right and power, but there is nothing in ihe quoted passage of Epiphanius to show that St. Paul was ordinary in Rome, much less that he shared the supreme Pontificate. Nay, the context shows that he regarded St. Peter as the ordinary, for he particularly notes that St. Clement was consecrated by St. Peter. And in an- other place (3), Epiphanius deems St. Paul deserving of eulogy, since “Peter, the prince of the Apostles, who was worthy of receiving the keys of the Kingdom, gave him the right hand.” And the holy father must have been conver- sant with the history of Novatianism and Donatisin, aud one of the most salient facts in the annals of these heresies, is the persuasion of the Romans that no diocese could have two ordinaries. St. Cyril of Jerusalem has also been cited in favor of St. Paul’s co-papacy, it being alleged that he al- ways speaks of the two apostles as “ Heads” of the Church. This is uot correct. The saint uses the word prostata , prel- ate”; and when he speaks of St. Peter by himself, he terms him protoprostata, “ first prelate.” St. John Chrysostom (4) is also brought forward, since he styles both Apostles the “eyes of Rome,” and the “ leaders of the saints.” But cer-
(1) Heresies, c. 3. (2) Heresies, 27. (3) Ancorato. (4) HornUy 82, on Epist. Rom.
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tainly there is here no implication of equal authority. We might call St. Gregory VII. and St. Peter Damian the ‘‘eyes of Rome ” in their day, or St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal the 4 eyes of Savoy,” but no one would accuse us> of investing St Damian with the tiara, or of making the holy Chantal bishop of Annecy. Pope St. Leo I. (1) calls Sts. Peter and Paul 44 the fathers and pastors of the Roman city,” and rightly, but that lie did not recognize them as equals, he proves in the same sermon, when he says that Rome “ has- been made head of the world through the see of Blessed Peter.”
The attempt to make the Roman Pontiffs testify to the equality of authority in Sts. Peter and Paul is no more suc- cessful than the torturing of the fathers to that end. It is true that the Popes style themselves 44 successors of the Blessed Peter and Paul,” but St. Bernard, when addressing his quondam disciple, Eugene III., understood the sense of this expression, when he said 44 Thou art the Prince of Bish- ops ; thou art the heir of the Apostles.” When the Pontiff uses this phrase, he means not a personal succession, which is derived only fiom St. Peter, but a succession to all the rights and privileges of the Apostles, in which sense he is sometimes called the successor of all the Apostles.
The Pontiffs certainly invoke the “authority of Sts. Peter and Paul,” when issuing decrees, etc., but they also invoke that 44 of all the saints in some decrees, the authority 44 of the Blessed Virgin” is mentioned in the same preamble. Patronage, and intercessory power, is here indicated ; not any office of authority. In an epistle of Alexander II. (1061- 1073j, all of these invocations occur ; and, in the decrees, etc., of the more modern Popes, they are all very frequently read. It is plain then that all, that of God, of Mary, of Peter, of Paul, and of all the saints, cannot be adopted as indicating the same authority. Had the Pontiffs ever re- garded themselves as the successors of St. Paul in the same sense as they were of St. Peter, they would have treated the former with the same respect that they gave the latter, that is, not one of them would have presumed to take his.
(1> Sermon l. on the Faint of the .1 fjontle*.
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name. There have been five Popes called Paul, only one Peter. Again, if the Popes are successors of St. Paul, or thought themselves such, the last Pope Paul would have been called not Paul V., but Paul VI.
The argument drawn from the seals of Pontifical docu- ments proves nothing against the undivided Roman episco- pacy of St. Peter. In the first place, the more important documents are sealed with the “ ring of the fisherman,’* which bears only the image of St. Peter. Again, even if the Pontifical seal were always engraved with the image of each Apostle, and with St. Paul always at the right, there could be no conclusion in the premises, for the right is not nec- essarily the post of honor in the Church (1).
Before bringing this dissertation to an end, we would draw attention to some events, in the early history of the Church, which certainly show that our ancestors in the faith were fully persuaded that the Bishops of Rome were the successors of St. Peter. The first event is the famous Paschal controversy which agitated the Church from the days of Pope Anicetus, culminated under Pope Victor I., (193-202), and was finally settled by the Council of Nice. We shall treat this matter in detail in its proper place ; for our present purpose it is sufficient to note that the Roman Pontiffs, following the tradition received from St. Peter, wished that the entire Church should celebrate Easter on the Sunday after the 14th moon of the Spring equinox, whereas the churches of Asia Minor, following, they alleg- ed, the instructions of St. John, ate the Paschal lamb on the evening of the fourteenth day, and kept the feast of the Resurrection three days afterwards. Hence, it came to pass that, when the fourteenth happened to fall on any other day than Thursday, Easter could not be celebrated on Sunday, the proper day. The want of uniformity was productive of scandal, for while one church was feasting, another was clad in the habiliments of woe. The contro- versy, as we shall see, soon approached the region of dog- ma, and it became necessary that Rome should interfere in
(1) For proofs of this non-dlscrimlnatlon of riglu and left, in matter of precedency in the Church, as well as for St. Peter Damian’s opinion as to why St. Paul Is often placed at the right, see Alkxandrk, 1st Cent., Divert. IV., Prop. 4.
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the interests, not only of uniformity, but of truth. Pope Victor ordered Polyerates, Bishop of Ephesus, to convene a Synod of all the bishops of Asia Minor, and to inform them of the Pontifical resolve to excommunicate all recalcitrants in the Paschal matter. Polycrates obeyed. Now, in the supposition of our adversaries, that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of St. Peter, that, in fine, his authority is no greater than that of any other bishop, Polycrates, deeply attached to the Asiatic tradition, would not have obeyed. Who is this foreigner, lie would have properly demanded, in his indignation, that he should dictate to us? Neither he, nor one of his Synodal s, protested against an innovation, a usurpation. Some certainly yielded, in their bitterness of regret at being obliged to abandon their tra- ditions, to human passion, and upbraided the Pontiff , not one contested Rome’s primacy of jurisdiction.
Another event in the history of the early Church, which admirably illustrates our. thesis, is the dispute between Pope St. Stephen (253-257) and St. Cyprian, as to the re- baptism of those baptized by heretics. St. Cyprian, as we shall see, when we come to treat of this subject, was support- ed in his opinion and practice, by the African and Asiatic prelates, and the controversy was extremely bitter. Yet, when the Pontiff decreed the validity of baptism conferred by heretics, provided that the proper form had been used, not one of these bishops told him to attend to his diocese of Rome, and to leave Africa and Asia in peace. They recog- nized Pope Stephen as the successor of St. Peter ; they felt with their leader, when* he wrote of that Apostle (1), “ Upon him alone He built His Church, and ordered him to feed His sheep. And although, after his resurrection, He gave similar power to all the Apostles, and said, ‘As the Father sent me, so I send you. Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them,’ etc. ; nevertheless, that He might manifest unity, He established one Chair, and, by His authority, disposed that the origin of that unity should be derived from one. The other Apostles were cer- tainly that which Peter was, united in an equal society of
(1) St. Cyprian; Unity of the Church.
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Lonor and power. But the beginning takes its course from unity. The Primacy is given to Peter, that the Church of Christ may be shown one, and the Chair one. They are all shepherds ; but the flock is shown to be one, which is fed* with unanimous consent, by all the Apostles. . . .Does he believe that he holds the faith, who does not hold to this unity of the Church ? Does he believe that he is in the Church, who withstands and resists the Church, who de- serts the Chair of Peter, upon which the Church is founded ? ” These fathers of Africa and Asia, who so sympathized with the theory of St. Cyprian, like those who had fought se strenuously for the perpetuation of their Paschal tradition, never for a moment dreamed of contesting the authority of the Roman Pontiff, because they recognized him as the occupant of “that Chair so celebrated by the Fathers, who have rivalled each other in exalting ‘ the principality of the Apostolic Chair, the chief principality, the source of unity, and in the place of Peter, the eminent grandeur of the sacerdotal Chair ; the mother-Church, holding in her hand the guidance of all others ; the source of the episcopacy, from which proceeds the ray of government ; the principal Chair, the unique Chair, in which alone all preserve their unity.’ You hear, in these words St. Optatus, St. Augustine, St. Cyprian, St. Irenaeus, St. Prosper, St. A vitus, Theodoret* the Council of Chalcedon and others, Africa, Gaul, Greece* Asia, the East and the West united together.” (1)
(1) Bosscet; Sermon on the Unity of the Church
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The Church had much to suffer, as we have seen, from the Pagau governments of the earth, and from the ignorant hatred of the Pagan peoples, during the first three centuries of her existence. This suffering was terminated, so far as the Roman Empire was concerned, by the conversion of Con- stantine. There was also another source of trouble which did not terminate with the active influence of Roman Pagan- ism, and which, since God has irrevocably given toman a free will, will not terminate until the end of time. The Pagan per- secutors of the early time killed the bodies of our ancestors in the faith, but the persecutors, of whom we are now about to speak, were killers, says Tertullian, of the truth itself. Her- esy is one of those scandals which must of necessity cross the path of the children of light. So true is this, that the very first generation of Christians found themselves face to face with this far greater agony than any caused them by the Pagan torturer of the body.
Simon, called Magus, from his profession of the art of magic, is the first heretic of whom history makes mention. He was a Goth by blood, but was probably born at Samaria. The people of this town had already begun to venerate him, when he professed the Christian faith, and received baptism at the hands of Philip the Deacon. Having tried to pur- chase the gifts of the Holy Ghost, as we are told in Ads, 8t he became the cause of the Church’s introduction of a new term into her vocabulary — the word “ Simony,” which, un- fortunately, is often met within her history. The doctrines of Simon so team with absurdities, that we would be tempt- ed to deny that any person could have accepted them, were
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it not for the authority of Iren aeus, (1) ; Epiphanius, (2); Cy- ril of Jerusalem. (3) ; and Tliedoret, (4). Thus, he was al- ways accompanied by a Tyrian woman named Helen, who had been a common prostitute, and his followers must have been especially interested in her when they were informed that she was the same Helen who had caused the siege of Troy They seem, however, to have been prepared to swal- low any thing offered by Simon, for they believed him when he declared that it was he who had some years before appear- ed to the Jews in the guise of the Son of God ; that he had descended at Samaria as the Father ; and that the other peo- ples knew him as the Holy Ghost. He also declared that his Helen was the first conception of his divine mind, and the mother of all men ; that the love of the fallen angels for her ' kept her upon earth, and that to seek her- the wandering sheep — he had come upon earth. He erected his own image to be ad( red under the name of Jupiter; that of Helen under the name of Minerva. According to Simon, the Mosaic Law came not from God, but from some evil Intelligence, and all who adhered to it would eternally perish. These who trust- ed in him and his Helen might do what they pleased and yet be saved. Men were to be saved, not by good works, but by his grace. He not onlv allowed all sorts of obscenity, but taught certain mysteries of impurity, which he designated as the mysteries of perfect knowledge, without which no man could be saved.
With regard to the origin of the world and of man, he taught that it was through his Helen that he first conceived the idea of creating the angels, and that they afterwards created the world and mankind. The idea of the necessity of good works was suggested to man by the angels, that they might keep him in slavery to themselves. Although Simon pre- tended to despise the angels yet ho taught his disciples to mollify them by certain mysterh us rites, lest they should seize and detain the soul when it left the body.
Simon must have been a master in the magic art, or he would not have succeeded so well in deceiving men. Nero
(1) Aaalnst Heresies ft, 5, c. 80. (2) Heresies , 21 . (3) CathecMsm No. ft.
(4) Fables of the Heretics , c. 1.
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and some of the first people of Rome succumbed to his il- lusions, and he was only convicted of imposture, when, having attempted to show his divinity by flying in the air, the prayers of St. Peter caused him to perish miserably (1). Simon Magus was recognized by St. Irenaeus as the head and front of Gnosticism. But the term Gnostic is applied by the olden authors to many different sects. As all heresi- archs necessarily vaunt themselves as possessing more or less of knowledge superior to that of their fellow Chris- tians, and this arrogance is shared by their followers, so the term Gnostic, knowing one,” came to be given to, and readily accepted by, most of the early heresies. The. word fastened itself, however, in a peculiar manner, to the disci- ples of Carpocrates, of whom we shall speak in their proper place. Properly speaking, Simon Magus, as well as his disciple Menander, should be placed among the false Messb alls of the world, rather than among the heretics, for they both declared that they were sent by the invisible powers to operate the salvation of mankind ; they both claimed to be the Holy One hitherto unknown to men.
Menander was a Samaritan, and a disciple of Simon. He commenced to propagate his errors in the year 74. He taught that he was the saviour of men, come down from heaven. No man could be saved from the tyranny of the angelic creators of the world unless he was initiated in the mysteries of magic and had received his baptism. This bap- tism would secure the recipient not only from death, but from the miseries of old age.
Saturnine was an Antiochian, and though his heresy did not flourish until about the year 120, yet it should be treat- ed of in this place, as the author was a disciple of Menander. Accepting Simon’s doctrine as to the angelic creators of man, he taught that when the angels had succeeded in producing the body of the first man, they were unable to give it life, but that God sent the vital spark from heaven, which spark, after death, returns to its source. The God of the Jews was one of the angels, and the Saviour was sent
(1) Arnobiuh, Ayainxt the. Gentile#, h. 2; St. Cyril of Jerusalem, cat, 6; Eusebius, Hwf., b. 2, c. 12; St Epiphwius. Heresies 21 ; St. Augustine, Heresies; Theodorix, Fable s; St. Maximus of Turin, sc rm. 5.
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on earth to keep this deity in order, and to save those who would believe in himself. Christ was incorporeal, and ap- peared to men only as a phantasm ; all His actions, His suffering, death, <fcc., were purely pliantastic, in no sense real. Nuptials and carnal generation were of Satanic origin. When the angels created men they established two orders, one of the good, and the other of the bad.
BA8ILIDES, a companion of Saturnine in the school of Menander, was an Alexandrian by birth. He wrote a gos- pel, and about forty books of commentaries on the Scrip- tures. He held that there was one Principle, the creator of Mind, in its turn the producer of the Word. From the Word, Prudence had origin ; from Prudence came Virtue and Wisdom. These two created the Powers and the Angels, who in turn, created the highest heaven and other angels ; these last produced another heaven, and still more angels, and so on continued the productive process until there were 365 heavens, each with its own order of spirits. The lowest order created the earth, and their prince created man. It was this angelic chief whom the Jews knew and worshipped, and who sent his Mind in the form of Christ to free man from the dominion of his angelic tyrants. When Christ was being led to death, He changed bodies with the Cyrenian ; then Simon was crucified, and the Sav- iour stood by unknown.
The human body does not rise from the grave. Our souls have sinned in another life, and are punished here. Volun- tary sins are not forgiven, but the only punishment of sin is in the nature of the transmigration to which all souls are subject. In time of persecution it is proper to deny God before the enemy, because only the just are men, the others being as hogs and dogs ; we are obliged to confess God only before men. Like his predecessors, Basilides taught his followers the most revolting obscenities. Against his doc- trines wrote St Ignatius, Martyr ; Castor Agrippa, and Sts. Clement of Alexandria and Epiphanius.
Cerinthus is said to have moved the question as to the observances of the Jewish law, which caused the Council of
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Jerusalem (1). His fundamental errois were the following — There is but one God, but He did not directly create the world ; He produced certain distinct Powers, who alto- gether ignore Him. The Mosaic law is binding upon man, equally with the Gospel/" When the man Jesus became an adult, the Christ descended upon Him, and after the cruci- fixion returned to Heaven. Cerinthus mutilated the gospel of St. Matthew, and rejected much of St. Paul’s Epistles, and all of the Acts. He seems to have had a special affec- tion for Judas. His followers used to receive baptism in the name of those who had died without it. After the final resurrection the earthly kingdom of Christ is to come, and for a thousand years men are to live in Jerusalem in the enjoyment of carnal pleasure.
Ebion taught that God gave to Satan power over the present world, and to Christ the future. Christ was a mere man. born of Joseph and Mary. Some of his followers, we learn from Tertullian (2), held that Mary conceived of the Holy Ghost, but denied that Christ was the Eternal Word. Ebion inculcated an equal respect for the Mosaic and Chris- tian laws. He admitted as a gospel, only that of St Mat- thew; lie expunged from the Pentateuch all that permitted the eating of once animated things. Jesus was no more than a successor of Moses, but He was the prophet of truth, while the other prophets were only of intelligence. Ebion excogitated a book of Acts of the Apostles, in which he rep- resented St. Paul as having been of Pagan parents, as having become a Jew for love of the pontiffs daughter, and as re-, volting from Judaism because he could not receive her in marriage.
Nicholas was one of the seven deacons of whom we read in Acts, c. 7, v. 5, but we do not know for certain how his name came to be given to a heresy. Some of the ancient writers hold that he had married a very beautiful woman, but had not the strength to leave her. St. Clement oj Alexandria (3) says that, being accused of an excessive attachment for this woman, he offered to cede her to who- ever would marry her. St. Clement adds that Nicholas
(UEpiph ANIL'S, Heresies , 38. (2) The Flesh of (hrwt, c. 18. (3) Stromaton, b. 3, c. 4
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was very chaste, but that wicked men had misinterpreted bis maxim that “ we shall exercise the flesh,” by which he meant to signify that we should rule it. Many authors hold that a Gnostic sect took their name from Nicholas without warrant, simply to feign a respectable parentage. Their principal errors were those of the Cerinthians. They especially venerated a fictitious female called Prunicus, a personification of voluptuousness. This heresy is mention- ed by name in the Apocalypse , c .2.
Sampseans, or Schamseans, is the name given to a sect which arose in the second century, and is supposed to be identical with the Helcesites, founded by a false prophet called Elxai. According to St. Epiphanius, their doctrines were a mixture of Paganism, Judaism, and Christianity. Their name is derived from the Hebrew schemesch , the sun, they being supposed to have worshipped that planet ; that they did so, is doubted by some (1). They held that Christ was a creature ; that the Holy Ghost was of the feminine sex, and sister to Christ. They despised virginity, and com- manded marriage. They rejected the Epistles of St. Paul. In the time of St. Epiphanius, this sect greatly vaunted the sanctity of two of their women, named Martha and Marth- anna ; they collected the dust from their sandals, and their spittle, that they might form amulets from them (2).
Carpocrates, an Alexandrian by birth, held that corporeal creatures were the work of the angels. Jesus was born of Joseph and Mary, and many of these sectaries were equal to Him in virtue and wisdom. Nothing is evil in itself ; the distinction of good and evil subsists only in the minds of men. Every species of voluptuousness is permissible. Souls transmigrate from body to body, according to Matth. 5, v . 25 and 26. These heretics placed the picture of Christ along with those of Pythagoras, Plato, &c., and venerated all alike with Pagan rites. In the time of Pope Anicetus, a female Carpocratian named Marcellina made a great many perverts in Rome itself.
The Gnostics, of the origin of whose name we have already spoken, held all the errors, with some changes, whicn we
<l) Bjcausobre, History of the Manicheans , v. 2, b. 0. (2) Epiphanius, Heresies, 60.
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have mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. Each of the 365 heavens of Basilides had its presiding deity, so that, with Virtue and Prudence, the offspring of the Word, son of Mind, and finally, Mind itself, there were, subject to the One Great Principle, 369 minor gods. Christ was not born of Mary, unless in appearance. As to the turpitudes of the Gnostics, we decline to go into particulars, for, as Tertul- lian says, they were monstrosities rather ilian crimes. It is better, if we may use the w ords ol St. Epiphanius, to con- sign the putrid corpse to the grave. This saint had learned the mysteries of the Gnostics from certain of their women, who, while he was a mere boy, had laid snares to his virtue, and were necessity to arise for the divulgation of their ne- farious practices, the student would find them accurately, though hesitatingly, narrated in his book On Heresy , num . 26. One of the greatest evils accruing to the Church from Gnosticism was the evil repute into wdiich its immoralities brought the Christian name among the Pagans. St. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and other apologists, spent a great part of their time in clearing Christianity from the imputation of responsibility for Gnostic wickedness.
Cerdo was a Syrian w'lio came to Rome during the Ponti- ficate of Hyginus. According to St. Irenaeus, he again and again apostatized, and again and again did public penance and wras absolved. His principal error was that the God of the Prophets was not the Father of our Lord. The God of the Jew’s was just and severe, while the Father of Jesus was good and benign. Christ was not born of Mary, and ' was man only in appearance. Of the Newr Testament, he re- jected some of the Epistles of St. Paul, the Acts, the Apoca- lypse, and all the Gospels excepting a portion of St. Luke’s. Cerdo was condemned by St. Apollonius of Corinth in a Synod of oriental bishops.
Marcion came from the neighborhood of the Black Sea. After a terrible picture of that region, worse in his day than in our own, Tertullian (1) says, “ But the most barbarous and sorrowful thing about Pontus is that there wras born Marcion, more loathsome than a Scythian, more unstable
(1) A pa ins* Marcion , b. 1, c. 1.
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than a Hamaxobian, more cruel than a Massagetan, more brazen than an Amazon, . . . .more deceitful than the Danube, more refractory than Caucasus. Why not, when the true Pro- metheus, God Almighty, is wounded by his blasphemies ? For Marcion is more unsparing than were the beasts of that barbarity. What beaver is such a castrator of the flesh as lie who abolishes nuptials ? What ermine is such adevourer as lie who eats into the gospels ? Thou, O Euxine, hast pro- duced a beast no more acceptable to philosophers than to Christians. That little dog Diogenes, carrying a lantern iu mid-day, tried to find a man ; Marcion, having put out the light of faith, lost the God he had found.” This heresi- arch was the son of a pious bishop, and his father was compelled to excommunicate him for the crime of rape. Going to Rome after the death of Pope Hyginus, he in vain applied to the Roman clergy for restoration to communion, and then joined the disciples of Cerdo. He first attracted notice about the year 144, in the Pontificate of Pius I. He tried to solve the question of the origin of evil by admitting good and evil Principle. According to him, Christ did not assume true flesh. Marcion denied the resurrection of the body, and taught metempsychosis. Cain, Dathan, Esau, the Sodomites, and all the nations who did not know the God of the Jews, were saved by Jesus ; Abel, Enoch, and the Patriarchs, were not then saved, because they acknowledged said God, when they ought rather to have turned to the other God, who cannot be seen with eyes, but they will yet be saved by another Christ. Marcion rejected the Old Testament, because produced by the evil God ; as for the New, he admitted only the gospel of St. Luke, and portions of some of St. Paul’s writings. He taught that man could attain salvation, only by abstaining from all pleasure not purely spiritual. Hence, he condemned marriage, and made of continence a rigid obligation, though he had himself grossly failed in its regard (1). Baptism could be given only to the continent, but, to more and more purify
(t) The reason of Marcion’s strictness in matter of continence is found in his theory that tote human race owes its origin to the evil principle. It became a duty therefore to abstain from the propagation of the human family. This contempt for the carnal port of man caused the Marcion! tes to rush blindly into martyrdom, but history mentions only three who suffer- ed with the Catholics.
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one’s self, it could be received three times. According to Tertullian, in his Prescriptions , c. 30, Marcion finally repent- ed of his apostacy, and implored to be allowed to enter upon a course of public penance ; his request was granted, on condition that he would restore to the Church those whom he had allured from her, but he was soon overtaken by death.
Valentinl:, chief oi the heresy kuown by his name, was born in Egypt, shortly alter the deatli oi the last of the Apostles. Being ambitious of the episcopacy, and having been disappointed, he turned his attention to heresy as another avenue of fame. Rome was a wider theatre than Alexandria, but he tried in vain to obtain followers there ; expelled from that church, he settled in Cyprus, where he had better suc- cess, and soon his disciples began to spread his ideas in a part of Europe, and in Asia and Africa. He admitted a Divinity sojourning from eternity in a pleroma , plenitude, of light ; there were also there thirty .Eons, immortal intel- ligences, male and female, born of the union of Bythos, (depth), the first father, with Ennoea or Sige (silence), and from their offspring. The first progeny of Bythos and En- ncea were Intellect and Truth ; these also produced two Eons, &c. The last of the thirty were Christ and the Holy Ghost (1). According to Valentine, there are three species of men; the earthly, animal, and spiritual. Cain was the source from which springs the earthly man, and that race is dissolved in corruption. Abel was the father of the ani- mal men, and if they conduct themselves well, they will rest in a middle region; if not, they will pass into a similar animal state. . Seth gave origin to the spiritual man, and he will be married to an angel of the Saviour. Catholics, said Valentine, are animal persons, and for their attainment of salvation, good works are necessary ; the Valentinians, on the contrary, are spiritual, and for their salvation knowledge is sufficient. Hence, those among these secta-
0) Heretics always And apologists, no matter how absurd may be their teachings. If the absurdities are too patent for excuse, then it is claimed that the doctrine must not be tak- en too literally. So it has been with these theories of Valentine, which, by the way, were taught by many before him, though in a different form. It has been contended thai Valen- tine only used a mystic method of explaining the operations of God ; that his notions are, in the main, those of Pythagoras and Plato, who probably derived them from the Chal- deans. For an excellent, though brief, treatise on this subject, see Bergier’s Diction - 4i rj of ThioljOjUi art- ViiltntinUv'.x.
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ries who thought themselves perfect, ignored even the di- vine law, perpetrating any foul deeds to which they were tempted. Valentine explained the mortal birth of the Sav- iour by saying that Christ took His body from Heaven, not from the womb of Mary ; that He passed through Mary, Valentine admitted; as Tertullian expresses the idea, “He i>su?d through the Virgin, not from the Virgin.”
Tatian was a celebrated Syrian philosopher, and after embracing Christianity he became a disciple of St. Justin. After the martyrdom of his master he returned to his own land, and fell into error. Like Marcion, he taught the two Principles, good and evil. The latter, he said, was the author of the Old, the former of the New Testament. He condemn- ed the use of marriage, meat, and wine, as all equally the work of the evil Principle. According to him, Christ had only the appearance of a human body. Tatian composed a gospel called Diatesmron , that is, a union of the original four ; in it he excluded all the texts which showed that the human genealogy of Christ was from David. The followers of Tatian were called Encratites, or Continents. One of these, a certain Severus, not to be confounded with the Euty chian patriarch, Severus, of the sixth century, held that, after the creation of man by God, Satan felt the need of some help on earth, and hence created woman.
Montanus was a Phrygian eunuch, and commenced to teach his heresy during the reign of Antoninus Pius (138-161). He was greatly aided by two abandoned women named Pris- cilla and Maximilla, who went about in the most free and easy manner, giving utterance to prophecies which time proved empty. Montanus and his women were especially noted for greed of money, which, says Apollonius, v/ho wrote against them, of itself proved the falsity of their prophetic claims, since the Scriptures forbid the prophets to receive money. The errors of Montanus may be summed upas fol- lows. In His revelations to man, God has proportioned his lessons to the capacity of man at the time. Thus, those given to the Jews were fuller than those given to the patri- archs, while those given by Christ were still more extensive and satisfactory. Montana * as the Paraclete promised by
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Je&us as the teacher of all things. A hundred years after Montanus, Manes, and in the seventh century, Mohammed, preached a similar doctrine ; all three forgetting that the Paraclete had been promised to the Apontles , and that it was therefore absurd to expect another, for whom there was no necessity. The first Montanists made no alterations in the Creed, but they claimed a system of morality more perfect than that of the Apostles. That it was certainly more aus- tere, is seen from the fact that they denied to the priest- hood the power of absolving from the greater crimes ; that they kept three Lents, during which they ate nothing con- taining juice ; that they regarded second nuptials as adul- teries ; that they said that we cannot fly from persecution, or purchase the leniency of the tyrant. Anything approach- ing taste and care in the toilet of females they regarded as diabolic ; the arts and sciences, the study of philosophy and literature, wrere unworthy of Christians (1). Condemned by the synod of Hierapolis, they made their headquarters at Pepuzium in Phrygia, whence their other names of Pepu- zians, Phrygians, and Cataphrygians. They established a hierarchy, into which they admitted women, saying that in Christ there is neither masculine nor feminine. Gal . 3. Their doctrines soon spread over Phrygia, Galatia, and Lydia, made some impression at Constantinople, but failed in Rome. Penetrating into Africa, they seduced, by their severe mo- rality, the harsh and austere Tertullian. While in this here- sy, Tertullian composed most of his moral treatises, and his books on Fasting, Chastity, Monogamy, and Flight from Persecution. Whether Tertullian finally returned to the bosom of the Church, is doubtful. The remaining heresies of the second century are of slight importance ; therefore, we shall pass to the principal ones of the third century. Some of these are of such importance, that we shall treat of each in a special chapter ; they are Novatianism, the error of the Re-baptizers, and the heresy of Paul of Samosata.
(1) Sts. Augustine, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Eplphanlus, attribute certain terrible rites to the Montanists, especially to the Pepuzian faction. Thus they are said to have had a rite In which an infant was punctured by needles In the entire body, and the blood, being mixed with flour, was used for the Eucharist. If the child died, he was a martyr; If he recovered, he would be a holy priest. Tertullian denies this; St. Jerome says he would rather not believe It.
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Sabellius was born at Ptolemais, in Libya. He com- menced to spread his errors about the year 260. According to him, the Father is the only Person in Gk>d, the Son and the Holy Ghost being attributes, emanations, or operations, not subsisting Persons. The Father may be likened unto the aun ; the Son unto its light, and the Holy Ghost unto its heat. The Word emanated from the Father like a divine ray, and, united with Jesus, operated the redemption of man ; then, the Word ascended to the Father, as the ray to its source. The divine warmth of the Father was communi- cated to the Apostles under the name of the Holy Ghost. Christ, therefore, was not God, nor the Son of God, in the true sense of the terms ; if Sabellius admitted an Incarna- tion, it was of the Father, and hence the fathers who wrote against him placed him in the ranks of the Patripassians, founded by Praxeas, in the second century. This heresy made some progress in Asia Minor, and even at Rome. In the fourth century it was revived by Photin, and in more modern times by the Socinians.
Manes, whose name has been perpetuated in the Man- ichaean system, was not its founder ; for, according to Plu- tarch, its doctrines were held among many nations of anti- quity. Manes, born in Persia in the year 240, was bought as a slave, when quite young, by an aged widow, who, a ahort time before, had become the heir of a rich magician named Terbinthus, who had met the fate of Simon Magus. Terbinthus himself had been the disciple and heir of a certain Eastern prestidigitator and sorcerer, called Scythian, who also fell from the roof of a temple in Jerusalem while engaged in incantations. The wealthy widow gave a fine education to her favorite slave, and having manumitted him, adopted him as her heir. Among the treasures originally accumulated by the unlucky magician were four of his books, which, on the death of the old lady, fell, with the rest, into 4he hands of Manes. The contents of these books, mixed with adulterated Christian doctrine, formed the system which Manes now presented to the world. He was obliged i,o flee from Persia soon after receiving his inheritance, having escaped from the prison into which he had been
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thrown on account of the death of the prince royal under his spells. Arriving at Mesopotamia, he announced himself as the Apostle of Jesus Christ (1), and commenced to preach his doctrines. In the year 277, he held a dispute with Archelaus, Bishop of Cascar, who proved, to the satisfaction of all, that Manes was an impostor. The Acts of this con- ference are yet extant (2), and are the source of what- ever information Socrates gives as to this heresiarch. Manes now returned to Persia, but falling into the hands of tlie king, he expiated the death of the prince roy- al by being flayed alive. His disciples carried his doctrines throughout the East, and finally they entered Europe. At the end of the fourth century they were well known in Africa and in Spain. Down to the time of the Emperor Anastasius they were under the ban of the empire, but, in the year 491, under the influence of his Maniehaean mother, that sovereign gave them some rest. Justin and his succes- sors returned to the old rigor. Manicheism, though divided into numerous sects, was quite powerful in the East until the end of the ninth century, when, having joined the Saracen invaders, its professors were defeated in several campaigns, and finally dispersed. Some penetrated into Bulgaria, others into Lombardy, and in the beginning of the eleventh cen- tury we find them strong in France, especially in Provence and Languedoc. In the diocese of Albi they were partic- ularly numerous, whence their name of Albigenses. During the last years of their existence, the Manicheans had aban- doned the fundamental hypothesis of two Principles ; they spoke of the evil Principle as we do of Satan. But they clung to their errors as to the Incarnation and the Sacra- ments, to their hatred of the Catholic hierarchy, and to that refined libertinage which often accompanies false spir- ituality.
With regard to the errors of Manicheism, it must be ob- served that its leaders did not follow Manes in everything ; each one arranged his doctrines so as to best suit the
(1) Some authors have held that Manes was a Christian priest : St. Cyril of Jerusalem as- serts that he never embraced the faith.
(2) Collection of Ancient Monument* of the Greek and iMtin Churches, Rome , 1898.
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time apd circumstances. Theodorat counted seventy sects of Manicheans, who were united in the avowal of belief in two Principles, but who differed as to their nature and op- erations, as well as to the speculative and moral consequences to be drawn therefrom. But the following points were of general acceptance among them. Starting with the idea of a good and an evil Principle, they declared that flesh being material, and matter being the work of the evil Principle, the flesh of Christ was not real, but simulated (1). They condemn- ed generation, and impeded it; the priests instructing the married, according to the ideas of the time, how to effect the nefarious design (2). Our bodies, the} said, will not arise from the grave, for the simple reason that they come from the evil one (3). They rejected the Old Testament, assert- ing that the God of Moses was one of the princes of dark- ness ; as for the New, some admitted this portion, some not (4). Each man has two souls, one of which is a part of God, and the other from the evil one ; every good deed is to be attributed to the good soul, every evil one to the bad (5). In man there is no free will ; if there were, God would be to blame for sin (6). Baptism is not necessary for sal- vation, and hence they baptized none of their number (7). Souls transmigrate ; the souls of Manicheans are assumed by the more perfect of the sect in their food, and being thus purified, return to the good Principle (8). Some of the eustoms, of the Manicheans were strange, and some detest- able. Some again were simply horrible, and like those of the Gnostics, are better left unnoticed (9).
Before closing this chapter upon the heretics of the first thre'* centuries, we would say something upon the doctrines of Origen, if it were certain that this great writer was guilty of heresy. This great man, says Tillemont, “was banished from his country, deposed from the priesthood, excommu- uicated by his own bishop and by others, at the same time that great saints were defending his cause, and when God seemed to have declared for him, by bringing into the Church,
1) Augustine, Heresies 4G; F.pipiianh s, Jlcresic*,G6.
(2) Idem, (Juxtoms of the Manuhean s, c. 18.
(3) Idem. Aaaiuxt Fauxt, c. 2.
<4) Idem , ibidem, c. 3. (7) Augustine, Heretic *, passim.
(5) Idem, On the Two S<nds, c. 1. 18) Ibidem.
<fl) Tdem, On Free wm , jjassim. (9) Augustine, Customs of the Manicheans, c. 18,19. 30
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through him, many men whom she regards as her brightest ornaments. After his death, his lot is what it was while he lived. Saints are opposed to each other in his regard. Martyrs have written his apology, and martyrs have writ- ten his condemnation. Some have looked upon him as the greatest master the Church has possessed since the Apostles; others have detested him as the parent of all the heresies born since his time.” It is not within the scope of our work to enter upon a question which the reader can better settle, at least to his own satisfaction, by comparing the argu- ments of the many learned men who have discussed the matter. That Origen was not an obstinate heretic, to say the least, would appear from the following passage cited by St. Jerome, and taken from a letter written after his excom- munication at Alexandria. Complaining that his writings have been mutilated and corrupted, and that many have been ascribed to him which he never wrote, he says, “ I am content to leave my enemies and my calumniators to the judgments of God ; I think that I am obliged to pity them more than to hate them, and I would rather pray God to have mercy on them than wish them, any evil, for we are born to pronounce blessings and not malediction.” (1)
(1) “The olden enemies of this father,” says Berber, “ carried their obstinacy to the point of accusing him of approving of illicit magic, and of finding no crime in it. Beausobre, in
his History of Mdnichcixnu, v. 2, h. 9, c. 18, refutes this accusation Some authors have
asserted that Origen succumbed during the persecution of Decius, and that he threw Incense into a sacrificial fire, in order to escape an infamous treatment with which he was threatened. But it is not credible that so courageous a man as Origen would have thus contradicted the lessons given by himself to so many martyrs ; and that the many enemies who attacked him, after his death, would not have mentioned so (xlious a charge. So true Is it that a great reputation is frequently a very great misfortune.” Danial Huet, bishop of Avranches, waa the first to publish the exegetic works of Origen (10dm 1679), in 2 v., fol., with a learned monograph entitled Oiiycniana. The learned Benedictine of St. Maur, La Rue, published. In 17«J, the complete works ; and the reader will find all that wq have from the pen of Ori- gen, together with a Latin translation, in Mignes ’ Palrology.
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Authors differ as to the number of the persecutions which, the Church underwent before the time of Constantine. St. Augustine, in his beautiful work on the City of God , book 18, c. 52, gives us many opinions, and declares his own in- ability to solve the question. Paulus Orosius thought there were ten, but only because he regarded the ten plagues of Egypt as prophetic of the Pagan onslaughts on the early faithful. Sulpicius Severus numbered nine ; Lactan- tius five, but he only enumerates those the instigators of which met a violent death ; Prudentius devotes all his en- ergy to a description of the sufferings of the Christians un- der Nero and Decius. But, be the number ten or less, it is certain that there were many severe persecutions, and that the number of martyrs was large. Reflections upon the fearful sufferings of their ancestors in the faith have ever been the source of triumph, rather than of melancholy, to the more modern Christians, and their polemicists have drawn from these persecutions one of their most stringent arguments wherewith to prove the divinity of the Christian religion. It is net strange, therefore, that writers of t\ie Cffio- bon stamp should endeavor to belittle the extent of these dire visitations of brute force, and to palliate in every way the cruelties by which they were accompanied. Among the many men of note who have bent themselves to this melan- choly and ungracious task, sad pre-eminence is claimed by Yoltaire ; but in the contest of bad faith and sophistry, distinction should also be awarded to Basnage, John Le- clerc, Gibbon, and Henry Dodwell. The last named, an Irish author of the seventeenth centurv, has presented
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his arguments more fully than any of his brethren, and hence against him have principally been directed the efforts of most Catholic writers who have treated of this subject. Of these, the most satisfactory are Rinaldi, on the Persecutions of the First and Second Centuries ; Ruinart, in his Preface to the Acts of the Martyrs ; F. Luchini, in a preface to his Italian translation of the work of Ruinart ; and Palma, in his Historical Lectures .
Although it is our main purpose to treat of those perse- cutions which were visited upon the early Christians by the Pagans, yet we cannot omit, at the commencement, a mention of the uprising against the disciples of the Lord, excited by the Scribes and Pharisees in the year following His death (1;. It was then that suffered St. Stephen, the first martyr, and, according to some writers, two thousand others. Nor should we forget the outburst of Herod Agrip- pa at Jerusalem, in the eleventh year after the crucifixion of Christ, when St. Peter was put in chains, and, in all probability (2), St. James the Greater put to death. Some also regard as a persecution of Christians that edict of Claudius by which all “ Jews” were expelled from Rome, because, as Suetonius says, “ at the instigation of Chrest , they were guilty of tumults.” Many authors exclude this action of Claudius from the list of persecutions, on account of the use of the term “Jews,” and because of the name Chrest being assigned to the Jewish leader. But we know that in those days the Pagan writers often spoke of the Christians a3 Jews. As for the name Chrest, it was in famil- iar use among the Romans, as appears from many inscrip- tions, and from Cicero, book 2d of Epistles, Epist. 8, ad Fain. Very easily indeed might the Pagans have confounded the name of Christ with that of Chrest , with which they were mo e familiar. Palma is of opinion that this ejection of the “ Jews” should not be classed among the Christian perse- cutions, because the alleged cause of the edict was the tu multuousness of the victims, not their religion. But very
(1) Petau. Usher, aud TU lemon t assign this persecution to the year of our Lord’s death : Baronio places It In the year 85.
( 2 > It has always been a Spanish tradition that St. James preached in Spain, but there *• no solid foundation for It.
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frequently the Pagan authorities, in assigning a reason for their assaults upon the Christians, made no mention of religion ; nay, they not seldom put forth purely political motives as an excuse. And if, as seems probable, by the Chrest of Suetonius was meant the Lord of the Christians, the religious motive is plainly indicated.
To the emperor Nero (37 08) is to be assigned the first open persecution of Christianity by Rome. The precise year of his first outburst is a subject of dispute among critics. Baron 10 regards the y *ar 00 as the date, Eusebius the year 70, and others go back as far as the year 58. The probable date is that assigned by Pagi, namely, the month of August of the year 64, in the consulate of Licanius Bassus and Marcus Lie. Crassus. As for the cause of the persecution, authors differ. Hegesippus and Nicephorus Calixtus as- cribe it to the destruction of the impious Simon Magus, brought about by the prayers of St. Peter. Others find the cause in the rage of Nero, on account of St. Paul's hav- ing restored to life one Patroclus, whom the emperor had put to death. Another reason is traced by some to the corrupt habits of the heretics of that day, which had brought the Christian name into terrible disrepute (1). Some again assign the reason of the outbreak to the ancient law of the Roman Senate prohibiting the adoration of any deity not approved of by that body. While each and every one of these causes may have either influenced the emperor, or persuaded the people to acquiesce in the decree, the real motive of the persecution seems to be given by the Pagan historian, Tacitus (2). In the year 64, the city of Rome was visited by a terrible conflagration, which, according to this author (3), lasted for six days. It was bruited around that no less a personage than the young emperor was the incen- diary, and so firm a hold did the idea take on the minds of the people, that Nero was forced to seek some means of diverting the imminent fury of the Romans from himself. The necessary scapegoat was found in the rapidly growing sect of the Christians. This body of religionists were in
(1) Justin Martyr ami KuxeMux. (2) Annalx, hook 15, c. 44. (3) According to an ai* cient monumental slab, preserved in St. Peter’s at Rome, the Are lasted nine days.
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bad odor among tlie Romans. They were popularly sup* posed to be guilty of secret and atrocious crimes ; to be ani- mated by a most ferocious hatred towards the rest of man kind. Against there, therefore, was the indignation of the mob directed. In a few days Rome was illuminated by an unwonted light- Torches were made of the quivering bodies of thousands o' innocents of both sexes and of every age, while daily use was made of every torture which imagina- tion could invent for the amusement of a cruel people. Dodwell (lj asserts that this persecution was confined tc the city of Rome, but there is abundant proof that it ey tended throughout the empire. Tacitus assigns as a reason for it that the Christians were accused “not so much ol the crime of incendiarism, as of a hatred of the human race,” which charge would certainly apply equally well to all of them. Again, we learn from an epistle of the younger Pliny to Trajan (2) that while he was pro-praetor of Bitky- nia, many Christians having been sentenced to death, he asked the emperor Trajan what course he should pursue in their regard, and that he was answered that only those Christians should be prosecuted whom some one should accuse by name. Now, the laws in accordance with which Pliny and Trajan thus acted were not laws made by Trajan, for Tertullian and other ancient writers, while they admit that many Christians suffered death during his reign, deny that he was a persecutor. Nor could they have been the laws promulgated by Domitian, for, according to Tortullian, they were repealed by that emperor himself; according to Eusebius, they were abrogated by the Senate or by Nerva. And they could not have been laws of* the old republic ; for while we know from Cicero (3) that no new gods were to be received without the approbation of the Senate, yet capital punishment was not the penalty for a violation of the decree. It follows then that t' e laws under which Pliny condemned .the Bithynian Christians were laws of Nero, which Aad not been cancelled by his successors. Therefore the persecu- tion decreed by that emperor was not restricted to the capital.
<1) Cyprianic I>i*8ertat.im*% no. XI. (2) Book It, epist. 97. (8) On Laws, book 2, c. $
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Next in order to that of Nero comes the persecution of Domitian, who mounted the throne in the year 81. Baronio assigns its commencement to the year 90 ; Pagi prefers the year 93 ; Rinaldi agrees with St. Jerome in placing it in the year 94. Some writers have interpreted the first epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians as indicating that the cause of the eruption is to be found in the dissensions which existed in the Christian ranks. But it is more likely that its origin must be ascribed to the virulent hatred ot the populace towards the new religion. It was during the first year of this persecution, according to Tertullian, that the Apostle St. John was plunged into a caldron of boiling oil, and, emerging intact, was exiled to Patmos. After St. John, the most distinguished victim of this persecution was Fla- vius Clement (1), who was of consular rank, and, although a cousin of the emperor, was executed for impiety towards the gods. The universality and cruelty of this persecution is impugned by Dodwell and his imitators, but the testimony of ancient and reliable authors proves that it was general and terrific. Dio Cassius says, “ In the same year Domitian put to death, among many others, Flavius Clement, although he was his own cousin, and had for wife Flavia Domitilla, a relative of his ; both were charged with impiety towards the
gods, and many others were condemned for this crime,
some being executed, and some despoiled of their goods. Domitilla was merely exiled to Padetaria, but he ordered Glabrio, who had been a magistrate under Trajan, to be killed.” Brutius, a Pagan author of the second century, is authority to Eusebius for asserting that under Domitian many Christians were put to death. It is true that we have but comparatively few authentic records of martyrdoms in this and previous reigns, but that want does not neces- sarily bring comfort to those who would palliate the cruelty of the persecutors. At this time there was a dearth of writers among the Christians, not because they were at all lacking in men or culture, but because, as Papebroch observes,
(1) Baronio seems to doubt as to his martyrdom, on account of the silence of the ancient Martyrolofries. In the year 1725, the body of this martyr was found in the ancient basilica of St. Clement at Rome. Traces of blood were found in the leaden case, as well as tha srlass bottle usually and only placed with the body of a martyr. On the case were inscribed Uk. words, “ Here is happily buried the martyr, Flavius Clement.”
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in the midst of consternation people are not likely to make formal records of events. The ecclesiastical notaries, one of whose duties it was to put on record the important events of their churches, were certainly not established before the time of Domitian, and probably afterwards. And we know that in the Calendars, Fast a, Diptychs, and other monu- ments of the time, it was not the custom to insert any but the names of those martyrs who were venerated in the par- ticular church owning the document. Sometimes only those were recorded whose “natal days” were celebrated in pomp and by public sacrifice. Had the persecution of Domitian been comparatively light, as Dodwell contends, the Christians would scarcely have styled him “another Nero;” Lactantius would not have called him “no less a tyrant Tertullian would not have applied to him the phrase, “heir to a portion of Nero’s cruelty.”
After the death of Domitian, in the year 96, the Christians experienced a little rest, although isolated cases of martyr- dom were of not unfrequent occurence (1). Nerva rescinded the cruel decrees of his predecessor, allowed the exiles to return, and ordered that hereafter no one should prosecute the “ Jewish sect ” for impiety. But with the reign of Trajan (y. 98) terror again visited the Christian communities. This persecution is styled the third by Sulpicius Severus, St. Au- gustine, and Orosius. As to the precise date qf its beginning critics are again at fault. Baronio assigns it to the first year of the new reign; Pagi places it in the year 111; Usher, with more plausibility, names the year 106 (2). Tertullian and Eusebius show that Trajan issued no new decrees against the Christians, and he is generally regarded as one of those “ good princes” under whom, as the ancient author of “ Deaths of the Persecutors ” says, “ the Church suffered no assault from the enemy.” But even if Trajan merely executed the old decrees of Nero, he no less merits the name of persecutor. During his reign happened the martyrdom of St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, in the year
(1) If we accept as true the narrative of Polycrates, which is defended by the Bollandlstt
and by Tillemout, St. Timothy suffered at this time. However, some hold that he waa killed during a popular tumult. e ™
(2) Note* to Martyrdom of St. Ignatius.
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107. In the very beginning of this reign, according to Pear- son, was crucified the bishop of Jerusalem, Simeon, the son of Cleophas. Under Trajan also suffered the Supreme Pontiffs, St. Clement ( liomanus ), Evarist, and Alexander ; the martyrs, Nereus, Achilleus, Sulpitius, Severianus, and Cesareus. . That this persecution was widespread and vir- ulent appears from the following words of the author of the Acts of St. Ignatius of Antioch, the authenticity and value of which work are readily admitted by such Protes- tant critics as Usher and Pearson. In the ninth year of his reign, waxing arrogant on account of his victories over the Scythians and Dacians and many other peoples, and deeming only wanting to his universal domination the re- ligious body of Christians, Trajan compelled all the pious livers to either sacrifice or die, threatening them witli per- secution unless they would join in the worship of the de- mons along with the rest of the people.’’ The same fact is shown by St. Polycarp, who, in his epistle to the Philip- pians, besought them to imitate the patience of Ignatius, Zosimus* and Rufus (martyrs). And Tertullian. speaking to the proconsul Scapula, narrates the cruelties of Arrius Antoninus, Trajan's lieutenant in proconsular Asia. But no other authority need be adduced than that which we have already read in the younger Pliny, and for which Tertullian bitterly upbraids the emperor as cruelly incon- sistent : “ He orders them to be left undisturbed, as in- nocent ; he commands them to be punished as guilty. He spares, and he is cruel ; he dissimulates, and takes cogni- zance. Why dost thou subject thyself to censure ? If thou condemnest, why dost thou not investigate? If thou dost not inquire, why not acquit?’’ Although he promulgated no new laws against the Christians, lie left the persecution to the discretion of the prefects, and it is not likely that Pliny was the most cruel or corrupt of those satraps.
The persecution under Adrian was called by Eusebius an appendix of that of Trajan ; Sulpieius Severus styles it the fourth of the list. According to Tertullian and Melito of Sardis, this emperor issued no edicts against the Chris- tians ; but as the present question is one of fact, and not
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of name, we cannot admit with Dodwell that under his rule there were no persecutions. St. Jerome tells us Adrian was a devotee of Paganism ; Spartianus lauds him as most careful in fulfilling his duties as Pontiff ; Tertullian cails him an untiring seeker into curious things, and says that he followed all sorts of magical arts. With such dispositions, one would at least suspect him of being un- likely to leave the path of his predecessors. Baronio as- signs as a reason for this fourth persecution the tumult- uousness of the Jews. Some writers find its occasion in the abominable habits of the Carpocratian heretics, which caused the people to rage against all Christians. At any rate, the persecution took place, as we shall show. Tille- mont adduces the Acts of St. Eustachius, who perished during the reign of Adrian, but more severe critics reject the documents. But there is no doubt of the authenticity of the Acts of St . Stjmphorosa awl lwr Seven Sons , put to death by Adrian at his beautiful villa at Tivoli, after he had already destroyed her husband and his brother. From these Acts we learn that, about the same time, a ve’ry large number of martyrs were destroyed. Dodwell asserts that, with the exception of Pope St. Telesphorus, no martyr fell under Adrian. But we have an inscription from the cata- combs of St. Callixtus published by Arringhi, in his Sub- terranean Rome , which proves the contrary. It reads as follows: “In the time of the emperor Adrian, at length
rested in peace the youth Marius, an officer of the army, who lived long enough, since he yielded with his blood his life for Christ. His well wishers placed this with tears and fear.” The word “ fear ” would certainly indicate some anticipation of future trouble to the survivors. The testi- mony of St. Justin Martyr may be adduced as proving the existence of persecution, probably under Adrian, and if not, certainly since the time of Domitian, for he was born in the year 105, and speaks of what he saw. “While I was yet a follower o' the Platonic philosophy, and heard the Chris- tians pursued by calumny, and saw them stand intrepid before death and all formidable things, I thought to myself that such persons could not be given to vice and voluptu-
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ousness.” Dodwell and his imitators tell us that Adrian gave rescripts of exemption in favor of Christians. This is true ; but if persecution had not been going on, where would have been any occasion for the exemption? The facts are these. Adrian was passing the winter, probably of the year 126, at Jerusalem, and, initiating himself into the Eleusinian mysteries, his Pagan zeal was redoubled, and the Christians felt its effects. At this juncture, a petition was presented to him by Quadratus, a disciple of the Lord, (1) and Aristedes, an Athenian philosopher, begging for in- dulgence to the Christians. On account of these supplica- tions, and because of a letter of Sc*renus Granius (or Grani- anus), an Asiatic proconsul, urging that it was ill-seeming to condemn Christians merely on account of popular clam- or, a decree was issued to Minucius Fundanus, successor to Granius, stopping the persecution. This rescript of Adrian was sent, according to Eusebius, not only to Funda- nus, but to many other prefects, and whs afterwards quoted by Melito of Sardis, in his Apology to Marcus Aurelius.
Antoninus Pius reigned from the year 138 to the year 161. He was singularly clement, and of very affable manners. Nevertheless, that his Christian subjects had no reason to revere his memory, we must judge from the following in- scription (2) found in the Callixtan catacombs, and dedicat- ed to the memory of a martyr named Alexander, who was killed under Antonine. “ Oh ! unhappy times, when, in the midst of sacred things, and occupied with our prayers, we cannot be safe even in the bowels of the earth ; what more miserable than life, and what more miserable than death, when we cannot be buried by our friends? ” And Justin Martyr, in his Apology , No. 1, expressly charges Antonine with a persecution of the Christians.
Marcus Aurelius succeeded his father-in-law Antoninus Pius in the year 161, and reigned until the year 180. He was quite a philosopher, having donned the mantle of the Stoics when but eleven years of age. A good warrior when
•
(1) H allot x thinks that this Quadratus is the “Angel of Philadelphia ’ to whom the Lord speaks In the Apocalypse.
(2) Arringhi, Subterranean Rome , book 3, c. 22.
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necessary, he was yet a lover of peace, and his general course was more beneficial to his subjects than that of most Eoman emperors. Some authors have scented the odor of a Christian spirit in his Mt ditai ions', but that he persecuted the Christians, is beyond the possibility of a doubt. After the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, and dis- ciple of St. John, the widowed churcli sent to all the other churches of Asia an epistle describing the sufferings of the holy bishop and of his twelve companions. He had been burnt at the stake in the year 169, and the fathers allude to many other martyrdoms which happened about the same time. Eusebius, in his Book 4, c. 26, gives many passages from an apology which Melito of Sardis presented to Aure- lius, interceding for the Christians, and we find him insist- ing that no more cruel punishment could be visited upon them if they were enemies of the state. St. Irenaeus is supposed to be the author of an epistle which, during this reign, the churches of Lyons and Vienne sent to those of Asia and Phrygia, and in it we find a graphic description of the persecutions in Gaul. And if the sufferings of the Christians at this time were not great and widespread, why so much anxiety and eloquence as are displayed in the Apdocjivs of Apollinaris, Athenagoras, and Miltiades, all written at this period?
From the death of Marcus Aurelius, in the year 180, until the year 197, the Church of God enjoyed a spell of tranquillity. Outbursts of popular hatred certainly occur- red now and then, but no new law was enacted against the Christians, and the old laws fell into desuetude. But in the year 197, Septimius Sevorus was induced to shake the dust from the old edicts, and five years afterwards he prom- ulgated a new' one of the severest nature. The following passages of Eusebius would sufficiently indicate the quality of this persecution. In Book 6, c. 1, he says “ when Sever- us had excited a persecution against the Church, through- out all the churches of the world were perfected illustrious martyrdoms on the part of athletes contesting for piety.” And in c. 2, “Therefore in the tenth year of the reign of Severus, when there burst forth a most devastating
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fire of persecution, and innumerable martyrs were crowned.” Finally, in c. 7, “ He thought that then was imminent the coming of Antichrist, so vehemently were the souls of many affected by this persecution again st our people.” The words of Dion Cassius are clear, “ He visited with death a great number of men who were of equal nobility and honor with himself.” Equally plain is the saying of Clement of Alex- andria, in the 2d Book of his Stromuton , ** For us are daily redundant the fountains of martyrdom ; with our eyes we see those who are roasted, who are broken apart, who are be- headed.” A^id in Book 4, lie says that they are so treated merely “because they are Christians.” These testimonies are enough to show that the persecution of Severus was bloody indeed ; as to its length, there is no doubt that Dod- well errs when he states that it ivas a temporary storm. In his address to Scapula, who had been sent as proconsul into Africa towards the end of the persecution, Tertullian describes the course of procedure of no less than six succes- sive proconsuls, which certainly proves that the attack wa& not a passing one.
The next open persecution was that of the emperor Max- irnin; but before we enter upon any account of it, we must say a few words in regard to the reign of Alexander Severus (222-235). This sovereign always manifested a kind of be- nevolence towards the Christians ; his household was filled with them; his mother was “a good woman,” and associat- ed familiarly with the new religionists. Upon these slight foundations, some critics have built a theory that Alexan- der was a Christian. As for Julia Mammaea, the mother of the emperor, we have the testimony of St. Jerome and Eusebius that she was given to devotion, and they tell us that she once invited Origen to the palace, and that she listened to his doctrinal explanations. But they do not say that she was convinced of the truth of Christianity ; on the contrary, Eusebius insinuates that the Egyptian doctor left immediately for home ; so we may suppose that the fair Julia found his maxims too uncompromisingly severe for her deli- cate constitution. Nor does the testimony of Lampridius* in his Life of Alexander, go to show that Julia embraced
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Christianity, for while he certainly styles her a holy woman, he speaks in a manner which plainly proves that he uses the term “holy” in anything but a Christian sense. He says she was “a holy woman, but miserly — fond of gold and silver.” Such was not a characteristic of Christian sanc- tity, especially in the primitive ages. As to Alexander him- self, we learn from Lampridius that he “ conceded privi- leges to the Jews, and allowed the Christians to exist,” which was very much from a Roman emperor, but was not equiva- lent to becoming a Christian. If this passage is conclusive for any theory of conversion, it proves that Alexander be- came a Jew rather than a Christian. And if the emperor really revered our religion, why was he content with simply permitting its votaries “to exist”? Why did he not abro- gate the cruel laws against them which were exposing them to the uncertain disposition of each individual prefect? Nor must we forget that one of Alexander’s most trusted ad- ministrators was Domitius Ulpianus, a man who used his power to the utmost to gratify his hatred towards the Chris- tians, and who, we learn from Lactantius (1), “compiled a collection of the nefarious rescripts of the emperors in re- gard to the duties of a proconsul, that he might show what punishments ought to be inflicted upon the adorers of God.” Had Alexander been a Christian, he would have removed from this and similar men the temptation and power to persecute. Of no value whatever is the argument drawn from the fact, narrated by Lampridius, that the emperor preserved in the oratory, where he made his matutinal de- votions, an image of Christ. This image he cherished, but among those of Apollonius, Abraham, Orpheus, “ and such like Gods.” Nor were all the images in Alexander’s oratory those of revered personages, for we know from the same L ampridius that he kept therein the image of Alexan- ih »r the Great, whose drunkenness and cruelty he condemned. The other arguments adduced by those who have alleged Christianity of Alexander Severus are of no moment whatever.
After the assassination of Alexander Severus in Gaul, in
(1) Imt. Dir., book 5, c. XI.
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the year 235, the troops proclaimed as emperor the burly Maximin. The son of a Goth, his only staff in the struggle of life the possession of herculean strength, he was the right material for the forces of hell at a time wh en they re- lied upon brute force more than upon the depraved reason of man. His first move against Christianity appears to have been instigated by a spirit of intense personal hatred against the family of his easy-going predecessor. The house- hold was filled with Christians, and its heads were favorably disposed towards the new religion ; that was sufficient to unleash the hounds of prey. His first step was to pounce upon the ministers of religion : the shepherds removed, the flock would soon succumb. Before long the persecution spread throughout the length and breadth of the empire, and was felt the more terribly, says Firmilian of Cappado- cia, because several years of comparative peace had unac- customed the victims to such danger. For three years Max- imin reigned, and wielded his bloody scourge, and during that time the Martyrology received many of its noblest additions.
The poet Prudentius (1) immediately connects the Decian with the Neronian persecution, saying nothing of the in- tervening ones we have noticed. But this by no means favors the theory of Dodwell as to the lightness of these .afflictions. He was a poet, and in accordance with poetic license, chose what he deemed the fitter subject for his verse, even though he sinned against the canons of chrono- logical criticism. The persecutors whom he omitted did not furnish the material to his taste, for Prudentius seems to -gloat in a picture of bloody horror. The emperors inter- vening between Decius and Domitian preserved the forms of law in their trials, and did not adopt those terrific and exquisite tortures, to a description of which he owes his rep- utation. Hence he slighted them, and jumped at once to the more congenial of drawing the horrors of Decius. As for Domitian, L \t y likely excused him from -pc c^i reproach, because he L 1 finally stopped the persecution. It is a remarkable fact that many ancient writers (Tertullian,
(1) Against Symniachus , book II.
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for instance) seem to have regarded as comparatively “ good ** those emperors who restricted their lieutenants in persecu- tion to due process of law, and who tolerated only the pre- scribed punishments ; while they almost confine their in- vectives to those who allowed full vent to individual hate, cupidity, and superstition. With this remark as to the silence of Prudentius, we take up the persecution of Decius, who mounted the imperial throne in the year 249, and reigned for two years. He affected, or perhaps really felt, great zeal for a reformation of Roman habits and for a res- toration of the primitive “ virtues ” of the ancient republic. To bring about this end, he fancied a persecution of the new and foreign religion would tend. The text of h edict has perished, but we know from Dionysius of Alexandria (in Eusebius, b. G, c. 41) that it was “ horrible and terrifie enough to frighten the elect.” In his life of the holy Thau- maturge, St. Gregory of Nyssa is very explicit on this sub- ject. We learn that “the emperor ordered the prefects and magistrates to force the Christians by terror and by every kind of torture, to the worship of the gods.” He tlireatened his subordinates with severe punishment for any remissness in their task, and hence they neglected every duty of their positions to devote their time to the extirpation of Christi- anity. Forms of torture hitherto unknown were adopted, and the terrible engines were kept ever exposed to view, as an earnest of the power and will of the authorities. It was* during this persecution that certain magistrates, moved by greed or by pity, devised the system of certificates of sacri- fice (i HMli ), by means of which any unfortunate recusant could escape from both death and open denial of his faith. We shall have occasion to treat of these backsliders in an apposite dissertation. Suffice it now to remark that by this cunning device the persecution of Decius became noted as the first, if not the only one, in w hich any large number of the baptized failed to confess God before men.
The emperor Valerian ascended the throne in the year 255, and associated with himself as C;esar his son Gallienus. For two years he showed himself kind to the Christians,, but he finally allowed himself to be persuaded into per-
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«ecutiou by liis favorite, Macrianus the Praetorian. His first efforts were restricted to the exiling of the clergy and the prohibition of Christian assemblies, but he soon let loose the full force of persecution throughout the empire. In the Acts of St. Cyprian , we find the proconsul Paternus thus addressing the holy prelate : “ The most sacred em- perors Valerianus and Gallienus have deigned to write to me, ordering that those who do not follow the Homan re- ligion, should at least acknowledge the Roman ceremonies.” St. Cyprian refusing, he is condemned to exile, and Pater- nus continues, “They have also commanded that assem- blies be held in no places, and that no one enter the ceme- teries ; if any one violates this salutary precept, he shall be beheaded.” Dionysius ot Alexandria (in Eusebius, b. 7, c XI.) narrates the experience of himself and companions. The prefect iEmilian said to them, “You will be sent into
the Libyan region, to the place called Cephro ; you
will not be allowed to hold meetings, or to enter the places you call cemeteries.” In St. Cyprian's 77tli epistle, to the confessors in the mines, we are informed how a great part of his flock had already flown to heaven ; how numbers of others lay in loathsome dungeons, lacerated by scourgings ; how many more were dragging out a painful existence in the mines, and all simply because they were Christians. “And a large part of the people,” he tells the confessors, “ following your example, have also confessed the faith, and have been crowned ; they are united with you by the ties of a strong charity, nor are they separated from their prel- ates by prisons or by mines. Nor are virgins absent from this number. And even among the boys, there is a virtue greater than their age, which exceeds their years in the glory of their confession.” After a life of incredible labor and fortitude, St. Cyprian consummated his victory by a bloody death during this persecution, in the year 258. At this time also suffered Pope St. Sixtus II. and St. Law- rence the deacon. Finally, towards the end of the year 260, while warring with the Persian monarch Sapor, Vale- rian was taken prisoner. Gallienus paid no heed to his father’s plight, but at once seized the throne, and one of
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his first acts was to order a cessation of the persecu- tion.
in the next ebullition of Pagan hate against the growing Church, though it is generally styled the persecution of Diocletian, there figure two emperors and three Caesars. After the assassination of Numerian in the year 284, the army, which was marching home from Persia, proclaimed Diocletian emperor. Two years afterwards, this prince chose as colleague his old companion in arms, Maximian Hercules; while in the year 292, he appointed as Caesars Constantius Chlorus and Galerius Maximian. Deciding then to divide the empire, he made the following partition. He reserved to himself the provinces located beyond the iEgean ; to Galerius Maximian, he assigned Thrace and Illyria ; to Maximian Hercules, he gave Italy, Africa, and their islands ; to Constantius Chlorus he presented Gaul, and this prince soon added Britain and Spain. Of very different characters were these princes whom Diocletian thus raised to power. Galerius, according to the author of the “ Deaths of the Persecutors,” was “ more wicked than any evil man wdio ever lived,” but he seems to have been possessed of military talent. Maximian Hercules was ferocious and depraved, but was a brave combatant, and nothing better. Constantius Chlorus was praised by both Christians and Pagans as an “ amiable and venerable man although not a Christian, he adored one only God. The prime cause of Diocletian’s persecution was Galerius ; critics dispute as to the precise date of its beginning, but the best arguments assign it to the year 303. It did not end until long after the abdication of Diocletian, which happened in the year 305. After this event, the western Christians enjoyed some tranquillity, but Galerius contin- ued the bloody work in the east until the year 311, when, feeling himself at the point of death, he issued an edict for its cessation. Peace was not everywhere restored un- til the year 313, in the third consulate of Constantine and Licinius.
As in the case of the previous persecutions, so in this* one of Diocletian, the belittlers of Christianity endeavor
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to show that it was of small account, and that very little damage was effected. To this, more than palliation of the imperial butchers, let the first answer be given by Euse- bius. In book 1, c. 13, of his Life of Constantine , ha- says of Diocletian and his companion princes; “ They pol- luted, as with civil war, their subject provinces with the slaughter of women as well as of men.” Lactantius thought differently from Dodwell, Voltaire, and Gibbon, upon this matter, for he thus descants upon the imperial cruelty. “ If it ever pleased victors to be so furious towards the con- quered, they did no more than to kill them, or to lead them into slavery. But this is unspeakable, that they
should so treat those who can do no harm Then,
they torture them with the most exquisite kinds of
punishments ; they bend over them with all the
powers of their slaughter-house, as though they thirst for blood, .... and what Caucasus, what India, ever raised
such bloody and ruthless beasts? That person is a
beast, by whose single wish everywhere flows the purple gore; everywhere cruel tears, everywhere panic, and the multiplied image of death. No one can rightly describe the ferocity of this animal, w'hicli, though it crouches in one spot, nevertheless grinds its iron teeth through the universe,, and not only consumes the entrails of men, but crunches their very bones, and even rages against their ashes, lest they should have a place of burial.” Lactantius (260-325} was an eye-witness of what he describes, and he certainly does not mince matters as Gibbon would do. The an- cient author of the Deaths of the Persecutors has the following, “ Diocletian, who always wished to pass for intelligent and astute, inflamed with anger, immediately began to cut his familiars to pieces. He sat in judgment, and burned the innocents with fire . . . ; the emperor became infuriated, not only against his familiars, but at every one, and, first of all, he compelled his daughter Valeria and his wife Prisca ta sacrificial pollution .... Persons of every age and sex were thrust into the flames, not merely one at a time, for so great was the multitude that they were collected into a heap, and fire built around them ; ik> i?ss violently did the
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persecutions fall upon other people.'1 If such was the course of Diocletian, who preferred to avoid slaughter, we can imagine what must have been the conduct of the fero- cious Maximian Hercules in his dominions. The last quob- ed author tells us that lie “ willingly obeyed” when Diocle- tian wrote to him to follow his example in his treatment of the Christians. That Galerius did not show himself far behind in anti-Christian zeal, goes without saying, for he was the prime mover of the persecution. Shortly after the partition of the empire, Galerius had induced Diocletian to* give the rank of Ciesarto Maximin Daza. his nephew, who afterwards donned the purple. In regard to this prince’s mode of procedure, Eusebius, in Book 8, c. 11, says that he gave the Christians “ fire and sword, piercings with nails, wild beasts, deep pools, burnings, cutting off of limbs, per- forations, boring of eyes, mutilations of the whole body ; add to these, starvation, the mines, chains." As to Severus, another nephew of Galerius, and also appointed Ciesar, he afterwards obtained Italy and Africa, and there thoroughly carried out the ideas of his uncle. When Maxell tius, the son of Maximian Hercules, gained a footing in these coun- tries, he so conducted himself as to be styled, by Lucifer Calaritanus. “ another Nero.” But we have said enough to show that in this persecution of Diocletian, as in all the previous ones, there was sufficient misery to warrant a Christian in believing that only the hand of God could have sustained our ancestors in the faith in their fearful trial. (1)
(U The apologists of Paganism declare that the Romans were Just! fled hi regarding the Christian Church as a dangerous association, since the now religionists were almost entire- ly separated from the rest of society, auil were submissive only to their pastors, the only judges whom they acknowledged. This objection was answered by Tertmliun, when he declared to the magistrates that the Christians were separated from the rest of society, only in the exercises of religion : in everything else, th*»v conducted themselves ns did other* it- Izeas. Our adversaries also accuse the Christians of having Insulted the magistrates in their tribunals, and of thus provoking their cruelty. If there were such rases of misguided zeal, the Church did not approve of such nonduct. In the Council of Elvira, held about the vear .100, it was decreed that he should not be enrolled among the martyrs who war put to death, merely for breaking the idols.
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THE RAPID PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY A PROOF OF ITS
DIVINITY.
In the preceding chapter we have seen what terrible strug- gles the early Church was compelled to undergo. Rut these were not the only obstacles to her rapid development ; hu- manly speaking, the severity of her doctrine, and the love of pleasure which was fostered by Paganism, should have con- tributed more to retard her advancement than was contribu- ted by mere brute force. Christian writers have always ad- duced her quick and marvellous acquirement of the hearts of men as a proof of her divine origin, while men of the school of Gibbon and Voltaire have endeavored to show that there is nothing in her development which cannot be ac- counted for by purely human reasons. The object of this • chapter is to show that the history of the early propagation of our religion is such as to demand, from a candid reader, an acknowledgment of a divine guidance, as the only possi- ble reason for that propagation. We shall merely condense the argil men ts of the learned Valsecchi (1).
When Augustus wielded the sceptre of the Roman empire, ihe whole world, with the exception of Palestine, was gen- tile ; when Nero mounted the throne, an immense multitude of Christians, according to Tacitus (2), was to be found, even within the walls of the capital. Under Domitian, the new faith penetrated into the Imperial palace, and claimed its converts among those raised in the purple. Flavius Oleraent, and his wife Domitilla, were among those put to death by this emperor on account of Christianity. While Trajan ruled, the younger Pliny (3) found the new religion
(1) Sources of Religion and of Impiety , b. 2, c. 14. (2) Annals , />. 15, r. 44.
(3) Book 10, epist. 97 to Trajan.
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“ in the cities, in the villages, throughout the country places ; professed by persons of both sexes, of every order and every age, even to the point of death ; so that the temples are des- olate, and the sacrifices for a long time stopped/* St. Ig- natius suffered under Trajan, and he wrote to the Philadel- phians that the “ Church founded in the Blood of Christ was spread from one end of the earth to the other.” In the days of the Antonines, St. Justin, Martyr, asserted (1) that “ there is not one nation of men, be it Greek or barbarian, or called by any name you will, whether it lives in the swamps and wants a roof, or lives in tents and feeds the flocks, from the midst of which do not ascend prayers and thanks to the Father and Creator of the universe, in the name of Jesus Crucified/' St. Irenaeus (d. 202) shows us the hierarchy of the Church in full working order through- out the empire. Speaking of Borne (2), he says that “To this Church, because of its preeminent principality, all churches must have recourse, that is, the faithful wherever they are, because in it is ever preserved the Apostolic tra- dition/’ Tertullian (d. 230) says, (3), “ Only yesterday were we born, and we have filled all your places, the cities, the islands,' the fortresses, municipalities, the councils, the camps, the palace, the senate, the forum ; we leave you only the temples/’ In the book which the learned African wrote to the prefect Scapula, he draws a terrible picture of the wholesale desolation which would ensue if the Christians of Carthage were only decimated. And disputing with the Jews, he asks (4), “ And in whom besides Christ, who has
already come, have all the gentiles believed? there
are the Getuli, the Moors, the Spaniards, the Gauls, the Bri- tons— not yet subdued by the Romans, but conquered by Christ. — Sarmatians, the Dacians, the Germans, the Scy- thians, and many other races and countries and islands un- known to us, and which cannot be enumerated, in all of
*
which places reigns the name of Christ/’ Tertullian was certainly a Christian, but not for that reason is his testi- mony as to the spread of his religion to be questioned. He
(1) Dialogue with Trypho^ n. 117. (2) Boo/c 3. c. 3.
(3) Apology , 87. (4) Against thcJcvs , c. 7.
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would not have dared, especially in a polemical work, to risk an assertion which, if false, could easily be refuted. And we possess documents of certain authenticity, which go to prove that long before the cessation of persecution, the faith was propagated throughout the empire. The im- mense number of martyrs who yielded up their lives for ^ Christ, and whose Ads , for the greater part authentic, have reached us, furnish an indisputable argument fpr -orr posi- tion. The Irish critic, Dodwell, in vain tries to reduce the number of martyrs to a trivialty ; let the student consult Ruinart, in his Preface to the Acts of the Martyrs , and he will find that our writers have by no means exaggerated in their accounts. The following passage of Prudentius, who wrote in the fourth century, is pertinent to the question, (1). “ We have seen in Rome the ashes of innumerable saints. Do you ask me to give the names and titles of each, as they are cut on their tombs ? It would be difficult to grant your re- quest, for the number of the just destroyed by impious fury was as great as the number of gods worshipped by Trojan Rome. Many sepulchres speak in minute accents of the name, some others bear an epigram upon the martyr. But there are many silent marbles, containing taciturn cohorts of victims, which record only the number within ; how many bodies there are, you are told, but the names you do not find. From under one only slab, I remember were taken the remains of sixty heroes, whose names are known to Christ alone, as of those now united to Him in friendship/'
If such was the state of affairs in the capital, what must it have been throughout the empire ?
And what result was obtained by the three hundred years of persecution ? Simply the verification of Tertullian’s saying (2) that the “ blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.” s When the advent of Constantine gave peace to the fold, and the fathers met in general Council for the first ( time since the Council of Jerusalem, it was found that they numbered 318, and most of them were from the East ; and this, in spite of the slaughters of Diocletian and Maximian, only twelve years previous. In Rome, the cross was now
<1/ ‘h thr Ctini'iin. Humn XI. xk) Ap*Haoy% last chap.
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publicly reverenced ; it shone upon the flags of the army, and upon the crown of the sovereign. And to what was due the wonderful vitality and progress of the Church which then astonished the world ? We shall prove that such progress was impossible to human means, tnat to Gou alone it must be attributed. Firstly, what was the character of the age during which this progress was attained ?
From the time of Augustus, when Christianity first ap- peared, Rome was the mistress of the world. Her viciories in the East had brought to her immense wealth and this wealth entailed a luxury, a refinement of vice, which made Juvenal sigh for the days of Roman poverty (1;. It is difli cult for us to believe all that incontestable evidence reveals ot the corruption of all classes under the Pagan Caesars. An avaricious and cruel aristocracy, a brutal and glutton- ous people ; men without honor, and women who had not even the knowledge of what modesty should bn. If scarce- ly one of the many Roman empresses was an ordinarily de- cent woman, it would be hard to draw an exaggerated pict- ure of general society* The philosophy which Rome re- ceived from Greece helped on the infection. Whether Stoic, and puffed up with arrogance, or Epicurean, and given to voluptuousness, the average Roman was «: thorough philosophaster. Rome was filled with the dilettanti of let- ters ; her schools, rostrums, and palaces, resounded with the grandiloquent precepts of teachers who only added to the general corruption. Adrian philosophized to-day, to- morrow he will weep for Antinous like a school-girl. In matter of religion, the Rome of the Caesars was super- stitious, but religion was respected. Everything was ac- ceptable to the religion of the empire ; Christ would have been enrolled among the divinities had the Christians con- sented. Religion was a vast machine. At its head was the sovereign as Supreme Pontiff : the temples find their furni- ture were magnificent in the extreme. Foolish and impious as it was, the Roman religious system powerfully influenced all classes ; both public and private life were permeated by it, either from policy or superstition. Such was the Rome
( 1) 6th Satire, v. 292.
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cf Augustus and his sucessors ; cultivated to excess, in mat- ter of art and science, but immersed in luxury and parade ; dominated by a religion which attracted men because it favored every depraved appetite, and checked no raging passion. Now, looking at the matter from a human point, of view, was it likely that Success would crown the effort of a system like Christianity to obtain the mastery in such a society ? When Sts. Peter and Paul entered the Eternal City they declared implacable war upon all the deities un- der whose care the little hamlet of Romulus had become the mistress of the nations. Capitoline Jove, before whom the conquerors of the earth bent the knee after a triumph, was spoken of by these despised Jews as a nobody. All the other deities were also nobodies, or perhaps demons. The temples were sublime follies ; the priests, vile impos- tors ; the Supreme Pontiff, at best a stage manager. From Caesar on his throne, down to the veriest slave, how would the Romans naturally receive such teachings, and from such men ? And if the proud Quirites consented to put out their sacred fires, what kind of a worship did these Jews propose to substitute for that of majestic Jupiter and lovely Venus? A few years before there had lived in pitiful Judea a man called Jesus, a man of no wealth or of what the Roman would call “ standing ; ” this obscure Jew had styled himself the Son of God, and, at the request of his countrymen, had been crucified by the Roman governor, and between two thieves. What a god to propose to the philosophy of Rome ! And what was the system of morality inculcated by these foreign adventurers? A people who made a virtue of love of glory were to embrace instead the practice of humility. They were to cherish purity, to whom lechery was as the breath of their nostrils, and whose gods were its prime promoters. Forgiveness of injury was to be the ordinary thing among those who regarded revenge as oftentimes a sacred duty. And so on through the whole catalogue of precepts. As Valsecehi well says, “ It was as little to be expected that such a law' would be received in Rome during the time of the Caesars, as it was natural t»> see the carnal and bloody religion of the impostor Mohammed
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accepted by the Saracens of Asia .... This latter sja tem was in unison with the brutal propensities of Chose peoples, and therefore it was received ; the former was en- tirely opposed to the disposition of the Romans, therefore, humanly speaking, it was not to be established.” And what consequences accrued to the profession of Christianity in those days ? In the first place, the convert was proclaimed by all as impious, as an enemy of Caesar and of society, as the vilest of the vile. Listen to Tacitus : “ He (Nero) punished, in a most curious manner, those hated malefac- tors whom the vulgar call Christians repressed
for a while, the pestiferous superstition broke out again
even in the city, where everything atrocious and
shameful flows, and is cultivated. First wore taken the professing Christians, then a great number of those who were named, not as guilty of firing the city, but as enemies of the human race” (1). Suetonius (2) says, “ Torments were visited upon the Christians, a get of men belonging to a new and pernicious superstition.” Juvenal thinks he is very just when he styles the Cr.iistians cerdones , “vile mechanics.” Cecilius (3) deemed them “ uncivilized, and without culture, the vilest scum of the earth.” Lucian re- garded them as “ idiots.” A loug string of like compliments may be found in the erudite work of Mamachi on Christian Antiquities , vol. 1, r. 2 and 3, but these will suffice to show what the refined gentleman and delicate lady convert had to anticipate in those days from their former associates. Tertullian tells us (4) that in consequence of Pagan calum- nies, “Every public calamity and every popular trouble was attributed to the Christians. If the Tiber rises above its banks, if the Nile does not overflow, if the skies are not clear, if the earth quakes, if famine or pestilence come, up goes the cry, ‘The Christians to the Lions.’ ” Now, does the reader think it likely, humanly speaking, that people of every condition, age, and sex, in so brilliant and refined an age, would have rushed to join a sect so vilified and persecuted, and that too for the sake of a doctrine contrary
(1) Annals , B. 13, c. 44. (2) Nero , 16. (8) Minutjus Felix, Octav .. c. 24.
(4) Apology , c. 40.
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RAPID PROPAGATION OP CHRISTIANITY. 65 ,
to their secret and dearest inclinations ? And remember, a few may be guilty of gross extravagance, and of transcen- dent fanaticism, but here it is a question of millions of all classes, nobles and commoners, rough soldiers and delicate women, the philosophers and the ignorant octogenarians and tender children.
Had the tirst apostles of Christianity been helped by mil- itary force, or by the allurements of an easy and self-petting religion, or even by an extraordinary eloquence of their own, they might possibly have been expected, humanly speaking, to succeed. But God wished to take from them even these human aids. Origen makes a remark very apposite to this point (1). “It seems to me that if Jesus had chosen for the work of teaching, those who, in the opinion pf the vulgar, were wise, and fit by knowledge and speech to captivate the good graces of the multitude, He would not have escaped the supicion of instituting a new school, like the philoso- phers, for his own reputation.” The twelve apostles chosen by Christ were men possessed of not even the first rudi- ments of education ; this fact was so well known to the Pa- gans that Origen says that Celsus conceded it without hesi- tation (2). They were Jews, and therefore hated ; fisher- men, and therefore poor ; foreign plebeians, and therefore lacking in Latin and Greek culture. Yet they go into the most cultivated, as well as into the most barbarous places of the earth, and without art or metaphor preach a new and difficult doctrine, which is accepted by millions. They teach what the world’s philosopy must regard as folly, but their folly conquers philosophy. The first argument of their every discourse is the cross, — the scandal of the He- brews and the foolishness of the Gentiles. They faM, in- deed, but their doctrine triumphs.
The rapid propagation of Christianity is an historical fact which no one denies. The resistance of the I'agan world was the greatest possible, on account of the natural opposition between its genius and that of the new system ; it was exercised too in the most ferociously determined manner, as we know from the consequences entailed by con-
( 1 ) A gaintt Cchnu, b. 1 . (2) Ibid.
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STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY.
version to Christianity. Now, the force opposed by the Church to this Pagan resistance was, humanly speaking, the smallest possible, for her doctrines were not alluring to human nature, and her apostles were absolutely deficient in all human aids to success. Therefore, to conclude with Vajsecchi, whose argument we have appropriated, since it is an axiom that the effect must be zero where the force is at the minimum, and the resistance at the maximum, we must admit that according to all human ideas the Christian religion should have been, from the outset, a failure. But it was nevertheless successfully propagated, therefore it was the wrork of God. We may well use the words of Richard of St. Victor : “ If, 0 Lord, my faith were an er- ror— which is an impossibility — Thou art the deceiver, for Thou hast permitted that Christianity should be marked by signs which plainly show the imprint of Thy omnipotent hand.” (1)
(1) 8t. Augustine, In his Citjf of God, b. 22, c„ 5, makes these apposite remarks : “ Here w© noth* three Incredible things. It Is Incredible that Christ rose from the dead : that the world should have believed in His resurrection : that a small number of men, and men, too. from the dregs of the people, should have persuaded, even wise persons, of the fact Of these three incredible things, our adversaries refuse to believe the first. They see the second with llieir own eyes, and they can only account for It by admitting the third. The n*sur- ■ection of Christ is published and believed in the entire world. If it is im redible, why does the universe credit it? Had a large number of learned and distinguished men testified to this miracle, asserting that they had lieheld It, It would not have been wonderful, had the world believed In It; but when we know that the world has credit«*d It, on tin testimony of a few obscure and ignorant persons, how is it that there me yet found men so ol-stinnte as
to discredit that which has been received by an entire world ? If people w ill not
believe that the Apostles performed miracles in testimony of the resurrection of Christ, they ask us to believe in a greater miracle, namely, that the whole world did Itelleve wtihout a miracle.”
Cantd says that while we cannot accept as absolutely true the remark of Justin Martyr (Dial. Tryi>ho , n. 117) as to the universal spread of Christianity in his day, yei : ** It is cer- tain that Christianity spread with a rapidity, which, considering the obstacles that it encount- ered, proves Its divinity. Besides Judea, Italy, Gretsv, and Kg.’. ;>t, the provinces between the Euphrates and the Ionian were cultivated by Paul: u\ • .. o cai/f/jw speaks of the seven Asiatic churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, Th; hi, fa, Hindis, Laodicea, and Philadel- phia ; in Syria, the churches of Damascus, Berea >A;*p; •. , and Antioch, were iilietrious ; Cyprus, Crete, Thrace, and Macedonia received the lies who spread the truth in thean- cient republics of Corinth, Sparta, and Athens. From Edessa, where many embraeod it, Christianity was propagated in the Greek and Syriac cities which obeyed the successors of Artaxerses, In spite of the solid hierarchy, and the exclusiveness of the Persian system. The Great Armenia received it very' early from the neight>oring Syria, although ihe king- dom was not entirely converted until the fourth century The Synagogue, the em-
perors, the proconsuls, persecute them ? If weak, they fly ; if not, they sillier, but They do
not yield It is true that the Romans were used to daily executions, to gladiatorial combats,
to Slolcal suicides ; but the victims of all these either were forced to die, or they threw down Ilf© as am insupportable burden— at least they died with indifference, being satiuted with life. Among the Christians, on the contrary, death was met by women, children, and old men, not with the haughty dlgulty of the schools, hut with simplicity, and without ostenta- Uon.”— Univ. Hist., b 6,c.in,
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A
CHAPTER Y.
ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS OF THE FIRST CENTURY.
Some of the writings which have come down to us as of the first century (1) are clearly of a later date ; others again have been proved to be forgeries ; some, however, are un- doubtedly authentic. We shall briefly treat of those which are the most frequently quoted or consulted, either by Catholic authors or their opponents, as fountains of history. First in order of importance, if it were authentic, comes the letter said to have been written by our Lord to Abgar, king of Edessa, in Mesopotamia. Eusebius (2) tells us that . this prince addressed an epistle to Christ, begging him to come to him and cure him of a malady ; that the Saviour re- plied, promising to send one of his disciples ; that, after the Ascension, St. Thomas sent St. Thaddeus, who performed the cure and converted the people of Edessa. The his- torian gives the whole letter of Christ, and says that he found it in the ancient annals of Edessa. St. Ephrem, who was a deacon of Edessa, also speaks of the epistle. Count Darius, writing to St. Augustine; Evagrius (3), St. John Damascene (4), and the 7th General Council (5), are cited by the friends of the epistle, as mentioning it and regarding it as authentic.
Tillemont, the Anglican Cave, and a few other critics, ac- cept it. But, as Bergier well remarks (6), the authenticity of this letter need not give much concern to a theologian,
(1) Besides the books of the New Testament, we have the following : A letter of Christ to Abgar, king of Edessa, and one of that prince to our Lord ; Liturgies nscrit>ed to Sts. Peter, James, Matthew, and Mark ; Acts of Sts. Paul and Tbecla ; The Apocryphal Gospels accord- ing to the Egyptians, Hebrews. Sts. Peter, James, Thomas, and Matthias ; Acts of Sts. Peter and Paul, Andrew, John, Philip, and Thomas ; Revelations of Sts. Paul and Thomas ; Apoc- alypse of St. Peter ; Epistle of St. Paul to Seneca ; and of Seneca to St. Paul ; Epistle of St. Paul to the Laodiceans: Writings of Prochorus (one of the seven deacons), Linus, and Ab- dias; Epistle of St. Barnabas ; Book of the Pastor ; Passion of St. Andrew by the Clergy of Achala ; Epistles of St. Martial: Epistles of Pope St. Clement, and of other Pontiffs : Book of Recognitions, ascribed to St. Clement; Epistle of St. Polvcarp : Encyclical Epistle of the Church of Smyrna ; Writings of St. Dionysius the Areopagite : Epistles of St. Ignatius, Mar- tyr ; Canons of the Apostles ; Apostolic Constitutions : Canons of the Apostolic Council of Antioch.
(2) Book 1, c. 13. (3) Book 4, c. 26. (4) Orthodox Faith, b. 4, c. 17.
. (5) Action 5. (6) Art. Ahyar
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4< for upon it depends no fact, no dogma, no point of moral- ity.” Pope Gelasius, in a Synod of 70 Bishops, held at Rome in 494, pronounced the correspondence apocryphal, and certainly if the letter of Christ is authentic, it is diffi- cult to understand why it has not been included in the Canon of Scripture. Alexandre uses this argument, and adds, among others, the following. None of the Gospels were written during the sojourn of Christ upon earth, and yet, in His alleged letter to Abgar. He is represented as quoting the Gospel. Again, Abgar writes to our Lord that llis iame has reached Edessa ' now, the letter bears date of the 430th year of the Edessenes. which was the 15tli of Tiberius, the year in which St. John commenced his mission, and at that period fame had not yet become occupied with the name of Jesus, Finally, if the early fathers had regarded this correspondence as authentic, they would not have omitted, as they did, to adduce it against the Arians ; for in it the divinity of Christ is explicitly asserted. As for the testimony of Sts. Eplirem and John Damascene, of Evagrius, and of the 7th Council, wre can only say that these fathers were mistaken in their judgment. St. Jerome, in his Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, makes no allusion whatever to the Abgar correspondence. And it is to be noted that Count Darius, waiting to St. Augustine, speaks •of these letters as of dubious authenticity ; that St. John Damascene does not allude to any letter of Christ to Abgar, but to a portrait of our Lord sent to the prince (1) ; that the same is to be observed as to the testimony of the 7th Council.
The Canons of the. Apostles purport to be disciplinary regu- lations of the primitive Church, and are 85 in number. Torriani, in a book written against the Centuriators cf Magdeburg, ascribes them all to the Apostles. Bellarmine, Baronio, and Possevin, hold that the first 50 are authentic, Bini accepts all but the 65th and 84th. Daille (2), and
(!) “ History tells us that when Abgar, king of Edeesa, sent a painter to t&ke a portrait of our Lord, the artist could not fulfil the task on account of the effulgence of His face; that our Lord Himself then pressed his garment to His divine and life-giving countenance, thereby affixing His likeness upon it, which He sent to Abgar.”
(2) Apostolic Pseudopiyraphs, b. 3.
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ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS OF THE FIRST CENTURY. 69
many other Protestant authors, contend that all these Can- ons are supposititious, and that they were not known be- fore the fourth, and perhaps the fifth, century. Protestant writers would naturally be hostile to them, for they are manifestly opposed to many Protestant doctrines, rln them we discover that the early Church believed in preeminence of bishops ; we read of “ altars ” and of “ sacrifice ” ; we ob- serve that regulations were made for the administration of the Eucharist, for Penance. &c
The Anglican Beveridge (1), holds, however, that these Canons were established by bishops and synods in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Alexandre (2) contends that the eastern churches accepted them in the beginning of the sixth cen- tury ; that the western churches received the first 50 at the same period ; that the entire collection is supposititious ; that, nevertheless, they are very ancient, and were in great part drawn up in 258, by the Synod of Iconium, over which Firmilian presided. Those who hold that the Apostles and the Apostolic fathers had no part in the framing of these Canons, rely upon the following arguments. Pope Gelas- ius I. declared them apocryphal. Cardinal Hubert, legate of Pope Leo IX. to Constantinople, rejected them when Nicetas cited them in support of his opposition to the Saturday fast. “ We disdain/’ says Hubert, “ to listen to these fabulous traditions.” Had the early Church regard- ed these Canons as authentic, contends Alexandre, they would have been inserted in the Canon of Scripture. The Ecclesiastical authors of the first four centuries are silent as to these documents, even in circumstances in which their existence would have been very beneficial to the cause of truth. Words occur in these Canons which are utterly for- eign to the style of the Apostles, e. g., Cleric, Lector, Chan- ter, Priest ( Sacerdos ), Laic, First among Bishops (foi a Met- ropolitan), the Hyperberetaean Month (for October) (3). In Canons 46, 47, and 67. we find a denial of the validity of Baptism conferred by heretics. Canon 7 prohibits the cel- ebration of a Pasch “ with the Jew's.” and yet the conduct
\1) Canons of the Early Church. (2) Hixtnry ; Cent. Diss. 18, prop. 1, 2, and 3.
(3) This was the Syro-Macedonic word for October.
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of the bishops of Asia Minor in the Paschal Controversy im- plies utter ignorance of this ordinance. And why did not Pope Victor cite this canon, when these prelates defended their course as upheld by Apostolic tradition? Canon 65 deposes any cleric, and excommunicates any layman, who fasts on Saturday ; yet it is certain that in the very city of Rome, at least in the fourth century, Saturday was a fast- day (1), and that St Augustine doubted whether or not it was so observed by the Apostles. In Canon 84, the Books of Scripture are mentioned, and among them, we find three Books of Maccliabees, two Epistles of Clement, and eight Books of Constitutions ; there are wanting in the list, Wis- dom, Tobias, Judith, Ecclesiastes, Esdras, and the Apoca- lypse. In Canons 21, 2’2, and 23, no one is allowed admis- sion to the ranks of the clergy who has been guilty of self- mutilation ; a cleric who is thus guilty, after admission, is deposed ; a layman is excluded from communion for three years. It is very unlikely that this crime was committed in the time of the Apostles ; we certainly know of no in- stance. And in after years, when the indiscreet zeal of a few impelled them to it, and the ecclesiastical authorities forbade it, we find no citation of an Apostolic c anon in de- fence of the prohibition (2). To these arguments against the authenticity of the Apostolic Canons, Torriani, Bellar- mine, and Baronio, respond in some instances, with consid- erable plausibility (3). It is very improbable, says Ber- gier (4), that Sts. Peter, John, James, and Mark made no regulations for the government of their respective dioceses of Rome, Ephesus, Jerusalem, and Alexandria. And in these cities, synods were held during the second and third centuries ; the attending prelates would naturally follow the Apostolic regulations, and having embodied them, they soon styled them Apostolic Canons. They are apocryphal, inasmuch as they were drawn up, neither by the Apostles, nor by St. Clement, whose name th^y bear. But they are
(1) Sr. ArorrsTiNK . Epi*t. 36 to Cambmus. Cassian : Monasteries, b. 3, c. 10. 80CRATES . b. 5, c. 2.
(2) The Instance of Orijren, thanks to Demetrius, was made notorious, but he was not de- posed. Theoetlstus, Alexander, “ and the bishops of the whole world, ” who. according to Eusebius, knew of Oriprcu's fault, would oertainly have obeyed an Apostolic canon.
(3) See Alexander . loc. c it.
(4) Art. Canons.
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ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS OF THE FIRST CENTURY. 71
authoritative, inasmuch as they present us the discipline, which, in the second and third centuries, was believed to have been established by the Apostles.
The ApostoHc Constitutions are a collection of regulations bearing the name of Pope St. Clement. Nearly all critics agree that they are supposititious, that they were unknown before the fourth or fifth century. Bellarmine says (1) that “In them there are many useful things, and by the olden Greeks they were highly esteemed. But in the Latin Church they are almost of no account, and even the later Greeks, in the Trullan synod, can. 2, rejected them as corrupted by heretics I understand that the Ethio-
pians use these Constitutions as though they were really Apostolic, and that, for that very reason, they err in their observance of Saturday and Sunday, in regard to the min- ister of the Sacrament of Baptism, and in certain other doc- trines In these same Constitutions there are not a few
things contrary to truth.” The erudite Christian Lupus (2) reminds us that “ the Catalogue of St. Jerome makes no mention of them, and St. Gelasius, in his Roman synod, rejects them as apocryphal ; the whole Latin Church has always held the same opinion. In our own times. Cardi- nals Baronio, Bellarmine, Perron ; Gabriel d’ Aubespine (Albaspinaeus), the learned bishop of Orleans, believe the same. C .arles Boviu^, therefore, and Francis Torriani might have used their time to better advantage than in an attempt to vindicate them Thomas Stapleton wrongly declares them to be full of the Apostolic spirit, and worthy
of a place in the Scriptural Canon The book was
issued by some unknown Arian of the 4th century, and it errs in dogma and in liiurgy.” However, in spite of the Arianism, anachronisms, and other faults of these Consti- tutions they are valuable as sources of information on many disciplinary and liturgical points. Such is the judgment of Grabe Beveridge, and other Protestant authors. Mos- heim holds, in one place, that they are the works of the 3d century ; in another, he assigns their origin to the second.
(1) Ecclesiastical Writers , art. Clement.
(2) Notes to the 2nd Canon of the Trullan Synod.
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8TUDIE8 IN CHURCH HISTORY.
Whiston (1) employs much erudition in trying to prove them the work of St Clement, at the dictation of the Apostles. Alexandre (2) contends that they are apocry- phal, and at variance with the teachings of the Church. Bergier believes that the first books were compiled some centuries before the 8th. Roncaglia thinks that at the time of St Epiphanius, who praises the Constitutions , they were incorrupted, but that, soon afterwards, they were vitiated
(3;.
The Epistles of St. Clement (4) come next in order of im- portance. Some of these are unanimously rejected by all critics, both Catholic and Protestant, but the two Epistles to the Corinthians are undoubtedly authentic. The first has come down to us entire, while we have only a fragment of the second. With regard to the first, St. Dionysius of Corinth, only seventy years after it wTas wrritten, tells the Romans that, from time immemorial, it was customary to read it in his church (5), Sts. Irenaeus (6), Clement of Alexandria (7), Cyril of Jerusalem (8), Ephanius (9), and Jerome (10), cite it and praise it. Origen (11) also speaks of it. Eusebius (12) says that it is approved by the judgment of all. The learned Presbyterian, Nathaniel Lardner (13), thinks it was written about the year 96, immediately after the persecution of Domitian. Alexandre assigns the same date, noting that the author, in chapters 1, 5, and 6, alludes to a persecution other than that of Nero, wdiich must have been that of Domitian. It has been asserted that Eusebius in his Booh 3, c. 36, St. Jerome, and Photius, absolutely reject- ed the 2nd Epistle ; that the first betrays an ignorance un- worthy of St. Clement Eusebius does not reject the 2nd Epis- tle ; he simply says that it is “less known” than the first.
(1) This author, now best known by his translation of Josephus, was the successor of Newtou at Cambrldjre. Becoming an Arian in 1710, he was deprived of
finally Joined the Baptists.
. .. . . ... m%iXm
bis chair, and
(2) Cent. /., Hiss.
(3) There are several instances of inconsistency in the Constitution* , which would Indi- cate the presence of a urniiierinfr hand. Thus, they sometimes permit the observance of the Pasch with the Jews, and sometimes prohibit it.
(4) The Epistles of the other Pontiffs, down to Siricius, will receive attention In the chap- Ur devoted to the Fain e Decretals of Isidore Me rent or.
(5) EusKBirs ; b. 4, r. 14. (10) ecclesiastical HYffers, art. Clement.
(6) Heresies, h. 3, c. 3, (11) Princip ., b. 2 , c. 3.
(7) Stromaton, h. i, 4, 6. (12) 7?. 3, c. 12.
(8) Catechism, lrt. (13) Credibility of the Gospel Histoi'y , r. 8.
(9) Heresy , 27, n. 6.
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ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS OF THE FIRST CENTURY. 75
Photius, in his Codex , 113, and St Jerome, in his Catalogue , both seem to discredit its authenticity, but they do not there give their own opinion, but that which Eusebius appears to favor. When, indeed, they speak for themselves, as Photius does in Codex , 126, and St. Jerome, against Jovin ., b. 1, c. 7, they both acknowledge the 2nd Epistle as genuine. The charge of ignorance is hinted by Photius, in his Codex , 126, saying, “ Some may blame him because he admits the exist- ence of other worlds beyond the ocean ; because he adduces* the story of the phoenix as a certain fact ; because he gives to Jesus Christ merely the title of high-priest and ruler, not using the more eminent titles which belong to His divini- ty.” As for the admission of “ other worlds,” this is only another argument against those who* assert that the Fathers- deny the existence of the antipodes. Origen (1) interprets St. Clement as meaning regions beyond the ocean, and agrees with him. St. Hilary does the same (2). As to the fable of the phoenix, its mention by the author of the Epistlea is no proof that he regarded it as a fact, or used it in any other sense than as an illustration of our resurrection, as did Origen, Tertullian, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Lactantius, St. Gregory of Nazianzen, and many other Fathers. The insinuation that the writer did not believe in the divinity of Christ is shown to be unfounded by the commencement of the second letter, where our Saviour is called God, the Judge of the living and the dead.
The book of Recognitions , ascribed to St. Clement, is cited by Origen (3) and by se veral early writers ; nevertheless, it must be classed among the apocryphal. St. Epiphanius (4) is of opinion that St. Clement wrote these Recognition & and other works ascribed to him, but that they were cor- rupted by the Ebionites. Rufinus, in his book on the cor- ruption of the works of Origen, forms the same judgment Eusebius, and Sts. Jerome and Athanasius also reject them. Two entire pages of the Recognitions , observes Alexandre, are taken, word for word, from the book on Fatei written by Bardesanes the Syrian^ who flourished under M«rcur Anto-
ny' Principal). 2, c. 3. (2) Pzftltn II., iw 23.
(8) Tract 85, on Matthew. (4; Heretics* 80.
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ninus (161-180), certainly sixty years after the death of St. Clement.
The Epistlp of St. Polycarp to the Philippinns is a valuable document. Its author was a disciple of St. John the Evan- gelist, was made bishop of Smyrna, and was martyred about the year 169. The doctrine of the Real Presence and that of Holy Orders are plainly presented, and hence Protestants would gladly show it to be spurious. But even LeClerc(l) entertains no doubt as to its authenticity. Haille, in his anxiety to discredit the authority of the let- ters of St. Ignatius, which Poly carp sustains, alleges some flimsy arguments against it, which are refuted by Pearson, in his Vindication of Ignatius, chap. 5. Mosheiin (2) thinks it is not easy to decide whether or not the Epistle is authentic. The following words of St. Irenaeus (3) speak well for its genuineness. *‘And Poly carp, not only instructed by the Apostles, and associated with many of those who saw our Lord, but also made bishop of Smyrna in Asia, by the
Apostles, whom we ourselves saw, in our early age
There exists a most perfect Epistle of Polycarp, written to the Philippians, from which those who wish, and who have regard for their salvation, may learn the quality of his faith and the preaching of truth.” Eusebius (4) and St. Jerome (5) also praise this letter. Some have impugned its authority, because it seems to be guilty of inconsistency; in one place, they say St. Ignatius is mentioned as living, while again he is spoken of as “ in his due place, with God.” But the holy martyr is not spoken of as still living ; at least, that is not necessarily the sense of the passage. St. Polycarp requests the Philippians “ to inform him of what they know for certain about Ignatius, and those who are with him.” The Acts of ihe martyr tell us that he passed through Philippi on his way to death and that the Philippians, as was customary in such cases, sent messengers to honor and con- sole him When these returned to their companions, they certainly had much to narrate, and St. Polycarp wished to be informed of everything. The knowledge of the saint’s
( 1 ) History, y. 117. (2) Hist., Cent. I., p. 2, c. 2, § 21. (3) Heresies, b. 3, c. 3,
(4) B. 3, c. 30, and b. 4, c. 18. (5) Eccles. Writers , art. Polycarp.
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ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS OF THE FIRST CENTURY. 75
last moments, of the disposition of his body, etc., reached Macedonia before it did Smyrna; it was natural then for St. Polycarp to apply to the Philippians for information. The authority of Nicephorus of Constantinople and of Anastasius the Librarian is also adduced against our Epis- ih\ But the opinion of Anastasius, who flourished in the ninth century, is not of first importance, when contrary to that of Irenaeus, Eusebius, Jerome, Bede, and of all the Asiatic churches, who, for many centuries, solemnly read this Emstle in their services. As for Nicephorus, his judg- ment was not so good as that of his contemporary, the learned Photius. who, though he rejected the letter of St. Clement, had nothing to allege against that of St. Poly carp. Again, the Stichometria of Nicephorus, cited against us, does not speak of the Epistle , but of the Didaschalia of St. Poly- carp. Finally, even though the Epistle, were quoted by the author of the Stichometria, no argument can be drawn there- from, for the writer does not pronounce the document spu- rious ; he merely says that it is to be placed among the apocrypha of the Bible, that is, to be excluded from the Canon of Scripture, which is very different from banishing it from the company of authentic works (1).
The Encyclical Epistle of the Church of Smyrna inserted by Cotelier among the Work*. } of the Apostolic Fathers , was writ- ten after the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, and is not impugn- ed by any author of note. It is valuable for the testimony it bears to the veneration of martyrs and their relics on the part of the primitive Church.
St. Dionysius (Denis), the Areopagite, is believed by many to have been the author of the following works : The
Celestial Hierarchy , The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy , The Divine Names , Mystic Theology , and ten Epistles . The state of the question in regard to these books is well explained by Alex- andre (2), at the beginning of his apposite dissertation : “It is certain that no one has spoken of these works as
(1) It may be observed, with Alexandre, that the cited Stichnmetria was not written by the patriarch Nicephorus, nor by any author of the 9th centuiw. At that time, the Greek* did not doubt of the canonidty of the books of Esther, Judith, and Wisdom, as does the writer of this book.
(2) Cent. L, Dies. XXII.
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written, either by Dionysius or by any other Father, before the beginning of the fifth century. Secondly, it is certain that, in the following centuries, the Fathers, the Councils, the Pontiffs, and all the Ecclesiastical writers, down to Eras- mus (one alone, an anonymous, excepted), ascribed them to Dionysius the Areopagite. Thirdly, it is certain that there are grave reasons for denying that they are by Dio- nysius the Areopagite, and for assigning them to an author of the fifth century ; by which reasons Launoy and Morin were persuaded to adopt that opinion. However, though it is fortified so strongly, I would rather defend the contrary opinion, which declares St. Dionysius the Areopagite to be the legitimate parent of these books ; it has so many ar- guments in its favor, that I deem it not less probable than the other, and would prefer to defend it, with the (Ecumen- ical Councils and the Holy Fathers on my side, than to embrace the other, under the leadership of the doubtful Eras- mus, and Daille, Blondel, and other heterodox authors, to- gether with the most learned Morin and Launoy.” Nothing will better show the diversity of opinion among Catholic critics, concerning these writings, than a comparison of this passage of the great historian and critic with one of Ber- gier (1). “It is certain that the works, which bear the name of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, are not those of the holy bishop of Athens, but the real author is unknown. Critics
differ as to the period when they first appeared The
first authentic mention of them is at the conference held in 532, in the palace of the emperor Justinian, between the Catholics and the Severians ; the latter quoted them in their own favor, the former upheld their orthodoxy, and from that time many Fathers of the Church have sustained their authoritativeness. Mosheim and Brucher deem the Mystic Theology the work of a fanatical Platonist, who, in place of the reasonable religion of the Gospel, substitutes a chimerical devotion, consisting of prayers, vigils, and macerations of the body ; making lazy contemplation the perfection of Christianity — an absurd doctrine, which has
(1) Art. Dionysius.
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produced great abuses in the Church”(l). The book on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy is also displeasing to Protestants, for it bears witness to the ancient use of rites and ceremonies, and to the “ Discipline of the Secret” So grave are the authorities adduced by both parties to this controversy, and so weighty are some of the arguments used by each, that we can do no better than sum- marize their respective reasons, leaving the student to his own good judgment thereon. In the first place, thirteen centuries of possession, during which time these books have been ascribed to the Areopagite, by Fathers, by Pontiffs, and by Councils, no other author being put forward as claimant, militate for their authenticity. They are cited as works of our Dionysius by Juvenal of Jerusalem (2), who lived in the fifth century ; by Leontius (3), when combating the Aphtardocetes, or asserters of the incorruptibility of the flesh of Christ ; by the Monothelites, with no contradiction on the part of the Catholics (4) ; by Sophronius of Jerusa- lem, the first opponent of the Monthelites (5) ; by Pope St. Martin I. in the Council of Lateran (6) ; by St. Maximus, disputing with the Monotlielite, Pyrrhus ; by the 6th General Council, in Action 8 ; by Pope Agatho, writing to Constan- tine Pogonatus ; by St. Gregory the Great (7) ; by Pope Adri- an I., in his letter to Charlemagne on the Seveuth Council ; by Pope Nicholas I., addressing the emperor Michael ; by Hincmar of Rlieims and Anastasius, writing to Charles the Bald ; by Pliotius, one of the most rigid, as well as one of the most learned of critics (8) ; by St. John Damascene (9) ; by St Thomas of Aquin (10) ; by the erudite Cardinal Bessar- ion (11). Secondly, the author of these books speaks of him- self in a way that indicates him to have been a contempo- rary of the Apostles. Thus (12) he calls himself a disciple of St. Paul ; he declares that he was present at the obse- quies of the Blessed Virgin, together with Sts. Peter and James (13) ; he says he witnessed the disappearance of the
(1) IbL (2) Nicephorcs Calustus : History, b. 15, c. 14. (3) Against Xestorius
and Eutj/che*. b. 2. (4) Gen. Council of Constantinople ( 3rd ), Action 2.
(5) Etrislle to Sergius. (6) See. 1 and 8. (7) Homily 34, on St. Luke's GitispcL
(8) Coder . 231. (9) Orthodox Faith . b. 1, c. 15. (10) Sentences II.. diet. 10, q. 1, art. 12.
(11) Platonic Defence, b. 2, c. 3. (12) Divine Xames. c. 2,
, IU, U. I, U7 l.
dh Ibi. c. 3.
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STUDIES* IN CHURCH HISTORY;* *
sun on the death of Christ (!) Finally, the great Erasmus, the leader of the opponents of the Dionysian claims, could adduce, in favor of his theory, only the names of Lorenzo Valla and William Grocinus. Against the authenticity of these works, Theodore, an author much praised by Photius, proposes four questions, and answers them. First, why do none of the Fathers quote the works of the Areopagite ? This is answered by a denial of the supposition. Second, how is it that Eusebius, enumerating the writings of the Fathers, does not mention those of Dionysius? St. Max- imus Martyr replies that Eusebius tells us that many of such writings had not reached him, and Alexandre observes that Eusebius makes no mention of the works of Athenago- ras, which are celebrated, and of undoubted authenticity. Third, how is it that, while Dionysius was a contemporary of the Apostles, he alludes to traditions which arose in after times ? To this the friends of the Dionysian claims reply that it is false that said traditions were not from Apostolic days ; that the persecutions of the early days had prevented the use of much of the ceremonial, which was nevertheless of Apostolic origin, and they cite St. Basil (2), saying, “ We bless the water of Baptism, and the oil of Unction, and al- so him who is baptized ; but on (the authority of) what writ- ings ? Is it not from silent and secret tradition ? Where is the triple immersion found in Scripture ? And the other things performed in Baptism, such as the renunciation of Satau and his angels, from what Scripture do we drive them ? Is it not from this unpublished and hidden tradi- tion ? In this manner, the Apostles and the Fa-
thers, who, in the first days of the Church, prescribed cer- tain rites, preserved in silence the dignity of the Mysteries.” Fourth, how is it that St. Dionysius cites the Epistle of St. Ignatius to the Romans , when the former was martyred un- der Domitian, and the latter suffered under Trajan, and wrote his Epistle just before his death ? Alexandre believes that this citation is an interpolation, but it is unnecessary to recur to such a supposition, as St. Dionysius did not suffer under Domitian, but in the last year of Trajan, or the
(1) F i riM . 7, tn PolycurjK <2) Holy Glimt . c. 27.
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first cf Adrian (1). It is also urged against the authenti- city of these works that the author styles St. Timothy his son, an implication of superiority cf which the holy Areop- agite would not have been guilty. The reply to this ob- jection is that there was no undue assumption, on the part of Dionysius, in so speaking of Timothy. St. Timothy j was much younger than the Areopagite ; St. Paul himself alludes to his extreme youth. A third objection is found- ed upon the mention, in the book on The Ecclesiastical Hie- rarchy, of the monastic institution as already established, while, it is alleged, the ecclesiastical writers of the first two centuries do not speak of monks. Alexandre (2) replies at some length to this argument, and shows, that while the monastic state, as we now have it, did not exist for some time after St. Dionysius, yet, from Apostolic times, there were such monks as the Areopagite depicts ; who were re- garded as laics, and were subject to the bishops, and even to the priests ; who, devoted to God, and free from earthly cares, lived, sometimes at home, often in community; to whom, immediately after the clergy, place was accorded in the sacred services (3). Morin urges, as agaiust the author- ship of St. Dionysius, that, in the book on the Celestial Hierarchy, the word hypostasis is used to signify “ person,’* as distinct from essence ; while we know, lie says, that this term began to be so used, only after the synod of Alexan- dria of 362. To this may be answered that, nevertheless, the Areopagite may have so used it. There was certainly a first to adopt the term in the new sense ; why should not he have been the one ? He certainly understood the force of the word, and knowing that it admirably indicated those substances, which, in intelligent natures, we designate as
persons,” it was quite natural for hini. a sublime philoso- pher, to apply the term to the three Divine Persons, and style God, Trishypjstatos , that is, a Being subsisting in Three I Persons. But it is not true that the word hypostasis received • its new signification after the synod of Alexandria in 362 St. Dionysius of Alexandria, in response to the fourth pro-
U) Conf. 8 u Idas, Roman Matiyrolngy : Rede: Ado of Vienne.
(2) Cent. dim*. 22. (3) See the Rpistle of Dionysius to DeimtphUw*.
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position of Paul of Samosata, says of the Persons of the Fa- ther and the Son, “ They are two inseparable hypostases” St. Alexander, also of Alexandria, in a letter to Alexander of Constantinople (1), declares that “ of the Father and the Son, there are two natures in hyposta.su' And, according to St. Basil the Great (2), the Council of Nice (325) used the word hypostasis for “person” when, in its Exposition of Faith, it condemned those who asserted, that the word u was made from another subsistence or substance.” According to St. Gregcry of Nyssa (3), when St. Paul in Hebrews , /., speaks of “ the figure of His substance ” (in the Greek, character tis hypostaseos ), he used the word hyjtostasis for per- son.” Finally, as a member of the Areopagus, St Diony- sius was certainly well versed in the wTorks of Aristotle, and that philosopher, in his work on The World , uses hypos- tasis in another sense than that of 44 essence.” He says, “of those things which we observe in the air. some only appear, others are ; ” the Greek text has 4t are hath 9 hypos - tasin .” In the supposition that St. Dionysius was not the author of the works bearing liis name, critics are at an ut- ter loss to whom to ascribe them. The famous Dominican, Le Quien, in his edition of the writings of St. John Damas- cene, endeavors to prove that the unknown was a Mono- physite heretic (4).
St. Ignatius, Martyr, a disciple of St. John the Evangel- ist, and third bishop of Antioch, called by th*, * Iden Greeks Theophorus , because they believed him to have been the child embraced by the Saviour, Matt ., 18 3, has been repu- ted the author of many works which are undoubtedly spu- rious. Thus, the Epistles addressed to the Blessed Virgin , and the two inscribed to St. John , those to Mary Cassabdhe , to the Tarsians . to the Ant iochenes, to Hero , and to the Philip - pians , give intrinsic evidence of their worthlessness, and are defended by none. But there are seven other Epistles
(1) Theodorft: KMnru. b. 1, c, 3. (2) Epistle 78. (3) ‘ - and Uy.
postasi *, written *o Pe'er.
(4) Roncaglia, in his 2 i Anirru.lversinn to Alexander’s dls*ertu.. ^ . . abject, gives
several additional reasons why these works should be deemed spurious. The most conclu- sive are 1st, the author explains the mystery of the Trinity even more clear! v than is done by Athanasius: 2d, he alludes to no persecution of the Church: 3d, he quote* :he Gospel And Apocalypse of St. John, which were composed in the old age of the Apostle, while the Areopaglte tells us that his own works were of his younger days.
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of St. Ignatius, addressed to the Ephesians , to the Magnesi- ans} to the TraRians , to the Romans , to the Philadelphians , to the Smymiotes, and to St. Polycarp . These seven, as
they are presented, according to the common Greek-Latin edition, in all but the very latest Patrologies , are interpola- ted and corrupted. This is shown by the fact that the pas- sages of the Epistles , quoted by the ancient Fathers, are either not found in this edition, or are given in very differ- ent language ; again, because there are many things there- in foreign to the age of the reputed author. These same seven Epistles , however, as they are read in the editions form- ed from the Greek codex discovered by Isaac Voss in the Medicean Library, and from the two Latin MSS. found \v. England by Usher, are regarded as authentic by the bes Protestant critics. De Saumaise, Daille, Blondel, and some others, reject them. They certainly agree with the character of their reputed author, and with the genius of the age in which he lived; which is no slight argument in favor of their authenticity. They refute the heresies of his day ; they use no testimony but that of Scripture; they speak of the Apostolic gifts yet flourishing in the Church ; they are redolent of the simplicity of the Apostolic age, and betray an irrepressible yearning for the martyr’s crown. These characteristics of the Epistles powerfully impressed the An- glican Pearson in their favor, and he devoted much of his diligence to their vindication. Bnt