A New Witness for God (Vol. 1-3). B. H. Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ Christian church completed by the Diocletian persecution is witnessed by the inscriptions upon monuments and medals. Two pillars in Spain, erected to commemorate the reign of Diocletian bore the following; on the first—

      "DIOCLETIAN, JOVIAN, MAXIMIAN HERCULIUS, CAESARES AUGUSTI, FOR HAVING EXTENDED THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST AND WEST, AND FOR HAVING EXTINGUISHED THE NAME OF CHRISTIANS, WHO BROUGHT THE REPUBLIC TO RUIN;"

      On the second,

      "DIOCLETIAN, ETC., FOR HAVING ADOPTED GALERIUS IN THE EAST, FOR HAVING EVERYWHERE ABOLISHED THE SUPERSTITION OF CHRIST, FOR HAVING EXTENDED THE WORSHIP OF THE GODS."

      And on the medal of Diocletian this: "THE NAME OF CHRISTIAN BEING EXTINGUISHED."²⁸

      When it is remembered that these persecutions, to which I have briefly referred, ran through more than three centuries; that the emperors whose edicts inaugurated them possessed unlimited power to execute their decrees; that the age in which they occurred was cruel beyond modern comprehension; that Roman, that is to say, pagan hatred of Christians was venomously bitter, because they were made to believe that the existence of the ancient religion of Rome and latterly the existence of the empire itself depended upon the destruction of Christianity—when all this is remembered, it is not to be wondered at that the saints were worn out, or so nearly so that only "weak and timorous" men were left to ineffectually resist the paganization of Christianity—the destruction of the Church of Christ.

      Footnotes

      1. Matt. xi. 12.

      2. "Euseb. Eccl. Hist.," Book VIII., ch. ii. and ch. xii.

      3. "Decline and Fall," Vol. I., p. 486, Ed. of 1880.

      4. "Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. I., p. 360.

      5. Of the burning of Rome, the punishment of the Christians and this celebrated passage in the writings of the famous Roman annalist, Gibbon, from whom I quote the phrase above, says: "The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this extraordinary fact and the integrity of this celebrated passage of Tacitus. The former [the burning of Rome and the punishment of the Christians] is confirmed by the diligent and accurate Suetonius, who mentions the punishment which Nero inflicted on the Christians, a sect of men who had embraced a new and criminal superstition. The latter may be proved by the consent of the most ancient manuscripts, by the imimitable character of the style of Tacitus, by his reputation, which guarded his text from the interpolation of pious fraud." "Decline and Fall," Vol. i., p. 448.

      6. "Tacitus Annl.," lib, XV., ch. 44.

      7. See Milman's Note in "Decline and Fall," Vol. I., p. 450.

      8. I have taken Milner's translation of the Epistle. See "Ch. Hist.," Vol I., p. 145.

      9. "Milner's Ch. Hist.," Vol. I., p. 148.

      10. "Decline and Fall," Vol. I., p. 453.

      11. An account of these persecutions at great length will be found in the letters of the survivors sent to the churches of Asia and Phrygia. "Eusebius," Book V., ch. i.

      12. That is, they were executed. Eusebius, Bk. vi., Ch. xli.

      13. See Murdock's note in Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., Bk. i, Cent. iii, Ch. ii.

      14. Mosheim, (Murdock) Bk. i, Cent. iii, Ch. ii.

      15. "Decline and Fall," Vol i., Ch. xvi.

      16. Milner's Church Hist., Vol. i, Cent. iii, Ch. viii.

      17. The situation was this: A year after his elevation to the imperial throne, Diocletian, believing the government of the vast empire of Rome a task too great for a single mind, chose Maximianus Herculius, commonly called Maximian, to be his colleague and to share with him the title of Augustus. After a few years each of the emperors chose a colleague in order to still further divide the labor of administration. These were Constantius Chlorus and Galerius Maximianus, usually called by his first name. Constantius and Galerius occupied an inferior position to that of Diocletian and Maximian, and were honored only with the title of "Caesar."

      18. Eusebius Eccl. Hist., Bk. viii, Ch. ii.

      19. Eusebius Eccl. Hist., Bk. viii, Ch. vi.

      20. Eusebius Eccl. Hist., Bk. viii, Ch. vi.

      21. Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., Cent, iv, Part i, Ch. i.

      22. This torture was raking the flesh from the body by means of an iron-toothed instrument.

      23. Eusebius Eccl. Hist., Bk. viii, Ch. viii.

      24. Eusebius Eccl. Hist., Bk. viii, Ch. ix.

      25. "Decline and Fall," Vol. i, p. 481. Gibbon claims, however, that "notwithstanding the severity of this law, the virtuous courage of many of the pagans in concealing their friends or relatives, affords an honorable proof, that the rage of superstition had not extinguished in their minds the sentiments of nature and humanity."—Ibid.

      26. Schlegel, quoted by Murdock, see note Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., Cent. iv, Bk. ii. Ch. i.

      27. "Decline and Fall," Vol. i, ch. xvi, p. 477. Gibbon undertakes to modify what he has here written by saying that the policy of a well-ordered government must sometimes have interposed in behalf of the oppressed Christians. "This wants proof," says Milman in a footnote on the remark, "the edict of Diocletian was executed in all its rigor during the rest of the reign;" and gives reference to Eusebius Eccl. Hist., Bk. viii, ch. xiii.

      28. See Milner's Church History, Vol. ii, cent. iv, ch. ii, I also give the following in evidence of the severity of the persecution of the Christians in the early centuries of our era; and since it is taken from the funeral oration pronounced by Libanius over the body of his friend, the Emperor Julian, commonly called the apostate—because in manhood he renounced that Christianity which had been forced on him in childhood, and attempted to restore the ancient religion of Rome—it is of the same character of evidence as that already found in the statements of Tacitus and Pliny—it is the testimony of one unfriendly to Christianity, who could have no motive for exaggerating the sufferings of the Christians. Referring to the mildness of the methods of persecution adopted by Julian against the Christians, Labanius says: "They who adhered to corrupt religion [he means the Christians] were in great terrors [on his accession to the throne] and expected that their eyes would be plucked out, that their heads would be cut off, and that rivers of their blood would flow from the multitude of slaughters. They apprehended their new master would invent new kinds of torment, in comparison of which mutilation, sword, fire, drowning, being buried alive, would appear slight pains. For the preceding emperors had employed against them all these kinds of punishments."

      CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

      THE EFFECT OF PEACE, WEALTH AND LUXURY ON CHRISTIANITY.

      Disastrous as the persecutions of the early Christian centuries were, still more mischievous to the church were those periods of tranquility which intervened between the outbursts of rage that prompted them. Peace may have her victories, no less renowned than those of war; and so, too, she has her calamities, and they are not less destructive СКАЧАТЬ