CHAPTER IX. The Martyrs of Christ

THE MARTYRS OF CHRIST

In reading the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius we frequently are struck by the almost Christian spirit which permeates them. Mr. F. H. Myers has well said: “Whatever winds of the Spirit may sweep over the sea of souls the life of Marcus will remain for ever the high-water mark of the unassisted virtue of man.” So sublime and seemingly preternatural is his spirit that men in all ages have asked and answered in various ways the questions: “Has Christianity anything better to offer us? and if so, in what precisely does it consist?” It is as an answer to these questions that I introduce this brief reference to the story of the Martyrs, preferably a few of the many that suffered under Marcus himself.

During his reign the Church endured a persecution severer than any it had yet known. How far he was personally responsible for this we cannot tell. He was not wholly guilty nor yet wholly innocent. He certainly ordered the torture and execution of the Martyrs of Lyons; his most intimate friend sentenced St. Justin to death at Rome; and his most trusted lawyer condemned St. Felicitas and her sons; but, on the other hand, many of the persecutions were due to the anger of the mob, and withal he knew not what he did. The Christians were to him merely an uncultured and fanatical sect without a single redeeming virtue. In the only passage in the Meditations where he mentions them he attributes their constancy in death to sheer perverseness. After expressing his admiration for a soul, “which is ready, if at any moment it must be separated from the body, to be extinguished, or dissolved, or to continue to exist,” he adds, “but this readiness must come from a man’s own judgment, not from mere obstinacy as with the Christians, but with considerateness, with gravity, so as to be persuasive without tragic show.” With such a view of the Christian character it is not strange that he felt no qualms in sanctioning, though he did not instigate, the first persecution that bore the semblance of being universal and systematic.

Furthermore, Roman tradition was law for him; and Roman tradition was very clear as to the treatment which Christians deserved. The superstitious pagans attributed all public calamities to the wrath of their gods, and this wrath to the contempt which the Christians showed for the pagan idols. As Tertullian puts it: “The Christians are the cause of all disasters, of all public calamities. If the Tiber floods Rome, if the Nile does not flood the plains, if the heavens are closed, if the earth trembles, if a famine takes place or a war or a plague, immediately a cry is raised ‘The Christians to the lions! to death with the Christians!’” Now, the reign of Marcus was one of singular calamities, all the more aggravating because unforeseen and irresistible and devastating the city and the Empire at the culminating point of their prosperity. The reign opened with wars and rumours of wars on the frontiers; the Tiber overflowed Rome; there had been a plague and a famine. Here truly was the anger of the gods against the Roman welfare--the deorum ira in rem Romanam of Tacitus. The mob howled for Christian blood; and Marcus was too weak or too little concerned to resist. Antoninus, Hadrian, Trajan had consented to the torture of the fanatics, though they had not shared the popular prejudices against them; many of the lawyers and philosophers had counselled it for the good of the State; why should he say no? His better nature probably revolted from such brutality, but it is the misfortune of diffident conventionalists, such as he, that they sacrifice their better instincts to the received views of ruder natures.

The first victims of the superstition of the Romans and the conventionality of their Emperor were St. Felicitas and her sons. Their trial and death forms a celebrated episode in the history of the martyrs. It well illustrates the spirit of the martyrs and the great things which the Church was doing for the weak ones of the world; how that out of the mouths of babes and sucklings she was perfecting praise through the strong love of Christ which was the inheritance of her children.

This is admitted even by those scholars who regard, and rightly it would seem, these Acts as a historical romance, but founded on facts. Since the main facts are true, and my concern is to illustrate the spirit of the martyrs, this testimony seemed sufficient justification for quoting the Acts.

The Act tells us that “owing to indignation amongst the Pontiffs, Felicitas, a woman of high rank, was struck down with her seven most Christian sons.” Her life had been a source of great edification to her fellow-Christians, and the Pontiffs “seeing that, thanks to her, the good repute of the Christian name was growing, spoke of her to Augustus Antoninus (i.e., Marcus Aurelius), saying: ‘This widow and her sons are outraging our gods to our great peril. If she does not pay homage to the gods, your majesty must know that they will be so angry that they cannot be appeased.’ Then the Emperor ordered the Prefect of the City to compel her and her sons to appease the wrath of the gods by sacrifice.”

This Prefect of the City was Publius Salvius Julianus, the most distinguished and trusted of Roman lawyers; and before him Felicitas was now brought for trial. He attempted first by blandishments, then by threats, to persuade her to sacrifice. She replied: “You cannot entice me by blandishments nor frighten me by threats, for I have within me the Holy Spirit, Who keeps me from being conquered by the devil: this is my ground for assurance, that living I shall overcome thee and when dead I shall triumph still more.” “At least let your children live.” “My children live if they do not sacrifice to idols; but if they commit such a crime, they shall go to eternal death.” Thus ended this first interview between Publius, a Roman of the old school, with a strong sense of justice as he understood it, but understanding it only as identified with Roman law, and this Roman matron of noble birth, who had left the darkness for the light.

Next day she and her sons were again brought before the Prefect. “Have pity on your sons,” said he, “those fine young fellows yet in the flower of their youth.” Felicitas replied: “Your pity is impious and your advice cruel.” Turning to her children she added: “Lift up your eyes to heaven, my children, look aloft where Christ awaits you with His saints. Do battle for your souls and show yourselves faithful in the love of Christ.” At this Publius ordered her to be buffeted. “Darest thou in my presence counsel contempt for the Emperor’s orders!”

Then he called each of the seven sons in turn. He cajoled; he threatened; but to no avail. The first, Januarius, replied: “The wisdom of the Lord sustains me and will enable me to overcome all.” He was beaten and sent back to prison, but the second was not cowed: “We adore one only God,” he replied, “to Whom we offer the sacrifice of a pious devotion. Think not that you can separate me or any of my brothers from the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Even under the threat of blows and your unjust designs our faith cannot be conquered or changed.” To the third son, Philip, the Prefect said: “Our Lord, the Emperor, has ordered that you sacrifice to the all-powerful gods.” The boy replied: “They are neither gods nor all-powerful but worthless, wretched, insensible images, and those who sacrifice to them will incur eternal risk.” Silvanus made a similar reply and then Alexander was sent forward. Him the judge tried to win by kindness: “Have pity on thine age and on thy life, still in the prime of its youth. Be not obstinate but do what most will please our Sovereign: sacrifice to the gods that you may become one of the friends of Cæsar and gain both your life and the good-will of the Emperors.” The privilege of being “a friend of Cæsar” was a great one. These amici Cæsaris formed a narrow circle round the Emperor, and the honour was coveted even by the highest in Rome. But it was no temptation to the Christian youth; he had a higher title: “I am the servant of Christ; I confess Him with my lips; I remain devoted to Him with my heart; I adore Him unceasingly. My years, so weak, as you see, have yet the prudence of old age and adore one only God. Thy gods and their adorers shall perish.” The two remaining children were equally unyielding, equally ardent in their love for Christ. They were all sent back to prison and Publius drew up a report of the process and sent it to the Emperor. What were Marcus’ thoughts on reading it, if he read it at all.

Whatever his thoughts, he ordered the martyrs different tortures under various officials in different parts of the city. The first child died under the lash shod with lead, the second and third under the bludgeon; the fourth was hurled from a precipice, while the remaining three and Felicitas herself were mercifully beheaded. The reason for the severity and variety of the sentences may have been, as Allard suggests, the Emperor’s desire to strike the imagination of the people and cause them to believe that the gods had had enough of victims. He must have abhorred such cruelty, but he was too weak to resist the clamour of the priests and mob of Rome as Pilate had been in presence of other priests and another mob. Interpret his conduct as we will, mere natural virtue and the maxims of the philosophers show ill beside the folly of the Cross. Children and a weak woman put to shame this paragon of virtues; but, if they did so, the glory was not theirs but Christ’s; it was His love that nerved them to brave the lash, the bludgeon and the axe; He Who bade them be His witnesses to the ends of the earth, was in them, and suffered for them, because they suffered for Him. It is mockery and sophistry to think that such strength could come from frail humanity.

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St. Felicitas and her sons fell victims to the prejudices of the priests and the mob. The martyrdom of St. Justin and his companions was due to another force that was strongly to resist the advance of Christianity--namely, the opposition of the philosophers. The priests and the mob hated the Christians for the contempt with which they treated the State religion. The philosophers had an additional motive for hatred in their jealousy of the influence of the new teachers. “You see we profit nothing: the whole world is gone after Him.”

St. Justin, like many of the great Christian apologists, had come to the Church through the Greek schools. He had searched for truth in all the beaten paths of Greek philosophy and found it not. “Nobody had such faith in Socrates as to die for his doctrines,” he tells us; and it was the eloquence of the martyrs’ sufferings which converted him. The voice of Christ said “Come,” and the heart of the pagan said “Come, Lord Jesus.” He became a Christian and devoted to the cause of making Christ known the whole ardour of heart and intellect with which he had sought and found Him. This Christian Socrates would walk in his philosopher’s dress, which he still retained, through the public places of the city--the porches of the temples, the colonnades, and porticoes and baths, where the élite of Rome used to lounge each day discussing the latest society scandal, the news from the provinces, the elections or the games, and in these places he would converse and dispute with all comers. He had in this way inflicted severe humiliations on many of the pagan philosophers, who went about denouncing the Christians, and earned their thorough hatred. One especially was bitter against him. This was Crescens, a Cynic, whom Justin long expected would denounce him and who did so at length.

Justin and six of his disciples were arrested and brought before the Prefect of the City, Junius Rusticus, the Emperor’s most trusted and intimate friend. The dialogue between these two men, both trained in the Greek schools of philosophy but now completely alienated, is typical of the conflict between old and new which marks the age of the Antonines.

“To begin,” said the Prefect, “obey the gods and do what the Emperors command.” Justin replied: “We cannot be accused or blamed for obeying the precepts of Our Saviour Jesus Christ.” “What doctrines do you profess?” “I have studied all doctrines in turn and have settled in that of the Christians, although it is disliked by the advocates of error.” “What dogma is that?” “The doctrine which we Christians devotedly follow, the only true doctrine, is the belief in one only God, Creator of all things, visible and invisible, and the confession of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Whom also the prophets announced, Who is to judge the race of man, the Herald of Salvation, and the Teacher of all those who have good-will to be taught by Him. And I consider myself, being but man, incapable of speaking worthily of His Infinite Deity. That is the work of the prophets. They for centuries, inspired from on high, announced the coming amongst men of Him Whom I have said is the Son of God.” Here was a revelation to the devotee of Epictetus, one of the best of pagans; but he paid no heed. “Where do you Christians meet?” he asked. “The God of the Christians is not confined to any place; He fills Heaven and earth with His invisible presence; in every place the faithful adore and praise Him.” “You are then a Christian?” “Yes, I am a Christian.” Turning to Justin’s companions he asked the same question and got the same reply. To the slave Euelpistus, he said: “And you, what are you?” “I am a slave of Cæsar, but also a Christian, and I have got my freedom from Christ; by His goodness, through His grace, I have one hope with these.”

Here for the first time was realised the equality of man in its truest sense. Rusticus might well have recalled the words of his master Epictetus: “The slave, like you, derives his origin from Jupiter himself; he is his son like you; he is born of the same divine seed.” But he gave no token of sympathy. The winged word of Euelpistus: “a slave of Cæsar but a freedman of Christ” passed like an arrow through his mind and left not a trace of its passage.

Turning again to Justin he said: “Listen to me, you who are called learned, and think that you have the true doctrine; if I get you scourged and beheaded, think you that you must needs go up to Heaven?” “I hope,” answered Justin, “to receive the reward destined for those who keep the commandments of Christ, if I suffer the tortures you promise me. For I know that those who have lived thus will keep the Divine favour to the end of the world.” “You think, then, that you will mount up to Heaven, there to receive your reward,” said the judge with a sneer. “I do not think it, I know it, I am certain of it without a doubt.” This assurance of a future life of happiness fell strangely on the ears of the Stoic philosopher. His heart craved for it but at best he could hope for immortality only, “if it were best for the whole Kosmos that it should be so.” He gave his final command to sacrifice to the idols and received a final refusal; and all were immediately sent to execution.

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More famous than either the martyrdom of St. Felicitas or of St. Justin was the martyrdom at Lyons of forty-eight Christians, afterwards known as the martyrdom of the Maccabees. It is typical of the persecutions in the provinces as the others were of those in Rome, and fortunately we still possess the beautiful letter of the churches of Lyons and Vienne to the churches of Asia which gives a full account of it. It took place in A.D. 177, when Marcus Aurelius had already reigned for sixteen years and within three years of his death. He was then grappling with the barbarians on the Danube frontier and the plague was working havoc in the provinces as in Rome and Italy. Superstition broke out on all sides with renewed force and with especial intensity at Lyons, the religious capital of the Three Gauls. The old calumnies against the Christians were revived. They were accused of infanticide and incest, of treachery to the State, of secret conspiracy, and of contempt for the gods and hatred of mankind. To them was due the anger of the gods; and by their blood alone could it be satiated.

The persecution began by a social ostracism of the Christians from all intercourse with their fellow-citizens in the baths, the forum and the other public places of the city, and even in private houses. If they violated this order they were beaten and stoned in the streets. So violent did this persecution become that the magistrates had at last to arrest all known to be Christians and examine them before the people. All confessed to the faith and were thrown into prison to await the arrival of the Imperial legate.

Immediately on his arrival the formal trial began. By a strange travesty of justice the prisoners were first cruelly tortured. Stirred by this a young nobleman, Vettius Epagathus, stood out from the crowd and demanded to be allowed to plead their cause. He was already a Christian of ascetic life and loved by his brethren as “a gracious disciple of Christ following the Lamb whithersoever He went.” “Are you a Christian?” the legate asked him. “I am a Christian,” in his boldest tones. He was immediately put amongst the accused. “Behold the Christian’s advocate,” jeered the judge.

In this trial ten of the accused, weaker and worse prepared than the rest, denied Christ. This was a matter of far keener anguish to the faithful than their own sufferings. But the ranks thus broken were soon filled up by others, amongst them their aged Bishop, Pothinus. Meanwhile the slaves of Christian masters had been arrested, and tortured and bribed into swearing to all the current charges. Their evidence lashed the mob to still greater fury. No torture was now to be spared. A second time the Christians were placed at the gentle mercies of the torturers; this repetition of the torture in such cases having been legalised by Marcus. But nothing could break the spirit of these warriors; they rejoiced to be accounted worthy to suffer something for Him they loved. How intense was the nerving power of love in the souls of Sanctus the deacon and the slave-girl Blandina!

Sanctus when questioned again and again did but answer: “I am a Christian.” Even when the white-hot plates of brass were applied to his body and his flesh hissed and seared beneath them, in all his agony, his one relief was to proclaim again and again: “I am a Christian.” “Bathed and refreshed,” his brethren tell us, “in the heavenly well of living water which flows from the breasts of Christ,” every fresh torture was to him “a refreshment and a remedy rather than a punishment.”

But his courage was as nothing to that of Blandina. She was the bravest of the brave in the bravest of all armies--the “witnesses” of Christ. Her mistress and her fellow-Christians dreaded lest from her frail, sensitive frame she should give way, as ten stronger had done before. They misjudged, however, the power of love; the right hand of the Lord wrought strength in her. She had no words of surrender, no cry for mercy. From morning till evening she wearied out several sets of torturers, who retired baffled and amazed that she still lived. “I am a Christian and we do nothing wrong,” was her cry again and again amidst her pains; and fresh and fresh with each repetition came new strength and courage. Renan rightly says of her: “As to the maid-servant Blandina, she proved that a revolution had been achieved. The true emancipation of the slave, emancipation by heroism, was in great measure her work. The pagan slave was supposed to be essentially wicked and immoral. What better way to rehabilitate and free him than to show him capable of the same virtues, the same sacrifices, as the freeman? How were these women to be treated with disdain, who had been seen acting with even more sublime heroism than their mistresses in the amphitheatre? The good Lyonese maid-servant had heard it said that the judgments of God are the overthrow of human appearances, and that God is often pleased to choose that which is humblest, ugliest, and most despised to confound that which seems beautiful and strong. Inspired by her rôle she called for the torture and burned with eagerness to suffer.” It is the glory of Christianity to have raised the off-scourings of mankind to such sublimity. Galen acknowledged that the conduct of the ordinary Christian was as noble as that of the most enlightened of the philosophers. He wrote as one who had been a contemporary of Epictetus and physician to Marcus Aurelius and intimate with the best lives which paganism produced. We who read the lives of the martyrs whole and appreciate the motives of their heroism know that it is an irreverence to compare with their virtue the virtue even of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Yet it is well to have this testimony of an enlightened pagan contemporary to the elevating power of Christianity on the masses.

The final execution was spread over several days. The legate made the occasion a public holiday; and delegates from all Gaul, then present at Lyons for administrative and religious purposes, witnessed the spectacle.

Maturus, Sanctus, Attalus and Blandina were chosen to provide the first day’s entertainment. Their tortures, we are told, saved the town the expense of a gladiatorial show. Christians were more novel game and cheaper than hired soldiers, lions and panthers. Blandina was bound all but naked to a pole at the end of the amphitheatre. She was to be at the mercy of the beasts; and the beasts proved more merciful than the yelling savage mob, who crowded tier over tier all around. That day none of them would touch the frail, delicate form that, bound as it was, recalled to the martyrs another form bound too by the Romans on a hill outside Jerusalem. She was reserved for another day, and meanwhile her fortitude gave courage to all.

Attalus was a Roman citizen well-known to the people. Hence they called for his torture as for a favourite actor or gladiator. He was forced to walk round the amphitheatre amid the jeers of the spectators, preceded by a placard with the motto “This is Attalus, the Christian.” But the rights of a Roman citizen were not to be outraged with impunity; and so the legate sent Attalus back to prison without torture, there to await the Emperor’s orders.

No such rights protected Maturus and Sanctus; their bodies were already each a mass of wounds from their former tortures; and they would be well spent in making a people’s holiday. A file of roughs lashed their naked, lacerated bodies as they passed into the arena. Their eyes fell on the instruments of torture--a gruesome array--along the centre; and then the awful moment came. A sullen growl and a roar from the farther end, and already the beasts were upon them. A thrill of mad excitement ran through the throng above. The beasts sank their teeth in the Christians’ flesh and lapped the Christians’ blood, and many a pagan envied them the feast. But, sure of their prey, they did not devour them at once; they tossed them to and fro in cruel sport and left them for the time. The mob were impatient; they wanted death; and called for the red-hot iron chair. Into this the martyrs were placed and the foul smell of the burnt flesh was incense to the nostrils of the holiday makers. But the Christians would not recant; the beasts would have no more of them; and it was slow sport watching this roasting process; so at a signal from the mob they received the coup de grace, the finale of all the people’s pleasures.

Here as ever persecution did but beget fresh victims. The whole Christian population was aflame with desire to confess Christ; and even transgressed the wise rule of the Church, which forbade them to seek imprisonment. But in this moment of spiritual intensity discretion were out of place; who can blame them for not standing meekly by when their brethren were writhing in torture and the name of Christ was being blasphemed? They can well afford to concede superiority in this always somewhat suspicious virtue of discretion to their arm-chair critics; they will have enough left to secure for themselves Heaven and the homage of mankind. The number of the accused increased day by day, especially the number of Roman citizens. This alarmed the legate, and he sent for instructions to the Emperor. After some weeks the reply came: those who recanted were to be released, the obstinate were to be put to death with torture. After all allowance has been made for the circumstances of the time and his own inevitable ignorance, this act remains a dark stain on the Stoic saint.

The last act of this long-drawn tragedy at last began. A final inquiry was held by the legate, this time chiefly in order to discriminate the Roman citizens from the non-citizens. The latter were to receive the full measure of torture; the former were to be beheaded outright--all except Attalus, who was reserved for the arena as a favour to the mob. In this last trial despite promises and threats not one, even of those who had before fallen, wavered. The executions continued for several days, owing to the great numbers of the martyrs. Each day from early morning the pagans thronged the amphitheatre. Attalus and Alexander were the next victims. They went through the whole gamut of pain without a word or a groan, their souls wrapped in prayer the while. Finally they were finished off by the sword when the mob tired of them. Blandina and Ponticus were subjected again to yet fiercer torments, ending in death--torments so cruel that the Gauls said one to another: “Never in our country has woman endured so much.”

The whole proceedings are a terrible commentary on the rule of the philosopher-king and Gibbon’s picture of the Golden Age, “the happiest period of the world’s history, when the good of the subject was the one object of government.” Much may be admitted to palliate Marcus’ connivance, but assuredly he cannot be wholly excused. We can acquit him of monstrous brutality; but only at the cost of attributing to him narrow prejudice or pusillanimity. We can save his heart, but only at the expense of his intellect and will.

I have dwelt on a few of the many martyrdoms of his reign to show the conduct and the ideals of Christianity side by side with the conduct of the pagan philosophers. What reasonable being can read aright the story of this struggle and yet prefer the cold, negative, ineffectual ideals of Marcus and his friends to the warm throbbing life of love and the heroic death of Ponticus and Blandina, of Justin and Felicitas? Yet, if we are to believe Renan and Arnold, the Meditations of Marcus are the force which will transform the world when, to quote Renan, the Gospel and the Imitation of Christ have passed away, and on the hillside of Lyons where the martyrs died “a temple shall rise to the Supreme Amnesty and contain a chapel for all causes, all virtues, all martyrs.” Surely this is dilettanteism and paradox run wild, as untrue to psychology as it is to history and all sane and effective religion!