History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325

Now so long as Christianity was regarded by the Romans as a mere sect of Judaism, it

shared the hatred and contempt, indeed, but also the legal protection bestowed on that ancient

national religion. Providence had so ordered it that Christianity had already taken root in the leading

cities of the empire before, its true character was understood. Paul had carried it, under the protection

of his Roman citizenship, to the ends of the empire, and the Roman proconsul at Corinth refused

to interfere with his activity on the ground that it was an internal question of the Jews, which did

not belong to his tribunal. The heathen statesmen and authors, even down to the age of Trajan,

including the historian Tacitus and the younger Pliny, considered the Christian religion as a vulgar

superstition, hardly worthy of their notice.

But it was far too important a phenomenon, and made far too rapid progress to be long thus

ignored or despised. So soon as it was understood as a new religion, and as, in fact, claiming

universal validity and acceptance, it was set down as unlawful and treasonable, a religio illicita;

and it was the constant reproach of the Christians: "You have no right to exist."

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2

Roman Intolerance.

We need not be surprised at this position. For with all its professed and actual tolerance the

Roman state was thoroughly interwoven with heathen idolatry, and made religion a tool of itspolicy.

Ancient history furnishes no example of a state without some religion and form of worship. Rome

makes no exception to the general rule. "The Romano-Hellenic state religion" (says Mommsen),

"and the Stoic state-philosophy inseparably combined with it were not merely a convenient

instrument for every government—oligarchy, democracy, or monarchy—but altogether indispensable,

because it was just as impossible to construct the state wholly without religious elements as to

discover any new state religion adapted to form a substitute for the old."

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3

The piety of Romulus and Numa was believed to have laid the foundation of the power of

Rome. To the favor of the deities of the republic, the brilliant success of the Roman arms was

attributed. The priests and Vestal virgins were supported out of the public treasury. The emperor

was ex-officio the pontifex maximus, and even an object of divine worship. The gods were national;

and the eagle of Jupiter Capitolinus moved as a good genius before the world-conquering legions.

Cicero lays down as a principle of legislation, that no one should be allowed to worship foreign

gods, unless they were recognized by public statute.

25

4

Maecenas counselled Augustus: "Honor

the gods according to the custom of our ancestors, and compel

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5 others to worship them. Hate and

punish those who bring in strange gods."

It is true, indeed, that individuals in Greece and Rome enjoyed an almost unlimited liberty

for expressing sceptical and even impious sentiments in conversation, in books and on the stage.

We need only refer to the works of Aristophanes, Lucian, Lucretius, Plautus, Terence. But a sharp

distinction was made then, as often since by Christian governments, between liberty of private

thought and conscience, which is inalienable and beyond the reach of legislation, and between the

liberty of public worship, although the latter is only the legitimate consequence of the former.

Besides, wherever religion is a matter of state-legislation and compulsion, there is almost invariably

23

"Non licet esse vos." Tertullian, Apol. 4

24

The History of Rome, translated by Dickson, vol. IV. P. II. p. 559.

25

"Nisi publice adscitos."

26

ἀνάγκαζε, according to Dion Cassius.

30

Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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a great deal of hypocrisy and infidelity among the educated classes, however often it may conform

outwardly, from policy, interest or habit, to the forms and legal acquirements of the established

creed.

The senate and emperor, by special edicts, usually allowed conquered nations the free

practice of their worship even in Rome; not, however, from regard for the sacred rights of conscience,

but merely from policy, and with the express prohibition of making proselytes from the state religion;

hence severe laws were published from time to time against transition to Judaism.

Obstacles to the Toleration of Christianity.

To Christianity, appearing not as a national religion, but claiming to be the only true universal

one making its converts among every people and every sect, attracting Greeks and Romans in much

larger numbers than Jews, refusing to compromise with any form of idolatry, and threatening in

fact the very existence of the Roman state religion, even this limited toleration could not be granted.

The same all-absorbing political interest of Rome dictated here the opposite course, and Tertullian

is hardly just in changing the Romans with inconsistency for tolerating the worship of all false

gods, from whom they had nothing to fear, and yet prohibiting the worship of the only true God

who is Lord over all.

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6

 Born under Augustus, and crucified under Tiberius at the sentence of the

Roman magistrate, Christ stood as the founder of a spiritual universal empire at the head of the

most important epoch of the Roman power, a rival not to be endured. The reign of Constantine

subsequently showed that the free toleration of Christianity was the death-blow to the Roman state

religion.

Then, too, the conscientious refusal of the Christians to pay divine honors to the emperor

and his statue, and to take part in any idolatrous ceremonies at public festivities, their aversion to

the imperial military service, their disregard for politics and depreciation of all civil and temporal

affairs as compared with the spiritual and eternal interests of man, their close brotherly union and

frequent meetings, drew upon them the suspicion of hostility to the Caesars and the Roman people,

and the unpardonable crime of conspiracy against the state.

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7

The common people also, with their polytheistic ideas, abhorred the believers in the one

God as atheists and enemies of the gods. They readily gave credit to the slanderous rumors of all

sorts of abominations, even incest and cannibalism, practised by the Christians at their religious

assemblies and love-feasts, and regarded the frequent public calamities of that age as punishments

justly inflicted by the angry gods for the disregard of their worship. In North Africa arose the

proverb: "If God does not send rain, lay it to the Christians." At every inundation, or drought, or

famine, or pestilence, the fanatical populace cried: "Away with the atheists! To the lions with the

Christians!"

Finally, persecutions were sometimes started by priests, jugglers, artificers, merchants, and

others, who derived their support from the idolatrous worship. These, like Demetrius at Ephesus,

and the masters of the sorceress at Philippi, kindled the fanaticism and indignation of the mob

against the new religion for its interference with their gains.

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8

27

Apolog. c. 24 at the close: "Apud vos quod vis coler ejus est praeter Deum verum, quasi non hic magis omnium sit Deus,

cuius omnes sumus."

28

Hence the reproachful designation "Hostes Caesarum et populi Romani."

29

Comp. Arts. 19:24; 16:16.

31

Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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