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Page 6
[A] We have the evidence of Justinus (ad Diognetum, c. 5) to
this effect: "The Christians are attacked by the Jews as if
they were men of a different race, and are persecuted by the
Greeks; and those who hate them cannot give the reason of their
enmity."
[B] And in Eusebius (E.H. iv. 8, 9). Orosius (vii. 13) says
that Hadrian sent this rescript to Minucius Fundanus, proconsul
of Asia after being instructed in books written on the
Christian religion by Quadratus, a disciple of the Apostles,
and Aristides, an Athenian, an honest and wise man, and Serenus
Granius. In the Greek text of Hadrian's rescript there
is mentioned Serenius Granianus, the predecessor of Minucius
Fundanus in the government of _Asia_.
This rescript of Hadrian has clearly been added to the Apology
by some editor. The Apology ends with the words: [Greek: ho
philon t� Oe�, touto genesth�]
[C] Eusebius (E.H. iv. 12), after giving the beginning of
Justinus' first Apology, which contains the address to T.
Antoninus and his two adopted sons, adds: "The same emperor
being addressed by other brethren in Asia, honored the Commune
of Asia with the following rescript." This rescript, which is
in the next chapter of Eusebius (E.H. iv. 13) is in the sole
name of Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus Armenius,
though Eusebius had just before said that he was going to give
us a rescript of Antoninus Pius. There are some material
variations between the two copies of the rescript besides the
difference in the title, which difference makes it impossible
to say whether the forger intended to assign this rescript to
Pius or to M. Antoninus.
The author of the Alexandrine Chronicum says that Marcus, being
moved by the entreaties of Melito and other heads of the
church, wrote an Epistle to the Commune of Asia in which he
forbade the Christians to be troubled on account of their
religion. Valesius supposes this to be the letter or rescript
which is contained in Eusebius (iv. 13), and to be the answer
to the Apology of Melito, of which I shall soon give the
substance. But Marcus certainly did not write this letter which
is in Eusebius, and we know not what answer he made to Melito.
In the time of M. Antoninus the opposition between the old and the new
belief was still stronger, and the adherents of the heathen religion
urged those in authority to a more regular resistance to the invasions
of the Christian faith. Melito in his Apology to M. Antoninus represents
the Christians of Asia as persecuted under new imperial orders.
Shameless informers, he says, men who were greedy after the property of
others, used these orders as a means of robbing those who were doing no
harm. He doubts if a just emperor could have ordered anything so unjust;
and if the last order was really not from the emperor, the Christians
entreat him not to give them up to their enemies.[A] We conclude from
this that there were at least imperial rescripts or constitutions of M.
Antoninus which were made the foundation of these persecutions. The fact
of being a Christian was now a crime and punished, unless the accused
denied their religion. Then come the persecutions at Smyrna, which some
modern critics place in A.D. 167, ten years before the persecution of
Lyon. The governors of the provinces under M. Antoninus might have found
enough even in Trajan's rescript to warrant them in punishing
Christians, and the fanaticism of the people would drive them to
persecution, even if they were unwilling. But besides the fact of the
Christians rejecting all the heathen ceremonies, we must not forget that
they plainly maintain that all the heathen religions were false. The
Christians thus declared war against the heathen rites, and it is hardly
necessary to observe that this was a declaration of hostility against
the Roman government, which tolerated all the various forms of
superstition that existed in the empire, and could not consistently
tolerate another religion, which declared that all the rest were false
and all the splendid ceremonies of the empire only a worship of devils.
[A] Eusebius, iv. 26; and Routh's Reliquiae Sacrae, vol. I, and
the notes. The interpretation of this Fragment is not easy.
Mosheim misunderstood one passage so far as to affirm that
Marcus promised rewards to those who denounced the Christians;
an interpretation which is entirely false. Melito calls the
Christian religion "our philosophy," which began among
barbarians (the Jews), and flourished among the Roman subjects
in the time of Augustus, to the great advantage of the empire,
for from that time the power of the Romans grew great and
glorious. He says that the emperor has and will have as the
successor to Augustus' power the good wishes of men, if he will
protect that philosophy which grew up with the empire and began
with Augustus, which philosophy the predecessors of Antoninus
honored in addition to the other religions. He further says
that the Christian religion had suffered no harm since the time
of Augustus, but on the contrary had enjoyed all honor and
respect that any man could desire. Nero and Domitian, he says,
were alone persuaded by some malicious men to calumniate the
Christian religion, and this was the origin of the false
charges against the Christians. But this was corrected by the
emperors who immediately preceded Antoninus, who often by their
rescripts reproved those who attempted to trouble the
Christians. Hadrian, Antoninus' grandfather, wrote to many, and
among them to Fundanus, the governor of Asia. Antoninus Pius,
when Marcus was associated with him in the empire, wrote to the
cities that they must not trouble the Christians; among others,
to the people of Larissa, Thessalonica, the Athenians, and all
the Greeks. Melito concluded thus: "We are persuaded that thou
who hast about these things the same mind that they had, nay
rather one much more humane and philosophical, wilt do all that
we ask thee."--This Apology was written after A.D. 169, the
year in which Verus died, for it speaks of Marcus only and his
son Commodus. According to Melito's testimony, Christians had
only been punished for their religion in the time of Nero and
Domitian, and the persecutions began again in the time of M.
Antoninus, and were founded on his orders, which were abused,
as he seems to mean. He distinctly affirms "that the race of
the godly is now persecuted and harassed by fresh imperial
orders in Asia, a thing which had never happened before." But
we know that all this is not true, and that Christians had been
punished in Trajan's time.
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