Notices of persecution and suffering for the sake of Christ in the New Testament.

In the Acts of the Apostles persecution against Christians is almost entirely instigated by the Jews.

The Sanhedrin arrested, imprisoned and flogged the Apostles, and put St Stephen to death. Saul was allowed to make a house to house visitation and had a mandate from the High Priest to extend his work of persecution as far as Damascus, apparently unchecked by the Roman Procurator.

Agrippa I executed James the Son of Zebedee and imprisoned St Peter.

Henceforward the hatred of the Jews was mainly directed against St Paul. His death was plotted at Damascus (Acts ix. 23, 24; 2 Cor. xi. 32) and at his first visit to Jerusalem (Acts ix. 29). On his first journey he was expelled from Antioch in Pisidia and Iconium (Acts xiii. 50, xiv. 5) and almost stoned to death by the mob at Lystra (Acts xiv. 19). On his second journey he was flogged and imprisoned by the magistrates at Philippi (xvi.) on the charge of "teaching customs not lawful for Romans to observe." At Thessalonica the politarchs merely bound over Jason and his friends to keep the peace, although a political charge had been brought (xvii. 7—9). At Corinth, when a purely religious charge was brought, Gallio, the proconsul, dismissed the case as being no offence against Roman Law (xviii. 12-16). On his third journey St Paul and the Christians were attacked because they interfered with the trade of the silversmiths at Ephesus, but the town clerk repressed any attempt at mob-violence (xix. 23—41). From Corinth St Paul was obliged to return by land to escape a plot of the Jews (xx. 3). At his last visit to Jerusalem he was seized on the charge of having taken Greeks into the Temple, but Lysias the chief captain rescued him from the mob and, discovering that he was a Roman citizen, protected him against the plots of the Jews to kill him, by sending him to be tried before Felix. There the charges were sedition, heresy and sacrilege, to the first and third of which St Paul successfully pleaded "not guilty," and, although he owned himself to be "a Nazarene," i.e. a Christian, Felix, Festus and Agrippa all admitted that he had "done nothing worthy of bonds or of death." Having exercised his privilege as a Roman citizen St Paul was sent to Rome for trial but was

leniently treated by the officials and remained in custodia militaris for two years. But he confidently expected release as soon as his case was heard and only mentions martyrdom as an unlikely contingency (Philippians ii. 17). Not until his second imprisonment, probably in the reign of Nero, does St Paul describe himself as being "in bonds as a malefactor" (2 Tim. ii. 9) and "ready to be offered" (iv. 6).

Besides these recorded instances St Paul describes himself (2 Cor. vi. 5) as having suffered blows and imprisonments and (2 Cor. xi. 23, 24) as having been five times scourged by the Jews and thrice beaten with rods, probably by provincial magistrates. Thus on several occasions not only Jews but the heathen mob took part in the attack. The intervention of the magistrates was also involved.

Other Christians besides St Paul were evidently exposed to persecution. Thus (Acts xiv. 22) Paul and Barnabas warned their converts in Asia Minor that "we must pass through many afflictions to enter the Kingdom of God." In 1 Thess. i. 6, iii. 3, 2 Thess. i. 4-6 St Paul refers to the afflictions which they have suffered at the hands of their fellow-countrymen and urges them not to be shaken by them. He asks the Galatians (iii. 4) "Have ye suffered so many things in vain?" (evidently from Jewish opponents).

The Philippians are urged not to be "terrified by their adversaries." It is a sign of God's favour to be allowed to suffer in Christ's behalf. They are taking part in the same contest of suffering which they formerly saw and now hear of St Paul himself being engaged in (Phil. i. 28—30). Aquila and Priscilla must on some occasion have incurred danger of death to save St Paul as they are described as having "risked their own necks for his life" (Rom. xvi. 4). Andronicus and Junias (Rom. xvi. 7), Aristarchus (Col. iv. 10) and Epaphras (Philemon 23) are described as St Paul's "fellow-prisoners." In 2 Cor. xi. 23 St Paul, in claiming that his share of persecution, blows and imprisonments has been "more abundant" than that of others, does imply that other Christians had also suffered, though to a less degree than himself.

St James, writing probably not later than 62 A.D. to "the twelve tribes of the dispersion" (which may mean the whole

Christian Church and not merely Jewish Christians in the neighbourhood of Palestine), reminds them that the rich blaspheme the good name which Christians bear and drag them before courts of law, but he encourages his readers to endure manifold trials as a testing of their faith (Jas i. 2, 3), using the selfsame phrases which St Peter employs.

The writer to the Hebrews (x. 32) reminds them how in the early days of their Christianity they had been made a spectacle by sufferings, reproaches and afflictions; how they had sympathized with those in bonds and submitted patiently to the plundering of their goods. He urges them to imitate Christ in facing the dangers which are now in store for them. They must accept suffering as a loving chastisement from God, emulating the heroes of faith in the O.T. They have not yet resisted unto blood (xii. 4), but they are bidden to remember those who are in bonds and those who are suffering hardship because they themselves are "in the body" and may therefore ere long share the same fate. This may possibly refer to the Neronian persecution, and in that case is an indication of the way in which it spread into the provinces. In the Apocalypse, whether it refers to the period just after Nero's reign or to the reign of Domitian, we have evidence for a more organized persecution. Many have been slain for the word of God vi. 9, including Antipas at Pergamos ii. 13. Rome is drunken with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus xvii. 6, xviii. 24.

The Attitude of the State towards Christianity.

The policy of Rome towards the subject-nations of the Empire was to allow each of them to retain their own religion on the following conditions: (1) that it was a national religion and was content to take its place side by side with other national religions, without claiming to be absolute, (2) that it did not cause political or other disturbance, (3) that it managed its own religious disputes. Now Judaism did of course claim to be absolute, and repudiated all other Gods than Jehovah as dumb idols, but at the same time it was so intensely national that the Romans not only allowed it toleration but even granted special privileges and exemptions to the Jews.

At first therefore, when Christianity was regarded by Roman

officials, like Gallio, as "a question of words and names and Jewish Law," it shared the same protection as Judaism. On several occasions, as we have seen, the magistrates restrained the attacks made upon St Paul.

In 2 Thessalonians ii. 6, 7 St Paul regards the policy of the reigning Emperor apparently as a restraining influence which makes for toleration.

In Romans xiii. 1-4 he describes civil magistrates as God's delegates for avenging wrongdoing, whose praise may be obtained by doing what is good. Nevertheless there was from the very first an inevitable antagonism between the Empire and the Church. The bigotry of the Jews and their open hostility towards Christians would soon make it obvious that Christianity was no mere sect of Judaism. As an absolute religion which could admit of no compromise with idolatry, no worship of the Emperor side by side with that of Jehovah, it could not fit into the Roman system any more than Judaism. Besides this it was not even a national or hereditary religion but a new "superstition," which soon came to be regarded as a "pestilent superstition" for various reasons. It claimed to provide a universal bond of brotherhood, higher and more paramount than that of the Empire, whereas under Nero Emperor-worship was steadily growing stronger as the necessary link to unite the many nationalities and many gods of the subject-nations. It also caused divisions in families and interfered with the religious rites which formed so large a part of social and municipal life. In many cases, as at Philippi and Ephesus and afterwards (as Pliny shews) in Bithynia, trades which were connected with idolatry were considerably affected by the spread of Christianity. Again no conscientious Christian could take part in the public games and religious festivals or acquiesce in the criminal profligacy of their neighbours. Consequently Christians came to be regarded as gloomy and morose, "enemies of the human race," or else as officious "busybodies." Having thus incurred popular odium the Christians would often be compelled to hold their meetings in secret, and the foul imagination of malicious enemies ere long interpreted the Eucharist and Agape or Love Feast as involving cannibalism and incestuous lust. Even as early as St Paul's arrival in Rome the Jews there told him that their only

knowledge of Christianity was that it was everywhere spoken against (Acts xxviii. 22), and according to Tacitus it was because the Christians were already hated by the mob for their supposed crimes, and were regarded as guilty wretches deserving the extremest form of punishment, that Nero a few years later selected them as scapegoats on whom to vent the popular fury and divert suspicion from himself in connexion with the great conflagration in Rome.

From the first therefore Christianity had been an unlawful religion and one which was inevitably in conflict with the state. No official edict was really necessary to legalize the punishment of Christians, and it is quite possible that persecution may have been countenanced in the provinces by some magistrates before the outbreak of the Neronian persecution. Naturally however the policy of Nero in treating Christians as outlaws would be regarded as giving imperial sanction to persecution, and the Emperor's example would soon be widely followed in the provinces. In the Neronian persecution it is disputed whether Christians suffered merely for their religion "as Christians" or only for other crimes which were attributed to them. Some forty years later in the reign of Trajan Pliny, the governor of Bithynia, in his letter to the Emperor shews that he had himself put Christians to death for the name only, if they obstinately refused to recant, and the rescript of Trajan in reply gives imperial sanction to this procedure, implying that it was not necessary to prove any further crime beyond the fact of being a Christian. But Christians, he says, are not to be sought out, and anonymous accusations are not to be accepted. Ramsay however (Church in the Roman Empire, p. 256) argues that punishment for the name of Christian alone was not in vogue until about the time of Vespasian (70-79 A.D.), whereas previously some further crime was always alleged. But there is no sufficient evidence of any such change of policy, and the account of the Neronian persecution given by Tacitus seems most naturally to imply that as early as 64 A.D. Christians in Rome suffered for the name only. The object of Nero, he says, was to divert suspicion from himself of having caused the great fire in Rome. This he could most easily do by shifting the odium on to the Christians who were already generally hated and credited with all kinds of crimes, and as votaries of