apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 1 3
perty confiscated at the very least'.' If Christian historians are correct,
as they appear certainly to be, in assuming that Flavins Clemens and
his wife were Christians, there is here at all events a prima fade plea
But we must remember
for the confusion of Judaism with Christianity.
that these are not the words of the historian himself It is just in
incidents of this kind that an epitome
is most likely to mislead; and
even the epitomator does not distinctly say that Flavius Clemens and
Domitilla were themselves among the perverts to Jewish practices.
The notice is entirely satisfied by the supposition that offences not
—
identical, but similar in kind offences namely which the Roman law
regarded as 'atheism' — are classed together in a rough way. When for
instance Tacitus {Ann.
ii.
85) says, '>\ debate was held on the expulsion
of Egyptian and yudaic religious ceretnofiies (de sacris ^gyptiis Judaicisque
pellendis); and a decree of the Senate was passed ordering that
four thousand persons of the class of freedmen, tainted with that superstition
(ea superstitione infecta), who were of a proper age, should be
transported to the island of Sardinia,' no one infers from this passage
that either the authors of the decree themselves, or the historian who
records it,
identified the worship of Isis and Serapis with the religion of
the Jews, though from a Roman point of view the association of the two
would appear in the highest degree natural. Attaching
therefore the
utmost weight which it is possible to attach to this passage and interpreting
in the sense most unfavourable to the view which is it here
maintained, we cannot regard
it as in any way counterbalancing or
invalidating the inferences already drawn from the distinct notices of
the Neronian persecution.
2. Nor again does the correspondence between Trajan and Pliny*
betray any signs that a new policy was inaugurated at this period.
Neither in the appeal of the provincial governor nor in the reply of the
— emperor is there any even the faintest— suggestion that Christianity
now for the first time was promoted to the unenviable distinction of an
unlawful religion. On the contrary the impression left by
the correspondence
is that, so far as the law itself was concerned, the Christians
continued to be regarded now, as they had been regarded heretofore,
but that the humane and upright characters of the emperor and his
servant secured some mitigation in the enforcement of the law.
^
Dion Cass. Ixvii. 44 enrjuix^V ^^ The bearing of the passage is discussed
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