apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 1 5
absolute rule can be laid down, but the magistrate must exercise his
own discretion. The refusal to accept anonymous accusations is the
only point in this rescript which suggests the appearance of novelty.
There seems to be only one escape from this conclusion. Trajan
may have inaugurated his new policy at a previous stage. The proceedings
against the Christians, which Pliny mentions as having taken
place before this time, may refer, not as is
commonly supposed, to the
persecution of Domitian, but to earlier transactions in the reign of
Trajan himself. This however is not contended by those who maintain
the theory which I am combating. Nor would it afford any support
for their hypothesis, which has no other basis but this rescript of
Trajan.
But, it will be said, if from the time of Nero Christianity was a
forbidden religion, how is it that from that date to the age of Trajan—
a period of nearly half a century
— the Church enjoyed unbroken peace,
only disturbed for a moment by the capricious onslaught of the last
Flavins How do we account for the fact that, under Vespasian and
Titus more especially, the laws lay dormant and were never put
into force The answer is twofold. In the first place we do not
know that they were never put
in force. Our
information with respect
to these early ages of the Church is singularly defective and capricious.
We shall see presently by what a slender thread of accident the record
of the sharp and fierce persecution in Bithynia under Trajan has been
preserved to us. But we may go further than this. Hilary of Poitiers
ranks Vespasian between Nero and Decius as a persecutor of the
faith'. What may be the ground of this exceptional notice in the
1
Hilar. Pictav. c. Avian, c. 3, Op. Judaeorum et Christianorum religio tol-
II. p. 594 (ed. Bened., Veron. 1730). leretur :
quippe has religiones, licet con-
'
Quibusnam suffragiis ad praedicandum trarias sibi, isdem tamen ab auctoribus
evangelium apostoli usi sunt anne profectas : Christianos ex Judaeis extialiquam
sibi assumebant e palatio dig- tisse : radice sublata stirpem facile perinitatem,
hymnum Deo in carcere inter turam. ' If Sulpicius Severus has borcatenas
et post flagella cantantes e- rowed from Tacitus here, as Bemays
dictisque regis Paulus, cum in theatro (Ueber die Chronik d. Sidpic, Sever.
spectaculum ipse esset, Christo ecclesiam p. 57) supposes, and as seems probable,
congregabat Nerone se credo aut Ves- his statement deserves some attention ;
pasiano aut Decio patrocinantibus tue- but it does not go
far. The case is difbatur,
quorum in nos odiis confessio ferent with the testimony of Hilary,
divinae praedicationis effloruit,' etc. See Gorres {Das Christenthutn unter Vesalso
Sulpic. Sev. Chron. ii.
30 'At con- pa siamis ^p. ^o^, in Zeitschr.f. Wissensch.
tra alii et Titus ipse evertendum in Theol. xxi. 1878), while attempting to
primis templum censebant, quo plenius invalidate this testimony, betrays a naive