apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

458 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
Christianity. His accession was the signal for the first outburst of
apologetic literature, addressed to the emperor himself — a manifest
token that they looked upon the new reign as the dawn of a better day
for Christianity'. His rescript to Minucius Fundanus proconsul of
Asia (see p. 476), by which the proceedings against the Christians are
regulated, tends in the same direction. He does not in any point
rescind the ordinance of his predecessor, but he forbids the magistrates
to proceed against a person in deference to popular clamour, where
there is no responsible accuser, and he imposes the severest penalties
on false accusations. The effect of such an ordinance would stretch
far beyond the formal enactment itself It
would show that the emperor
discouraged persecutions, and thus it would procure comparative
immunity for the Christians, though the law which made Christianity a
crime was not erased from the statute book. Objections have been
raised to the genuineness of this rescript. But its existence helps to
explain the phenomena of the time. Christianity was a capital crime
in the eye of the law ;
the Christians might be reckoned by hundreds
of thousands within the Roman empire at this time. Every one of
these was liable to death. Yet only one recorded martyrdom under
Hadrian is absolutely certain, and we can count on the fingers all those
of whom it can be maintained with any plausibility that they suffered
for the faith during this reign. The rescript to Minucius Fundanus,
Melito tells us^ was only one of several documents to the same effect
which this emperor issued to the provincial magistrates ;
and we can
well believe this statement. The one well-authenticated martyrdom
which is ascribed to this reign — the death of the Roman bishop Telesphorus^—belongs
to its close, when the emperor's mind was already
unhinged by his malady, and the suspicions with which he was haunted
proved fatal to his most trusted friends. Whether the emperor himself
was responsible for this martyrdom, we know not. But the frenzy of a
disordered intellect, which shed the blood of the aged Servianus, a
near connexion and a long-tried friend whom he had loaded with
honours*, might well have singled
out the chief ruler of the Christians
as a victim to appease the angry gods.
The even temper of Antoninus Pius would not on the whole be
so favourable to the Christians as the restless versatility of Hadrian,
Certain it is, that during his reign we hear more of martyrdoms than
under his predecessor. Yet it is not probable that he himself was
^
Euseb. H. E. iv. 3.
^ Spartian. Hadrian, it,, Dion Cass,
2 Euseb. H. E. iv. 26; see p, 536. Ixix. 17.
' Iren. Ilaer. iii. 3. 4; see p. 502.