apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

HADRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS. 4^9
Even a Christian Sibyllist [Orac. Sil>. xii. 196 sq) in the third century adopts this
soUition and attributes the preservation
of the army to ' the emperor's piety ' (St'eutre/StV
SacTiX^os), to whom the God of heaven would refuse nothing (9eds ovpdvio's n6.\a irdvd"
viraKovaei).
The Christians generally however accounted for the occurrence in a wholly
different way. They believed that it was an answer, not indeed to the prayer of the
emperor, but to the prayer of the Christians who formed part of his army. Claudius
Apollinaris (Eus. H. E. v. 5),
who addressed an apology to M. Aurelius not many
years after the event, took this view. As reported by Eusebius, he even went so far
as to say that the legion took its name, ' Thunder-striker ' or ' Thunder-struck '
{Kipa.vvo^b\oi or K€pavv6^o\os), from this incident — a statement which I shall have to
consider presently. Tertullian, writing a few years later [Apol. 5, ad Scap. 4), likewise
testifies to the efficacy of the Christians' prayers.
He states that M. Aurelius asked
for these prayers, and that he wrote afterwards to the Senate bearing testimony to the
miraculous answer which had been vouchsafed. Eusebius (1. c.) mentions that the
occurrence was otherwise explained by the heathen, but that the Christians more
truthfully ascribed the result to the supplications of their brothers in the faith. He
describes the soldiers in question as toi>s eirl ttj^ '^leXiTLP-ijs ovtw Ka\ov/iev7js Xeyeuvos
(TTpaTiura. He cites as his authorities for the Christian story Claudius Apollinaris
and Tertullian. In the C/iromcon also (11. p. 172, ed. Schone) he mentions the fact.
Orosius (vii. 15) and the Chronicon Paschale (p. 487 ed. Bonn.) follow Eusebius.
Gregory Nyssen again {Op. III. p. 505 sq) enlarges upon the incident as an
answer to the prayers of the Christians. Xiphilinus (c. a.d. 1075), epitomizing Dion
(Ixxi. 9), turns aside to accuse his author of falsehood and ignorance, in not knowing
that the legion from Melitene, which was fighting in this war, was composed wholly
of Christians, that the lieutenant general informed the emperor of the power of their
prayers, that the emperor in consequence requested them to intercede with their God,
that an immediate answer was vouchsafed to this intercession, and that Marcus in
consequence designated this legion Kepavvo^oXos.
The incident, whatever it was, is represented in the sculptures of the Antonine
column, erected soon after at Rome, where Jupiter Pluvius is represented as an old
man, from whose hair and beard flow copious streams, which are caught in the
shields of the Roman soldiers, while the enemy is struck down by lightning.
(Bartoli et Bellori Coltimna Antoniniana pi. xiv, xv.) Nor was this the only artistic
reproduction of the event. Themistius (i.e.) saw the same scene represented in a
painting, the emperor praying in the midst of the phalanx and the soldiers holding out
their helmets to catch the descending waters.
The simple fact that M. Aurelius wrote to the Senate after the event is mentioned,
as we have seen, by Dion. The emperor could hardly have done otherwise. Tertullian
hazards the assertion {Apol. 5) that in this letter mention was made of the
prayers of the Christians. Accordingly he claims M. Aurelius as a protector of the
Christians. But the very language in which he asserts his claim shows that he had no
direct and personal knowledge of any such letter; 'si litterae M. Aurelii gravissimi
imperatoris reqiiiranlur, quibus illam Germanicam sitim Christianorum forte militum
precationibus impetrato imbri discussam contestatur.' Here he assumes that if sought
among ihe archives the letter would be found. Just in the same way he elsewhere
{Apol. i\) refers his heathen readers to the official reports which Pilate sent to
Tiberius after the trial of Christ. He did not doubt that both documents would be
found in the archives.
Yet this hazard of Tertullian is apparently the sole foundation