CHAPTER I.
CHRIST TO CONSTANTINE
WHEN Jesus Christ had disappeared from this world, in what manner it is beside our purpose to discuss, the Jewish sect he had founded continued to assemble at Jerusalem. The infant Church was under the leadership of Simon Peter, and it observed the communistic maxims which Jesus had enjoined. Every member sold his property and paid the proceeds into the common exchequer.
One married couple, however, named Ananias and Sapphira, retained a portion of the price of their estate for their private use. This having come to the knowledge of Peter, he taxed them in succession with their offence, and each fell down dead in his presence. Their corpses were immediately buried by the godly young men who were waiting in the chamber of execution (Acts 5:1-10). No investigation into the affair appears to have been made by the authorities, but had such a thing occurred in an age of coroner's inquests, it is possible that Peter would have met another fate than leaving the world with his head downwards.
Paul's treatment of dissentients was very similar. He smote Elymas (Acts 13:10-11) with blindness as "a child of the devil," and charitably "delivered" Hymenaeus and Alexander "unto Satan" (1 Timothy 1:20), perhaps with the opinion that only the Grand Inquisitor of the Universe could adequately punish them for blasphemy and backsliding.
The other apostles were imbued with the same amiable spirit. Even in the lifetime of their Master they continually disputed who should be greatest, and were only pacified by his informing them that they should all occupy "twelve equal thrones of judgment over Israel" (Mark 9:34).
After the Master's death their differences grew more acrimonious. John, in his Revelation, scowls at Paul and his Gentile following, who "say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of
Satan" (Rev. 2:9). He denounces the doctrines of Nicolas, one of the seven first deacons of the Church, as hateful; and he expresses his detestation of the Laodiceans (Rev. 2:16) by saying that the Almighty would spew them out of his mouth. Paul returns the compliment by "withstanding" Peter for his "dissimulation," (Gal. 2:11-13) and sneering at James and John (Gal. 2:9) as seeming to be pillars, the former of whom retorts that Paul is a "vain man" (James 2:20). Paul vehemently tells the Galatians: "If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:8). Even "the beloved disciple," in his second Epistle, manifests the same persecuting spirit:
"If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." (2 John 10-11)
In the very first century Christianity was split into many petty sects, each denouncing the other as teaching false doctrine. The early Nazarenes, who adhered to the Jewish law, were called Ebionites, or contemptible people. The Ebionites denounced the Paulinists, and declared that Paul was an impostor who became a Christian because he was not allowed to marry a Jewish woman. In an epistle of Peter to James, prefixed to the Clementine Recognitions, and as genuine as any other portion of the writings ascribed to Peter, Paul is alluded to as "the enemy," and the author of lawless and foolish teachings. Of the Recognitions itself, a work ascribed to Clement, alluded to in Philippians 4:3 and undoubtedly belonging to the first era of Christian history, the author of Supernatural Religion says:
"There cannot be a doubt that the Apostle Paul is attacked in this religious romance as the great enemy of the true faith, under the hated name of Simon the Magician, whom Peter follows everywhere for the purpose of unmasking and confuting him. He is robbed of his title of "Apostle of the Gentiles," which, together with the honor of founding the Church of Antioch, of Laodicea, and of Rome, is ascribed to Peter. All that opposition to Paul which is implied in the Epistle to the Galatians and elsewhere (1 Cor. 1:11-12; 2 Cor. 11:13-20; Philip. 1:15,16) is here realised
and exaggerated, and the personal difference with Peter to which Paul refers is widened into the most bitter animosity." (Vol II, p.34.)
Irenaeus, in the second century, in his work against Heretics, stigmatises them with the most abusive epithets, and accuses them of the most abominable crimes. He calls them "thieves and robbers," "slippery serpents," "miserable little foxes," and so forth, and declares that they practise lewdness in their assemblies.
Tertullian, in the third century, displays a full measure of bigotry, with an added sense of exultation over the sufferings in reserve for his pagan opponents.
"What a city in the new Jerusalem! For it will not be without its games; it will have the final and eternal day of judgment, which the Gentiles now treat with unbelief and scorn, when so vast a series of ages, with all their productions, will be hurled into one absorbing fire. How magnificent the scale of that game! With what admiration, what laughter, what glee, what triumph shall I perceive so many mighty monarchs, who had been given out as received into the skies, even Jove himself and his votaries, moaning in unfathomable gloom. The governors too, persecutors of the Christian name, cast into fiercer torments than they had devised against the faithful, and liquefying amid shooting spires of flame! And those sage philosophers, who had deprived the Deity of his offices, and questioned the existence of a soul, or denied its future union with the body, meeting again with their disciples only to blush before them in those ruddy fires! Not to forget the poets, trembling, not before the tribunal of Rhadamanthus or Minos, but at the unexpected bar of Christ! Then is the time to hear tragedians, doubly pathetic now that they bewail their own agonies; to observe the actors, released by the fierce elements from all restraint upon their gestures; to admire the charioteer, glowing all over on the car of torture; to watch the wrestlers, thrust into the struggles, not of the gymnasium, but of the flames."
The pious Father adds that, by the imaginative power of faith, he enjoys a foretaste of this moving spectacle, and flatters himself that such scenes "will be more grateful than the circus, the stadium, or the stage-box itself." This exultant rhetorician expressed the general feeling of the Christian world, in which he enjoyed a superlative reputation.
Jerome, in the next century, exhibits a still more execrable spirit than Tertullian, exhorting the Christians to direct their bigotry against their dearest relations:
"If thy father lies down across thy threshold, if thy mother uncovers to thine eyes the bosom which suckled thee, trample on thy father's lifeless body, trample on thy mother's bosom, and, with eyes unmoistened and dry, fly to the Lord, who calleth thee."
Unfortunately this detestable advice did not flow from Jerome's natural moroseness; it was the logical result of his Savior's command to the disciples to leave all and follow him.
The scope of our work does not permit a larger array of illustrations. We have, however, given enough to show that the hateful spirit of bigotry and persecution animated the Christian Church from the beginning. It gathered strength with the progress of time, and it was sufficiently developed, when Constantine and Theodosius sought the destruction of Paganism, to assist and applaud them in executing their design.
Our contention in this respect is powerfully supported by the following passage from Lecky:
"All that fierce hatred which, during, the Arian and Donatist controversies convulsed the Empire, and which in later times has deluged the world with blood, may be traced in the Church long before the conversion of Constantine. Already, in the second century, it was the rule that the orthodox Christian should hold no conversation, should interchange none of the ordinary courtesies of life with the excommunicated or the heretic
."