Page:Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus - Volume 1 - Farquharson 1944.pdf/359

 deify a woman; he says nothing against her good reputation.

The question of the Christians cannot be settled in a few words. What appears certain is that there was no such thing as a general persecution, although there can be no reasonable doubt that the Christian communities at Lyon and Vienne, in Gaul, suffered by an outbreak of fanaticism, that the governor referred the matter to Marcus, and that he replied that the law must take its course. The reply was inevitable in view of the nature of the Roman government, as well as of the general social attitude to misunderstood religious disobedience. Nothing better has been said on the subject than by J. S. Mill in his Essay on Liberty: 'This man, a better Christian, in all but the dogmatic sense of the word, than almost any of the ostensibly Christian sovereigns who have since reigned, persecuted Christianity. Placed at the summit of all the previous attainments of humanity, with an open, unfettered intellect, and a character which led him of himself to embody in his moral writings the Christian ideal, he yet failed to see that Christianity was to be a good and not an evil to the world. To my mind this is one of the most tragical facts in all history.' The only reference to the Christians in the Meditations illustrates the failure of a good and wise ruler to rise above ignorance and prejudice, and in no sense indicates the temper and purpose of a persecutor.

To his personal character his book bears incontrovertible witness, a witness confirmed by every act and deed recorded of him. Matthew Arnold has said: 'He is perhaps the most beautiful figure in history. He is one of those consoling and hope-inspiring marks, which stand for ever to remind our weak and easily discouraged race how high human goodness and perseverance have once 267