Page:The early Christians in Rome (1911).djvu/68

 ordinary number of the ten persecutions is after all an arbitrary computation. The whole principle and constitution of Christianity on examination were condemned by the Roman government as irreconcilably hostile to the established order; and mere membership of the sect, if persisted in, was regarded as treasonable, and the confessors of Christianity became liable to the punishment of death. And this remained the unvarying, the changeless policy of the Government of the State, though not always put in force, until the memorable edict of Constantine, 313.

After the terrible scenes in the games of the Vatican gardens, the persecution of the Christians still continued. The charges of incendiarism were dropped, no one believing that there was any truth in these allegations; but in Rome and in the provinces the Christian sect from this time forward was generally regarded as hostile to the Empire.

The accusation of being the authors of the great fire had revealed many things in connexion with the sect; the arrests, the judicial inquiries, had thrown a flood of new light upon the tenets of the new religion, had disclosed its large and evidently rapidly increasing numbers. Most probably for many years were they still confused with the Jews, but it was seen that the new sect was something more than a mere body of Jewish dissenters.

It was universally acknowledged that the Christians were innocent of any connexion with the great fire; but something else was discovered; they were a very numerous company (ingens multitudo) intensely in earnest, opposed to the State religion, preferring in numberless instances torture, confiscation, death, rather than submit to the State regulations in the matter of religion.

For some time before the fire they had been generally disliked, possibly hated by very many of the Roman citizens, by men of different ranks, for various reasons; by traders who lost much by their avoidance of all idolatrous feasts; by pagan families who resented the proselytism which was constantly taking place in their homes, thus causing a breach in the family circle; by priests and those specially connected with the network of rites and ceremonies, sacrifices and offer