Page:The early Christians in Rome (1911).djvu/71

 *ment in the persecutions had taken place (probably in the time of Vespasian), in which all Christians were assumed to have been guilty of such hostility to society, and might be condemned off-hand on confession of the Name. This was the state of things when Pliny wrote to Trajan for more detailed instructions. The great number of professing Christians alarming that upright and merciful official, he asked the Emperor was he to send them all to death?

The leading feature of the instruction of the Emperor Trajan in reply to Pliny's question, as we shall presently see, was, although Christians were to be condemned if they confessed the Name, they were not to be sought out. This "instruction" held good until the closing years of the Empire, when a sterner policy was pursued; while it is indisputable that under Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, a yet more hostile practice was adopted towards the Christians.

One great point is clear—that from the days of Nero the Christians were never safe; they lived as their writings plainly show, even under the rule of those Emperors who were, comparatively speaking, well disposed to them, with the vision of martyrdom ever before their eyes; they lived, not a few of them, positively training themselves to endure the great trial as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. During the first and second centuries, comparatively speaking, only a few names of these martyrs and confessors have come down to us: we possess but a few really well authenticated recitals (Acts and Passions), but these names and stories do not read like exceptional cases; irresistibly the grave truth forces itself upon us, that there were many heroes and heroines whose names have not been preserved—whose stories have not been recorded.

The sword of persecution ever hung over the heads of the members of the Christian flocks—ready to fall at any moment. The stern instructions, modified though they were by the kindly policy of some of the rulers of the State, were never abrogated, never forgotten; they were susceptible, it is true, of a gentler interpretation than the harsh terms in which they were couched at first seemed to warrant,