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THE HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, from the birth of Christ to the 18th Century: including the very interesting account of the Waldenses and Albigenses
By William Jones

First Edition 1812
Fourth Edition 1819
Fifth Edition 1826
London: Printed for the Author by W. Myers, 7, Took’s Court, Castle Street, Holborn

[Note from the publisher. This valuable out-of-print book was carefully formatted for electronic publication by Way of Life Literature. For a catalog of other books, both current and old, in print and electronic format, contact us at P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org (e-mail), http://www.wayoflife.org (web site).]

[Table of Contents for "A History of the Christian Church" by William Jones]

HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH FROM THE CLOSE OF THE FIRST CENTURY, TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY UNDER CONSTANTINE, A.D. 315

SECTION 1
THE STATE OF THE CHRISTIAN PROFESSION UNDER THE REIGN OF TRAJAN
A.D. 98 TO 117

There is more truth than would at first strike the mind of a superficial observer, in Dr. Jortin’s remark, that Christianity was, at the beginning, more likely to prosper under bad than under good emperors; especially if the latter were tenacious of their religious rites and ceremonies. Accordingly, from the death of Christ to the reign of Vespasian, a period of about thirty-seven years, the Romans paid little regard to the progress of the gospel. They were ruled by weak or frantic and vicious emperors; the magistrates and senators, and every worthy man of any note, stood in continual fear for their own lives, and the empire was a scene of confusion, desolation, and misery. [Jortin’s Remarks, vol. 1. p. 30.]

Gibbon, in one short paragraph, has sketched a tolerably correct picture of the state of the Roman government during the times of which we are now treating, and the reader cannot be displeased at my transplanting it into these pages.

"The annals of the emperors," says he, "exhibit a strong and various picture of human nature, which we should vainly seek among the mixed and doubtful characters of modern history. In the conduct of these monarchs, we may trace the utmost lines of vice and virtue; the most exalted perfection, and the meanest degeneracy of our own species. The golden age of Trajan and the Autonines had been preceded by an age of iron. It is almost superfluous to enumerate the unworthy successors of Augustus. Their unparalleled vices, and the splendid theater on which they were acted, have saved them from oblivion. The dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and crueI Nero, the beastly Vitellius, and the timid, inhuman Domitian, are condemned to everlasting infamy. [Vitellius consumed in mere eating, at least six millions of our money in about seven months. It is not easy to express his vices with dignity or even decency. Tacitus fairly calls him "a hog."] During fourscore years (excepting only the short and doubtful respite of Vespasian’s reign) Rome groaned beneath an unremitting tyranny, which exterminated the ancient families, and was fatal to almost every virtue, and every talent that arose in this unhappy period." [Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1.ch. 3.]

We have already traced the progress of Christianity through our author’s age of iron, and are now entering upon what he terms the golden age of Trajan and the Antonines,

"If a man were called to fix," says the same elegant historian, "the period in the history of the world during which: the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Cornmodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose character and authority commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully governed by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antchines, who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws." [Gibbon, vol. 1. ch. 3.] Such a state of things as this many would imagine could be little inferior to a millennium, as it respected Christians--but how far the opinion would be consonant to truth, will appear in the sequel.

TRAJAN ascended the throne of the Caesars in the year 98, and soon afterwards conferred the government of the province of Bithynia upon his friend the ingenious and celebrated PLINY. The character of the latter is one of the most amiable in all Pagan antiquity. In the exercise of his office as proconsul, the Christians, against whom the severe edicts which had been issued by preceding emperors seem to be still in force, were brought before his tribunal. Having never had occasion to be present at any such examinations before, the multitude of the criminals, and the severity of the laws against them, seem to have greatly struck him and caused him to hesitate how far it was proper to carry them into execution, without first consulting the emperor upon the subject. The letter which he wrote to Trajan upon this occasion, as well as the answer of the letter, are happily preserved, and are among the most valuable monuments of antiquity, on account of the light which they throw upon the state of the Christian profession at this splendid epoch. The letter of Pliny seems to have been written in the year 106 or 107, and is as follows.

"C. PLINY, to the EMPEROR TRAJAN, wishes health. SIRE! It is customary with me to consult you upon every doubtful occasion; for where my own judgment hesitates, who is more competent to direct me than yourself, or to instruct me where uninformed? I never had occasion to be present at any examination of the Christians before I came into this province; I am therefore ignorant to what extent it is usual to inflict punishment, or urge prosecution. I have also hesitated whether there should not be some distinction made between the young and the old, the tender and the robust; whether pardon should not be offered to penitence, or whether the guilt of an avowed profession of Christianity can be expiated by the most unequivocal retraction--whether the profession itself is to be regarded as a crime, however innocent in other respects the professor may be; or whether the crimes attached to name, must be proved before they are made liable to punishment.

"In the mean time, the method I have hitherto observed with the Christians, who have been accused as such, has been as follows. I interrogated them--Are you Christians? If they avowed it, I put the same question a second, and a third time, threatening them with the punishment decreed by the law: if they still persisted, I ordered them to be immediately executed: for of this I had no doubt, whatever was the nature of their religion, that such perverseness and inflexible obstinacy certainly deserved punishment. Some that were infected with this madness, on account of their privilege as Roman citizens, I reserved to be sent to Rome, to be referred to your tribunal.

"In the discussion of this matter, accusations multiplying, a diversity of cases occurred. A schedule of names was sent me by an unknown accuser; but when I cited the persons before me, many denied the fact that they were, or ever had been Christians; and they repeated after me an invocation of the gods, and of your image, which for this purpose I had ordered to be brought with the statues of the other deities. They performed sacred rites with wine and frankincense, and execrated Christ; none of which things, I am assured, a real Christian can ever be compelled to do. These, therefore, I thought proper to discharge. Others, named by an informer, at first acknowledged themselves Christians, and then denied it, declaring that though they had been Christians they had renounced their profession, some three years ago, others still longer, and some even twenty years ago. All these worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and at the same time execrated Christ.

"And this was the account which they gave me of the nature of the religion they once had professed, whether it deserves the name of crime or error; namely, that they were accustomed on a stated day to assemble before sun-rise, and to join together in singing hymns to Christ as to a deity; binding themselves as with a solemn oath not to commit any kind of wickedness; to be guilty neither of theft, robbery, nor adultery; never to break a promise, or to keep back a deposit when called upon. Their worship being concluded, it was their custom to separate, and meet together again for a repast, promiscuous indeed, and without any distinction of rank or sex, but perfectly harmless; and even from this they desisted, since the publication of my edict, in which agreeably to your orders, I forbade any societies of that sort.

"For further information, I thought it necessary, in order to come at the truth, to put to the torture two females who were called deaconesses. But I could extort from them nothing except the acknowledgement of an excessive and depraved superstition; and, therefore, desisting from further investigation, I determined to consult you; for the number of culprits is so great as to call for the most serious deliberation. Informations are pouring in against multitudes of every age, of all orders, and of both sexes, and more will be impeached; for the contagion of this superstition hath spread not only through cities, but villages also, and even reached the farm houses. I am of opinion, nevertheless, that it may be checked, and the success of my endeavours hitherto forbids despondency; for the temples, once almost desolate, begin to be again frequented--the sacred solemnities which had for some time been intermitted, are now attended afresh; and the sacrificial victims, which once could scarcely find a purchaser, now obtain a brisk sale. Whence I infer, that many might be reclaimed, were the hope of pardon, on their repentance, absolutely confirmed."

TRAJAN TO PLINY

"My dear Pliny, You have done perfectly right, in managing as you have, the matters which relate to the impeachment of the Christians. No one general rule can be laid down which will apply to all cases. These people are not to be hunted up by informers; but if accused and convicted, let them be executed; yet with this restriction, that if any renounce the profession of Christianity, and give proof of it by offering supplications to our gods, however suspicious their past conduct may have been, they shall be pardoned on their repentance. But anonymous accusations should never be attended to, since it would be establishing a precedent of the worst kind, and altogether inconsistent with the maxims of my government."

It is an obvious reflection from these letters, that at this early period, Christianity had made an extraordinary progress in the empire; for Pliny acknowledges that the Pagan temples had become "almost desolate." Nor should we overlook the remarkable proof which they afford us of the state of the Christian profession, and the dreadful persecutions to which the disciples of Christ were then exposed, It is evident from them, that by the existing laws, it was a capital offense, punishable with death, for any one to avow himself a Christian. Nor did the humane Trajan and the philosophic Pliny entertain a doubt of the propriety of the law, or the wisdom and justice of executing it in the fullest extent. Pliny confesses that he had commanded such capital punishments to be inflicted on many, chargeable with no crime, but their profession of Christianity; and Trajan not only confirms the equity of the sentence, but enjoins the continuance of such executions, without any exceptions, unless it be of those who apostatized from their profession, denied their Lord and Savior, and did homage to the idols of Paganism.

These letters also give us a pleasing view of the holy and exemplary lives of the first Christians. For, it appears by the confession of apostates themselves, that no man could continue a member of their communion whose deportment in the world did not correspond with his holy profession. Even delicate women are put to the torture, to try if their weakness would not betray them into accusations of their brethren; but not a word nor a charge can be extorted from them, capable of bearing the semblance of deceit or crime. To meet for prayer, praise, and mutual instruction; to worship Christ their God; to exhort one another to abstain from every evil word and work; to unite in commemorating the death of their Lord, by partaking of the symbols of his broken body and shed blood in the ordinance of the supper--these things constitute what Pliny calls the "depraved superstition," the "execrable crimes," which could only be expiated by the blood of the Christians!

We should not overlook the proof which these letters afford, of the peaceableness of the Christians of those days, and of their readiness to submit even to the most unjust requisitions, rather than disturb the peace of society. According to Pliny’s own representation, their numbers were so immense, that, had they considered it lawful, they might have defended themselves by the power of the sword. Persons of all ranks, of every age, and of each sex, had been converted to Christianity; the body was so vast as to leave the Pagan temples a desert, and their priests solitary. Scarce a victim was brought to the altar, or a sacred solemnity observed, through the paucity of the worshippers. The defection from Paganism must have been conspicuous which could produce such striking effects. But the Christians neither abused their power to resist government, nor acted indecently in their worship. They knew the edicts that were in force against them; and to avoid giving offense, they assembled before break of day, for the worship of their God and Savior. And when Pliny issued his edict to that effect, they, for a while yielded to the storm, and desisted from the observance of their Agapae, or feasts of charity. This view of things abundantly justifies the encomium of Hegesippus, one of the earliest Christian writers, "that the church continued until these times, as a virgin, pure and uncorrupted."

Considering the character which both the emperor and the proconsul sustained, for mildness of disposition and gentleness of manners, it has occasioned no small perplexity to many, and even to some of our philosophic historians, how to account for the circumstance, that such men should be found in the list of persecutors, and at the same time to admit the unoffending deportment of the Christians. Dr. Warburton has given a very satisfactory solution of this difficulty; and, though the passage be rather long, I shall transcribe the substance of it in this place.

"The Pagan world having early imbibed this inveterate prejudice concerning intercommunity of worship, men were but too much accustomed to new revelations, when the Jewish appeared, not to acknowledge its superior pretensions. Accordingly we find, by the history of this people, that it was esteemed by its neighbors a true one; and therefore they proceeded to join it occasionally with their own; as those did whom the king of Assyria sent into the cities of Israel in place of the ten tribes. Whereby it happened, so great was the influence of this principle, that, in the same time and country, the Jews of Jerusalem added the Pagan idolatries to their religion, while the Pagans of Samaria added the Jewish religion to their idolatries.

"But when these people of God, in consequence of having their dogmatic theology more carefully inculcated to them, after their return from the captivity, became rigid, in pretending not only that their religion was true, but the only true one; then it was that they began to be treated by their neighbors, and afterwards by the Greeks and Romans, with the utmost hatred and contempt, for this their inhumanity and unsociable temper. To this cause alone we are to ascribe all that spleen and rancor which appears in the histories of these later nations concerning them. CELSUS fairly reveals what lay at the bottom, and speaks out for them all. ‘If the Jews, on these accounts,’ says he, ‘adhere to their own law, it is not for that they are to blame: I rather blame those who forsake their own country religion to embrace the Jewish. But if these people give themselves airs of sublimer wisdom than the rest of the world, and on that score refuse all communion with it, as not equally pure,--I must tell them, that it is not to be believed that they are more dear or agreeable to God than other nations.’--Hence, among the Pagans, the Jews came to be distinguished from all other people, by the name of a race of men odious to the gods, and with good reason. This was the reception the Jews met with in the world.

"When Christianity arose, though on the foundation of Judaism, it was at first received with great complacency by the Pagan world. The gospel was favorably heard, and the superior evidence with which it was enforced, inclined men, long habituated to pretended revelations, to receive it into the number of the established. Accordingly we find one Roman emperor introducing it among his closet religions; and another promising to the senate to give it a more public entertainment. But when it was found to carry its pretensions higher, and, like the Jewish, to claim the title of the only true one, then it was that it began to incur the same hatred and contempt with the Jewish. But when it went still further, and urged the necessity of all men forsaking their own national religions, and embracing the gospel, this so shocked the Pagans, that it soon brought upon itself the bloody storm which followed. Thus you have the true origin of persecution for religion; a persecution not committed, but undergone by the Christian church.

"Hence we see how it happened, that such good emperors as Trajan and Mark Antonine came to be found in the first rank of persecutors; a difficulty that hath very much embarrassed the enquirers into ecclesiastical antiquity, and given a handle to the deists, who empoison every thing, of pretending to suspect, that there must be something very much amiss in primitive Christianity, while such wise magistrates could become its persecutors. But the reason is now manifest. The Christian pretensions overthrew a fundamental principle of Paganism, which they thought founded in nature, namely, the friendly intercommunity of worship. And thus the famous passage of Pliny the younger becomes intelligible. ‘For I did not in the least hesitate, but that whatever should appear on confession to be their faith, yet that their frowardness and inflexible obstinacy would certainly deserve punishment.’ What was the ‘inflexible obstinacy?’ It could not be in professing a new religion; that was a thing common enough. It was the refusing all communion with Paganism, refusing to throw a grain of incense on their altars. For we must not think, as is commonly imagined, that this was at first enforced by the magistrate to make them renounce their religion; but only to give a test of its hospitality, and sociableness of temper. It was indeed, and rightly too, understood by the Christians to be a renouncing of their religion, and so accordingly abstained from. The misfortune was that the Pagans did not consider the inflexibility as a mere error, but as an immorality likewise. The unsociable, uncommunicable temper, in matters of religious worship, was esteemed by the best of them as a hatred and aversion to mankind. Thus Tacitus, speaking of the burning of Rome, calls the Christians ‘persons convicted of hatred to all mankind.’ But how? The confession of the Pagans themselves, concerning the purity of the Christian morals, shews this could be no other than a being ‘convicted’ of rejecting all intercommunity of worship; which, so great was their prejudice, they thought could proceed from nothing but hatred towards mankind. Universal prejudice had made men regard a refusal of this intercommunity as the most brutal of all dissociability. And the emperor JULIAN, who understood this matter the best of any, fairly owns, that the Jews and Christians brought the execration of the world upon them, by their aversion to the gods of Paganism, and their refusal of all communication with them." [Dr. Warburton, Divine Legation of Moses, vol. 2. b. 2. sect. 6. etc.]

But to proceed. From what took place in the province of Bithynia, under the government of the mild and amiable Pliny, a tolerably correct judgment may be formed of the state of Christianity during the reign of Trajan, in every other part of the empire. While Pliny was thus conducting matters in Bithynia, the province of Syria was under the government of Tiberianus. There is still extant a letter which he addressed to Trajan, in which he says, "I am quite wearied with punishing and destroying the Galilseans, or those of the sect called Christians, according to your orders. Yet they never cease to profess voluntarily, what they are, and to offer themselves to death. Wherefore I have labored by exhortations and threats, to discourage them from daring to confess to me, that they are of that sect. Yet, in spite of all persecution, they continue still to do it. Be pleased therefore to inform me, what your highness thinks proper to be done with them." [Quoted in Dr. Middleton’s Free Enquiry, p. 201.4to. ed.]

The stated returns of the public games and festivals were generally attended by calamitous events to the Christians. "On those occasions, the inhabitants of the great cities of the empire were collected in the great circus of the theater, where every circumstance of the place, as well as of the ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion and to extinguish their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators, crowned with garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood of victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their tutelar deities, resigned themselves to the enjoyment of pleasures, which they considered as an essential part of their religious worship; they recollected, that the Christians alone abhorred the gods of mankind, and by their absence and melancholy on those solemn festivals, seemed to insult or to lament the public felicity. If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tyber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the Divine justice. [Inveterate as were the prejudices of this classical historian against the Christians, it seems he could condescend occasionally to borrow a striking thought or a brilliant sentence from their writings. The reader may compare the above quotation with the following extract from Tertullian’s Apology. "If the city be besieged, if any thing happen ill in the fields, in the garrison, in the lands, immediately they, (the Pagans,) cry out, "Tis because of the Christians." Our enemies thirst after the blood of the innocent, cloaking their hatred with this silly pretense, "That the Christians are the cause of all public calamities." If the Tyber flows up to the walls--if the river Nile do not overflow the fields--if the heavens alter their course-if there be an earthquake, a famine, a plague, immediately the cry is "Away with the Christians to the lions." APOL. cap. 1. Operum, p. 17.]

It was not among a licentious and exasperated populace, that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed; it was not in an amphitheater stained with the blood of wild beasts and gladiators, that the voice of compassion could be heard. The impatient clamors of the multitude denounced the Christians as the enemies of God and men, doomed them to the severest tortures, and venturing to accuse by name, some of the most distinguished of the new sectaries, required, with irresistible vehemence, that they should be instantly apprehended and cast to the lions." [Gibbon’s Decline, vol. 2:ch. 16.]

About the time that Pliny wrote his celebrated letter, Trajan, who was then entering upon the Parthian war, arrived at Antioch in Syria. IGNATIUS was at that time one of the pastors of the church there; a man of exemplary piety, and "in all things like to the apostles." During the emperor’s stay at Antioch, the city was almost entirely ruined by an earthquake. It was preceded by violent claps of thunder, unusual winds, and a dreadful noise under ground. Then followed so terrible a shock, that the earth trembled, several houses were overturned, and others tossed to and fro, like a ship at sea. The noise of the cracking and bursting of the timber, and of the falling of the houses, drowned the cries of the dismayed populace. Those who happened to be in their houses were, for the most part, buried under their ruins; such as were walking in the streets and in the squares, were, by the violence of the shock, dashed against each other, and most of them killed or dangerously wounded. Trajan himself was much hurt, but escaped through a window out of the house in which he was. When the earthquake ceased, the voice of a woman was heard crying under the ruins, which being removed, she was found with a sucking child in her arms, whom she kept alive, as well as herself, with her milk.

The eminent station of Ignatius, and the popularity which generally attends superior talents, marked him out as the victim of imperial fury on the occasion. He was seized, and by the emperor’s order sent from Antioch to Rome, where he was exposed to the fury of wild beasts in the theater, and by them devoured. About the same time, Simeon, the son of Cleopas, who had succeeded the apostle James, as pastor of the church originally gathered in Jerusalem, but which, at the time of its destruction, removed to a small town called Pella, was accused, before Atticus, the Roman governor, of being a Christian. He was then an hundred and twenty years old, but his hoary hairs were no protection to him under the charge of professing Christianity. He endured the punishment of scourging, for many flays; but though his hardiness astonished, his sufferings failed to excite the pity of his persecutors, and he was, at length, ordered to be crucified.

This state of things, which is commonly termed the third persecution, seems to have continued during the whole of Trajan’s reign; for it does not appear that his edicts against the Christians were revoked during his life, which, after having swayed the imperial scepter nineteen years, was closed in the year 117, while prosecuting his great military expedition in the east.