05. Chapter 4: The Church Is Tempered, 33-313

CHAPTER 4 The Church Is Tempered, 33-313

1. The Heroic Age of the Church This chapter does not carry the story forward in point of time. The things described in this chap­ter took place during the same time that the events of the two previous chapters were going on.

Christ had forewarned His dis­ciples: "They have persecuted me, they will also persecute you."

Throughout the first three hun­dred years of its existence the Church was tempered in the fires of persecution. This period has been called the heroic age of the Church. The things told about in chapters two and three happened in the midst of fierce persecution.

2. Peter, John, Stephen, and James Are the First to Be Persecuted The first man to preach the Gos­pel was Peter. He and John were the first Christians to be perse­cuted. This happened almost im­mediately after the Church had come into existence. Peter healed a lame man, and explained to the people that he had performed this miracle through the power of the risen Christ. Because Peter and John preached the resurrection of Christ, they were arrested and put in jail. After having spent a night in jail they were brought before the Jewish Council. The Council threatened them with punishment if they continued to preach Christ. Peter and John asked whether it would be right to obey men rather than God, and declared that they could not but speak the things they had seen and heard. Again the Council warned them that it would inflict severe punishment upon them if they did not stop preach­ing. Then the Council let them go.

Peter and John went straight to the company of the disciples, and told what the Council had said. Then the whole company joined in prayer. They asked for boldness to keep on preaching in the face of danger. When the apostles performed many more miracles and the Church grew rapidly, they were arrested and jailed a second time. During the night an angel opened the prison doors for them, and told them to go to the temple and preach. They did so early in the morning. When the officers came to get them and bring them before the Council, they found the doors of the jail properly locked, but there were no apostles within. They reported this to the Council. The Council did not know what to think of it. Then someone came and said, "The men you put in jail last night are in the temple preaching." A captain with a squad of officers was dispatched. They brought the men quietly before the Council. The apostles again said that they felt they should obey God rather than men. The Council went into secret ses­sion and discussed how best to put these men to death. But Gamaliel, one of the members, made a speech advising the Council to let the apos­tles alone; as a result the plan to put the apostles to death was aban­doned. But this time they were given a beating, and once more, under threats of more severe pun­ishment, they were commanded not to preach in the name of Jesus. The apostles left the council cham­ber rejoicing that they had been deemed worthy to suffer dishonor for His name. The next man to be arrested and brought before the Council was the deacon Stephen. Before he could finish his defense he was dragged outside the city and cruelly stoned to death. Stephen was the first Christian martyr, the first one to suffer death for the cause of Christ.

Stephen’s death was followed by a general persecution. Saul ar­rested many men and women and had them thrown into jail. After Saul was converted the Church in the whole of Palestine, in Judea and Galilee and Samaria, had rest.

There was a brief flare-up of persecution when Herod put the apostle James, son of Zebedee and brother of the apostle John, to death with the sword. He planned to put Peter to death also, but dur­ing the night an angel opened the prison doors for Peter and he escaped.

During this first period of per­secution, therefore, at least two men died as martyrs—Stephen and James.

3. Paul Suffers for His Faith The apostle Paul during his mis­sionary journeys was often per­secuted by mobs. These persecu­tions were usually stirred up by Jews. When upon his return to Jerusalem from his third mission­ary journey his life was threatened in the temple by a Jewish mob, he was taken into protective custody by a Roman captain and his guard. Two Roman governors of Pales­tine, Felix and Festus, refused to condemn him; but he still remained a prisoner. Paul then appealed to Caesar. As a prisoner in Rome, Paul was treated with great consideration. He was allowed to hire a house of his own. There he lived under guard of a Roman soldier, and en­joyed certain privileges. He could receive anybody who cared to visit him, and he was allowed to carry on correspondence. He used this opportunity to write letters to various churches. Some of these letters you can find in the New Testament. At the end of two years he was released from prison.

4. Nero, the First Emperor to Per­secute Christians When Paul was in Corinth he had at one time been dragged by a Jewish mob into the court of the Roman governor Gallio. This gov­ernor would have nothing to do with the case and brusquely told the Jews to run along. When the Jews continued to press their charges against Paul, the gover­nor had attendants drive them out of the courthouse. In course of time, however, the attitude of the Roman government toward the Christians underwent a change.

Sometime in the month of July in the year 64 in the reign of Em­peror Nero, fire broke out in Rome. For six days and nights the fire burned. The greater part of the city was laid in ashes. The rumor got around that Nero himself had caused the city to be set on fire. This aroused great hatred in the people of Rome against the emperor. To turn this hatred away from himself Nero accused the Christians of having set fire to Rome. This certainly was not true, but large numbers of Christians were arrested and a terrible persecution followed.

Many Christians were even cru­cified. Some were sewed up in the skins of wild beasts; then big dogs were let loose upon them, and they were torn to pieces. Women were tied to mad bulls and dragged to death. After nightfall Christians were burned at the stake in Nero’s garden. The Roman people who hated the Christians were free to come into the garden, and Nero drove around in his chariot wick­edly enjoying the horrible scene.

NERO AMID THE RUINS OF ROME
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It was at this time that, accord­ing to tradition, the apostles Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom in Rome. It is related that Peter was crucified with his head down. This was done at his own request. He said he was not worthy to be cru­cified in the same manner as his Master. Paul, being a Roman citi­zen, was beheaded. The slaughter of Christians at this time was confined to the city of Rome. It was not a general per­secution throughout the whole of the Empire.

5. Ignatius, Justin, and Polycarp Suffer Martyrdom For the next one hundred years (from 68 to 161) there were no general persecutions, but in dif­ferent parts of the Empire many Christians were put to death. Out­standing among the martyrs of this period were Ignatius, bishop of Antioch; Justin, the apologist who had written boldly and very ably in defense of the Christians; and Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. All three of these men were men­tioned in the previous chapter.

Ignatius was brought from An­tioch to Rome, and thrown to the lions. Justin was beheaded.

Polycarp was the last one of those who had been personally taught by the apostles. He was arrested and brought into the am­phitheater in Smyrna, which was filled with an immense multitude. Since there were no images of gods in the houses of worship of the Christians, the heathen rightly concluded that the Christians did not believe in the existence of the gods; and so they accused them of being atheists (people who believe there is no God). The proconsul reminded Polycarp of his great age, and urged him to show his peni­tence by joining in the cry, "Away with the atheists !" Polycarp looked straight at the excited crowd, pointed his finger at them, and cried, "Away with the atheists !"

Then the proconsul said, "Revile Christ, and I will release you." But Polycarp answered, "Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He has never done me wrong; how can I blaspheme Him, my King, who has saved me? I am a Christian." To the crowd the proconsul then proclaimed, "Polycarp has con­fessed himself to be a Christian." The crowds yelled, "Let him be burned !"

Wood was collected and made into a pile. Polycarp asked not to be fastened to the stake. "Leave me thus," he said. "He who strengthens me to endure the flames, will also enable me to stand firm at the stake without being fastened with nails." The wood pile was lighted. While Polycarp prayed with a loud voice, "Lord

God Almighty, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, I praise thee that thou hast judged me worthy of this day and of this hour, to par­ticipate in the number of thy wit­nesses, and in the cup of thy Christ," the flames consumed him. Polycarp’s martyr death took place in the year 155.

6. Persecution Is Continued under Marcus Aurelius- The emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180) decreed that the prop­erty of Christians should be given to their accusers. It is not difficult to see what would be the effect of this decree. Everywhere there were people who were eager to have the property of the Chris­tians. These came forward with ac­cusations. Persecution became well-nigh universal. Christians every­where were sought out, brought to trial, and often executed with the greatest cruelty, while their prop­erty was taken from them and given to their accusers.

What happened to the Church in Lyons and Vienne in southern Gaul, now France, can give us some idea of the severity of the perse­cution under Marcus Aurelius. The persecutors began by insulting the Christians; they threw stones at them and plundered their homes. And finally, by the most horrible tortures, they sought to make the Christians deny their faith. All day long they tormented them, until they had to give up because of utter exhaustion.

A CHRISTIAN MOTHER EXHORTING HER DAUGHTER TO MARTYRDOM
Schoenfeld Collection from Three Lions
Engraving after a painting by Louis Sauzay To all questions Blandina, a lovely young girl, replied only, "I am a Christian." She repeated this answer until, worn and ill, she scarcely could breathe. Ponticus, a boy of only fifteen, bore all tortures without flinching while his sister stood by encouraging him to re­main true to his faith. The bishop of the church in Lyons, Pothinus, a man over ninety, was tortured so severely that two days afterwards he died in prison. When at last the persecutors became convinced that no amount of torture would make the Christians deny their faith, they beheaded those Christians who were Roman citizens, and the others they threw to the wild beasts in the arena of the amphi­theater. From far and near the heathen flocked to the amphitheater to see this spectacle. All the condemned met their death with great joy. The last to die was Blandina. She had been a spectator of the death of all the others, and she had con­stantly encouraged and exhorted them to remain steadfast to the end. With joy and thanksgiving she entered the arena. A net was thrown over her. Then she was exposed to the fury of a wild bull. Several times the bull took her upon his horns and tossed her into the air. At last she was dead. The bodies of the martyrs were burned, and the ashes were thrown into the river Rhone. The heathen said mockingly, "Now we shall see whether there will be a resurrec­tion of their bodies."

7. There Is a Lull in the Storm With the death of Marcus Aure­lius this period of persecution came to a close. For some seventy years the Church on the whole enjoyed rest, with the exception of the per­secution under Septimius Severus from 200-211. For a time this persecution raged with great violence in Alexandria in Egypt. Along with many others the father of Origen was put to death. Origen, who later became the greatest scholar the Church had produced, was at the time of his father’s death a young boy. It was only with the great­est difficulty that his mother re­strained him from offering himself for martyrdom. A maiden by the name of Potamiaena and her mother Marcella were burned to death. A few years later a number of Christians in Carthage in North Africa suffered martyrdom. Among them were two young women, Perpetua and Felicitas. They were catechumens and received baptism while in prison. Along with many others they were condemned to be thrown to the wild beasts.

CHRISTIAN MARTYRS IN THE AMPHITHEATER
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Another to suffer a martyr’s death during this period was Ire­naeus, the Church Father who had written the brilliant defense, Against Heresies.

8. Determined Efforts Are Made to Destroy the Church The first emperor who ordered a general persecution with the definite purpose of destroying the Church was Decius. Happily his reign lasted only two years, from 249 to 251. After a brief respite of seven years the Church suffered persecution under Valerian. There­after the Church was granted an­other period of tranquility, which lasted forty years. In the year 303 the emperor Diocletian started a persecution which was continued by his successor Galerius until the year 311. The tortures which were in­flicted upon the Christians during these persecutions were so grue­some that it is not fit to describe them. Besides this, church build­ings were demolished and Bibles were burned. These persecutions far surpassed, in the number of Christians who were martyred and in cruelty, anything the Christians had been made to suffer up to this time. These persecutions were a determined and systematic attempt to uproot Christianity completely, and wipe the Church off the face of the earth. An outstanding Christian who suffered martyrdom in these persecutions was Cyprian. Origen also died as the result of the tortures inflicted upon him at this time.

Many Christians in the city of Rome found a place of refuge in the catacombs, which were under­ground passageways. The ground upon which Rome is built consists of comparatively soft stone. Bury­ing people within the city limits was not permitted. So in many places just outside the city, long, narrow passages or tunnels were dug out of the soft stone for this purpose. There are so many of them that if they were all laid end to end they would be some five hundred miles long. They wind and cross each other in every direction so as to form a regular maze. Many of these subterranean passages are thirty or more feet below the surface. They are pitch dark. In the sides of these galleries or pas­sageways excavations were made row upon row. In these excava­tions the dead were laid to rest. It was in these catacombs that many Christians hid themselves in times of persecution. There they also laid to rest the mangled remains of their fellow believers who had died as martyrs. The persecution under Diocletian and Galerius was the most severe of all. But it was also the last. Heathendom had finally exhausted its strength and spent its fury.

9. Galerius Calls a Halt

Emperor Galerius became ill and suffered unspeakable torments. His disease was dreadful and incurable. From his sickbed, which became his deathbed, he issued in the year 311 an edict which granted to the Christians permission to hold their assemblies again. He asked for their prayers in behalf of the em­peror and the Empire.

CHRISTIANS HUNTED DOWN IN THE CATACOMBS
Religious News Service The edict of Galerius was not a complete victory. What Galerius had granted was only a half­hearted toleration. Nevertheless the complete victory for the Church was near at hand.