seems to have borrowed some of the features of the Man of Lawlessness from the character and actions of one of the Emperors-Gaius Caligula,1 thus in a way compromising his view of the essential justice of the imperial rule. A tacit protest on the part of the Christians against the ascription of Divine honours to the Emperor appears in the adoption of several of the semi-technical terms of the Kaiserkult, such as our Lord,' 'Saviour,' 'Kingdom,' etc., as watchwords of their own faith.2 When Mark embodied in his Gospel the prophecy of Jesus that his disciples would be arraigned before governors and kings for his sake,3 new significance had recently been given to the words by the inauguration in 64 A.D. of the policy of persecution for the name of Christian as the standard and official treatment henceforth to be accorded by the imperial government to the new faith. Prior to this, the Christians had already incurred social unpopularity and suspicion: but when special attention had been directed to them by Nero's famous attempt (perhaps instigated and supported by Jews) to shift off his shoulders on to theirs the suspicion of having set Rome on fire, they came to be regarded officially as enemies of society, by reason of the unpatriotic views and secret crimes supposed to be bound up with the religion they professed. They thus became liable thenceforward, not only at Rome but throughout the provinces, to be proceeded against-as robbers and pirates were proceeded against-not under any law specially directed against them, but under the ordinary powers with which the magistrate was armed. While the police-regulations thus requiring their suppression would often be allowed to remain dormant, they might yet as a result of Nero's action be put into force against the Christians henceforward at any moment.4 combination of Herodes, Pilatus, and Israel, in compassing the Divinely ordained death of Jesus: similarly Ac ii. 23, iii. 13-15, xiii. 27-29; the Passionstory in Mark, and his account of the execution of the Baptist (vi. 14–29). 12 Th ii. 4; and see above, p. 89. " 2 Weinel SUS 18-23: Durch ihre Schriften zieht sich ein stiller, aber sehr heftiger Kampf gegen den Kaiser hindurch. Man streitet gerade gegen die göttliche Würde des Herrschers in ihren Prädikaten und nimmt sie für den lebendigen Gott oder Jesus Christus in Anspruch," u.s.w. (18). Cf. id. Th. 548; Harnack ME i. 259 nn 2f, KS 146; Deissmann LVO 246f, 287– 324 (esp. 290f and 312 n 4). 3 Mc xiii. 9f. 4 Tacitus, Annales, xv. 44; Suetonius, Nero, 16; Doulcet 10-13, 15-27; Ramsay CRE 226-251 (summary on 245); Hardy 58-84; McGiffert 628630; Bury in Gibbon ii. 543-545; Bigelmair 28-38; Workman 51-66, 364–366; Harnack KS 136; Moffatt INT 323–327; C. H. Turner, Studies in Early Church History, 228. Ramsay's view (252ff) that Christians were not persecuted for the Name before the time of the Flavians has not been widely accepted. The settlement of the real nature of the Neronian persecution has altogether CHRISTIAN RESISTANCE TO PERSECUTION.-We have no direct evidence that an effort was ever made on the part of the Christians of this period to withstand persecution by force.1 The furthest they go in this direction is to lash their rulers with spirited censure 2 or to baffle them by flight.3 The normal Christian response to persecution, however, did not go beyond a temperate but firm refusal to obey such orders of the government as were felt to conflict with obedience to Christ. Thus Peter and John, when forbidden by the Sanhedrin to speak or teach any more in the name of Jesus, simply reply: "Whether it is right in the sight of God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge (for yourselves); for we cannot but speak (of) the things which we have seen and heard.” 5 Later on, when reproached by the Sanhedrin with their disobedience, Peter answers in the name of the apostles: "One must obey God rather than men." 6 When Jacob was commanded by the Jewish authorities publicly to renounce Christ, he replied by making a public confession of him. If, as is likely, sacrifice before the image of the Emperor or of some other god began to be demanded from Christians more or less frequently from 64 A.D. onwards, the Christian believer would grow familiar with the sacred duty of avowedly disobeying the State. CHRISTIAN AVERSION FROM THE USE OF COMPULSION AND PENALTY. We have already seen 8 how thoroughly the early Christian leaders had imbibed the Master's teaching enjoining love for enemies and friendship with sinners, and forbidding not only homicide and hatred, but even retaliation and physical resistance to wrongs. So far as we can make out, this teaching was understood in its simple and literal sense without any elaborate theoretical modifications, and on the whole consistently adhered to in practice. While this meant that many wrongs had to be patiently endured, altered the point of the old question as to whether the persecution was confined to Rome or extended to the provinces: cf. Orosius vII. vii. 10 (Christianos per omnes prouincias pari persecutione excruciari imperauit); Sulpicius Severus, Chron., II. xxix. 3; Lecky i. 429f n; Overbeck 97-99; Hardy 78; McGiffert 630; Ramsay CRE 245; Moffatt INT 326; Bigelmair 37f ("Der Sturm scheint sich nicht auf Rom beschränkt, sondern der Stimmung des Volkes entsprechend an verschiedenen Punkten des Reiches getobt zu haben"). 1 It is, however, worth noting in this connection that Stephen alludes with evident approval to Moses' act in killing the Egyptian who was ill-treating an Israelite (Ac vii. 24-29). Cf. Bigelmair 105: "Aber der Gedanke an eine Rebellion musste auch dann noch ausgeschlossen bleiben": he then quotes I Piv. 13f. 2 So Stephen (Ac vii. 51-54) and Paul (Ac xxiii. 3). 3 Ac viii. 1, xii. 11, 17-19, xvii. 8-10; 2 C xi. 32f=Ac ix. 23-25. Ac iv. 19f: cf. H xi. 23, 27. • Bigelmair 105. 'Eus. HE II. xxiii. 2 and Heges. ap Eus. l.c. 10-14. 6 Ac v. 29. 8 See above, pp. 95f. it did not mean that Christian lives exercised no restraint on crime or vice. On the contrary, the Christian, by the influence of his life and spirit, did more for the maintenance of righteousness than the police-official. The multiplication of converts and their change on conversion from sinfulness to moral goodness and purity, themes so often adverted to in our sources,1 were achieved through the agency of Christians without any application of physical violence. True, it was recognized that punishment and vengeance had a place in the Divine scheme of things; but that did not mean that they were lawful instruments for a Christian to use. Paul, for instance, says a good deal about the wrath of God 'the Divine reaction to sin that has not been repented of, in other words, to pagan sin 2—and he even advances to the bold conception that, while the final cataclysm might be in a special sense the day of wrath, yet even in this life God's wrath acts through the sword of the pagan magistrate. We shall examine presently the theory of the State involved in this conception. What it concerns us here to note is that Paul limits his own theory very definitely. It is only the unconverted pagan magistrate, disqualified as he was by his heathen state for changing a sinner's heart by conversion, to whom the apostle assigns the function of inflicting the wrathful vengeance of God: in the very same context he distinctly forbids his Christian readers to attempt to exercise this function. "Repay to no one evil for evil. . . . Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but leave room for the wrath (of God); for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.' But if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink. . . . Conquer evil with (what is) good." 5 In line with this teaching is Mark's record of the words of Jesus in which the disciples were forbidden to copy the forcible exercise of authority over others that characterized gentile rulers. IMPLICATIONS OF THIS CHRISTIAN ABSTENTION FROM VIOLENCE. -It would follow naturally from the principle just alluded to that 1 See the passages quoted above, pp. 71 n 1 and 78f. Interesting instances are those of Onesimus, the slave who had robbed his master and run away to Rome, where Paul met, befriended, and converted him, and made him expnoTov (P 9–11), and of the man—probably a soldier-who arrested Jacob, the son of Zebedæus, at Herodes' command, brought him to judgment, was converted to Christianity by the apostle's confession, received his blessing, and was executed with him (Cl. Hyp. vii. ap. Eus. HE II. ix. 2f: the historicity of the story is uncertain, but it is not intrinsically improbable. Clemens said he had it ἐκ παραδόσεως τῶν πρὸ αὐτοῦ). 2 Ri. 18, ii. 5f, iii. 5f, C iii. 5-7, É ii. 1-3, v. 6. Mc x. 42-45. See, for exegesis, above, p. 44. 5 R xii. 17-21. no Christian could consistently come before a heathen court as plaintiff seeking redress of injuries. Paul speaks of the pagan magistrates as those who in the Church are reckoned of no account." 1 While his use of this expression has doubtless been largely determined by the purpose of the moment, the thought is not really inconsistent with the apostle's recognition (to be studied later) of the relative right of the pagan magistrate in his own sphere. Within the Church, where, even if disputes or offences arose or wrongs were suffered at the hands of outsiders, the powers of patience and reconciliation or (if need were) the withdrawal of fellowship lay ready at hand to deal with them, a magistrate, before whom the accused was obliged to appear on pain of compulsion and whose investigation and decision were conducted and effected by armed force often involving the infliction of torture and even death, had no standing-ground whatever in the Church he would be reckoned of no account.3 2 The cases to which Paul actually had occasion to apply this prohibitive ruling were disputes between Christians. "Dares any one of you," he asks the Corinthians, "having a grievance against his neighbour, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Or know ye not that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is (to be) judged by you, are ye incompetent to (settle) insignificant disputes? Do ye not know that we shall judge angels, not to mention earthly affairs? And yet, when ye have earthly affairs to settle, ye put on the bench those who are reckoned of no account in the Church! I speak it to your shame. Is there not among you then any wise man, who will be able to 11 C vi. 4. That this phrase refers to the pagan magistrates and not to any group of people within the Church, I have argued at length in The Expositor, Aug. 1916, 135-138. The Church certainly punished offenders in extreme cases with excommunication; and Paul at least regarded such a sentence as involving physical illness and pains and even bodily death inflicted by Satan, to whose realm the expelled member was ipso facto consigned. The sentence did not exclude the hope of final salvation, and (what is more important still for our purpose) it was not inflicted by Christian hands, or even, to judge from Paul's words, by human hands at all (the legal penalty for incest-the offence on which Paul pronounced sentence of excommunication-was relegatio or deportatio, not oλepos тs σapkos, which was what the apostle expected would follow). See i C v. 1-7; Ac v. 1-11 (the case of Ananias and Sapphira), xiii. 11 Smith, Dict. G. and R. Antiq., art. ' Incestum.' For the reference of physical illness and death to Satan, cf. 2 C xii. 7; H ii. 14; Lc xiii. 16; J viii. 44. There is thus no need to find in Paul's words " perhaps a slight confusion with regard to the nature of civil justice" (Carlyle 97). Weinel's comment is : "Auch von hier aus zeigt sich, dass seine Meinung von der göttlichen Würde des Staates nicht sehr hoch gewesen sein kann (SUS 32). decide between (a man and) his brother? But brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers! The very fact that ye have law-suits with one another is itself a failure on your part. Why do ye not rather suffer wrong? Why do ye not rather let yourselves be defrauded? But ye yourselves inflict wrong and practice fraud, and that upon brothers ! " 1 But the position was equally clear if a Christian suffered wrong at the hands of a pagan, though in the nature of the case redress against such wrong was hardly to be hoped for from a pagan court, even if a Christian were willing to ask for it. The evidence, therefore, upon this particular point and for this period, is mainly negative. Apart from general statements found in almost every Christian author to the effect that the Christian submitted on principle to injury and strove only for reconciliation, Athenagoras, Clemens of Alexandria, and Tertullianus all tell us in so many words that they considered it improper for Christians to go to law.3 The first-named, moreover, implies that Christians did not do so. We have no reference to Christians on their own initiative seeking in pagan courts for redress against pagan wrong-doers until the latter half of the third century. To argue, then, that Paul, because he does not explicitly forbid it, means tacitly to sanction such action, not only involves a strained interpretation of his own words, but sets him at variance with the Christian theory and practice of the next two centuries. No objection to this 5 4 11 C vi. 1-8: cf. Harnack KS 135. Bestmann (i. 403-405) attempts to square this teaching with modern ideas of what is practical and sensible, but emasculates it in the process: der Apostel Paulus hält das Rechtsuchen überhaupt für ein dem Christen nicht wohl anständiges Tun, das Rechtsuchen der Christen bei einem heidnischen Richter nur für eine Steigerung jener ersten Inconvenienz," u.s.w. Bigelmair (92f) attributes the Christian unwillingness to use the heathen courts to "eine gewisse zarte Rücksichtnahme auf den christlichen Namen," as well as to the corruption and injustice to which the courts were liable. But neither of these reasons touches on what was apparently the central Christian objection, viz. aversion to violence and revenge; and the same may be said of Holtzmann's view (RS 18) that Paul's prohibition was due to the retention of his national outlook as a Jew, and of Dobschütz's argument (29f) that it was due to his fear of contamination by contact with heathenism (cf. 57), though the latter recognizes the deeper ethical reason. 2 In case of persecution particularly, legal redress would be out of the question cf. H x. 34. 3 See below, pp. 256, 364–366. Particularly R xii. 17ff. " 4 See below, pp. 552f. • Weinel SUS 27, 28, 33: Und sich gar an den Staat und sein Recht wenden, um seine Ehre schützen zu lassen, das ist unerhört. . . . ' Lieber unrecht leiden als unrecht tun.' Und unrecht tun ist eben dies, dass man den anderen wieder kränkt oder durch den Staat kränken lässt, wenn er uns gekränkt hat. . . . An den Staat wendet man sich nicht. Wie die ersten Christen es gehalten haben, wenn einer von einem Nichtchristen beleidigt |