§ I. PONTIFICATE OF ST. TELESPHORUS (A.D. 128-138).
1. St. Telesphorus succeeded St. Sixtus I. Before his elevation he had led the life of the anchorites, as we learn from the Liber Pontificalis, ex Anachoreta. To preside over the Christian assemblies in the catacombs; to ordain priests* and consecrate bishops, to take the place of those who had suffered from the sword of persecution; to confirm in faith and patience the churches shaken by the fury of tyrants; to regulate the order of the sacred ceremonies, and the forms of prayers or hymns that accompanied them; to place the ecclesiastical hierarchy on solid foundations; to watch over the maintenance of the holy doctrines and traditions; finally, to close a life of privations and pious toil by the torments of martyrdom;—such were the glorious privileges of the earliest Roman Pontiffs.
1st. The Apostolic institution of Lent was maintained and confirmed *These ordinations were usually held about Christmas, mense decembri. The Church, from the earliest period, observed the practice of reserving fixed epochs for these important ceremonies, which perpetuate the priesthood in the world. by St. Telesphorus, who ordained a fast of seven weeks before Easter.
2d. The custom of celebrating Mass only at the hour of tierce—nine o’clock in the morning—was also maintained by this pope, who allowed no exception but on the feast of the Nativity, when it was celebrated in the night.
3d. He was the first who introduced into the liturgy the Gloria in Excelsis.
2. While Adrian visited the various provinces of his empire, he left behind him, together with shameful monuments of his passions, useful ameliorations, and durable reforms. Athens was especially the object of his care; he did much for its embellishment, and gave it his name—the City of Adrian. During one of his visits there, St. Quadratus, whom Eusebius represents as a disciple of the Apostles, a man of brilliant genius and of apostolic zeal, availed himself of the occasion to address to him an apology, or defence, on behalf of the Christians, A.D. 126. This work, the first of its kind, was still extant in the time of St. Jerome, who mentions it with high eulogium. Only a fragment remains to us, on the reality of the miracles of Jesus Christ, as distinguished from the enchantments and transient impressions of magic.
“The miracles of the Saviour,” said the holy apologist, “were always visible, because they were always true. Those whom He cured, those whom He recalled from death to life, were seen, not only at the moment of their cure, or of their resurrection, but long afterwards; not only during the lifetime of the Saviour, but many years after He had ascended to heaven; some of them, indeed, are still living.”
Aristides, a Christian philosopher of Athens, about the same time, presented another apology to Adrian, in which he relies on the testimony of the ancient philosophers to prove the sublimity of the Catholic faith. This work is also lost to us. The emperor, touched by these just representations, seems to have adopted sentiments more favorable to the Christian religion.
3. But that which chiefly contributed to put an end to the persecution was the letter which, nearly at the same time, Serenius Granianus, proconsul of Asia, addressed to Adrian on the subject of the cruelties practised by the multitude upon the Christians. It was a custom at the public festivals, that the people of Rome, or of the provinces present, should have liberty to ask of the prince or proconsuls anything which their passions, excited by the bloody spectacle, could suggest. “The Christians to the lions” was the cry in every amphitheatre, and without interrogatory, or process of law, or any valid judgment, Christians, by thousands, were cast to the wild beasts. Serenius, in his letter to the emperor, did not hesitate to pronounce upon these proceedings as monstrous iniquities. To sacrifice to the clamor of the populace a multitude of victims of every age and rank, of both sexes, when they were not even accused of any judicial crime, seemed to him a barbarism unworthy of Rome and of Adrian.
4. The reply of the emperor was not addressed to Serenius Granianus, who, in the interval, had probably relinquished the government of Asia, but to his successor, Minucius Fundanus. It is thus recorded by Eusebius: “I have received the letter addressed to me by the illustrious Serenius Granianus, your predecessor. The affair appears to merit serious attention, in order to protect these men (the Christians) from similar vexations, and that pretences may be withdrawn from informers for future calumnies. If the inhabitants of any district have charges to make against the Christians, which they are able in person to sustain before your tribunal, let them have recourse to this judicial mode; but they must not be permitted to pursue them with foolish or tumultuous clamor. Reason demands that if there be any ground of accusation, you should have cognizance of it. If they are convicted of actions contrary to the laws, decide the case according to the gravity of the crime. If, on the contrary, the accusation proves to be calumnious, let the informer suffer merited punishment.”
This rescript was sent to other governors of provinces, and the fury of persecution was relaxed, though not entirely extinguished; for, on the one hand, the passions of the populace, and, on the other, the hatred of the proconsuls for the very name of Christian, together with the progressive decline of respect and obedience towards the central authority, continued still to leave multitudes of Christians a prey to the blind passions of the populace, or to judges misguided by their prejudices.
5. The Jews, always conquered, and always rebellious, availed themselves of the absence of the emperor in distant provinces to attempt a new insurrection. They were embittered against the sovereignty of Adrian by a double motive. This prince, who had undertaken to raise all the cities of his vast empire from their ruins, had sent a pagan colony to rebuild and inhabit Jerusalem. He also changed the name of the ancient City of David to that of Ælia Capitolina. The Jews could not endure without indignation the presence of these idolaters, who raised altars to false gods in the very places where the God of Abraham had been so long invoked by their fathers. Another measure, too, had outraged their devoted attachment to the law of Moses. Adrian had prohibited, under pain of death, the circumcision of their infants. This was to take away the seal of their covenant with God—the sacred sign which distinguished them from the pagans. A sullen discontent soon became apparent among them. They assembled in the vast subterranean cavities near their cities, and secretly organized a revolt.
A cunning impostor contrived to turn these hostile inclinations to the profit of his own ambition. He was Barchocebas, or the Son of the Star. He announced himself as the envoy of God, to deliver the Jewish people from the oppression of their enemies. The star of Jacob, predicted by Balaam, was the sign of his advent; he was the Messiah promised by the prophets, and expected by the patriarchs. The rabbi Akiba placed the resources of his science and influence at the service of the false prophet, and Barchocebas was hailed as the Saviour of Jerusalem. He soon found himself at the head of a multitude of partisans, and the first use he made of his power was to persecute with the greatest cruelty the Christians who refused to abjure their faith in Jesus Christ, and to enter into the league which he formed against the Roman domination. The tortures to which he condemned these victims surpassed in barbarity and cruelty all that pagan rage had hitherto invented.
Meanwhile he extended his intrigues throughout the East among the Jews, and sought for the enemies of the empire in all directions. In the neighboring tribes he found a multitude greedy for pillage, ready to swell the number of his troops. The Romans, at first, despised this insurrectionary movement in a nation which they had so often conquered, and its importance was only discovered when the extent of its ramifications became apparent. The governor of Judea, Tinnius Rufus, began by sending to execution a crowd of persons, without distinction of age or sex. This act of cruel severity served only to excite the insurgents to greater fury. Their revolt at once, in every point in Syria, alarmed the governor, who called on the emperor for reinforcements. Adrian summoned from Great Britain Julius Severus, reputed to be the greatest general of his time, and dispatched him to the aid of Tinnius Rufus.
Seeing the numbers of his enemies, Severus avoided a general attack, preferring a slower mode of warfare to the dangers of an uncertain combat. He therefore attacked them separately, to force them into narrower limits, and to cut off their supplies. His skilful maneuvers were completely successful. Within two years he captured, in succession, every fortified place in Judea, and destroyed more than six hundred thousand Jews, without including those who perished by famine, fire, or want. An immense multitude were sold in the markets of Terebinth and Gaza. Such as were not sold in those cities were transported into Egypt. This frightful disaster surpassed those which Nabuchodonosor and Titus had inflicted upon Judea. Barchocebas lost his life at the siege of Bether, where the rebels had fixed the centre of their operations.
Jerusalem no longer preserved any traces of her past glories. The stones which had served in the erection of the temple, were now employed to build a theatre. Over one of the gates was placed a marble hog, to the Jews the most impure of animals. A statue of Jupiter was set upon the Holy Sepulchre; and one of Venus was raised upon Calvary. A sacred wood for pagan sacrifices was planted at Bethlehem. The consecration to Adonis of the grotto where Jesus was born, profaned this holy place.
The dispersed Israelites were prohibited from entering Jerusalem—neither were they allowed to approach it—however strong might be their love of Sion. They were obliged to purchase at a great price the permission, on one day of the year, to bathe with their tears the places upon which, in other times, their religion had shed such splendor. St. Jerome, who, in his time, was a witness of this lugubrious ceremony, says: “After having purchased the blood of the Saviour, they purchase their own tears; they pay a ransom for the privilege of weeping. What a dismal spectacle, on the anniversary of the day when Jerusalem was taken and destroyed by the Romans, to see the approach, in mournful attire, of a multitude of people—of women and men, bending under the weight of years, and covered with rags, whose bearing attests the anger of the Lord, in the exhaustion of their bodies, and in their torn garments!”
This catastrophe was advantageous, however, to the Christian Church in Jerusalem, which hitherto had been governed by bishops converted from Judaism, and was consequently attached to the observances of the Mosaic law. A residence in this city being now permitted only to the Gentiles, the Church was recruited chiefly by her conquests among them. Besides, in the utter dispersion of a people condemned by God, this last tempest gave a new force to the proofs of Christianity, which, according to the prophets, was to succeed Judaism, and rise on its ruins, A.D. 134.
6. Far from confessing their offences in the presence of these terrible judgments of Heaven, the Jewish doctors sought, more diligently than ever, to blind themselves, and to lead their unhappy compatriots into the same errors. From hatred to Christianity, and in order to weaken the proofs of the divinity of Jesus Christ, which is made so evident in the prophecies, they began the composition of the Talmud, or doctrine, an enormous compilation of their oral traditions. This work is divided into two parts; the Mischna, or law, which is the text, and the Ghemur, or complement, which is a commentary on the other. The entire collection forms twelve volumes in folio. Among its fables and puerile inventions there is a hatred of the name of Christian, which is not even dissembled. This book is perhaps the greatest obstacle to the conversion of the Jews.
7. At this epoch, a work of another class, but with the same object, was undertaken by an apostate Christian. Aquila, a native of Sinope, in Pontus, was first a pagan. The miracles which he saw performed among the Christians converted him, and he was baptized; but his attachment to astrology, which, in spite of the counsels of the bishops, he refused to abandon, caused his excommunication, and he was excluded from the Church. To avenge this injury, he was circumcised, and openly embraced Judaism. Carrying his hatred still further, he applied himself to the study of the Hebrew tongue; and after acquiring a thorough knowledge of it, he commenced a new Greek version of the Scriptures, to correct that of the Septuagint. He endeavored especially to make it literal, and succeeded so well that even St. Jerome pronounces his translation very exact. But the same Father reproaches him for having designedly weakened the passages which serve to establish the divinity of Jesus Christ.
8. All these desperate efforts to hinder the progressive advancement of the Catholic Church ended by imparting to it new strength. The dispersed Jews carried everywhere the testimony of the victory of Christianity, and the heretics, in yielding to the disorders of an infamous life, condemned themselves; in fine, the emperors achieved the ruin of their own authority by the excesses of every description to which they abandoned themselves. Adrian expired A.D. 138. Towards the close of his life, this prince became melancholy and cruel. He condemned to death his brother-in-law Servienus, and Fuercus, his grand-nephew. He was suspected of poisoning his wife Sabina, whom he afterwards placed among the divinities of the empire. He complained that he, who at his will had sent so many to execution, could not die himself. Finally he expired, suffocated by an excess in eating, cursing the physicians, and jesting upon his soul.
Antoninus Pius, his adopted son, a prince worthy of the surname which his virtues and his gratitude towards his benefactor had gained for him, succeeded to the throne. His fine qualities endeared him to the Romans and made him venerable to strangers, even to the barbarian sovereigns, who chose him more than once for arbiter in their disputes.
9. The same year Pope St. Telesphorus ended his Apostolic career by a glorious martyrdom. He had governed the Church ten years. St. Hyginus, converted from philosophism—ex philosopho—was his successor.
§ II. PONTIFICATE OF ST. HYGINUS (A.D. 138-142).
10. At this time Cerdon, a Syrian Gnostic, came to Rome, where Valentinus was preaching his heresy, and Marcion followed soon after. Cerdon had borrowed his fundamental errors from the Gnostics, but he had given them a new form. Though condemned and excommunicated by St. Hyginus, he continued, nevertheless, to spread the poison of his doctrines among the faithful, and openly taught the principles of dualism. According to his system, there are two gods; one who is good and beneficent, the other just and severe; one invisible and unknown, the other visible and apparent; the first, the father of Jesus Christ, the second, creator of the universe; the former, author of grace, the latter, of the law.
Marcion, originally from Sinope, in Pontus, was at first his disciple. The son of a holy man, who in the end was made a bishop, he had received a Christian education, and in his early youth made a profession of ascetic life. But having had the misfortune to yield to an impure passion, his father, who suffered from the disgrace of his ignominy, excommunicated him and drove him from the Church. In spite of his entreaties to be readmitted to the communion of the faithful, the bishop continued inflexible, and Marcion went to Rome. Being of an active and enterprising disposition, he undertook to propagate the doctrines of Cerdon, which he had adopted, and he brought so much ardor and success to his work that he outshone his master.
He denied that the Son of God was really incarnate, and that our bodies would rise again; because, he said, it was repugnant to the Son of God to be clothed with the corruption and impiety of matter, and to the soul to have for its companion in glory a body evil in its nature. But his system was particularly remarkable in its moral part. Adopting seriously the warfare which the Gnostics declared against the body, Marcion and his disciples fasted to mortify the flesh; they preached virginity, and had among them austere virgins; they received for baptism only those who lived in continence. From the same principles they exalted martyrdom, and pretended to seek for it. In thus avoiding the impurities of the other Gnostics, Marcion rendered his doctrine more dangerous for weak minds, who had enough of natural probity to avoid those degraded sects. This circumstance explains the rapid progress of the Marcionites in the East and West—a progress attested by St. Justin during the lifetime of this sectary.
11. Again the See of St. Peter was left vacant. St. Hyginus occupied it only four years. It is not known by what kind of torments he obtained the title of martyr. It is believed, from an expression in the Liber Pontificalis, that he made a decree relative to the various orders and functions of clerics. In this decree, it has been thought, is discovered the origin of cardinals. If it be meant that St. Hyginus was the first to fix the titles of the suburbicary bishops,* which were afterwards given exclusively to cardinals, this remark may have some foundation. The name and dignity of the cardinalate we believe to be of a far more recent date. St. Pius I. succeeded St. Hyginus.
* The Bishops occupying Sees in the neighborhood of Rome,
§ III. PONTIFICATE OF ST. PIUS I. (A.D. 142-150).
12. Although mildness and clemency were characteristic of the Emperor Antoninus, the faithful during his reign were not the less a prey to the most cruel persecution. The following inscription in the cemetery of St. Calixtus, to the martyr St. Alexander, furnishes us with a proof of it: “Alexander has ceased to live on earth, only to begin an immortal life in heaven. He closed his career under the Emperor Antoninus, who, beholden to the Christians for great services, returns to them evil for good. For whoever bends the knee to offer homage to the true God is conducted to punishment. Oh, wretched times! when we can avoid the executioner neither in caverns nor even in the midst of sacrifices and prayers! What is more miserable than life? At the same time, what is more miserable than death, when parents and friends are not permitted to render sepulchral honors to the objects of their tenderness?”
These touching complaints, mingled with Christian resignation and holy hope, doubtless afforded consolation to the sorrows of the faithful who lost their brethren in the faith in the midst of torments; but they could not reach the throne of the Cæsars. An eloquent voice about this time brought them before it.
13. St. Justin was born at Neapolis,* a city of Palestine, of a family of pagan colonists, established there by the Emperor Vespasian. It had pleased God, whose grace brought him to a knowledge of the truth, to endow him with an ardent temperament, eager in the pursuit of science, and with a natural preference for philosophic researches. He yielded to them from his youth with a passionate attachment. Having exhausted the doctrines of the Stoics, the Peripatetics, the Pythagoreans, without allaying the thirst after truth which consumed his soul, he had embraced the Platonic philosophy, the spiritualism of which accorded best with his elevated intellect.
One day, while walking alone on the border of the sea which * The ancient Sichem. bathes the shores of his country, in order to abandon himself more quietly to his accustomed meditations, he met with an unknown man, of venerable exterior, who entered into conversation on wisdom, on God and His perfections, and on the destiny of man; and he intimated how much philosophy, even that of the divine Plato, is powerless to enlighten the human mind on these fundamental points.
“What guides, then, have we to follow,” asked Justin, “if these have been unable to arrive at truth?”
“At a remote period,” replied the old man, “long before those who are called sages, there were just men, friends of God, who, speaking under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, foretold the events which are now passing in the world. They were termed prophets. They only have known the truth; they only have brought it to mankind. When we read their works with faith, they reveal to the mind the only doctrines worthy of true philosophy. In their discourses they do not confine themselves to syllogistic forms or subtle reasonings; the testimony which they give to truth is superior to all demonstration. Their oracles, which are now fulfilled before our eyes, command our belief in their truth. Add to these the miracles which they performed in the name of the one God, Creator and Father of all things, and in predicting the advent of His Son Jesus Christ. Pray, then, that the gates of light may be opened to your mind, for no one can either see or understand the truth unless God and His Christ prepare his soul for it.”
The fruitless study of the vain systems and contradictions of pagan philosophy had left the heart of Justin in agitation and disquietude; these words inspired him with a strong desire to draw from a source hitherto neglected. “I was soon convinced,” he adds, in finishing this relation, “that there alone was to be found a philosophy well grounded and useful to men; and it is for this reason that I am now a Christian.” This important conquest of the Gospel over the wisdom of paganism was made during the last years of the reign of Adrian, A.D. 132 to 138.
14. Justin retained in his new sphere of life the pallium, or mantle of the philosophers. It is believed that he became a member of the Roman clergy. Hitherto the education of youth had remained in the hands of pagan philosophers. St. Justin was the first to open a Catholic school, where he moulded the minds of his pupils in the faith. The celebrated Tatian was one of his disciples. His ardent and efficacious faith manifested itself in eminent works. His first publication, entitled Exhortation to the Greeks, was written to dissipate the prejudices of the pagans against Christianity. He proves, with an erudition which is never at fault, that the books of Moses are anterior to all the writings of the pagan philosophers and poets, and that the Mosaic traditions, disfigured by a multitude of accidental and local errors, are to be found in their principal data in the pagan theogonies; and he refers, as an example, to the dogma of the unity of God, the basis of Jewish revelation, which is preserved in the works of the most esteemed pagan authors.
From this the enemies of Catholicity, from Julian the Apostate down to the Protestant sects, have taken occasion to accuse St. Justin, and the Fathers of the earliest ages, of Platonism. This charge cannot be sustained. The philosophy * Plato is mingled with so many obscurities, contradictions, and errors, that to extract Catholic truth from it is impossible. Besides, Aristobulus, Josephus, St. Justin, Origen, and Eusebius of Cæsarea, have proved that Plato had knowledge of the Hebrew books, and that he had drawn this part of his doctrine, so little resembling that which belonged to himself, from them. And even if it were possible that a man possessed of a genius which antiquity had denominated divine, had, by help of the scattered traditions surviving in the bosom of humanity, arrived at the attainment of some few of the sublime verities which Christianity has established, far from making it a subject of reproach to the doctors of the Church who avail themselves of the use of testimony so precious, why cannot it be seen that their object was to bring forward the evidence of a new and admirable argument for the faith, since it is proved that it is conformable to the natural religion of the highest intellects?*
15. This work was only a prelude to the publication by St. Justin of his first Apology, which the persecutions, now more active against the Christians, rendered highly opportune. He addressed it in these terms to the princes who then governed the Roman world:
“To the Emperor Titus Ælius Adrianus Antoninus Pius, Cæsar Augustus; to Verissimus, his son, a friend of truth; to Lucius, equally a friend of truth, son of Cæsar, and adopted son of Pius; to the Sacred Senate; and to all the Roman people, on behalf of the men of every condition, who, as Christians, are unjustly hated and persecuted, I, Justin, son of Priscus, grandson of Bacchius, of the colony of Flavia Neapolis, in Syrian Palestine, as one of them, have presented this address.”
“Reason,” he continues, “makes it a duty in those who are truly pious and philosophic to love truth, and to love it so much as to sacrifice to it the prejudices which they have inherited from their ancestors, and even life itself. Princes, you are denominated pious and philosophic, the guardians of justice and the friends of truth: we shall see if you merit these titles. For although we address to you this appeal, do not imagine that it is intended to flatter you or to ask favors. Our only desire is, that you will order a severe inquest to be made, and if we are found guilty, let us be punished with all the rigor of the law. And be not deceived: if in judging us you listen only with the intention of gratifying superstitious men blinded with passion, or believing idle rumors, your sentence will injure only yourselves. For us, although you cannot convict us of any crime, you may immolate us, but you cannot hurt us.”+
This firmness and elevated mode of reasoning are sustained # See, on this subject, the Études Historiques of M. de Chateaubriand, Étude deuxième, seconde partie. +We have taken this elegant analysis from the exordium to the Apology by the skilful pen of M. L’Abbé Blanc. Cours d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, seconde partie, 182, première édition. throughout the Apology. He is indignant that the simple avowal of being a Christian is sufficient to lead to condemnation, while those who apostatize before the tribunals are absolved with the honors due to innocence and virtue; as if justice did not rigorously demand, first of all, an examination of the conduct of the accused, in order to condemn or absolve him according to his works.
“It seems,” he adds, with a rare energy of expression, “that you fear lest all the world should become virtuous, and that you will no longer find subjects for punishment: a thought more worthy of executioners than of just and generous princes.”
He passes on to a simple, clear, and precise exposition of the Christian doctrines. Without pretension, as without timidity, he gives a portrait of their manners. “We have,” said he, “among us men who formerly were violent and passionate—but now humble and patient, converted by the exemplary lives of the Christians, or by their integrity in business.”
In reply to the reproach of rebellion against the princes and the laws of the empire by which the generous constancy of the Christians was dishonored: “We adore one only God, but in all else we obey you with joy, acknowledging you as the emperors and masters of men, and we pray that, with sovereign power, you may also be just.”
Finally he approaches the most delicate part of his work, that of the accusations which were heaped upon Christians. He was unable to refute them victoriously without violating the Discipline of the Secret,* which, as we have stated, was rigorously observed from the first century. Yet it was impossible to recede before a public opinion which the infamies of the Gnostics contributed every day still further to mislead.
“It is reasonable,” said an historian, “to believe that in this part of his address St. Justin had an understanding with Pope St. Pius I., and that it was by his consent he treated of certain dogmas so explicitly, especially of the Eucharist.” He explains the Catholic doctrine on this sacrament, and that of *For a full account of this Discipline of the Secret, a most important feature in early Church History, see Bishop Trevern’s excellent Amicable Discussion.—A. B. Baptism, avoiding, however, the sacramental forms.
“We do not,” said he, “receive the Eucharist as common bread, nor as an ordinary beverage. But as, by the word of God, Jesus Christ was incarnate and took upon Himself flesh and blood for our salvation, thus the bread and wine, sanctified by the prayer of His Word, becomes the flesh and blood of the same Jesus Christ incarnate, to become our flesh and our blood by its transformation into our food.”
Here follow details of other circumstances which accompany the principal action of the sacrifice, of which he might speak without impropriety; such as the prayers, exhortations, readings of the lives of the Saints, the kiss of peace, and the collections for the poor. Having completed this faithful portrait of the usages of Christians, and of their conduct in the religious assemblies, he concludes with the same independence of language and thought which attended his exordium:
“Such is our doctrine: if you find it reasonable, respect it—if you see in it only frivolities, despise it; but condemn not, on this account, thousands of innocent persons. We might demand justice of you, in virtue of the letter of the great and illustrious Cæsar, Adrian, your father; but we prefer to rely on the merits of our cause and the justice of this appeal. If you persist in sacrificing the truth to popular fury, do what is in your power. When princes prefer to flatter public opinion rather than to respect the interests of right and justice, they act no better than the brigands in the forests.”
16. Did this work, which breathes the dignity and moderation of virtue herself, touch the heart of Antoninus? From the imperial rescript, of which Eusebius has preserved the text, we are permitted to conjecture that it did. The faithful of Asia and Greece, persecuted like those of Rome, also addressed complaints to the emperor upon the vexations of every kind which they suffered from their countrymen. The pagans cast upon the Christians the odium of every public calamity, which they considered as divine vengeance for the outrages perpetrated on the gods by this impious sect.
About this period, A.D. 148-150, many terrible calamities broke out, all at once—a cruel famine, the inundation of the Tiber, and an earthquake, which overwhelmed many cities in Asia and in the isle of Rhodes. The sanguinary cries of the populace against the Christians then resounded with greater fury than ever; and to check the effects of this blind rage, Antoninus found himself obliged to send to the Asiatic cities the following decree in favor of the disciples of Christ:*
“The Emperor Titus Ælius Adrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius, sovereign pontiff, in the fifteenth year of his tribunitian authority, consul for the third time, father of his country, to the people of Asia, health:
“I doubt not that the gods themselves take care to detect the Christians, whatever efforts they may make to conceal themselves. In fact, they have both more interest and more power than you, to punish those who refuse to adore them. But you, who never cease to torment those people, to accuse their doctrines of atheism, and to impute to them crimes for which you can furnish no proofs, beware, lest instead of bringing them to better ways of thinking, you do but render them the more obstinate; for they desire less to live, than to die for their God. As they are always ready to yield up their lives rather than submit to your will, they seem to remain victors in their combats with you.
As for the earthquakes, past or present, be advised, and compare your conduct with that of the Christians. When these misfortunes occur, you become entirely discouraged, while the Christians, on the contrary, feel their confidence in their God redoubled. In the midst of public calamities, you seem to have no confidence in the gods, you neglect the sacred worship, you forget the Divinity, and, unable to endure that others should honor him, you become envious, and persecute them to death.
Many governors of provinces wrote to my divine father on this subject, and he replied that the Christians should not be disturbed, unless they were convicted of violating the laws of the empire. A great number of letters have been addressed to ourselves, all demanding instructions relative to the same subject, and our responses have been made conformable to the intentions of our divine father. When hereafter any action is brought against a Christian on account of his religion, let the accused be released, and see that the accuser is punished according to the rigor of the laws.”
This ordinance of Antoninus was solemnly promulgated at Ephesus, the seat of the general assemblies of Asia.* Copies were sent to the governors of other cities: Larissa, Thessalonica, Athens, &c., and peace for a short time was granted to the Church.
17. During this interval, Pope St. Pius I. died, A.D. 150. Some martyrologies bestow on him the title of martyr, without informing us of the manner of his death. From the Liber Pontificalis we learn that he commanded those who returned to the faith, after renouncing the heresy of the Jews, to be rebaptized.+ By this heresy of the Jews is meant the error of the Jewish converts who remained attached to the legal observances, believing them to be obligatory and indispensable for salvation.
This decree of St. Pius I. intimates, according to a remark of Baronius, that there existed sects separated from Catholic unity, in which baptism was preserved, so that it was unnecessary to renew it, in the case of a conversion to the Catholic faith; and others, wherein it had been corrupted, especially among the heresies born of Judaism. Such was probably that of the Corinthians. St. Anicetus succeeded St. Pius I. in the government of the Church, A.D. 150.
*We find from this epoch a sort of national representation for the various provinces of the Roman empire. The deputies of each town assembled in a city, called commune, to deliberate on public affairs.
+Constituit hæreticum venientem ex Judæorum hæresi suscipi et baptizari.
