The Critical Review of Theological and Philosophical Literature (Volume 3) - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893. Excerpt: ... Chapters Ix.-xvii. (reproducing the Mansfield Lectures) expound the relations of Church and Empire as they existed down to the reign of Marcus Aurelius. It was the Flavian dynasty (69-96 a.D.), he argues, which declared Christianity illegal and made its suppression a settled aim of imperial policy. Direct evidence of the fact is wanting; but as the author, following Neumann, convincingly shows, it is assumed in the correspondence of Pliny and Trajan on the subject (112 A.d.) that the mere name of Christian is criminal. The Christians "had before this been classed generically as outlaws (hostes publici), and enemies to the fundamental principles of society and government, of law and order; and the admission of the name Christian in itself entailed condemnation" (p. 223). On the other hand, the accounts of Nero's persecution go to show that it was at this earlier period not the Name of itself, but (in Tacitus' precise phrase) the flagitia cohcerentia nomini which were the ostensible ground of attack. At the same time, it appears to us likely enough that where legal evidence of crime was wanting, hostile magistrates would quickly discover, even in the earliest period, that Christians could be brought under the law of treason by their refusal to acknowledge the State divinities; and this summary method of dealing with the accused may have been adopted at local tribunals, before it was endorsed by imperial action. Cases of this kind would naturally precede and point the way to the later formal proscription of Christianity. In the half century between Nero and Trajan a decisive change came about in the procedure of the Government toward Christians. Instead of introducing a new and severer principle, as it has been assumed, the rescript of Trajan mitigates in it...