Chapter I: The Relationship of Extra-Christian Paganism and

JUDAISM TO THE CHURCH.[21]

§ 21. THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.

Amid all the persecutions which the church during this period had to suffer it spread with rapid strides throughout the whole Roman empire, and even far beyond its limits. Edessa, the capital of the kingdom of Osrhoëne in Mesopotamia, had, as early as A.D. 170, a Christian prince, named =Abgar Bar Maanu=, whose coins were the first to bear the sign of the cross. We find Christianity gaining a footing contemporaneously in Persia, Media, Bactria, and Parthia. In the third century we find traces of its presence in Armenia. Paul himself made his way into Arabia (Gal. i. 17). In the third century Origen received an invitation from a ἡγούμενος τῆς Ἀραβίας, who wished to receive information about Christianity. At another time he accepted a call from that country in order to settle an ecclesiastical dispute (§ 33, 6). From Alexandria, where Mark had exercised his ministry, the Christian faith spread out into other portions of Africa, into Cyrene and among the Coptic races, neighbouring upon the Egyptians properly so-called. The church of proconsular Africa, with Carthage for its capital, stood in close connection with Rome. Mauretania and Numidia had, even in the third century, so many churches, that Cyprian could bring together at Carthage a Synod of eighty-seven bishops. In Gaul there were several flourishing churches composed of colonies and teachers from Asia Minor, such as the churches of Lyons, Vienne, etc. At a later period seven missionary teachers of the Christian faith came out of Italy into Gaul, among whom was Dionysius, known as St. Denis, the founder of the church at Paris. The Roman colonies in the provinces of the Rhine and the Danube had several flourishing congregations as early as the third century.

The emptiness and corruption of paganism was the negative, the divine power of the gospel was the positive, means of this wonderful extension. This divine power was manifested in the zeal and self-denial of Christian teachers and missionaries (§ 34, 1), in the life and walk of Christians, in the brotherly love which they showed, in the steadfastness and confidence of their faith, and above all in the joyfulness with which they met the cruellest of deaths by martyrdom. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church, and it was not an unheard-of circumstance that the executioners of those Christian witnesses became their successors in the noble army of confessors.

§ 22. PERSECUTIONS OF THE CHRISTIANS IN THE
ROMAN EMPIRE.[22]

The Law of the Twelve Tables had already forbidden the exercise of foreign modes of worship within the Roman empire (_Religiones peregrinæ_, _Collegia illicita_), for religion was exclusively an affair of the state and entered most intimately into all civil and municipal relations, and on this account whatever endangered the national religion was regarded as necessarily imperilling the state itself. Political considerations, however, led to the granting to conquered nations the free use of their own forms of worship. This concession did not materially help Christianity after it had ceased, in the time of Nero, to be regularly confounded by the Roman authorities with Judaism, as had been the case in the time of Claudius, and Judaism, after the destruction of Jerusalem, had been sharply distinguished from it. It publicly proclaimed its intention to completely dislodge all other religions, and the rapidity with which it spread showed how energetically its intentions were carried out. The close fellowship and brotherliness that prevailed among Christians, as well as their exclusive, and during times of persecution even secret assemblies, aroused the suspicion that they had political tendencies. Their withdrawal from civil and military services on account of the pagan ceremonies connected with them, especially their refusal to burn incense before the statues of the emperor, also the steadfastness of their faith, which was proof against all violence and persuasion alike, their retiredness from the world, etc., were regarded as evidence of their indifference or hostility to the general well-being of the state, as invincible stiff-neckedness, as contumacy, sedition, and high treason. The heathen populace saw in the Christians the sacrilegious enemies and despisers of their gods; and the Christian religion, which was without temples, altars and sacrifices, seemed to them pure Atheism. The most horrible calumnies, that in their assemblies (_Agapæ_) the vilest immoralities were practised (_Concubitus Œdipodei_), children slain and human flesh eaten (_Epulæ Thyesteæ_, comp. § 36, 5), were readily believed. All public misfortunes were thus attributed to the wrath of the gods against the Christians, who treated them with contempt. _Non pluit Deus, duc ad Christianos!_ The heathen priests also, the temple servants and the image makers were always ready in their own common interests to stir up the suspicions of the people. Under such circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the fire of persecution on the part of the heathen people and the heathen state continued to rage for centuries.

§ 22.1. =Claudius, Nero and Domitian.=--Regarding the Emperor
=Tiberius= (A.D. 14-37), we meet in Tertullian with the
undoubtedly baseless tradition, that, impressed by the story
told him by Pilate, he proposed to the Senate to introduce Christ
among the gods, and on the rejection of this proposal, threatened
the accusers of the Christians with punishment. The statement
in Acts xviii. 2, that the Emperor =Claudius= (A.D. 41-54)
expelled from Rome all Jews and with them many Christians also,
is illustrated in a very circumstantial manner by Suetonius:
_Claudius Judæos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma
expulit_. The tumults, therefore, between the Jews and the
Christians, occurring about the year 51 or 52, gave occasion to
this decree. The first persecution of the Christians proceeding
from a Roman ruler which was directed against the Christians as
such, was carried out by the Emperor =Nero= (A.D. 54-68) in the
year 64, in consequence of a nine days’ conflagration in Rome,
the origin of which was commonly ascribed by the people to the
Emperor himself. Nero, however, laid the blame upon the hated
Christians, and perpetrated upon them the most ingeniously
devised cruelties. Sewn up in skins of wild animals they were
cast out to be devoured of dogs; others were crucified, or wrapt
in tow and besmeared with pitch, they were fixed upon sharp
spikes in the imperial gardens where the people gathered to
behold gorgeous spectacles, and set on fire to lighten up
the night (Tac., _Ann._, xv. 44). After the death of Nero the
legend spread among the Christians, that he was not dead but had
withdrawn beyond the Euphrates, soon to return as Antichrist.
Nero’s persecution seems to have been limited to Rome, and to
have ended with his death.--It was under =Domitian= (A.D. 81-96)
that individual Christians were for the first time subjected
to confiscation of goods and banishment for godlessness or the
refusal to conform to the national religion. Probably also, the
execution of his own cousin, the Consul Flavius Clemens [Clement],
on account of his ἀθεότης and his ἐξοκέλλειν εἰς τὰ τῶν Ἰουδαίων
ἔθη (Dio Cass., lxvii. 14), as well as the banishment of Clemens’
[Clement’s] wife, Flavia Domitilla (A.D. 93), was really on
account of their attachment to the Christian faith (§ 30, 3). The
latter at least is proved by two inscriptions in the catacombs to
have been undoubtedly a Christian. Domitian insisted upon having
information as to the political significance of the kingdom of
Christ, and brought from Palestine to Rome two relatives of Jesus,
grandsons of Jude, the brother of the Lord, but their hands horny
with labour satisfied him that his suspicions had been unfounded.
The philanthropic Emperor =Nerva= (A.D. 96-98) recalled the
exiles and did not listen to those who clamoured bitterly against
the Christians, but Christianity continued after as well as
before a _Religo illicita_, or rather was now reckoned such,
after it had been more distinctly separated from Judaism.[23]

§ 22.2. =Trajan and Hadrian.=--With =Trajan= (A.D. 98-117),
whom historians rightly describe as a just, earnest, and mild
ruler, the persecutions of the Christians enter upon a new
stage. He renewed the old strict prohibition of secret societies,
_hetæræ_, which could easily be made to apply to the Christians.
In consequence of this law the younger Pliny, as Governor
of Bithynia, punished with death those who were accused as
Christians, if they would not abjure Christianity. But his
doubts being awakened by the great number of every rank and age
and of both sexes against whom accusations were brought, and in
consequence of a careful examination, which showed the Christians
to be morally pure and politically undeserving of suspicion and
to be guilty only of stubborn attachment to their superstition,
he asked definite instructions from the Emperor. Trajan approved
of what he had done and what he proposed; the Christians were
not to be sought after and anonymous accusations were not to
be regarded, but those formally complained of and convicted, if
they stubbornly refused to sacrifice to the gods and burn incense
before the statues of the Emperor were to be punished with death
(A.D. 112). This imperial rescript continued for a long time
the legal standard for judicial procedure with reference to the
Christians. The persecution under Trajan extended even to Syria
and Palestine. In Jerusalem the aged bishop Simeon, the successor
of James, accused as a Christian and a descendant of David, after
being cruelly scourged, died a martyr’s death on the cross in
A.D. 107. The martyrdom, too, of the Antiochean bishop, Ignatius,
in all probability took place during the reign of Trajan (§ 30, 5).
An edict of toleration supposed to have been issued at a later
period by Trajan, a copy of which exists in Syriac and Armenian,
is now proved to be apocryphal.--During the reign of =Hadrian=
(A.D. 117-138), the people began to carry out in a tumultuous
way the execution of the Christians on the occasion of the
heathen festivals. On the representation of the proconsul of Asia,
Serenius Granianus, Hadrian issued a rescript addressed to his
successor, Minucius Fundanus, against such acts of violence, but
executions still continued carried out according to the forms of
law. The genuineness of the rescript, however, as given at the
close of the first Apology of Justin Martyr, has been recently
disputed by many. In Rome itself, between A.D. 135 and A.D. 137,
bishop Telesphorus, with many other Christians, fell as victims
of the persecution. The tradition of the fourth century, that
Hadrian wished to build a temple to Christ, is utterly without
historical foundation. His unfavourable disposition toward the
Christians clearly appears from this, that he caused a temple of
Venus to be built upon the spot where Christ was crucified, and a
statue of Jupiter to be erected on the rock of the sepulchre, in
order to pollute those places which Christians held most sacred.

§ 22.3. =Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius.=--Under =Antoninus
Pius= (A.D.138-161), the tumultuous charges of the people against
the Christians, on account of visitations of pestilence in many
places, were renewed, but the mildly disposed emperor sought to
protect them as much as possible from violence. The rescript,
however, _Ad Commune Asiæ_, which bears his name is very probably
of Christian authorship.--The persecutions again took a new turn
under =Marcus Aurelius= (A.D. 161-180) who was, both as a man and
a ruler, one of the noblest figures of antiquity. In the pride
of his stoical wisdom, however, despising utterly the enthusiasm
of the Christians, he not only allowed free scope to the popular
hatred, but also introduced the system of espionage, giving to
informers the confiscated property of the Christians, and even
permitting the use of torture, in order to compel them to recant,
and thus gave occasion to unexampled triumphs of Christian
heroism. At Rome, the noble Apologist Justin Martyr, denounced
by his opponent the philosopher Crescens, after cruel and bloody
scourging, died under the executioner’s axe about A.D. 165
(§ 30, 9).--In regard to a very severe persecution endured by
the church of Smyrna, we possess an original report of it sent
from that church to one closely related to it, embellished
with legendary details or interpolated, which Eusebius has
incorporated in his Church History. The substance of it is a
description of the glorious martyr death of their aged bishop
Polycarp (§ 30, 6), who, because he refused to curse the Lord
whom he had served for eighty-six years, was made to mount the
funeral pile, and while rejoicing in the midst of the flames,
received the crown of martyrdom. According to the story the
flames gathered around him like a wind-filled sail, and when a
soldier pierced him with his sword, suddenly a white dove flew
up; moreover the glorified spirit also appeared to a member of
the church in a vision, clothed in a white garment. Eusebius
places the date of Polycarp’s death shortly before A.D. 166.
But since it has been shown by Waddington, on the basis of
an examination of recently discovered inscriptions, that the
proconsul of Asia, Statius Quadratus, mentioned in the report
of the church of Smyrna, did not hold that office in A.D. 166,
but in A.D. 155-156, the most important authorities have come to
regard either A.D. 155 or A.D. 156 as the date of his martyrdom.
Still some whose opinions are worthy of respect refuse to
accept this view, pointing out the absence of that chronological
statement from the report in Eusebius and to its irreconcilability
with the otherwise well-supported facts, that Polycarp was on
a visit to Rome in A.D. 155 (§ 37, 2), and that the reckoning
of the day of his death in the report as ὄντος σαββάτου μεγάλου
would suit indeed the Easter of A.D. 155, as well as that of
A.D. 166, but not that of A.D. 156. [24] The legend of the _Legio
fulminatrix_, that in the war against the Marcomanni in A.D. 174
the prayers of the Christian soldiers of this legion called forth
rain and thunder, and thus saved the Emperor and his army from
the danger of perishing by thirst, whereupon this modified law
against the accusers of the Christians was issued, has, so far
as the first part is concerned, its foundation in history, only
that the heathen on the other hand ascribed the miracle to their
prayer to _Jupiter Pluvius_. [25]--Regarding the persecution
at Lyons and Vienne in A.D. 177, we also possess a contemporary
report from the Christian church of these places (§ 32, 8).
Bishop Pothinus, in his ninetieth year, sank under the effects
of tortures continued during many days in a loathsome prison.
The young and tender slave-girl Blandina was scourged, her
body scorched upon a red-hot iron chair, her limbs torn by wild
beasts and at last her life taken; but under all her tortures she
continued to repeat her joyful confession: “I am a Christian and
nothing wicked is tolerated among us.” Under similar agonies the
boy Ponticus, in his fifteenth year, showed similar heroism. The
dead bodies of the martyrs were laid in heaps upon the streets,
until at last they were burnt and their ashes strewn upon the
Rhone. =Commodus= (A.D. 180-192), the son of Marcus Aurelius, who
in every other respect was utterly disreputable, influenced by
his mistress Marcia, showed himself inclined, by the exercise
of his clemency, to remit the sentences of the Christians. The
persecution at Scillita in North Africa, during the first year
of the reign of Commodus, in which the martyr Speratus suffered,
together with eleven companions, was carried out in accordance
with the edict of Marcus Aurelius.

§ 22.4. =Septimius Severus and Maximinus Thrax.=--=Septimius
Severus= (A.D. 193-211), whom a Christian slave, Proculus,
had healed of a sickness by anointing with oil, was at first
decidedly favourable to the Christians. Even in A.D. 197, after
his triumphal entrance into Rome, he took them under his personal
protection when the popular clamour, which such a celebration
was fitted to excite, was raised against them. The judicial
persecution, too, which some years later, A.D. 200, his deputy
in North Africa carried on against the Christians on the basis
of existing laws because they refused to sacrifice to the genius
of the Emperor, he may not have been able to prevent. On the
other hand, he did himself, in A.D. 202, issue an edict which
forbade conversions to Judaism and Christianity. The storm of
persecution thereby excited was directed therefore first of all
and especially against the catechumens and the neophytes, but
frequently also, overstepping the letter of the edict, it was
turned against the older Christians. The persecution seems
to have been limited to Egypt and North Africa. At Alexandria
Leonidas, the father of Origen, was beheaded. The female slave,
Potamiæna, celebrated as much for her moral purity as for her
beauty, was accused by her master, whose evil passions she had
refused to gratify, as a Christian, and was given over to the
gladiators to be abused. She succeeded, however, in defending
herself from pollution, and was then, along with her mother
Marcella, slowly dipped into boiling pitch. The soldier,
Basilides by name, who should have executed the sentence himself
embraced Christianity, and was beheaded. The persecution raged
with equal violence and cruelty in Carthage. A young woman of
a noble family, Perpetua, in her twenty-second year, in spite
of imprisonment and torture, and though the infant in her arms
and her weeping pagan father appealed to her heart’s affections,
continued true to her faith, and was thrown to be tossed on the
horns of a wild cow, and to die from the dagger of a gladiator.
The slave girl Felicitas who, in the same prison, became a mother,
showed similar courage amid similar sufferings. Persecution
smouldered on throughout the reign of Septimius, showing itself
in separate sporadic outbursts, but was not renewed under his son
and successor =Caracalla= (A.D. 211-217), who in other respects
during his reign stained with manifold cruelties, did little to
the honour of those Christian influences by which in his earliest
youth he had been surrounded (“_lacte Christiano educatus_,”
Tert.).--That Christianity should have a place given it among the
senseless religions favoured by =Elagabalus= or =Heliogabalus=
(A.D. 218-222), was an absurdity which nevertheless secured for
it toleration and quiet. His second wife, Severina or Severa, to
whom Hippolytus dedicated his treatise Περὶ ἀναστάσεως, was the
first empress friendly to the Christians. =Alexander Severus=
(A.D. 222-235), embracing a noble eclecticism, placed among his
household gods the image of Christ, along with those of Abraham,
Orpheus, and Apollonius of Tyana, and showed himself well
disposed toward the Christians; while at the same time his mother,
Julia Mammæa, encouraged and furthered the scholarly studies of
Origen. The golden saying of Christ, Luke vi. 31, was inscribed
upon the gateway of his palace. His murderer, =Maximinus Thrax=
(A.D. 235-238), from very opposition to his predecessor, became
at once the enemy of the Christians. Clearly perceiving the
high importance of the clergy for the continued existence of the
church, his persecuting edict was directed solely against them.
The imperial position which he had usurped, however, was not
sufficiently secure to allow him to carry out his intentions
to extremities. Under =Gordianus= the Christians had rest, and
=Philip the Arabian= (A.D. 244-249) favoured them so openly and
decidedly, that it came to be thought that he himself had been a
Christian.

§ 22.5. =Decius, Gallus and Valerianus [Valerian].=--Soon after
the accession of =Decius= (A.D. 249-251), in the year 250, a new
persecution broke out that lasted without interruption for ten
years. This was the first general persecution and was directed at
first against the recognised heads of the churches, but by-and-by
was extended more widely to all ranks, and exceeded all previous
persecutions by its extent, the deliberateness of its plan,
the rigid determination with which it was conducted, and the
cruelties of its execution. Decius was a prudent ruler, an
earnest man of the old school, endued with an indomitable
will. But it was just this that drove him to the conclusion
that Christianity, as a godless system and one opposed to
the interests of the state, must be summarily suppressed. All
possible means, such as confiscation of goods, banishment, severe
tortures, or death, were tried in order to induce the Christians
to yield. Very many spoiled by the long peace that they had
enjoyed gave way, but on the other hand crowds of Christians,
impelled by a yearning after the crown of martyrdom, gave
themselves up joyfully to the prison and the stake. Those who
fell away, the _lapsi_, were classified as the _Thurificati_
or _Sacrificati_, who to save their lives had burnt incense or
sacrificed to the gods, and _Libellatici_, who without doing
this had purchased a certificate from the magistrates that they
had done so, and _Acta facientes_, who had issued documents
giving false statements regarding their Christianity. Those were
called _Confessores_ who publicly professed Christ and remained
steadfast under persecution, but escaped with their lives; those
were called _Martyrs_ who witnessing with their blood, suffered
death for the faith they professed. The Roman church could
boast of a whole series of bishops who fell victims to the storm
of persecution: Fabianus [Fabian] in A.D. 250, and Cornelius
in A.D. 253, probably also Lucius in A.D. 254, and Stephanus in
A.D. 257. And as in Rome, so also in the provinces, whole troops
of confessors and martyrs met a joyful death, not only from
among the clergy, but also from among the general members of
the church.--Then again, under =Gallus= (A.D. 251-253), the
persecution continued, excited anew by plagues and famine,
but was in many ways restricted by political embarrassment.
=Valerianus= [Valerian] (A.D. 253-260), from being a favourer of
the Christians, began from A.D. 257, under the influence of his
favourite Macrianus, to show himself a determined persecutor. The
Christian pastors were at first banished, and since this had not
the desired effect, they were afterwards punished with death. At
this time, too, the bishop of Carthage, Cyprian, who under Decius
had for a short season withdrawn by flight into the wilderness,
won for himself the martyr’s crown. So, likewise, in A.D. 258,
suffered Sixtus II. of Rome. The Roman bishop was soon followed
by his deacon Laurentius, a hero among Christian martyrs, who
pointed the avaricious governor to the sick, the poor and the
orphans of the congregation as the treasures of the church, and
was then burnt alive on a fire of glowing coal. But Valerian’s
son, =Gallienus= (A.D. 260-268), by an edict addressed to the
bishops, abolished the special persecuting statutes issued by his
father, without, however, as he is often erroneously said to have
done, formally recognising Christianity as a _Religio licita_.
The Christians after this enjoyed a forty years’ rest; for
the commonly reported cruel persecution of Christians under
=Claudius II.=, (A.D. 268-270) has been proved to be a pure
fable of apocryphal Acts of the Martyrs; and also the persecution
planned by =Aurelian= (A.D. 270-275), toward the close of his
reign, was prevented by his assassination committed by a pagan
officer.

§ 22.6. =Diocletian and Galerius.=--When =Diocletian=
(A.D. 284-305) was proclaimed Emperor by the army in Chalcedon, he
chose Nicomedia in Bithynia as his residence, and transferred the
conduct of the war to the general Maximianus [Maximian] Herculius
with the title of Cæsar, who, after the campaign had been closed
successfully in A.D. 286, was raised to the rank of Augustus or
joint-Emperor. New harassments from within and from without led
the two Emperors in A.D. 286 to name two Cæsars, or sub-Emperors,
who by their being adopted were assured of succession to imperial
rank. Diocletian assumed the administration of the East, and
gave up Illyricum as far as Pontus to his Cæsar and son-in-law
Galerius. Maximian undertook the government of the West, and
surrendered Gaul, Spain and Britain to his Cæsar, Constantius
Chlorus. According to Martyrologies, there was a whole legion,
called =Legio Thebaica=, that consisted of Christian soldiers.
This legion was originally stationed in the East, but was sent
into the war against the Gauls, because its members refused to
take part in the persecution of their brethren. After suffering
decimation twice over without any result, it is said that
=Maximian= left this legion, consisting of 6,600 men, along
with its commander St. Maurice, to be hewn down in the pass of
Agaunum, now called St. Moritz, in the Canton Valais. According to
Rettberg,[26] the historical germ of this consists in a tradition
reported by Theodoret as originating during the fifth or sixth
century, in a letter of Eucherius bishop of Lyons, about the
martyrdom of St. Maurice, who as _Tribunus Militum_ was executed
at Apamea along with seventy soldiers, by the orders of Maximian.
=Diocletian=, as the elder and supreme Emperor, was an active,
benevolent, clear-sighted statesman and ruler, but also a zealous
adherent of the old religion as regenerated by Neo-platonic
influences (§ 24, 2), and as such was inclined to hold
Christianity responsible for many of the internal troubles
of his kingdom. He was restrained from interfering with the
Christians, however, by the policy of toleration which had
prevailed since the time of Gallienus, as well as by his
own benevolent disposition, and not least by the political
consideration of the vast numbers of the Christian population.
His own wife Prisca and his daughter Valeria had themselves
embraced Christianity, as well as very many, and these the truest
and most trustworthy, of the members of his household. Yet the
incessant importunities and whispered suspicions of Galerius were
not without success. In A.D. 298 he issued the decree, that all
soldiers should take part in the sacrificial rites, and thus
obliged all Christian soldiers to withdraw from the army. During
a long sojourn in Nicomedia he finally prevailed upon the Emperor
to order a second general persecution; yet even then Diocletian
persisted, that in it no blood should be shed. This persecution
opened in A.D. 303 with the imperial command to destroy the
stately church of Nicomedia. Soon after an edict was issued
forbidding all Christian assemblies, ordering the destruction of
the churches, the burning of the sacred scriptures, and depriving
Christians of their offices and of their civil rights. A
Christian tore up the edict and was executed. Fire broke out
in the imperial palace and Galerius blamed the Christians for
the fire, and also charged them with a conspiracy against the
life of the Emperor. A persecution then began to rage throughout
the whole Roman empire, Gaul, Spain and Britain alone entirely
escaping owing to the favour of Constantius Chlorus who governed
these regions. All conceivable tortures and modes of death were
practised, and new and more horrible devices were invented from
day to day. Diocletian, who survived to A.D. 313, and Maximian,
abdicated the imperial rank which they had jointly held in
A.D. 305. Their places were filled by those who had been
previously their Cæsars, and Galerius as now the chief Augustus
proclaimed as Cæsars, =Severus= and =Maximinus Daza=, the most
furious enemies of the Christians that could be found, so that the
storm of persecution which had already begun in some measure to
abate, was again revived in Italy by Severus and in the East by
Maximinus. Then in order to bring all Christians into inevitable
contact with idolatrous rites, Galerius in A.D. 308 had all
victuals in the markets sprinkled with wine or water that
had been offered to idols. Seized with a terrible illness,
mortification beginning in his living body, he finally admitted
the uselessness of all his efforts to root out Christianity, and
shortly before his death, in common with his colleague, he issued
in A.D. 311, a formal =edict of toleration=, which permitted to
all Christians the free exercise of their religion and claimed in
return their intercession for the emperor and the empire.--During
this persecution of unexampled cruelty, lasting without
intermission for eight years, many noble proofs were given of
Christian heroism and of the joyousness that martyrdom inspired.
The number of the _Lapsi_, though still considerable, was in
proportion very much less than under the Decian persecution. How
much truth, if any, there may have been in the later assertion of
the Donatists (§ 63, 1), that even the Roman bishop, Marcellinus
[Marcellus] (A.D. 296-304), and his presbyters, Melchiades,
Marcellus and Sylvester, who were also his successors in the
bishopric, had denied Christ and sacrificed to idols, cannot
now be ascertained. Augustine denies the charge, but even
the Felician Catalogue of the Popes reports that Marcellinus
[Marcellus] during the persecution became a _Thurificatus_,
adding, however, the extenuation, that he soon thereafter, seized
with deep penitence, suffered martyrdom. The command to deliver
up the sacred writings gave rise to a new order of apostates,
the so-called _Traditores_. Many had recourse to a subterfuge by
surrendering heretical writings instead of the sacred books and
as such, but the earnest spirit of the age treated these as no
better than _traditors_.[27]

§ 22.7. =Maximinus Daza, Maxentius and Licinius.=--After the
death of Galerius his place was taken by the Dacian Licinius,
who shared with Maximinus the government of the East, the former
taking the European, the latter the Asiatic part along with
Egypt. Constantius Chlorus had died in A.D. 306, and Galerius
had given to the Cæsar Severus the empire of the West. But the
army proclaimed Constantine, son of Constantius, as Emperor.
He also established himself in Gaul, Spain and Britain. Then
also Maxentius, son of the abdicated emperor Maximian, claimed
the Western Empire, was proclaimed Augustus by the Prætorians,
recognised by the Roman senate, and after the overthrow of
Severus, ruled in Italy and Africa.--The pagan fanaticism of
=Maximinus= prevailed against the toleration edict of Galerian.
He heartily supported the attempted expulsion of Christians on
the part of several prominent cities, and commended the measure
on brazen tablets. He forbade the building of churches, punished
many with fines and dishonour, inflicted in some cases bodily
pains and even death, and gave official sanction to perpetrating
upon them all sorts of scandalous enormities. The _Acta Pilati_,
a pagan pseudepigraph filled with the grossest slanders about the
passion of Christ, was widely circulated by him and introduced as
a reading-book for the young in the public schools. =Constantine=,
who had inherited from his father along with his Neo-platonic
eclecticism his toleration of the Christians, secured to the
professors of the Christian faith in his realm the most perfect
quiet. =Maxentius=, too, at first let them alone; but the rivalry
and enmity that was daily increasing between him and Constantine,
the favourer of the Christians, drew him into close connection
with the pagan party, and into sympathy with their persecuting
spirit. In A.D. 312 Constantine led his army over the Alps.
Maxentius opposed him with an army drawn up in three divisions;
but Constantine pressed on victoriously, and shattered his
opponent’s forces before the gates of Rome. Betaking himself to
flight, Maxentius was drowned in the Tiber, and Constantine was
then sole ruler over the entire Western Empire. At Milan he had a
conference with Licinius, to whom he gave in marriage his sister
Constantia. They jointly issued an edict in A.D. 313, which
gave toleration to all forms of worship throughout the empire,
expressly permitting conversion to Christianity, and ordering the
restoration to the Christians of all the churches that had been
taken from them. Soon thereafter a decisive battle was fought
between Maximinus and Licinius. The former was defeated and took
to flight. The friendly relations that had subsisted between
=Constantine= and =Licinius= gave way gradually to estrangement
and were at last succeeded by open hostility. Licinius by
manifesting zeal as a persecutor identified himself with the
pagan party, and Constantine threw in his lot with the Christians.
In A.D. 323 a war broke out between these two, like a struggle
for life and death between Paganism and Christianity. Licinius
was overthrown and Constantine was master of the whole empire
(§ 42, 2). Eusebius in his _Vita Constantini_ reports, on the
basis probably of a sworn statement of the emperor, that during
the expedition against Maxentius in A.D. 312, after praying for
the aid of the higher powers, when the sun was going down, he saw
in heaven a shining cross in the sun with a bright inscription:
τούτῳ νίκα. During the night Christ appeared to him in a dream,
and commanded him to take the cross as his standard in battle
and with it to go into battle confident of victory. In his Church
History, Eusebius makes no mention of this tradition of the
vision. On the other hand there is here the fact, contested
indeed by critics, that after the victory over Maxentius the
emperor had erected his statue in the Roman Forum, with the
cross in his hand, and bearing the inscription: “By this sign of
salvation have I delivered your city from the yoke of the tyrant.
” This only is certain, that the imperial standard, which had the
unexplained name Labarum, bore the sign of the cross with the
monogram of the name of Christ.

§ 23. CONTROVERSIAL WRITINGS OF PAGANISM.

Pagan writers in their published works passed spiteful and contemptuous judgments upon Christians and Christianity (Tacitus, Pliny, Marcus Aurelius, and the physician Galen), or, like the rhetorician Fronto, argued against them with violent invective; while popular wit ran riot in representing Christianity by word and picture as the devout worship of an ass. But even the talented satirist Lucian of Samosata was satisfied with ridiculing the Christians as senseless fools. The first and also the most important of all really pagan advocates was Celsus, who in the second century, with brilliant subtlety and scathing sarcasm sought to prove that the religion of the Christians was the very climax of unreason. In respect of ability, keenness and bitterness of polemic he is closely followed by the Neo-platonist Porphyry. Far beneath both stands Hierocles, governor of Bithynia. Against such attacks the most famous Christian teachers took the field as Apologists. They disproved the calumnies and charges of the pagans, demanded fair play for the Christians, vindicated Christianity by the demonstration of its inner truth, the witness borne to it by the life and walk of Christians, its establishment by miracles and prophecies, its agreement with the utterances and longings of the most profound philosophers, whose wisdom they traced mediately or immediately from the Old Testament, and on the other hand, they sought to show the nothingness of the heathen gods, and the religious as well as moral perversity of paganism.

§ 23.1. =Lucian’s Satire _De Morte Peregrini_= takes the form
of an account given by Lucian to his friend Cronius of the Cynic
Peregrinus Proteus’ burning of himself during the Olympic games
of A.D. 165, of which he himself was a witness. Peregrinus is
described as a low, contemptible man, a parricide and guilty
of adultery, unnatural vice and drunkenness, who having fled
from his home in Palestine joined the Christians, learnt their
θαυμαστὴ σοφία, became their prophet (§ 34, 1), Thiasarch (§ 17, 3)
and Synagogeus, and as such expounded their sacred writings,
even himself composed and addressed to the most celebrated Greek
cities many epistles containing new ordinances and laws. When
cast into prison he was the subject of the most extravagant
attentions on the part of the Christians. Their γραΐδια and χῆραι
(deaconesses) nursed him most carefully, δεῖπνα ποικίλα and λόγοι
ἱεροί (Agapæ) were celebrated in his prison, they loaded him with
presents, etc. Nevertheless on leaving prison, on account of his
having eaten a forbidden kind of meat (flesh offered to idols)
he was expelled by them. He now cast himself into the arms of
the Cynics, travelled as the apostle of their views through the
whole world, and ended his life in his mad thirst for fame by
voluntarily casting himself upon the funeral pile. Lucian tells
with scornful sneer how the superstitious people supposed that
there had been an earthquake and that an eagle flew up from
his ashes crying out: The earth I have lost, to Olympus I fly.
This fable was believed, and even yet it is said that sometimes
Peregrinus will be seen in a white garment as a spirit.--It is
undoubtedly recorded by Aulus Gellius that a Cynic Peregrinus
lived at this time whom he describes as _vir gravis et constans_.
This too is told by the Apologist Tatian, who in him mocks at the
pretension on the part of heathen philosophers to emancipation
from all wants. But neither of them knows anything about his
Christianity or his death by fire. It is nevertheless conceivable
that Peregrinus had for some time connection with Christianity;
but without this assumption it seems likely that Lucian in a
satire which, under the combined influence of personal and class
antipathies, aimed first and chiefly at stigmatizing Cynicism
in the person of Peregrinus, should place Christianity alongside
of it as what seemed to him with its contempt of the world and
self-denial to be a new, perhaps a nobler, but still nothing more
than a species of Cynicism. Many features in the caricature which
he gives of the life, doings and death of Peregrinus seem to have
been derived by him from the life of the Apostle Paul as well as
from the account of the martyrdom of Ignatius, and especially
from that of Polycarp (§ 22, 3).[28]

§ 23.2. =Worshippers of an Ass= (Asinarii) was a term of
reproach that was originally and from early times applied to the
Jews. They now sought to have it transferred to the Christians.
Tertullian tells of a picture publicly exhibited in Carthage
which represented a man clothed in a toga, with the ears and hoof
of an ass, holding a book in his hand, and had this inscription:
_Deus Christianorum Onochoetes_. This name is variously read. If
read as ὄνου χοητής it means _asini sacerdos_. Alongside of this
we may place the picture, belonging probably to the third century,
discovered in A.D. 1858 scratched on a wall among the ruins
of a school for the imperial slaves, that were then excavated.
It represents a man with an ass’s head hanging on a cross, and
beneath it the caricature of a worshipper with the words written
in a schoolboy’s hand; Alexamenos worships God (A. σεβετε θεον);
evidently the derision of a Christian youth by a pagan companion.
The scratching on another wall gives us probably the answer of
the Christian: _Alexamenos fidelis_.

§ 23.3. =Polemic properly so-called.=--

(a) The Λόγος ἀληθής of =Celsus= is in great part preserved in
the answer of Origen (§ 31, 5). He identifies the author
with that Celsus to whom Lucian dedicated the little work
_Alexander or Pseudomantis_ in which he so extols the
philosophy of Epicurus that it seems he must be regarded as
an Epicurean. Since, however, the philosophical standpoint
of our Celsus is that of a Platonist the assumption of the
identity of the two has been regarded as untenable. But
even our Celsus does not seem to have been a pure Platonist
but an Eclectic, and as such might also show a certain
measure of favour to the philosophy of Epicurus. Their
age is at least the same. Lucian wrote that treatise soon
after A.D. 180, and according to Keim, the Λόγος ἀληθής was
probably composed about A.D. 178. Almost everything that
modern opponents down to our own day have advanced against
the gospel history and doctrine is found here wrought out
with original force and subtlety, inspired with burning
hatred and bitter irony, and highly spiced with invective,
mockery, and wit. First of all the author introduces
a Jew who repeats the slanders current among the Jews,
representing Jesus as a vagabond impostor, His mother
as an adulteress, His miracles and resurrection as lying
fables; then enters a heathen philosopher who proves that
both Judaism and Christianity are absurd; and finally, the
conditions are set forth under which alone the Christians
might claim indulgence: the abandonment of their exclusive
attitude toward the national religion and the recognition
of it by their taking part in the sacrifices appointed by
the state.[29]

(b) The Neo-platonist Porphyry, about A.D. 270, as reported by
Jerome, in the XV. Book of his Κατὰ Χριστιανῶν points to a
number of supposed contradictions in holy scripture, calls
attention to the conflict between Paul and Peter (Gal. ii.),
explains Daniel’s prophecies as _Vaticinia post eventum_,
and censures the allegorical interpretation of the
Christians. Although even among the Christians themselves
Porphyry as a philosopher was highly esteemed, and
notwithstanding contact at certain points between his
ethical and religious view of the world and that of the
Christians, perhaps just because of this, he is the worst
and most dangerous of all their pagan assailants. Against
his controversial writings, therefore, the edict of
Theodosius II. ordering them to be burnt was directed
in A.D. 448 (§ 42, 4), and owing to the zeal with which
his works were destroyed the greater part of the treatises
which quoted from it for purposes of controversy also
perished with it--the writings of Methodius of Tyre
(§ 31, 9), Eusebius of Cæsarea (§ 47, 2), Philostorgius
(§ 5, 1) and Apollinaris the younger (§ 47, 5). Of these
according to Jerome those of the last named were the
most important. In the recently discovered controversial
treatise of Macarius Magnes (§ 47, 6) an unnamed pagan
philosopher is combated whose attacks, chiefly directed
against the Gospels, to all appearance verbally agree with
the treatise of Porphyry, or rather, perhaps, with that of
his plagiarist Hierocles.

(c) =Hierocles= who as governor of Bithynia took an active
part in the persecution of Galerius, wrote two books
Λόγοι φιλαλήθεις against the Christians, about A.D. 305,
which have also perished. Eusebius’ reply refers only
to his repudiation of the equality assigned to Christ
and Apollonius of Tyana (§ 24, 1). While the title of
his treatise is borrowed from that of Celsus, he has also
according to the testimony of Eusebius in great part copied
the very words of both of his predecessors.

§ 24. Attempted Reconstruction of Paganism.

All its own more thoughtful adherents had long acknowledged that paganism must undergo a thorough reform and reconstruction if it were to continue any longer in existence. In the Augustan Age an effort was made to bolster up Neopythagoreanism by means of theurgy and magic. The chief representative of this movement was Apollonius of Tyana. In the second century an attempt was made to revivify the secret rites of the ancient mysteries, of Dea Syra, and Mithras. Yet all this was not enough. What was needed was the setting up of a pagan system which would meet the religious cravings of men in the same measure as Christianity with its supernaturalism, monotheism and universalism had done, and would have the absurdities and impurities that had disfigured the popular religion stripped off. Such a regeneration of paganism was undertaken in the beginning of the third century by Neoplatonism. But even this was no more able than pagan polemics had been to check the victorious career of Christianity.

§ 24.1. =Apollonius of Tyana= in Cappadocia, a contemporary of
Christ and the Apostles, was a philosopher, ascetic and magician
esteemed among the people as a worker of miracles. As an earnest
adherent of the doctrine of Pythagoras, whom he also imitated
in his dress and manner of life, claiming the possession of the
gifts of prophecy and miracle working, he assumed the role of a
moral and religious reformer of the pagan religion of his fathers.
Accompanied by numerous scholars, teaching and working miracles,
he travelled through the whole of the then known world until
he reached the wonderland of India. He settled down at last in
Ephesus where he died at an advanced age, having at least passed
his ninety-sixth year. At the wish of the Empress Julia, wife
of Septimius Severus, in the third century, Philostratus the
elder composed in the form of a romance in eight books based upon
written and oral sources, a biography of Apollonius, in which
he is represented as a heathen counterpart of Christ, who is
otherwise completely ignored, excelling Him in completeness of
life, doctrine and miraculous powers.[30]

§ 24.2. In =Neo-platonism=, by the combination of all that was
noblest and best in the exoteric and esoteric religion, in the
philosophy, theosophy and theurgy of earlier and later times
in East and West, we are presented with a universal religion
in which faith and knowledge, philosophy and theology, theory
and practice, were so perfectly united and reconciled, and all
religious needs so fully met, that in comparison with its wealth
and fulness, the gnosis as well as the faith, the worship and
the mysteries of the Christians must have seemed one-sided,
commonplace and incomplete. The first to introduce and commend
this tendency, which was carried out in three successive schools
of philosophy, the Alexandrian-Roman, the Syrian and the Athenian,
was the Alexandrian =Ammonius Saccas=,--this surname being
derived from his occupation as a porter. He lived and taught in
Alexandria till about A.D. 250. He sought to combine in a higher
unity the Platonic and the Aristotelian philosophies, giving
to the former a normative authority, and he did not hesitate to
enrich his system by the incorporation of Christian ideas. His
knowledge of Christianity came from Clement of Alexandria and
from Origen, whose teacher in philosophy he had been. Porphyry
indeed affirms that he had previously been himself a Christian,
but had at a later period of life returned to paganism.--The most
distinguished of his scholars, and also the most talented and
profound of all the Neo-platonists, was =Plotinus=, who was in
A.D. 254 a teacher of philosophy at Rome, and died in A.D. 270.
His philosophico-theological system in its characteristic features
is a combination of the Platonic antithesis of the finite world
of sense and the eternal world of ideas with the stoical doctrine
of the world soul. The eternal ground of all being is the one
supramundane, unintelligible and indescribable good (τὸ ἕν, τὸ
ἀγαθόν), from which all stages of being are radiated forth; first;
spirit or the world of ideas (νοῦς, κόσμος νοητός), the eternal
type of all being; and then, from this the world soul (ψυχή);
and from this, finally, the world of phenomena. The outermost
fringe of this evolution, the forms of which the further they are
removed from the original ground become more and more imperfect,
is matter, just as the shadow is the outermost fringe of the
light. It is conceived of as the finite, the fleeting, even as
evil in itself. But imperfect as the world of sense is, it is
nevertheless the vehicle of the ideal world and in many ways
penetrated by the ideas, and the lighting up imparted by the
ideas affords it its beauty. In consequence of those rays shining
in from the realm of ideas, a whole vast hierarchy of divine
forms has arisen, with countless dæmons good and bad, which give
room for the incorporation of all the divine beings of the Greek
and oriental mythologies. In this way myths that were partly
immoral and partly fantastic can be rehabilitated as symbolical
coverings of speculative ideas. The souls of men, too, originate
from the eternal world soul. By their transition, however, into
the world of sense they are hampered and fettered by corporeity.
They themselves complete their redemption through emancipation
from the bonds of sense by means of asceticism and the practice
of virtue. In this way they secure a return into the ideal world
and the vision of the highest good, sometimes as moments of
ecstatic mystical union with that world, even during this earthly
life, but an eternally unbroken continuance thereof is only
attained unto after complete emancipation from all the bonds of
matter.[31]--Plotinus’ most celebrated scholar, who also wrote
his life, and collected and arranged his literary remains, was
=Porphyry=. He also taught in Rome and died there in A.D. 304.
His ἐκ τῶν λογίων φιλοσοφία, a collection of oracular utterances,
was a positive supplement to his polemic against Christianity
(§ 23, 3), and afforded to paganism a book of revelation, a
heathen bible, as Philostratus had before sought to portray a
heathen saviour. Of greater importance for the development of
mediæval scholasticism was his Commentary on the logical works
of Aristotle, published in several editions of the Aristotelian
Organon.--His scholar =Iamblichus= of Chalcis in Cœle-Syria,
who died A.D. 333, was the founder of the Syrian school. The
development which he gave to the Neo-platonic doctrine consisted
chiefly in the incorporation of a fantastic oriental mythology
and theurgy. This also brought him the reputation of being a
magician.--Finally, the Athenian school had in =Proclus=, who
died in A.D. 485, its most distinguished representative. While
on the one hand, he proceeded along the path opened by Iamblichus
to develop vagaries about dæmons and theurgical fancies, on the
other hand, he gave to his school an impulse in the direction of
scholarly and encyclopædic culture.--The Neo-platonic speculation
exercised no small influence on the development of Christian
philosophy. The philosophizing church fathers, whose darling
was Plato, got acquaintance with his philosophical views from
its relatively pure reproduction met with in the works of the
older Neo-platonists. The influence of their mystico-theosophic
doctrine, especially as conveyed in the writings of the
Pseudo-Dionysius (§ 47, 11), is particularly discernible in
the Christian mysticism of the middle ages, and has been thence
transmitted to modern times.[32]

§ 25. Jewish and Samaritan Reaction.

The Judaism of the Apostolic Age in its most characteristic form was thoroughly hostile to Christianity. The Pharisees and the mass of the people with their expectation of a political Messiah, took offence at a Messiah crucified by the Gentiles (1 Cor. i. 13); their national pride was wounded by the granting of equality to Samaritans and heathens, while their legal righteousness and sham piety were exposed and censured by the teachings of Christianity. On the other side, the Sadducees felt no less called upon to fight to the death against Christianity with its doctrine of the resurrection (Acts iv. 2; xxiii. 6). The same hostile feeling generally prevailed among the dispersion. The Jewish community at Berea (Acts xvii. 2) is praised as a pleasing exception to the general rule. Finally, in A.D. 70 destruction fell upon the covenant people and the holy city. The Christian church of Jerusalem, acting upon a warning uttered by the Lord (Matt. xxiv. 16), found a place of refuge in the mountain city of Pella, on the other side of Jordan. But when the Pseudo-Messiah, Bar-Cochba (Son of a Star, Num. xxiv. 17), roused all Palestine against the Roman rule, in A.D. 132, the Palestinian Christians who refused to assist or recognise the false Messiah, had again to endure a bloody persecution. Bar-Cochba was defeated in A.D. 135. Hadrian now commanded that upon pain of death no Jew should enter Ælia Capitolina, the Roman colony founded by him on the ruins of Jerusalem. From that time they were deprived of all power and opportunity for direct persecution of the Christians. All the greater was their pleasure at the persecutions by the heathens and their zeal in urging the pagans to extreme measures. In their seminaries they gave currency to the most horrible lies and calumnies about Christ and the Christians, which also issued thence among the heathens. On the other hand, however, they intensified their own anti-Christian attitude and sought protection against the advancing tide of Christianity by strangling all spiritual movement under a mass of traditional interpretations and judgments of men. The Schools of Tiberias and Babylon were the nurseries of this movement, and the _Talmud_, the first part of which, the _Mishna_, had its origin during this period, marks the completion of this anti-Christian self-petrifaction of Judaism. The disciples of John, too, assumed a hostile attitude toward Christianity, and formed a distinct set under the name of Hemerobaptists. Contemporaneously with the first successes of the Apostolic mission, a current set in among the Samaritans calculated to checkmate Christianity by the setting up of new religions. Dositheus, Simon Magus and Menander here made their appearance with claims to the Messiahship, and were at a later period designated heresiarchs by the church fathers, who believed that in them they found the germs of the Gnostic heresy (§§ 26 ff.).

§ 25.1. =Disciples of John.=--Even after their master had been
beheaded the disciples of John the Baptist maintained a separate
society of their own, and reproached the disciples of Jesus
because of their want of strict ascetic discipline (Matt. ix. 14,
etc.). The disciples of John in the Acts (xviii. 25; xix. 1-7)
were probably Hellenist Jews, who on their visits to the feasts
had been pointed by John to Christ, announced by him as Messiah,
without having any information as to the further developments of
the Christian community. About the middle of the second century,
however, the Clementine Homilies (§ 28, 3), in which John the
Baptist is designated a ἡμεροβαπτίστης, speaks of gnosticizing
disciples of John, who may be identical with the =Hemerobaptists=,
that is, those who practise baptism daily, of Eusebius (_Hist.
Eccl._, iv. 22). They originated probably from a coalition of
Essenes (§ 8, 4) and disciples of the Baptist who when orphaned
by the death of John persistently refused to join the disciples
of Christ.--We hear no more of them till the Carmelite missionary
John a Jesu in Persia came upon a sect erroneously called
Christians of St. John or Nazoreans.[33] Authentic information
about the doctrine, worship and constitution of this sect that
still numbers some hundred families, was first obtained in the
19th century by an examination of their very comprehensive sacred
literature, written in an Aramaic dialect very similar to that of
the Babylonian Talmud. The most important of those writings the
so-called Great Book (_Sidra rabba_), also called _Ginza_, that
is, thesaurus, has been faithfully reproduced by Petermann under
the title _Thesaurus s. Liber magnus_, etc., 2 vols., Berl.,
1867.--Among themselves the adherents of this sect were styled
=Mandæans=, after one of their numerous divine beings or æons,
_Manda de chaje_, meaning γνῶσις τῆς ζωῆς. In their extremely
complicated religious system, resembling in many respects the
Ophite Gnosis (§ 27, 6) and Manicheism (§ 29), this Æon takes the
place of the heavenly mediator in the salvation of the earthly
world. Among those without, however, they called themselves
Subba, =Sabeans= from צבא or צבע to baptize. Although they
cannot be identified right off with the Disciples of John and
Hemerobaptists, a historical connection between them, carrying
with it gnostic and oriental-heathen influences, is highly
probable. The name Sabean itself suggests this, but still more
the position they assign to John the Baptist as the only true
prophet over against Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. As
adherents of John the Baptist rejected by the Jews the old
Disciples of John had an anti-Jewish character, and by their
own rejection of Christ an anti-Christian character. By shifting
their residence to Babylon, however, they became so dependent
on the Syro-Chaldean mythology, theosophy and theurgy, that they
sank completely into paganism, and so their opposition to Judaism
and Christianity increased into fanatical hatred and horrid
calumniation.[34]

§ 25.2. =The Samaritan Heresiarchs.=

(a) =Dositheus= was according to Origen a contemporary of
Jesus and the Apostles, and gave himself out as the
prophet promised in Deut. xviii. 18. He insisted upon a
curiously strict observance of the Sabbath, and according
to Epiphanius he perished miserably in a cave in consequence
of an ostentatiously prolonged fast. Purely fabulous are
the stories of the Pseudo-Clementine writings (§ 28, 3)
which bring him into contact with John the Baptist as his
scholar and successor, and with Simon Magus as his defeated
rival. More credible is the account of an Arabic-Samaritan
Chronicle,[35] according to which the sect of the
Dostanians at the time of Simon Maccabæus traced their
descent from a Samaritan tribe, while also the Catholic
heresiologies (§ 26, 4) reckon the Dositheans among the
pre-Christian sects. According to a statement of Eulogius
of Alexandria recorded by Photius, the Dositheans and
Samaritans in Egypt in A.D. 588 disputed as to the meaning
of Deut. xviii. 18.

(b) =Simon Magus=, born, according to Justin Martyr, at Gitta
in Samaria, appeared in his native country as a soothsayer
with such success that the infatuated people hailed him as
the δύναμις τοῦ θεοῦ ἡ καλουμένη μεγάλη. When Philip the
Deacon preached the gospel in Samaria, Simon also received
baptism from him, but was sternly denounced by Peter from
whom he wished to buy the gift of communicating the Spirit
(Acts viii). As to the identity of this man with Simon
the Magician, according to Josephus hailing from Cyprus,
who induced the Herodian Drusilla to quit her husband and
become the wife of the Governor Felix (Acts xxiv. 24), it
can scarcely claim to be more than a probability. A vast
collection of fabulous legends soon grew up around the
name of Simon Magus, not only from the Gentile-Christian
and Catholic side, but also from the Jewish-Christian and
heretical side; the latter to be still met with in the
_Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions_, while in the
_Acta Petri et Pauli_, we have the Catholic revision and
reproduction of the no longer extant Ebionistic _Acts of
Peter_ (§ 32, 6). These Judaizing heretics particularly
amused themselves by making a very slightly veiled
vile caricature of the great Apostle of the Gentiles by
transferring to the name of the magician many distorted
representations of occurrences in the life and works of the
Apostle Paul. This representation, however, was recognised
in the Acts above referred to and by the church fathers
as originally descriptive of Simon Magus. On the basis of
this legendary conglomerate Irenæus, after the example of
Justin, describes him as _Magister ac progenitor omnium
hæreticorum_. From a house of ill fame in Tyre he bought
a slave girl Helena, to whom he assigned the role of the
world creating Ἔννοια of God. The angels born of her for
the purpose of creating the world had rebelled against her;
she was enslaved, and was imprisoned, sometimes in this,
sometimes in that, human body; at one time in the body of
Helen of Troy, and at last in that of the Tyrian prostitute.
In order to redeem her and with her the world enslaved by
the rebel angels, the supreme God (ὁ ἐστώς) Himself came
down and assumed the form of man, was born unbegotten of
man, suffered in appearance in Judea, and reveals Himself
to the Samaritans as Father, to the Jews as Son, and to the
Gentiles as the Holy Spirit. The salvation of man consists
simply in acknowledging Simon and his Helena as the supreme
gods. By faith only, not by works, is man justified. The
law originated with the evil angels and was devised by them
merely to keep men in bondage under them. This last point
is evidently transferred to the magician partly from the
Apostle Paul, partly from Marcion (§ 27, 11), and is copied
from Ebionite sources. The Simon myth is specially rich in
legends about the magician’s residence in Rome, to which
place he had betaken himself after being often defeated
in disputation by the Apostle Peter, and where he was so
successful that the Romans erected a column in his honour
on an island in the Tiber, which Justin Martyr himself is
said to have seen, bearing the inscription: _Simoni sancto
Deo_. The discovery in A.D. 1574 of the column dedicated
to the Sabine god of oaths, inscribed “_Semoni Sanco Deo
Fidio_,” explains how such a legend may have arisen out
of a misunderstanding. Although by a successful piece of
jugglery--decapitation and rising again the third day,
having substituted for himself a goat whom he had bewitched
to assume his appearance, whose head was cut off--he won
the special favour of Nero, he was thereafter in public
disputation before the emperor unmasked by Peter. In order
to rehabilitate himself he offered to prove his divine
power by ascending up into heaven. For this purpose he
mounted a high tower. Peter adjured the angel of Satan,
which carried him through the air, and the magician
fell with a crash to the ground. Probably there is here
transferred to one magician what is told by Suetonius
(_Nero_, xii.) and Juvenal (_Sat._ iii. 79 ff.) as
happening to a soothsayer in Nero’s time who made an
attempt to fly. The school of Baur (§ 182, 7), after Baur
himself had discovered in the Simon Magus of the Clementine
Homilies a caricature of the Apostle Paul, has come to
question the existence of the magician altogether, and
has attempted to account for the myth as originating from
the hatred of the Jewish Christians to the Apostle of the
Gentiles. Support for this view is sought from Acts viii.,
the offering of money by the magician being regarded as a
maliciously distorted account of the contribution conveyed
by Paul to the church at Jerusalem.[36] Recently, however,
Hilgenfeld, who previously maintained this view, has again
recognised as well grounded the tradition of the Church
Fathers, that Simon was the real author of the ψευδώνυμος
γνῶσις, and has carried out this idea in his
“Ketzergeschichte.”

(c) =Menander= was, according to Justin Martyr, a disciple of
Simon. Subsequently he undertook to play the part of the
Saviour of the world. In doing so, however, he was always,
as Irenæus remarks, modest enough not to give himself out
as the supreme god, but only as the Messiah sent by Him.
He taught, however, that any one who should receive his
baptism would never become old or die.[37]