The Eighteen Christian Centuries. James White
many years upon his tomb.
Humanity itself seemed to be sunk beyond the possibility of restoration; but we see now how necessary it was that our nature should reach its lowest point of depression to give full force to the great reaction which Christianity introduced. Men were slavishly bending at the footstool of a despot, trembling for life, bowed down by fear and misery, when suddenly it was reported that a great teacher had appeared for a while upon earth, and declared that all men were equal in the sight of God, for that God was the Father of all. The slave heard this in the intervals of his torture—the captive in his dungeon—the widow and the orphan. To the poor the gospel, or good news, was preached. It was this which made the trembling courtiers of the worst of the emperors slip out noiselessly from the palace, and hear from Paul of Tarsus or his disciples the new prospect that was opening on mankind. It spread quickly among those oppressed and hopeless multitudes. The subjection of the Roman empire—its misery and degradation—were only a means to an end. The harsher the laws of the tyrant, the more gracious seemed the words of Christ. The two masters were plainly set before them, which to choose. And who could hesitate? One said, “Tremble! suffer! die!” The other said, “Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest!”
SECOND CENTURY
Pliny the Younger, Plutarch, Suetonius, Juvenal, Arrian, Ælian, Ptolemy, (Geographer,) Appian, Epictetus, Pausanias, Galen, (Physician,) Athenæus, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenæus, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Clement Of Alexandria, Marcion, (Heretic.)
THE SECOND CENTURY
In looking at the second century, we see a total difference in the expression, though the main features continue unchanged. There is still the central power at Rome, the same dependence everywhere else; but the central power is beneficent and wise. As if tired of the hereditary rule of succession which had ended in such a monster as Domitian, the world took refuge in a new system of appointing its chiefs, and perhaps thought it a recommendation of each successive emperor that he had no relationship to the last. We shall accordingly find that, after this period, the hereditary principle is excluded. It was remarked that, of the twelve first Cæsars, only two had died a natural death—for even in the case of Augustus the arts of the poisoner were suspected—and those two were Vespasian and Titus, men who had no claim to such an elevation in right of lofty birth. Birth, indeed, had ceased to be a recommendation. All the great names of the Republic had been carefully rooted out. Few people were inclined to boast of their ancestry when the proof of their pedigree acted as a sentence of death; for there was no surer passport to destruction in the times of the early emperors than a connection with the Julian line, or descent from a historic family. No one, therefore, took the trouble to inquire into the genealogy of Nerva, the old and generous man who succeeded the monster Domitian. |A.D. 96.|His nomination to the empire elevated him at once out of the sphere of these inquiries, for already the same superstitious reverence surrounded the name of Augustus which spreads its inviolable sanctity on the throne of Eastern monarchs. Whoever sits upon that, by whatever title, or however acquired, is the legitimate and unquestioned king. No rival, therefore, started up to contest the position either of Nerva himself, or of the stranger he nominated to succeed him. |A.D. 102.|Men bent in humble acquiescence when they knew, in the third year of this century, that their master was named Trajan,—that he was a Spaniard by birth, and the best general of Rome. For eighty years after that date the empire had rest. Life and property were comparatively secure, and society flowed on peaceably in deep and well-ascertained channels. A man might have been born at the end of the reign of Domitian, and die in extreme old age under the sway of the last of the Antonines, and never have known of insecurity or oppression—
“Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Could touch him farther!”
No wonder those agreeable years were considered by the fond gratitude of the time, and the unavailing regrets of succeeding generations, the golden age of man. Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus—these are still great names, and are everywhere recognised as the most wonderful succession of sovereigns the world has ever seen. They are still called the “Good Emperors,” the “Wise Rulers.”
It is easy, indeed, to be good in comparison with Nero, and wise in comparison with Claudius; but the effect of the example of those infamous tyrants made it doubly difficult to be either good or wise. The world had become so accustomed to oppression, that it seemed at first surprised at the change that had taken place. The emperors had to create a knowledge of justice before their just acts could be appreciated. The same opposition other men have experienced in introducing bad and cruel measures was roused by their introduction of wise and salutary laws. What! no more summary executions, nor forfeitures of fortunes, nor banishments to the Danube? All men equal before the dread tribunal of the imperial judge? The world was surely coming to an end, if the emperor did not now and then poison a senator, or stab his brother, or throw half a dozen courtiers to the beasts! It is likely enough that some of the younger Romans at first lamented those days of unlimited license and perpetual excitement; but in the course of time those wilder spirits must have died out, and the world gladly acquiesced in an existence of dull security and uninteresting peace. By the end of the reign of Trajan the records of the miseries of the last century must have been studied as curiosities—as historical students now look back on the extravagances and horrors of the French Revolution. Fortunately, men could not look forward to the times, more pitiable still, when their descendants should fall into greater sorrows than had been inflicted on mankind by the worst of the Cæsars, and they enjoyed their present immunity from suffering without any misgivings about the future. But a government which does every thing for a people renders it unable to do any thing for itself. The subject stood quietly by while the emperor filled all the offices of the State—guarded him, fed him, clothed him, treated him like a child, and reduced him at last to childlike dependence. An unjust proconsul, instead of being supported and encouraged in his exactions, was dismissed from his employment and forced to refund his ill-got gains,—the population, relieved from their oppressor, saw in his punishment the hand of an avenging Providence. The wakeful eye of the governor in Rome saw the hostile preparations of a tribe of barbarians beyond the Danube; and the legions, crossing the river, dispersed and subdued them before they had time to devastate the Roman fields. The peaceful colonist saw, in the suddenness of his deliverance, the foresight and benevolence of a divinity. No words were powerful enough to convey the sentiments of admiration awakened, by such vigour and goodness, in the breast of a luxurious and effeminate people; and accordingly, if we look a little closely into the personal attributes of the five good emperors, we shall see that some part of their glory is due to the exaggerations of love and gratitude.
Nerva reigned but sixteen months, and had no time to do more than display his kindness of disposition, and to name his successor. This was Trajan, a man who was not even a Roman by birth, but who was thought by his patron to have retained, in the distant province of Spain where he was born, the virtues which had disappeared in the centre and capital of the empire. The deficiency of Nerva’s character had been its softness and want of force. The stern vigilance of Trajan made ample amends. He was the best-known soldier of his time, and revived once more the terror of the Roman arms. He conquered wherever he appeared; but his warlike impetuosity led him too far. He trod in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, and advanced farther eastward than any of the Roman armies had previously done. But his victories were fruitless: he attached no new country permanently to the empire, and derives all his glory now from the excellence of his internal administration. He began his government by declaring himself as subordinate to the laws as the meanest of the people. His wife, Pompeia Plotina, was worthy of such a husband, and said, on mounting the steps of the palace, that she should descend them unaltered from what she was. The emperor visited his friends on terms of equality, and had the greatness of mind, generally deficient in absolute princes, to bestow his confidence on those who deserved it. Somebody, a member perhaps of the old police who had made such fortunes in the time of Domitian by alarming the tyrant with stories of plots and assassinations, told Trajan one day to beware of his minister, who intended to murder him on the first opportunity. “Come again, and tell me all particulars