A Source Book for Ancient Church History. Joseph Cullen Ayer
account of the number of those in danger. For many of every age, every rank, and even of both sexes, are brought into danger; and will be in the future. The contagion of that superstition has penetrated not only the cities but also the villages and country places; and yet it seems possible to stop it and set it right. At any rate, it is certain enough that the temples, deserted until quite recently, begin to be frequented, that the ceremonies of religion, [pg 022] long disused, are restored, and that fodder for the victims comes to market, whereas buyers of it were until now very few. From this it may easily be supposed what a multitude of men can be reclaimed if there be a place of repentance.
Ep. 97 (Trajan to Pliny). You have followed, my dear Secundus, the proper course of procedure in examining the cases of those who were accused to you as Christians. For, indeed, nothing can be laid down as a general law which contains anything like a definite rule of action. They are not to be sought out. If they are accused and convicted, they are to be punished, yet on this condition, that he who denies that he is a Christian and makes the fact evident by an act, that is, by worshipping our gods, shall obtain pardon on his repentance, however much suspected as to the past. Papers, however, which are presented anonymously ought not to be admitted in any accusation. For they are a very bad example and unworthy of our times.
§ 8. Martyrdom and the Desire for Martyrdom
Ignatius of Antioch, Ep. ad Romanos, 4.
Ignatius was bishop of Antioch in the opening years of the second century. According to tradition, he suffered martyrdom in Rome under Trajan, circa 117. Having been sent from Antioch to Rome by command of the Emperor, on his way he addressed letters to various churches in Asia, exhorting them to seek unity and avoid heresy by close union with the local bishop. His aim seems to have been practical, to promote the welfare of the Christian communities rather than the exaltation of the episcopal office itself. Doubts have arisen as to the authenticity of these epistles on account of the frequent references to the episcopate and to heresy. Further difficulty has been caused by the fact that the epistles of Ignatius appear in three forms or recensions, a longer Greek recension forming a group of thirteen epistles, a short Greek of seven epistles, and a still shorter Syriac version of only three. After much fluctuation of opinion, due to the general reconstruction of the history of the whole period, which has gone through various marked changes, the opinion of scholars has been steadily settling upon the short Greek recension of seven epistles as authentic, especially since the critical re-examination of the whole question by Zahn and Lightfoot.
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I write to all the churches and impress on all, that I shall willingly die for God unless ye hinder me. I beseech you not to show unseasonable good-will toward me.11 Permit me to be the food of wild beasts, through whom it will be granted me to attain unto God. I am the wheat of God and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. Rather entice the wild beasts, that they may become my tomb and leave nothing of my body, so that when I have fallen asleep I may be burdensome to no one. Then I shall be truly a disciple of Jesus Christ, when the world sees not my body. Entreat Christ for me, that by these instruments I may be found a sacrifice to God. Not as Peter and Paul12 do I issue commandments unto you. They were Apostles, I a condemned man; they were free, I even until now a slave.13 But if I suffer, I shall be the freedman of Jesus Christ, and shall rise again free in Him. And now, being in bonds, I learn not to desire anything.
§ 9. The Position of the Roman Community of Christians in the Church
The Roman Church took very early a leading place in the Christian Church, even before the rise of the Petrine tradition, and its importance was generally recognized. Its charity was very widely known and extolled. It was a part of its care for Christians everywhere, a care which found expression later in the obligation of maintaining the faith in the great theological controversies. On the position of the Roman Church in this period, see the address of the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans (ANF, I, 73), as also the relation of Polycarp [pg 024] to the Roman Church in connection with the question of the date of Easter (see § 38, below).
Dionysius of Corinth, “Epistle to the Roman Church,” in Eusebius, Hist. Ec., IV, 23. (MSG, 20:388.) For text, see Kirch, n. 49 f.
Moreover, there is still current an Epistle of Dionysius to the Romans, addressed to Soter, bishop at that time. But there is nothing like quoting its words in which, in approval of the custom of the Romans maintained until the persecution in our own time, he writes as follows: “For you have from the beginning this custom of doing good in different ways to all the brethren, and of sending supplies to many churches in all the cities, in this way refreshing the poverty of those in need, and helping brethren in the mines with the supplies which you have sent from the beginning, maintaining as Romans the customs of the Romans handed down from the fathers, which your blessed bishop Soter has not only kept up, but also increased, helping the saints with the abundant supply he sends from time to time, and with blessed words exhorting, as a loving father his children, the brethren who come up to the city.” In this same epistle he also mentions the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, showing that from the first it was read by ancient custom before the Church. He says, therefore: “To-day, then, being the Lord's day we kept holy; in which we read your letter; for reading it we shall always have admonition, as also from the former one written to us through Clement.” Moreover, the same writer speaks of his own epistles as having been falsified, as follows: “For when the brethren asked me to write letters, I wrote them. And these the apostles of the devil have filled with tares, taking away some things and adding others. For them there is woe in store. So it is not marvellous that some have tried to falsify even the dominical scriptures [i.e., the Holy Scriptures], when they have conspired against writings of another sort.”
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§ 10. Chiliastic Expectations
Primitive Christianity was marked by great chiliastic enthusiasm, traces of which may be found in the New Testament. By chiliasm, strictly speaking, is meant the belief that Christ was to return to earth and reign visibly for one thousand years. That return was commonly placed in the immediate future. With that reign was connected the bodily resurrection of the saints. This belief, in somewhat varying form, was one of the great ethical motives in apostolic and post-apostolic times. It was a part of the fundamental principles of Montanism. It disappeared with the rise of a “scientific theology” such as that of Alexandria, the exclusion of Montanism, and the changed conception of the relation of the Church and the world, due to the lapse of time and the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the State. From the fourth century it ceased to be a living doctrine.
(a) Papias, in Eusebius, Hist. Ec., III, 39. (MSG, 20: 300.)
Papias, from whom two selections have been taken, was bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia during the first part of the second century. He was, therefore, an elder contemporary of Justin Martyr. His work, The Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord, has perished, with the exception of a few fragments. The comments of Eusebius in introducing the quotations of Papias are characteristic of the change that had come over the Church since the post-apostolic period. That Papias was not to be regarded as a man of small power simply because he held chiliastic ideas is sufficiently refuted by the fact that Justin Martyr falls but little behind Papias in extravagance of expression.
“I shall not hesitate, also, to set in order for you with my interpretations whatsoever things I have ever learned carefully from the elders and carefully remembered, guaranteeing the truth of them. … For I did not think that what was to be gotten from the