NOTE C: THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF THE PERSECUTING STATE
How did the disciples of the Church regard the Roman State which was their persecutor? From the very beginning there were two schools of thought. The Apocalypse speaks of the Roman power in language of unmeasured abhorrence. It is the beast, the great harlot, drunk with the blood of the saints, destined for its crimes to a fearful chastisement.
But in St. Paul there is discoverable a certain pride in the Empire of which he is a citizen, and a faith that its stability and the order it secures are to be, under God, a powerful means of Christian propaganda. The authority which, in some instances, it misuses, is none the less divine in its origin; and whoever resists it resists thereby God Who is its author. To the Christian the prince " is God's minister. . . for good. . . an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil." Obedience, loyalty, the payment of tribute are then obligations in conscience (Rom. xiii, 1-7). Nor does the teaching change when, a few years later, Nero's edicts have destroyed the Christian's legal security. It is still his duty to pray "for Kings and for all that are in high station " (I Tim. ii, 2), "to be subject to princes and powers, to obey at a word, to be ready to every good work" (Titus iii, 1-2). The contemporary writings of St. Peter (I Peter ii, 13-15) are inspired by the same ideals, "Be ye subject to every human creature for God's sake: whether it be the king as excelling, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of the good. . . . Fear God. Honour the King." Such, in the first generation of Christianity, was the Church's general commentary on Our Lord's own direction to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's."
This theory of the lawfulness of authority, of the State's right to loyal obedience, and of the Christian's political duties as obliging him in conscience, the persecutions by no means destroyed. It is repeated faithfully in the writers of every generation from Nero to Constantine, and, a rooted tradition by the time of that emperor's conversion, it supplied one of the foundations upon which he and his successors were able to build their untraditional novelty of a State-directed Christianity. The epistle of St. Clement of Rome gives a noteworthy testimony to the theory, in the prayer it contains for "our masters and those who govern us on earth " since " Thou, O Lord, has given them sovereign power" and " knowing the glory and honour with which Thou has endowed them, grant us to be submissive and never to rebel against Thy will. . . . Give to them O Lord health, peace, harmony and security, that they may exercise without harm the authority Thou has confided to them."
The martyrs, too -- St. Polycarp for example -- pray for the emperors in whose name they suffer and for those who are the agents of the imperial power in their death. This religious concern for the welfare of the State is so known an element of the Christian mind that the Apologists can point to it in disproof of the charge that Christianity is a danger to the State; and Tertullian lightly invites the magistrates, "Come good governors, put this soul to the torture while it prays to God for the emperor." Christians, the same bitter spirit insists, have a greater interest than Pagans in the Empire's welfare for it is, in God's providence, the one barrier against all-destroying anarchy and chaos. Nor, he notes, has a Christian ever been found among all the hundred leaders of sedition and revolt.
The Church, then, by no means saw in the Empire a thing evil in its nature, a thing therefore to be destroyed. Nor was there ever any Christian policy in the matter of the persecutions except the heroic policy of patient Endurance and prayer for the persecutor until the providence of God should send quieter times.
How did the disciples of the Church regard the Roman State which was their persecutor? From the very beginning there were two schools of thought. The Apocalypse speaks of the Roman power in language of unmeasured abhorrence. It is the beast, the great harlot, drunk with the blood of the saints, destined for its crimes to a fearful chastisement.
But in St. Paul there is discoverable a certain pride in the Empire of which he is a citizen, and a faith that its stability and the order it secures are to be, under God, a powerful means of Christian propaganda. The authority which, in some instances, it misuses, is none the less divine in its origin; and whoever resists it resists thereby God Who is its author. To the Christian the prince " is God's minister. . . for good. . . an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil." Obedience, loyalty, the payment of tribute are then obligations in conscience (Rom. xiii, 1-7). Nor does the teaching change when, a few years later, Nero's edicts have destroyed the Christian's legal security. It is still his duty to pray "for Kings and for all that are in high station " (I Tim. ii, 2), "to be subject to princes and powers, to obey at a word, to be ready to every good work" (Titus iii, 1-2). The contemporary writings of St. Peter (I Peter ii, 13-15) are inspired by the same ideals, "Be ye subject to every human creature for God's sake: whether it be the king as excelling, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of the good. . . . Fear God. Honour the King." Such, in the first generation of Christianity, was the Church's general commentary on Our Lord's own direction to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's."
This theory of the lawfulness of authority, of the State's right to loyal obedience, and of the Christian's political duties as obliging him in conscience, the persecutions by no means destroyed. It is repeated faithfully in the writers of every generation from Nero to Constantine, and, a rooted tradition by the time of that emperor's conversion, it supplied one of the foundations upon which he and his successors were able to build their untraditional novelty of a State-directed Christianity. The epistle of St. Clement of Rome gives a noteworthy testimony to the theory, in the prayer it contains for "our masters and those who govern us on earth " since " Thou, O Lord, has given them sovereign power" and " knowing the glory and honour with which Thou has endowed them, grant us to be submissive and never to rebel against Thy will. . . . Give to them O Lord health, peace, harmony and security, that they may exercise without harm the authority Thou has confided to them."
The martyrs, too -- St. Polycarp for example -- pray for the emperors in whose name they suffer and for those who are the agents of the imperial power in their death. This religious concern for the welfare of the State is so known an element of the Christian mind that the Apologists can point to it in disproof of the charge that Christianity is a danger to the State; and Tertullian lightly invites the magistrates, "Come good governors, put this soul to the torture while it prays to God for the emperor." Christians, the same bitter spirit insists, have a greater interest than Pagans in the Empire's welfare for it is, in God's providence, the one barrier against all-destroying anarchy and chaos. Nor, he notes, has a Christian ever been found among all the hundred leaders of sedition and revolt.
The Church, then, by no means saw in the Empire a thing evil in its nature, a thing therefore to be destroyed. Nor was there ever any Christian policy in the matter of the persecutions except the heroic policy of patient Endurance and prayer for the persecutor until the providence of God should send quieter times.
