III
SILENCE RESPECTING PERSECUTION
It has been asked, How comes it that for much of the
first and second centuries there is a remarkable silence
respecting these persecutions which we are persuaded
harassed the Christian congregations in the provinces as in the
great metropolis? The answer here is not difficult to find.
The pagan writers of these centuries held the Christian sect in deep contempt;[1] they would never think the punishments dealt out to a number of law-breakers and wild fanatics worthy of chronicling; the mere loss of life in that age, so accustomed to wholesale destruction of human beings, would not strike them as a notable incident in any year.
While as regards Christian records, the practice of celebrating the anniversary days of even famous martyrs and confessors only began in Rome far on in the third century.
But, as we shall see, although we possess no Christian records definitely telling us of any special persecution between the times of Nero and the later years of Domitian, the pages of the undoubtedly genuine Christian writings of very early date, from which we shall presently quote, were unmistakably all written under the shadow of a restless relentless hostility on the part of the Roman government towards the Christian sect. The followers of Jesus we see ever lived under the shadow of persecution.
Never safe for a single day was the life of one who believed in the Name; his life and the life of his dear ones were never for an instant secure: he and his family were at the mercy of every enemy, open and secret. Confiscation, degradation
- ↑ It is this which makes the vivid picture which the younger Pliny, in his Letter to Trajan, paints of Christian life and influence in a great province so valuable.
