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MARTYK
MAKTYK
unless we hold (with R. B. Raekham, Acts of the Apustle.t, I'Ml) that he pursued Hellenists only, the list of sull'erers must have been very large. Imprisonment, beating, and even death, the Romans presumably conniving, were the penalties incurred (Ac 22^- '»• '»). On this occasion the leaders of the Church seem to have escaped, but the next onslaught aliected them specially (Ac 12). James the son of Zebedee fell, and Peter was cast into i)rison. These attacks left a lasting impres- sion on the Church (cf. 1 Th 2''').
Still heavier was the toll of martyrs exacted by the Roman persecutions of the 1st century. Tacitus {Ann. XV. 44) speaks of a invltitudo ingens of victims in the Neronian outbreak, and to this answers the ttoXi) irX^ffos of Clem. Rom. (ad Cor. vi.). In Rev 13' testimony is borne to the thoroughness with which the whole of the Empire was made to feel the effects of this policy. The same impression is conveyed by 1 P 5'"". The adversary's rage is like the fury of a lion ; all over the Roman world Christians are united in a com- munity of suffering. It is noteworthy that both Jewish and Gentile persecutors seem to have found a special object of attack in the Christian prophets, who were no doubt brought into promi- nence by their preaching of the gospel (cf. 1 Th 2", Rev 16' 18-*). The horrors inflicted by the Roman torturers may be gathered from the two passages of Tacitus and Clement mentioned above. The victims were crucified, or, by a diabolical refine- ment of cruelty, clad in the skins of beasts to serve as the quarry of dogs. At nightfall they were smeared with pitch to stand as living torches in the gardens of Nero. For women there were brutalities more shameful than death.
i. The historic martyrs. — Among those who were done to death in the Jewish persecutions mentioned in the Acts the names of two only are {)reserved — Stephen, and James the son of Zebedee. Stephen was nominally charged with blasphemy, but the proceedings were no trial in any legal sense, and, if the Sanhedrin were ever called to account for them, they doubtless pleaded that a sudden and uncontrollable tumult had occurred. Of the martyrdom of James the account is in Ac 12- and in Eusebius, HE ii. 9, quoting Clement of Alexandria. James was beheaded, and his bearing so impressed his accuser that it converted him, and he suffered with the apostle. This must have been before A.D. 44, as in that year Herod Agrippa died. Attempts have recently been made (e.g. by W. Bousset, Die Offenharung Johanni^, 1896, pp. 47-8) to establish the allegation of Philip of Side that Papias had said that John the Apostle was slain with his brother. But if this were so, the silence of Ac 12^ is incomprehensible. We have no reason to suppose that John died anything but a natural death. The stories of his escape from the boiling cauldron before the Latin Gate, and of his drinking poison without harm, come from Gnostic Acta johannis of the 2nd century. Some years after the passion of the first James, another James, ' the Lord's brother,' was murdered (? A.D. 61). Ananus, the high priest, in the interval between the death of Festus and the arrival of Albinus, caused him to be stoned. The dramatic account of his end given by Hegesippus is pre- served in Eusebius, HE ii. 23. A sTiorter and more authentic record may be found in Joseplius, Ant. XX. ix. 1 (see J. B. Mayor, Ep. of iSt. James', 1910, p. xxxix).
In Rome the first shadow of the Neronian perse- cution fell upon Pomponia Grsecina. The evi- dence of the Catacombs has made it almost cer- tain that the ' foreign superstition ' with which she was charged (Tac. Ann. xiii. 32) was Christianity (cf. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, I. i. 30). Her
tri.al resulted in her acquittal (A.D. 57). Seven years later Rome was burnt, and Nero turned the popular rage against the Christians. His success cost the Church on earth the lives not only of a great host of unknown saints but also of St. Peter and St. Paul. Lightfoot jioints out (on Clem. Rom. ad Cor. v.) that the NT rai.ses the expecta- tion that these two would be martyrs. In Jn 21" there is what is virtually a description of St. Peter's death, and in 2 Ti 4""- St. Paul writes as one who knew that his end was near. That they both suffered in Rome is a constant tradition. Clement (loc. cit.) couples them together as 'athletes' who 'struggled to the death,' and were familiar to Roman believers. Ignatius (ad Rom. iv.) implies that both had been teachers of authority in Rome. Eusebius (HE ii. 25) collects testimonies to the same effect. He cites Dionysius of Corinth as asserting that both apostles suffered about the same time in Rome, and adds, from the Roman G.aius, a minute description of their tombs. Ter- tullian (Scorp. 15, de Prwscr. 36) atfirms that St. Peter was crucitied, and Origen (ap. Euseb. HE iii. 1) says that he was, at his own request, placed on the cross head downwards. The ' Domine, quo vadis?' story is preserved in pseudo-Ambrose, Sermo contra Auxentium. St. Peter's death may be dated in the early days of the Neronian perse- cution (A.D. 64). His Epistle implies an imminent onslaught, and the tradition which puts his grave in the Vatican suggests that he was among the victims butchered there after the great fire. Eusebius (HE iii. 30) repeats the story of Clem. Alex, that the Apostle before his own death saw his wife led away to execution, and comforted her in a manner typical of Christian martyrs. He ' rejoiced because she had been called and was going home.' Tertullian and Origen, in the passages to which allusion is made above, name Rome as the scene of St. Paul's martyrdom, and Tertullian's expression is to the etl'ect that he was beheaded. Jerome (de Vir. Illustr. v.) alleges that the two apostles died on the same day. This, though supported by the commemoration of both on 29th June, is in itself improbable and the tradi- tion varies (cf. L. Duchesne, Lib. Pont., 1886-92, i. 119).