14. But how shall we assemble together? say you; how shall we observe the ordinances of the Lord? To be sure, just as the apostles also did, who were protected by faith, not by money; which faith, if it can remove a mountain, can much more remove a soldier. Be your safeguard wisdom, not a bribe. For you will not have at once complete security from the people also, should you buy off the interference of the soldiers. Therefore all you need for your protection is to have both faith and wisdom: if you do not make use of these, you may lose even the deliverance which you have purchased for yourself; while, if you do employ them, you can have no need of any ransoming. Lastly, if you cannot assemble by day, you have the night, the light of Christ luminous against its darkness. You cannot run about among them one after another. Be content with a church of threes. It is better that you sometimes should not see your crowds, than subject yourselves (to a tribute bondage). Keep pure for Christ His betrothed virgin; let no one make gain of her. These things, my brother, seem to you perhaps harsh and not to be endured; but recall that God has said, "He who receives it, let him receive it," [1190] that is, let him who does not receive it go his way. He who fears to suffer, cannot belong to Him who suffered. But the man who does not fear to suffer, he will be perfect in love--in the love, it is meant, of God; "for perfect love casteth out fear." [1191] "And therefore many are called, but few chosen." [1192] It is not asked who is ready to follow the broad way, but who the narrow. And therefore the Comforter is requisite, who guides into all truth, and animates to all endurance. And they who have received Him will neither stoop to flee from persecution nor to buy it off, for they have the Lord Himself, One who will stand by us to aid us in suffering, as well as to be our mouth when we are put to the question.
[1133] [Written, say, circa a.d. 208.]
[1134] Matt. iii. 12.
[1135] Gen. xxviii. 12.
[1136] 2 Cor. xii. 9.
[1137] 1 Cor. i. 27, 28.
[1138] Job i. 12.
[1139] Luke xxii. 31, 32.
[1140] Matt. vi. 13.
[1141] Mark v. 11.
[1142] 1 Sam. xvi. 14.
[1143] 2 Cor. xii. 7.
[1144] 2 Tim. i. 15; see 1 Tim. i. 20.
[1145] Isa. xlv. 7.
[1146] Deut. xxxii. 39.
[1147] Zech. xiii. 9.
[1148] Matt. x. 29.
[1149] Matt. x. 23.
[1150] Matt. x. 5.
[1151] Matt. x. 17.
[1152] Matt. x. 23.
[1153] Acts xiii. 46.
[1154] Ps. xix. 4.
[1155] Acts xxi. 13.
[1156] Matt. x. 32, 33.
[1157] Mark viii. 38; Luke ix. 26.
[1158] Matt. v. 11.
[1159] Matt. x. 22.
[1160] Matt. x. 28.
[1161] Matt. x. 37, 38.
[1162] Rev. xxi. 8.
[1163] Matt. xxvi. 38.
[1164] Matt. xxvi. 41.
[1165] Matt. xxvi. 39.
[1166] 1 Thess. v. 14.
[1167] Eph. iv. 27.
[1168] Eph. v. 16.
[1169] 1 Thess. v. 5.
[1170] 1 Cor. xv. 58.
[1171] Eph. vi. 16.
[1172] 1 John iii. 16.
[1173] 1 John iv. 18.
[1174] Æneid, xii. 646.
[1175] Ex. xxxii. 32.
[1176] John x. 12.
[1177] Luke viii. 18.
[1178] Zech. xiii. 7.
[1179] Rom. viii. 32; Gal. iii. 13.
[1180] Isa. liii. 7.
[1181] Ps. xxiv. 7.
[1182] Acts viii. 20.
[1183] Matt. v. 3.
[1184] Acts iv. 34, 35.
[1185] Stephanas is perhaps intended.--Tr.
[1186] Acts xxiv. 26.
[1187] Matt. xxii. 21.
[1188] Matt. v. 42.
[1189] Luke xvi. 9.
[1190] Matt. xix. 12.
[1191] 1 John iv. 18.
[1192] Matt. xxii. 14.
Elucidations.
------------------------
I.
(Persecutions threaten, p. 116.)
We have reserved this heroic tract to close our series of the ascetic essays of our author because it places even his sophistical enthusiasm in a light which shows much to admire. Strange that this defiant hero should have died (as we may infer) in his bed, and in extreme old age. Great man, how much, alike for weal and woe, the ages have been taught by thee!
This is the place for a tabular view of the ten persecutions of the Ante-Nicene Church. They are commonly enumerated as follows: [1193] --
1. Under Nero----a.d. 64.
2. Under Trajan----a.d. 95.
3. Under Trajan----a.d. 107.
4. Under Hadrian (a.d. 118 and)----a.d. 134.
5. Under Aurelius (a.d. 177) and Severus----a.d. 202.
6. Under Maximin----a.d. 235.
7. Under Decius----a.d. 250.
8. Under Valerian----a.d. 254.
9. Under Aurelian----a.d. 270.
10. Under Diocletian (a.d. 284 and)----a.d. 303.
Periods of Comparative Rest.
1. Under Antoninus Pius----a.d. 151.
2. Under Commodus----a.d. 185.
3. Under Alexander Severus----a.d. 223.
4. Under Philip----a.d. 248.
5. Under Diocletian----a.d. 284 till a.d. 303.
In thus chastising and sifting his Church in the years of her gradual growth "from the smallest of all seeds," we see illustrations of the Lord's Epistles to the seven churches of the Apocalypse. Who can doubt that Tertullian's writings prepared the North-African Church for the Decian furnace, and all believers for the "seven times hotter" fires of Diocletian?
II.
(To the fearful, p. 120.)
In the Patientia [1194] Tertullian reflects the views of Catholics, and seems to allow those "persecuted in one city to flee to another." So also in the Ad Uxorem, [1195] as instanced by Kaye. [1196] In the Fuga we have the enthusiast, but not as Gibbon will have it, [1197] the most wild and fanatical of declaimers. On the whole subject we again refer our readers to the solid and sober comments of Kaye on the martyrdoms and persecutions of the early faithful, and on the patristic views of the same.
III.
(Enormous gains from numbers, p. 124.)
Christians were now counted by millions. The following tabular view of the Christian population of the world from the beginning has been attributed to Sharon Turner. I do not find it in any of his works with which I am familiar. The nineteenth century is certainly credited too low, according to the modern computists; but I insert it merely for the centuries we are now considering.
Growth of the Church in Numbers.
1. First century----500,000
2. Second century----2,000,000
3. Third century----5,000,000
4. Fourth century----10,000,000
5. Fifth century----15,000,000
6. Sixth century----20,000,000
7. Seventh century----24,000,000
8. Eighth century----30,000,000
9. Ninth century----40,000,000
10. Tenth century----50,000,000
11. Eleventh century----70,000,000
12. Twelfth century----80,000,000
13. Thirteenth century----75,000,000
14. Fourteenth century----80,000,000
15. Fifteenth century----100,000,000
16. Sixteenth century----125,000,000
17. Seventeenth century----155,000,000
18. Eighteenth century----200,000,000
19. Nineteenth century----400,000,000
[1193] See what Gibbon can say to minimize the matter (in cap. xvi. 4, vol. ii. p. 45, New York).
[1194] Cap. xiii.
[1195] I. cap. iii.
[1196] pp. 46, 138.
[1197] In his disgraceful chap. xvi.
X.
Appendix. [1198]
[Translated by the Rev. S. Thelwall.]
------------------------
1. A Strain of Jonah the Prophet.
After the living, aye--enduring death
Of Sodom and Gomorrah; after fires
Penal, attested by time-frosted plains
Of ashes; after fruitless apple-growths,
5 Born but to feed the eye; after the death
Of sea and brine, both in like fate involved;
While whatsoe'er is human still retains
In change corporeal its penal badge: [1199]
A city--Nineveh--by stepping o'er
10 The path of justice and of equity,
On her own head had well-nigh shaken down
More fires of rain supernal. For what dread [1200]
Dwells in a mind subverted? Commonly
Tokens of penal visitations prove
15 All vain where error holds possession. Still,
Kindly and patient of our waywardness,
And slow to punish, the Almighty Lord
Will launch no shaft of wrath, unless He first
Admonish and knock oft at hardened hearts,
20 Rousing with mind august presaging seers.
For to the merits of the Ninevites
The Lord had bidden Jonah to foretell
Destruction; but he, conscious that He spare;
The subject, and remits to suppliants
25 The dues of penalty, and is to good
Ever inclinable, was loth to face
That errand; lest he sing his seerly strain
In vain, and peaceful issue of his threats
Ensue. His counsel presently is flight:
30 (If, howsoe'er, there is at all the power
God to avoid, and shun the Lord's right hand
'Neath whom the whole orb trembles and is held
In check: but is there reason in the act
Which in [1201] his saintly heart the prophet dares?)
35 On the beach-lip, over against the shores
Of the Cilicians, is a city poised, [1202]
Far-famed for trusty port--Joppa her name.
Thence therefore Jonah speeding in a barque
Seeks Tarsus, [1203] through the signal providence
40 Of the same God; [1204] nor marvel is't, I ween,
If, fleeing from the Lord upon the lands,
He found Him in the waves. For suddenly
A little cloud had stained the lower air
With fleecy wrack sulphureous, itself [1205]
45 By the wind's seed excited: by degrees,
Bearing a brood globose, it with the sun
Cohered, and with a train caliginous
Shut in the cheated day. The main becomes
The mirror of the sky; the waves are dyed so
50 With black encirclement; the upper air
Down rushes into darkness, and the sea
Uprises; nought of middle space is left;
While the clouds touch the waves, and the waves all
Are mingled by the bluster of the winds
55 In whirling eddy. 'Gainst the renegade,
'Gainst Jonah, diverse frenzy joined to rave,
While one sole barque did all the struggle breed
'Twixt sky and surge. From this side and from that
Pounded she reels; 'neath each wave-breaking blow
60 The forest of her tackling trembles all;
As, underneath, her spinal length of keel,
Staggered by shock on shock, all palpitates;
And, from on high, her labouring mass of yard
Creaks shuddering; and the tree-like mast itself
65 Bends to the gale, misdoubting to be riven.
Meantime the rising [1206] clamour of the crew
Tries every chance for barque's and dear life's sake:
To pass from hand to hand [1207] the tardy coils
To tighten the girth's noose: straitly to bind
70 The tiller's struggles; or, with breast opposed,
T' impel reluctant curves. Part, turn by turn,
With foremost haste outbale the reeking well
Of inward sea. The wares and cargo all
They then cast headlong, and with losses seek
75 Their perils to subdue. At every crash
Of the wild deep rise piteous cries; and out
They stretch their hands to majesties of gods,
Which gods are none; whom might of sea and sky
Fears not, nor yet the less from off their poops
80 With angry eddy sweeping sinks them down.
Unconscious of all this, the guilty one
'Neath the poop's hollow arch was making sleep
Re-echo stertorous with nostril wide
Inflated: whom, so soon as he who guides
85 The functions of the wave-dividing prow
Saw him sleep-bound in placid peace, and proud
In his repose, he, standing o'er him, shook,
And said, "Why sing'st, with vocal nostril, dreams,
In such a crisis? In so wild a whirl,
90 Why keep'st thou only harbour? Lo! the wave
Whelms us, and our one hope is in the gods.
Thou also, whosoever is thy god,
Make vows, and, pouring prayers on bended knee,
Win o'er thy country's Sovran!"
Then they vote
95 To learn by lot who is the culprit, who
The cause of storm; nor does the lot belie
Jonah: whom then they ask, and ask again,
"Who? whence? who in the world? from what abode,
What people, hail'st thou?" He avows himself
100 A servant, and an over-timid one,
Of God, who raised aloft the sky, who based
The earth, who corporally fused the whole:
A renegade from Him he owns himself,
And tells the reason. Rigid turned they all
105 With dread. "What grudge, then, ow'st thou us? What now
Will follow? By what deed shall we appease
The main?" For more and far more swelling grew
The savage surges. Then the seer begins
Words prompted by the Spirit of the Lord: [1208]
110 "Lo! I your tempest am; I am the sum
Of the world's [1209] madness: 'tis in me," he says,
"That the sea rises, and the upper air
Down rushes; land in me is far, death near,
And hope in God is none! Come, headlong hurl
115 Your cause of bane: lighten your ship, and cast
This single mighty burden to the main,
A willing prey!" But they--all vainly!--strive
Homeward to turn their course; for helm refused
To suffer turning, and the yard's stiff poise
120 Willed not to change. At last unto the Lord
They cry: "For one soul's sake give us not o'er
Unto death's maw, nor let us be besprent
With righteous blood, if thus Thine own right hand
Leadeth." And from the eddy's depth a whale
125 Outrising on the spot, scaly with shells, [1210]
Unravelling his body's train, 'gan urge
More near the waves, shocking the gleaming brine,
Seizing--at God's command--the prey; which, rolled
From the poop's summit prone, with slimy jaws
130 He sucked; and into his long belly sped
The living feast; and swallowed, with the man,
The rage of sky and main. The billowy waste