find that, in the next generation, his son Titus Flavius Clemens died a Christian martyr, and that his daughter Plautilla was also among the faithful. This Clemens it was whose son and heir almost became the first Christian Emperor. He had married his cousin Flavia Domitilla, the granddaughter of Vespasian, a niece of Domitian, and she like himself was a Christian. The sons of this pair were publicly designated by Domitian, after the death of his own infant son, as the heirs whom he intended should succeed to his throne. The hopes of the Christian community in Rome must have run high, but, unfortunately, the temper of the tyrant soon changed. Clemens was put to death, accused, we learn from Dion Cassius, of "atheism". Domitilla was exiled to Ponza, and the two little boys not improbably shared their father's fate, for they disappear from history, and we have no clue as to what became of them. There remains, however, to this day a splendid memorial and proof that this elder branch of the Flavii really were converted to Christianity, in the family sepulchral chamber at the entrance to the cemetery of Domitilla, containing some of the most ancient Christian tombs of Rome, on one of which may still be read the Greek epitaphs of one Flavius Sabinus and of his half-sister Titiana.

Growth of the Church.

There is no need to carry the investigation further. The facts we have given and the names we have quoted are enough to prove that it was not from one class only or from one single rank of society that Christianity drew its earliest adherents. Every class, every profession, every rank was represented among them. Nor is it the least of the claims which the Christian religion can put forward to prove its Divine

origin that it should so instantly and completely have occupied the entire ground, and shown itself so readily adaptable to the needs and yearnings of every race and every mind. Before even the first century had drawn to a close, the prophecy of our Lord had been abundantly fulfilled, and the little grain of mustard, smaller than all the seeds of the earth, had already grown up and become a great tree, the branches of which were overshadowing all the peoples of the world. Before the age of the persecutions was over, half the Roman world had become Christian. One would be amazed at the boldness of Valerian or Galerius in imagining that it was possible to crush such a body out of existence, were it not that we have in England and the North of Europe such vivid instances before us of what long-continued persecution was able to do in the way of stamping out Catholicism. By the end of the third century whole cities had become Christian. People are astonished," wrote Porphyry at this time, "that towns where neither Esculapius nor any other god has now access should be stricken by a plague! But ever since Jesus has been worshipped we have been deprived of all the benefits that the gods can give us. "1 At Edessa, Eusebius tells us, that "Christ only was adored," and he tells us also of another town in Phrygia, of which, unfortunately, the name has not come down to us, where, since all the inhabitants to a man were Christians, all were shut up in the great church which yet stood in spite of the edicts, and, the building being set on fire, the whole population perished in the flames, calling unceasingly on the name of the Saviour.

It was ever in the towns that the new religion spread first. The slow minds of villagers respond always but tardily to changes in religion, and the very name of

1 In Theodoret, Migne, "P.G.," lxxxiii. 1152.

pagan remains to witness that this was the case. But by the end of the third century villagers also had become Christians in many places. In Bithynia, at the very beginning of the second century, Pliny tells how he was struck by the fact that villagers were among the number of Christian believers. Egypt was especially the home of rural Christianity, St. Dionysius of Alexandria, in a letter which Eusebius has preserved for us, tells us how, when once he had been taken prisoner, the news was carried to some feasters at a village wedding, whereupon all left their feasting, ran to the village where the bishop was held in captivity, fought the soldiers and put them to flight, and then effected the bishop's rescue. And when he was unwilling to make use of his freedom thus irregularly obtained, for fear of bringing evil upon his rescuers, they took him by his feet and hands, put him on a donkey, and carried him back to their own village.1 The story brings back vividly enough some of the conditions of life during penal times in Upper Egypt, but it shows also how strong Christianity must have become if its adherents could dare to act in this way. Whatever they may have been in earlier days it is clear that by the end of the third century at least Christians had ceased to be the latebrosa et lucifugax natio, a people loving darkness and shunning the light, which pagans had formerly been accustomed to call them. The years of successful repression were over already, and a new courage had taken the place of former timidity.

1 Eus., "H.E.," vi. 40.

CHAPTER III.

The Blood of the Martyrs.

IN the earliest years of Christianity the Roman power was not hostile to the new religion. In itself the Roman mind was one of large tolerance; they had no desire to hinder any man from worshipping as he would, if only his worship seemed in their eyes to involve no danger to the religion of the State or to the continued political well-being of the Roman Empire. At the time when the Apostles arrived in the capital Rome was already full of every kind of Eastern superstition, and had welcomed all alike to its arms. Roman religion at that time cared little for dogma, nor was it anxious to investigate the credentials of any faith that offered itself for acceptance. It had come to be a strange medley made up of all kinds of elements; Eastern as well as Western; Asiatic and African no less than European. Already the better and keener minds of paganism were heartily tired of it, almost openly mocking at its claims to truth. Yet one and all were filled with the conviction that its maintenance was intimately bound up with the safety of the Empire; and that, therefore, nothing that threatened it, or came into real competition with its claims, should be allowed even a chance of life.

The follower of Eastern superstitions in general seemed to the Roman in no way an enemy to the State

religion. He was as ready to accept and to reverence the divinities of Rome as Rome was to reverence his own. For such there was no thought of persecution, for they constituted no kind of danger. On the contrary, these cults became popular among the Roman aristocracy, and the religions of Isis or of Mithra had open adherents highly placed in Roman society.

One religion alone stood out as obviously distinct and irreconcilable. It was the religion of the Hebrews, dispersed already over the whole world, although retaining their national life to some extent in Jerusalem. Monotheism is necessarily exclusive, and can make no acknowledgment of any divinity but its own. We should have expected, therefore, that Judaism would have been suppressed on this ground, that it ignored and despised the State religion of the Empire, Two considerations saved it from this fate. The first was its national character, for Rome was ever kindly disposed to the religions of the peoples she had conquered. The other was the severity of the demands that it made upon those who embraced it; demands which were so bound up with its national character that they did away with all possible danger which might otherwise have arisen from tolerating it. Not many Romans after all were likely to become Jews, while to do so involved circumcision and the keeping of the Mosaic law.

For these reasons Judaism was invariably a religio licita under the Emperors. Rome felt she had nothing to fear from it. Far from persecuting the Jews or trying to stamp out their religion, Augustus had loaded the Temple with gifts, and after 71, when Judaism had ceased to possess a national centre at all, but existed only as a matter of religion and of race, emperor after emperor dispensed in favour of the synagogue the general laws which forbade Roman