Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
likelihood that, if God were its author, he would leave it to be trodden
under foot and so nearly annihilated by the very people to whom he was
sending it; these and other similar things usually urged against the
Christians, and now for the first time, it is probable, by most of the
Romans present, heard, refuted, and explained, did Probus set forth,
both with brevity and force; making nothing tedious by reason of a
frivolous minuteness, nor yet omitting a single topic or argument, which
it was due to the cause he defended, to bring before the minds of that
august assembly. He then ended his appeal in the following manner:
'And now, great Emperor, must you have seen, in what I have already
said, what the nature and character of this religion is; for in denying
and disproving the charges that have been brought against it, I have, in
most particulars, alleged and explained some opposite truth or doctrine,
by which it is justly characterized. But that you may be informed the
more exactly for what it is you are about to persecute and destroy us,
and for what it is that we cheerfully undergo torture and death sooner
than surrender or deny it, listen yet a moment longer. You have heard
that we are named after Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee, who, in the
reign of Tiberius, was born in Judea, and there lived and taught, a
prophet and messenger of God, till he was publicly crucified by his
bitter enemies the Jews. We do not doubt, nay, we all steadfastly
believe, that this Jesus was the Son of the Most High God, by reason of
his wonderful endowments and his delegated office as the long-looked-for
Messiah of the Jews. As the evidences of his great office and of his
divine origin, he performed those miracles that filled with astonishment
the whole Jewish nation, and strangers from all parts of the world; and
so wrought even upon the mind of your great predecessor, the Emperor
Tiberius, that he would fain receive him into the number of the gods of
Rome. And why, O Emperor, was this great personage sent forth into the
world, encircled by the rays of divine power and wisdom and goodness, an
emanation of the self-existent and infinite God? And why do we so honor
him, and cleave to him, that we are ready to offer our lives in
sacrifice, while we go forth as preachers of his faith, making him known
to all nations as the universal Saviour and Redeemer? This Jesus came
into the world, and lived and taught; was preceded by so long a
preparation of prophetic annunciation, and accompanied by so sublime
demonstrations of almighty power, to this end, and to this end only,
that he might save us from our sins, and from those penal consequences
in this world and in worlds to come, which are bound to them by the
stern decrees of fate. Yes, Aurelian, Jesus came only that he might
deliver mankind from the thraldom of every kind of wickedness, and raise
them to a higher condition of virtue and happiness. He was a great moral
and religious teacher and reformer, endowed with the wisdom and power of
the supreme God. He himself toiled only in Judea; but he came a
benefactor of Rome too--of Rome as well as of Judea. He came to purge it
of its pollutions; to check in their growth those customs and vices
which seem destined, reaching their natural height and size, to overlay
and bury in final ruin the city and the empire; he came to make us
citizens of Heaven through the virtues which his doctrine should build
up in the soul, and so citizens of Rome more worthy of that name than
any who ever went before. He came to heal, to mend, to reform the
state; not to set up a kingdom in hostility to this, but in unison with
it; an inward, invisible kingdom in every man's heart, which should be
as the soul of the other.
'It was to reform the morals of the state, to save it from itself, that
you, Aurelian, in the first years of your reign, applied those energies
that have raised the empire to more than its ancient glory. You aimed to
infuse a love of justice and of peace, to abate the extravagances of the
times, to stem the tide of corruption that seemed about to bear down
upon its foul streams the empire itself, tossing upon its surface a wide
sea of ruin. It was a great work--too great for man. It needed a divine
strength and a more than human wisdom. These were not yours; and it is
no wonder that the work did not go on to its completion. Jesus is a
reformer; of Rome and of the world also. The world is his theatre of
action; but with him there is leagued the arm and the power of the
Supreme God; and the work which he attempts shall succeed. It cannot but
succeed. It is not so much he, Jesus of Nazareth, who has come forth
upon this great errand of mercy and love to mankind, as God himself in
and through him. It is the Great God of the Universe, who, by Jesus
Christ as his agent and messenger, comes to you, and would reform and
redeem your empire, and out of that which is transitory, and by its
inherent vice threatened with decay and death, make a city and an empire
which, through the energy of its virtues, shall truly be eternal. Can
you not, O Emperor, supposing the claims of this religion to a divine
origin to be just, view it with respect? Nay, could you not greet its
approach to your capital with pleasure and gratitude, seeing its aim is
nothing else than this, to purify, purge, and reform the state, to heal
its wounds, cleanse its putrifying members, and infuse the element of a
new and healthier life? Methinks a true patriot and lover of Rome must
rejoice when any power approaches and offers to apply those remedies
that may, with remotest probability only, bid fair to cure the diseases
of which her body is sick, nigh unto death.
'Such, Aurelian, was and is the aim of Jesus, in the religion which he
brought. And of us, who are his ministers, his messengers--who go forth
bearing these glad tidings of deliverance from sin and corruption, and
of union with God--our work is the same with his. We but repeat the
lessons which he gave. Are we, in so doing, enemies of Rome? Are we not
rather her truest friends? By making men good, just, kind, and honest,
are we not at the same time making them the best citizens? Are there in
Rome better citizens than the Christians?
'You will now perhaps, Aurelian, desire to be told by what instruments
Christianity hopes to work such changes. It is simply, O Emperor, by the
power of truth! The religion which we preach uses not force. Were the
arm of Aurelian at this moment the arm of Probus, he could do no more
than he now does with one, which, as the world deems, is in the
comparison powerless as an infant's. In all that pertains to the soul,
and its growth and purification, there must be utmost freedom. The soul
must suffer no constraint. There must be no force laid upon it, but the
force of reason and the appeal of divine truth. All that we ask or want
in Rome is the liberty of speech--the free allowance to offer to men
the truth in Christ, and persuade them to consider it. With that we will
engage to reform and save the whole world. We want not to meddle with
affairs of state, nor with the citizen's relations to the state; we have
naught to do with the city, or its laws, or government, beyond what was
just now stated. We desire but the privilege to worship God according to
our consciences, and labor for the moral welfare of all who will hear
our words.
'And if you would know what the truth is we impart, and by which we
would save the souls of men, and reform the empire and the world, be it
known to you that we preach Jesus Christ and him crucified, whom God
raised up and sent into the world to save it by his doctrine and life,
and whom--being by the Jews hung upon a cross--God raised again from the
dead. We preach him as the Son of God with power, by whom God has been
revealed to mankind in his true nature and perfections, and through
whom, he and he only is to be worshipped. In the place of Jupiter, we
bring you a revelation of the God and Father of Christ Jesus our
Lord--creator of the universe, who will call all men into judgment at
last, rewarding or punishing according to what they have done. Through
Jesus, we preach also a resurrection from the dead. We show, by
arguments which cannot be refuted, that this Jesus, when he had been
crucified and slain, and had lain three days in the tomb, was called
again to life, and taken up to Heaven, as an example of what should
afterwards happen to all his followers. Through him has immortality been
plainly brought to light and proved, and this transporting truth we
declare wherever we go. Through Jesus, we preach also repentance; we
declare to men their wickedness; we show them what and how great it is;
and exhort them to repentance, as what can alone save them from the
wrath to come.
'This, O Emperor, is the great work which we, as apostles of Jesus, have
to do, to convince the world how vile it is; how surely their
wickedness, unrepented of, will work their misery and their ruin, and so
lead them away from it, and up the safe and pleasant heights of
Christian virtue. We find Rome sunk in sensuality and sin; nor only
that, but ignorant of its own guilt, dead to the wickedness into which
it has fallen, and denying any obligations to a different or better
life. Such do we find, indeed, not Rome only, but the world itself, dead
in trespasses and sin. We would rouse it from this sleep of death. We
desire first of all, to waken in the souls of men a perception of the
guilt of sin! a feeling of the wide departure of their lives from the
just demands of the being who made them. The prospect of immortality
were nothing without this. Longer life were but a greater evil were we
not made alive to sin and righteousness. Life on earth, Aurelian, is not
the best thing, but virtuous life: so life without end is not the best
thing, but life without fault or sin. But to the necessity of such a
life men are now insensible and dead. They love the prospect of an
immortal existence, but not of that purity without which immortality
were no blessing. But it is this moral regeneration--this waking up of
men dead in sin, to the life of righteousness, which is the great aim of
Christianity. Repentance! was the first word of its founder when he
began preaching in Judea; it is the first word of his followers wherever
they go, and should be the last. This, O Aurelian, in few words, is the
gospel of Jesus--"Repent and live forever!"
'In the service of this gospel, and therefore of you and the world, we
are content to labor while we live, to suffer injury and reproach, and
if need be, and they to whom we go will not understand us, lay down our
lives. Almost three hundred years has it appealed to mankind; and though
not with the success that should have followed upon the labor of those
who have toiled for the salvation of men, yet has it not been rejected
everywhere, nor has the labor been in vain. The fruit that has come of
the seed sown is great and abundant. In every corner of the earth are
there now those who name the name of Christ. And in every place are
there many more, than meet the eye, who read our gospels, believe in
them, and rejoice in the virtue and the hope which have taken root in
their souls. Here in Rome, O Aurelian, are there multitudes of
believers, whom the ear hears not, nor the eye sees, hidden away in the
security of this sea of roofs, whom the messengers of your power never
could discover. Destroy us, you may; sweep from the face of Rome every
individual whom the most diligent search can find, from the gray-haired
man of fourscore to the infant that can just lisp the name of Jesus, and
you have not destroyed the Christians; the Christian church still
stands--not unharmed, but founded as before upon a rock, against which