When Nero,in a drunken fit,set fire to the greater part of his own capital,people remembered those Christian prophecies which had foretold the destruction of all the big cities.
In an outburst of fear,the Romans lost all sense of reality.
Jews and Christians were hunted down like rats and were thrown into jail.Torture made them confess the most incredible plots against the state.For weeks at a time the executioners and the wild animals were kept busy and it was upon one of these occasions that Paul and Peter both were hacked to death.
But as the Romans were to learn,steadfast martyrs are the best possible advertisement for a new creed.Thus far the Christian doctrines had found most of their adherents in the kitchen.Now the parlour began to take an interest.Before the end of the first century,many high officials and women of noble rank had been executed because they were suspected of Christian leanings and had been unwilling to show their loyalty to the Empire by offerings to the old gods.
Persecution caused resentment and the Christians,who in the beginning had been very meek and humble,began at last to take steps to defend themselves.When it was no longer safe to gather in the open air or in the dining-room of a private house,the church went underground.
Deserted stone quarries in the neighbourhood of Rome were hastily transformed into chapels and there the faithful came together once a week to listen to the sermons of some pious wandering minister,and to find comfort in repeating the stories told a hundred years before by the carpenter from Nazareth.
This made all Christians members of a secret society,something which they had never been before.
The Roman officials,for good and plentiful reasons,feared secret societies beyond all other things.In a country where eighty per cent of the people were slaves,it was not safe to allow surreptitious meetings which could not be controlled by the police sergeant.
Reports began to come in from the provinces about the spread of the Christian affliction.A few wise governors kept their heads and quietly waited until the people had regained their senses.Others allowed themselves to be bribed into silence by their Christian subjects.Still others arranged pogroms and tried to find favour in the eyes of the Emperor by the wholesale execution of men and women and children,who in any way could be connected with the suspicious “Galilean mystery.”
And everywhere and all the time the authorities met with the same response on the part of their victims.Invariably they denied all guilt and their magnificent behaviour on the scaffold made them so many friends that public executions were always followed by an increased number of candidates for the Christian brotherhood.
Indeed,when the persecutions came to an end,the small congregations had grown to such proportions that it became necessary to appoint certain officers whose business it was to represent the church before the law and to administer those funds which pious people were giving for charity and for the relief of the sick.
First a few of the older men,the so-called “Elders,”were asked to undertake the management of the daily affairs of the community.Next,for the sake of a more effectual cooperation,a number of churches in a given town or in a given district combined forces and appointed a Bishop or general overseer to direct their common policy.
These bishops,by the very nature of their office,were supposed to be the direct successors of the apostles.Naturally,as the church grew richer,their power increased.And of course,the bishop of a village in Judaea or Asia Minor had less influence than the bishop of a big city in Italy or France.
It was inevitable that the other bishops should come to regard their colleague in Rome with a certain amount of awe and respect.It was also inevitable that in Rome,the city which had been accustomed to rule the destinies of the world for almost five hundred years,there should be a larger number of men experienced in statecraft and in diplomacy.
And it was only logical during the days of Rome's decline,when there was no longer a chance for energetic young men to make a career in the army or in the civil service,that they should turn to the church to find an outlet for their ambitions and their need of enterprise.
For most unfortunately,the old Empire had fallen upon evil days.
Bad economic management had impoverished the small farmers who from the beginning of the republic had been the mainstay of the armies and who now flocked to the cities,clamouring for bread and amusements.
Disturbances in the heart of Asia had driven large hordes of barbarians westward and these were steadily encroaching upon territory which for generations had been in the possession of Rome.But the disorganisation in the provinces was as nothing compared to political conditions in the capital.One Emperor after another was first placed upon the throne and then killed within the walls of his palace by the foreign mercenaries who were the real masters of the Empire.
At last it was no longer considered safe for the Roman Emperors to reside in their own city.The successors of Caesar left the shores of the Tiber and went to live elsewhere.When that happened,the bishops of Rome automatically became the most influential men of their community and assumed full leadership.They represented the only well organised power that was left and the Emperors,removed from their old capital,needed their support to retain a semblance of prestige in the Italian peninsula.
They were willing to make a bid for it.
In the year 313,a formal edict of tolerance made an end to all further persecution.A century later Rome was acknowledged as the spiritual capital of east and west and north and south.
The Church stood triumphant.
And ever since,above the noise of battle and strife,have been heard the words of the prophet of Nazareth,asking those who loved him to cure the ills of this world by that perfect love which understands all things.
