does not imply the introduction of any new religious policy. The policy applied to the oriental cults was applied to the Christians. The sect was reputed to be shockingly immoral and there were many reasons why they were dangerous to the good order and security of the state.

2

3

The rumors concerning their immorality were due in part to the fact that they held secret meetings in private houses under cover of darkness,' where they were believed to give free license to their impious lusts, to revel in the practice of incest, and even to feed upon the blood of their own infant children. The taunts and accusations hurled at them from all sides not only give us an insight into the attitude of the populace, but show also that they were regarded as dangerous to the peace and good order of the state. For example, they were reproached for worshiping the cross, the sun, and the head of an ass,* and for bearing the name of one who had been crucified by Pontius Pilate." Their belief was a new and mischievous superstition, for the sake of which they were guilty of an inflexible obstinacy. They were charged with being impious, irreligious, atheists,10 guilty of sacrilege 11 and of treason (majestas),

1 Min. Felix, Oct., 9, 10.

6

2 Tert., Apol., 2, 4, 7, 8, 9; Ad. Nat., i, 2, 15, 16; Justin, Apology, i, 26; Athenagoras, Libellus pro Christianis, ch. 3, ch. 16; Min. Felix, Oct., 9, 30, 31.

'Vide Callewaert, "La Méthode dans la recherche de la base juridique des premières persécutions," in Rev. d'hist. eccl., 1911, vol. xii, pp. 7 et seq.

Tert., Apol., 16; Ad Nat., i, 11, 12, 14; Min. Felix, Oct., 9.

5 Tert., Apol., 3; Ad Nat., i, 4; Min. Felix, Oct., 9.

• Suetonius, Nero, 16.

7 Pliny, Epistulae ad Trajanum (ed. Kukula, Leipzig, 1912), 96.

8 Min. Felix, Oct., 9.

9 Tert., Apol., 24.

10 Justin Martyr, Apol., i, 6; Athenagoras, Libellus pro Christianis, 4; Clement, Stromata, vii, 1, 4; Vide Mommsen, Röm. Straf., p. 575, note 2. 11 Tert., Ad Scapulam, i; Apol., 10.

3

imperial1 and divine,2 and with being public enemies who refused to offer sacrifices to the emperor. In a word, the Christians were held to be guilty of every crime, to be the enemies of the gods, of the emperors, of the laws, of good morals, and even of nature."

в

Two facts, however, must be emphasized. In the first place, and this is extremely important, most of these accusations and taunts refer to the second or third century. In the second place, they were for the most part the current accusations of the populace. As Callewaert expresses it, these beliefs were the cause of the cries of death and popular tumults; they stimulated the zeal or excited the animosity of the magistrates. They might be the motive invoked to excuse or to justify the measures taken against the Christians, but not for a moment should it be supposed that they were the specific charges made in the indictments of the Christians.

7

This question of the specific charge upon which the Christians were formally indicted, tried, and punished has been much disputed and presents many difficulties. The appearance in 1890 of Mommsen's epoch-making article on Crimes of Religion in Roman Law has produced vol

1 Tert., Ad Scap., i; Apol., 4, 28, 29, 30, 31; Ad Nat., i, 17; Cf., Athenagoras, Libellus pro Christianis, i.

2 Tert., Apol., 4, 10, 24, 27.

8 Tert., Apol., 2, 10, 24, 35, 37; Ad Nat., i, 17; Lactantius De mortibus persecutorum, II.

4 Vide Rev. d'hist. eccl., vol. xii, 1911, loc. cit., p. 6.

5 Tert., Apol., 2; Ad Nat., 2. Cf., Justin, Apology, i, 3; Min. Felix, Octavius, 28.

• Rev. d'hist. eccl., 1911, vol. xii, loc. cit., pp. 7 et seq.

7 Tert., Apol., 35, 37; Eusebius, Church History, v, I.

8 Tert., Apol., 49, 50; Melito in Eusebius, op. cit., iv, 26; Rescript of Hadrian in Eusebius, op. cit., iv, 9; Cf., Martyrdom of Polycarp in J. Lightfoot, S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp, vol. iii.

Mommsen, "Der Religionsfrevel nach römischen Recht," in Historische Zeitschrift, 1890, vol. lxiv, p. 389.

umes of controversial literature upon the subject. The solutions which so far have been offered may be conveniently grouped under three heads: first, no specific charge, but rather a repression by measures of police in virtue of the power of coercitio; secondly, accusation and trial for violation of the Roman criminal law, particularly for the crime of majestas or treason, and also for sacrilege, immorality, magic, incest, murder, etc.; thirdly, a similar procedure under a special law issued by Nero, institutum Neronianum, which proscribed Christianity as such, namely, "Non licet esse Christianos".

The first solution mentioned was offered by Mommsen in the article referred to above. Mommsen showed that all the previous cases of suppression of cults had been by administrative measures of police. Precisely the same thing was true of the treatment of the Christian sect, at least in the great majority of cases. Mommsen explained that the Roman magistrates who participated in the imperium, both at Rome and in the provinces, possessed in addition to their regular criminal jurisdiction a very extensive police power, the jus coercendi. By virtue of this power of coercitio the magistrate could take any measures which he judged necessary or useful for checking any disorder or abuse or to maintain the order and security of the state." In the exercise of this power the magistrates were not restricted to the regular mode of procedure; on the contrary, nothing was fixed, neither the nature of the offense, the form of the process, nor the penalties, so long as the penalty was not contrary to custom. The whole process was purely arbitrary, and its nature was largely determined by what the magistrate believed to be demanded by the exigencies of public order and security.3

1 Historische Zeitschrift, 1890, vol. Ixiv, loc. cit., p. 398.

3 Ibid., p. 398.

8 Ibid., p. 414; Röm. Straf., pp. 40, 56, 123, 523.

It was in the exercise of this unlimited power of coercitio, says Mommsen, that most of the Christians were tried and punished. Accordingly, the status of the Christians depended largely upon the individual attitude of the governors of the various provinces and upon the trend of popular opinion.' The interventions of the emperors were merely administrative measures intended to regulate the exercise of this power.2

This theory at least has the advantage of clearing up many difficult points in the suppression of the Christian sect by the Roman government. First, and most important, it explains why the periods of repression were intermittent, and why the persecutions were local and of varying degrees of severity. It also explains the lack of any specific definition of the crime for which the Christians were convicted, and the anomalies and irregularities in the procedure, of which the apologists so frequently complained." These very facts, on the other hand, become serious stumbling blocks in the way of accepting the theory of a special law proscribing the Christians as such."

5

1 Hist. Zeit., loc. cit., p. 410; Harnack, "Christenverfolgungen," in Hauck, Realencyklopädie, vol. iii, p. 826; Vide Tertullian, Apology, 2; Justin Martyr, Apology, ii, ch. 2.

2 Hist. Zeit., loc. cit., p. 413; Weis, Christenverfolgungen (München, 1899), p. 18; Callewaert, "Les premiers chrétiens furent-ils pérsecutés par édits généraux ou par mesures de police" in Rev. d'hist. eccl., 1902, vol. iii, pp. 5 et seq.

3 Vide Hist. Zeit., loc. cit., p. 413.

4 Ibid., p. 410.

Ibid., pp. 413 et seq.; Weis, op. cit., p. 16; Vide however, Callewaert, "Le délit du christianisme dans les deux premiers siécles," in Rev. des ques. hist., 1903, vol. lxxiv, ch. ii.

• Weis, op. cit., pp. 126 et seq. For a dissenting opinion vide Rev. des ques. hist., 1903, vol. lxxiv, loc. cit., p. 55. Vide Tertullian, Apology, 2.

'Hist. Zeit., loc. cit., pp. 395 et seq., where Mommsen cites Tert., Apol., 24 Vide also p. 412.

But in both the Religionsfrevel and the Strafrecht,1 more particularly in the latter, Mommsen maintains that while the suppression of the Christians actually took place through the exercise of this extraordinary power of immediate action called coercitio, legally they were guilty of majestas or high treason, and could also be regularly accused and tried upon this charge. The refusal of the Christians to take the oaths and to offer the sacrifices required of them constituted a twofold crime of majestas, the crime against the gods, and that against the emperor. Both offences came under the single head of majestas.2

3

Mommsen goes on to explain that the Roman religion, like all religions of antiquity, was intimately connected with the state. It was, however, one of the immutable maxims of Roman administration not to exact manifestations of belief in the national worship nor to do more than exercise a simple police surveillance over foreign cults. This toleration was extended even to monotheistic Judaism, which remained a religio licita even after the taking of Jerusalem. But this toleration had its limits. The citizens of Rome, and for that matter of any municipality, could not at the same time be Jews and recognize the gods of the state. To be a worshiper of Jehovah was to apostatize from the national religion. Such apostacy constituted a crime at Roman law, called by Tertullian, crimen laesae religionis. The question arose in two cases, first, when the Jews became Roman citizens; secondly, when a Roman citizen was converted to Judaism. In the first case, the question would come up only when a Jew became a citizen

1 Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht (Leipzig, 1899), pp. 569 et seq. 'Ibid., p. 569, note 1. • Ibid., p. 570.

Ibid., pp. 571 et seq.

Ibid., p. 573. Improperly called by some sacrilegium.