The Romans at first were puzzled. Why should not all gods be polite and respectful to one another, as civilised men are polite and respectful to each other, they wondered? But at length they were irritated, and finally infuriated against these uncouth, jealous, vindictive Jews, who were so unreasonable in their hatred. Why should this stubborn and fanatic people disturb the world with their hatred? the Romans asked themselves.
At last there was a general rising, and the Roman government had to fight for its own existence in the land of Israel. When Vespasian was emperor, Titus, his son, besieged Jerusalem. The rebellious Jews made the most obstinate resistance. The Romans, however, took the town and killed the people in front of them. The streets were heaped with dead Jews. But the last defenders were still at bay, in the Temple precincts. After terrible fighting, the defenders saw that the Holy of Holies must be taken. So the Jews themselves set fire to the great Temple, to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy, and heaps of the faithful defenders preferred to die in the flames, rather than by the swords of the Romans. The Temple burned furiously, a great conflagration. Yet the Romans got much treasure, and holy relics like the Ark, the seven- branched candlesticks, the sacred vessels. And these they took to Rome to adorn the triumph of Titus. Away there in Rome the citizens were not much impressed by these most holy relics of the Jews. But they had satisfaction in seeing them, for already the Jews were beginning to be detested, because of their fanatical pride, the pride of the Chosen People.
The burning of the Temple took place in the year 70 A.D., forty years or so after the death of Christ. There were at this time already many Christians, most of whom, naturally, were Jews of Jerusalem. They were called Nazarenes. They did not cease from their old religion when they accepted Christ. They still went to the Temple, and took their children as Jesus was taken, to be circumcised; went, as Joseph and Mary went, to the holy feast of the Passover; they observed the Jewish Sabbath, and the Jewish rites, eating no unclean meat, such as we now eat. They were Jews who believed also in Jesus.
These Nazarenes founded the first Christian congregation, which is called the Church of Jerusalem. Their first fifteen bishops were circumcised Jews. Thus the Romans, who did not care about details of religious belief, knew no difference between Christians and Jews, in Jerusalem. At the same time, in the great cities Antioch and Ephesus in Syria, Alexandria in Egypt, Corinth in Greece, even in Rome, Christianity was quietly spreading among Gentiles who did not keep the feast of the Passover, or any of the Jewish observances. So that already, before the fall of Jerusalem, there were two kinds of Christians: Nazarenes, or judaising Christians, and gentile Christians. There was the Nazarene Church of Jerusalem, and there were the gentile Churches of Antioch, Ephesus, and so on.
When the Temple was destroyed, and Jerusalem ruined, the poor Nazarenes were desolate. They retired away beyond Jordan to the little town of Pella, and there they remained, lonely and disconsolate. But still they could make many comforting visits to the Holy City, returning at the appointed times. For they had a passion for their old observances, their old solemn feasts. They longed for the day when the Temple would be re-built, and Jerusalem restored as it was before. They were still the chosen people, more important than any one in the world, according to their own idea; and now most important even among Jews, since they had their Messiah.
Again, however, in the time of the Emperor Hadrian, about fifty years after the fall of Jerusalem, the Jews rose once more in a terrible rebellion, all over Palestine. A new town had been re-built in place of the destroyed Jerusalem. The Romans gave it the new name of Aelia Capitolina. And on Mount Moriah they erected a temple to the Roman Jupiter. This last offence caused the last, fatal insurrection of all the Jews.
Hadrian was merciless this time. His soldiers fought, and spared none. They took towns and villages, and reduced them to ashes. It is said that about 600,000 Jews were destroyed, and a thousand towns and villages. For now the Roman hatred of Jews was confirmed.
Hadrian built up Jerusalem this time as a purely Roman city. The very name of Jerusalem was abolished, and that of Aelia put in its place — just as St. Petersburg has become Petrograd. Moreover, no Jew was allowed even to approach within sight of the town. Hadrian’s soldiers kept strict watch, and any native found creeping back to the passionately-loved hills of the Holy City, now crowned with Roman temples, was either hanged or crucified or otherwise severely punished.
So, the Jewish nation was broken and scattered — and for ever; thrown out into the world, where for more than a thousand years it still refused to mix with the world.
The Nazarenes at Pella were heart-broken by this new disaster. They felt they were not Jews in religion. Yet they must suffer. They at last took the only wise course. They chose a Latin bishop, Marcus, a Gentile. And Marcus gradually persuaded the congregation to renounce the Mosaic law. This they did, reluctantly. But once it was done, they were free from the taint of Judaism. They appealed to the Romans, saying that they were not Jews at all any more, but Gentile Christians. And finally, the Romans allowed them to return to Aelia. For it was recognised that a Jew was not a Jew because of his nation, but because of his religion. Nationality or citizenship or race made a Greek or a Roman or a Gaul. But religion made a Jew. So that when the Nazarenes abandoned the Judaic religion, they ceased to be Jews. In a little while they were permitted to restore the old-time name to Jerusalem. But the Temple was no more re-built, Zion which kept the Feast of the Passover did not exist any more. And bitterly did the true Jews now hate the Christian Jews, traitors to the old faith.
Thus Christianity became a Gentile religion. It spread rapidly in the Roman Empire. Almost everybody in the Eastern Empire spoke Greek, many spoke Latin also: in the West Latin was spoken. Preachers and teachers went everywhere, speaking Greek in Asia, Latin in Italy, and telling that there was but one God, whose Son was Jesus; telling that through love men should have everlasting life, in immortal happiness. They had to go quietly, secretly, for they had many enemies, the bitterest being Jews. But they found many hearers; particularly many Roman soldiers and officers listened closely. For soldiers have time to think.
Now, in a world weary of strife and excitement, and clogged with slavery, the thought of peace and innocent love, and of a life of still, gentle, everlasting happiness, was most beautiful. So many people in the world of that day were weary of the continual fighting, the continual excitement of wild combats in the circuses, wild or pompous displays, and the stifling physical luxury of the daily warm baths, the daily feasts, or long evening banquets which lasted from afternoon till sleeping-time, a long meal of talking and eating and drinking wine, and telling stories or reciting poems. For the well-to-do people it was a life all of one sort, stifling. And for the slaves it was a life of ignominy. On both hands, men were tired.
What could a slave want more than to be told that in the sight of God all men were equal, were brothers: and that all those who believed in Jesus would spend eternity with the Son of God, in continual happiness? And what could the tired, satiated soldiers and citizens of Rome want more than to realise that this fighting, this feasting, this excitement, this continual warm luxury of baths, was nothing but a clog on the spirit: that the spirit of Jesus did away with all this barrenness, and left men free from bodily necessities, unhampered as the angels or the beams of the sun, eternal as these?
Gradually, these beliefs became enlarged. The Christian Romans turned with dislike from the theatres and circuses and baths. They disliked physical luxury, all the pleasures of the body became hateful to them, for they had had too much of such gratification. Their spirits wanted to be free, infinite, their bodies were a drag and a burden. So they kept strictly away from the temples, the feasts, the games; they were quiet and inspired with holy, spiritual desires. They began to dream of the Second Coming of Christ, which was prophesied, and regarded as near at hand. Christ would come soon, and destroy the kingdom of the world, and make the kingdom of bliss on earth. The Judg
ment Day was near at hand, and after that, the Millennium, the era of bliss, when men would walk the shining streets of the new city, here on earth, at peace and in shining concord with all men. Every one would be good and pure. When these happy days should come, there would be no more luxurious feeding and drinking and dressing, and no fighting and no hard work. All would wear pure white, none would need more than a little pure food and drink, there would be no rich, no poor, no hungry people and none greedy. There would be sufficient of all things for all, and men and women, shining and beautiful in their clean clothes, would walk the streets of the New Jerusalem, the New Rome, bright as flowers, blissful in the bliss of love, speaking gently, and coming to the throne of Jesus to sit near Him. For Jesus would reign like a Caesar, all majesty and love.
All Christians believed in this Millennium — but for the slaves it was pure transportation. Then, they too would walk the streets of gold, and sit with the King of Kings: they too would wear pure white robes, and Jesus would love them even more than the rest, because they had been despised and oppressed on earth.
It was calculated when the Second Coming would take place. The Six Days of Creation, when God made the world, were taken to mean six thousand years. On the seventh day the Lord rested — and He blessed that day. Therefore when the seventh thousand of years should approach, the Lord would look at His works, judge them, and prepare for the Millennium of rest and blessedness. Now the primitive Church at Antioch calculated that from the days of Adam to their own day, that is, to the year 100 or 150 A.D., would be just 6000 years. Therefore the Second Coming must be at hand. Jesus Himself had spoken of it, St. Paul had warned them.
These early Christians went in daily expectation of the terrible event. They had been told that famine and earthquake would precede the Second Advent, and that fire would fall from heaven. Famine and pestilence came, as well as earthquakes. In Vespasian’s reign a great fire, that raged for three days, again gutted a large part of Rome. And then, in the year 79 came the terrible eruption of Vesuvius which buried Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae in a rain of fire and lava and ash. Clearly these were the signs of the Second Coming, when Christ would judge the world.
The Christians trembled, and purified themselves. Their lives were rigidly holy. As darkness fell, at evening, they quivered, thinking that perhaps that night the heavens would break, and Christ with His angels and prophets would appear, summoning all men alike to His footstool. The slaves, as they silently submitted to their masters, and the poor men, as they saw the Roman ladies borne through the streets in golden litters, thought to themselves: ‘ Ah, if they but knew, these proud and vainglorious Romans! If they but knew the sword that even now is unsheathed in the sky, ready to strike! If they could know, how, in a short time, a short time now, they will be cast down into eternal punishment. Their Rome will be wiped out, and I shall be walking the bright streets of glass in the New Jerusalem, the New Rome, with the Saviour, the King of Kings. He who is greater than any Caesar is coming down upon Rome — ah, if they knew this, they would change their behaviour. They would cease to command so proudly, they would get down from their litters . . .’
The Romans could feel some secret working against them. They could feel, as it were, a silent threat in these people who were so quiet and humble and mysterious. They tried to fathom the mystery, but could not. For the Romans knew nothing about Christians, they thought them just a sect of the detested Jews.
It is surprising how little the Romans knew about the new religion. A famous man, named Pliny, was sent to be governor of Bithynia in the year 111. There, some men were brought before him, charged with the crime of being Christians. But Pliny knew nothing about the sect nor the crime. He had heard the name of Christians merely — but what were they? And how was he to proceed against criminals whose crime he did not in the least understand?
He made a careful examination of the Christians, and sent to his friend and master, the Emperor Trajan, a curious account of the new sect. Pliny was in some ways very favourable to the Christians. He disliked, with true Roman fairness, to prosecute people whose guilt he could not perceive. Yet he lamented that the temples in Bithynia were almost deserted, and that the sacred victims, birds, kids, found hardly any purchasers, and that even the ignorant country people were infected with the new superstition. Bithynia was the province just across from Constantinople, in Asia, along the shores of the Black Sea. It is evident there were more Christians there than in Rome.
Now Pliny was a great and famous man, and a lawyer. He must have known about the trials of all the criminals in Rome. He must have known the proceedings of all the more important cases. Yet it is quite evident he knew nothing of Christianity when he went to Bithynia, and that he had before him no laws, and no previous cases against Christians, to guide him. He was quite at a loss. And he showed no dislike of the new people: it only troubled him that they refused to be Romans as well as Christians.
This shows us that the educated Romans were ignorant of what the Christians were; that there cannot have been any real legal prosecution; and that the Church in Rome either was not very large, or was very secret, or did not extend into the upper classes, at the end of the first century. We are forced to think that the early Christians, from the days of Paul, were very secret, like a secret society, very cautious in revealing their mysteries: particularly that mystery of the Second Coming.
The Romans must have heard, of the Christians, because of the famous prosecution under Nero, in the year 64.
Now just at the time that Pliny went to Bithynia, Tacitus the Roman was writing his famous history. This was some forty years after the fire of Rome, which, as we know, Nero is suspected of causing, in order to enjoy the spectacle. Tacitus writes that ‘Nero wanted to find some people on whom to lay the blame of this great fire: ‘ Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the common people. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for a moment, again broke out, not only in Judaea, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs, and perished; or they were nailed on crosses; or they were doomed to the flames, and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.
‘ Nero offered his garden for the spectacle, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer, or stood aloft on a car. The guilt of the Christians deserved, indeed, the most extreme punishment, but there arose a feeling of compassion in the people; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good that they were sacrificed, but to glut one man’s cruelty.’
This is all Tacitus says about the Christians: and it is probably all he knew. Pliny seems to have known no more. Yet why should Nero suddenly have fallen on these obscure people? We cannot say. Only we do know that the Christians were confused with the Jews; that the Romans truly believed the Jews hated mankind; and that Nero hated the Jews. But Poppaea, Nero’s favourite wife, was a Jewess, and his favourite player was a Jew. And the Jews have always been accused of betraying the Christians, when they themselves were in danger. For of all their enemies, the Jews hated the Christians most. So perhaps it was suggested to Nero that certain persons, Christians, were the vilest and most evil of all Jewish sectaries.
However that may be, it is certain that a terrible fate befell these poor Christians. But we may be almost as certain that the persecution was as short as it was sharp and sudden. Nero had probably forgotten in a month’s time that there were such people as Christians.
We see, howe
ver, both from Tacitus and Pliny, that there was current a vague but deep hatred of the Christians. Why should Tacitus think that the guilt of the poor creatures deserved the most extreme punishment? What was the guilt? All he says, is that they are convicted of hating mankind.
Now we can understand how the Romans came to imagine that the Christians hated mankind. In the first place, they considered the Christians were simply a set of Jews, and the Jews, the Chosen People, really did hate or despise all who were not of their own race. And then the Romans believed, above all, in the social, public life — men living usefully and openly together; and the Christians shunned the social and public life of the Roman world. The Roman was interested most of all in the State, in the affairs of the empire. The Christians turned darkly away from such affairs, and would have nothing to do with them. They were a secret people. They held their meetings at night, in underground places. But this was probably because the poorer Christians, such as slaves, were only free at night; and also because the congregations could not meet without being disturbed, save in some remote place, such as the catacombs.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 894