The behavior of the venerable bishop of Smyrna, in view of his martyrdom, was most christian and noble in its bearing. He was prepared and ready for his persecutors, without being rash or imprudent, as some at times, through excitement, had been. When he heard the shouts of the people, demanding his death, it was his intention to remain quietly in the city, and await the issue which God might ordain for him. But, by the entreaties of the Church, he suffered himself to be persuaded to take refuge in a neighboring village. Here he spent the time, with a few friends, occupied, night and day, in praying for all the churches throughout the world. But his pursuers soon discovered his retreat. When told that the public officers were at the door, he invited them in, ordered meat and drink to be set before them, and requested that they would indulge him with one hour of quiet prayer. But the fullness of his heart carried him through two hours. So that the pagans themselves were affected by his devotions, age, and appearance. He must have been over ninety years of age.
The time being now come, he was conveyed to the city. The proconsul does not appear to have been personally hostile to the Christians. He evidently felt for the aged Polycarp, and did what he could to save him. He urged him to swear by the genius of the Emperor, and give proof of his penitence. But Polycarp was calm and firm, with his eyes uplifted to heaven. The proconsul again urged him, saying, “Revile Christ, and I will release thee.” The old man now replied, “Six and eighty years have I served Him, and He has done me nothing but good; and how could I revile Him, my Lord and Savior?” The governor finding that both promises and threatenings were in vain, he caused it to be proclaimed by the herald in the circus, “Polycarphas declared himself to be a Christian.” The heathen populace, with an infuriated shout, replied, “This is the teacher of atheism, the father of the Christians, the enemy of our gods, by whom so many have been turned away from offering sacrifices.” The governor having yielded to the demands of the people, that Polycarp should die at the stake, Jews and pagans hastened together to bring wood for that purpose. As they were about to fasten him with nails to the stake of the pile, he said, “Leave me thus: He who has strengthened me to encounter the flames, will also enable me to stand firm at the stake.” Before the fire was lighted he prayed, “Lord, Almighty God, Father of thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ, through whom we have received from thee the knowledge of thyself; God of angels, and of the whole creation; of the human race, and of the just that live in thy presence; I praise thee that thou hast judged me worthy of this day and of this hour, to take part in the number of thy witnesses, in the cup of thy Christ.”
The fire was now kindled, but the flames played around the body, forming the appearance of a sail filled with wind. The superstitious Romans, fearing that the fire would not consume him, plunged a spear into his side, and Polycarp was crowned with victory.
These are but short extracts from the accounts that have been handed down to us of the martyrdom of the revered and venerable bishop. The martyrologies are full of particulars. But the Lord greatly blessed the Christ like way in which he suffered for the good of the Church. The rage of the people cooled down, as if satisfied with revenge; and their thirst for blood seemed quenched for the time. The proconsul too, being wearied with such slaughter, absolutely refused to have any more Christians brought before his tribunal. How manifest is the hand of the Lord in this wonderful and sudden change! He had limited the days of their tribulation before they were cast into the furnace, and now they are accomplished: and no power on earth or in hell can prolong them another hour. They had been faithful unto death and received the crown of life.
THE PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE. A.D. 177.
We will now turn to the scene of the second persecution under this emperor’s reign. It took place in France, and exactly ten years after the persecution in Asia. There may have been other persecutions during these ten years, but, so far as we know, there are no authentic records of any till 177. The source from which we derive our knowledge of the details of this latter persecution is a circular letter from the churches of Lyons and Vienne to the churches in Asia. Whether there be any allusion to these ten historical years in the words of the Lord to the Church at Smyrna, we cannot say. Scripture does not say there is. Comparing the history with the epistle, the thought is likely to be suggested. “Ye shall have tribulation ten days.” In other parts of this mystical book, a day stands for a year, and so it may in the epistle to Smyrna. History gives us the beginning and the end as to time, and the east and west as to breadth of scene. But we will now look at some of the details, in which the resemblance may be more manifest.
Imprisonment was one of the main features of their sufferings. Many died from the suffocating air of the noisome dungeons. In this respect it differed from the persecution in Asia. The popular excitement rose even higher than at Smyrna. The Christians were insulted and abused whenever they appeared abroad, and even plundered in their own houses. As this popular fury burst forth during the absence of the governor, many were thrown into prison by the inferior magistrates to await his return. But the spirit of persecution on this occasion, though it sprang from the populace, was not confined to them. The governor, on his arrival, seems to have been infected with the fanaticism of the lower classes. To his dishonor as a magistrate, he began the examination of the prisoners with tortures. And the testimony of slaves, contrary to an ancient law in Rome, was not only received against their masters, but wrung from them by the severest sufferings. Consequently, they were ready to say what they were required, to escape the whip and the rack. Having proved, as they said, that the Christians practiced the most unnatural and worst of crimes in their meetings, they now believed that it was right to indulge themselves in every cruelty. No kindred, no condition, no age, nor sex was spared.
Vettius, a young man of birth and rank, and of great charity and fervency of spirit, on hearing that such charges were laid against his brethren, felt constrained to present himself before the governor as a witness of their innocence. He demanded a hearing, but the governor refused to listen, and only asked him if he too was a Christian? When he distinctly affirmed that he was, the governor ordered him to be thrown into prison with the rest. He afterward received the crown of martyrdom.
The aged bishop, Pothinus, now over ninety years of age, and probably the one who had brought the gospel to Lyons from Asia, was of course good prey for the lion of hell. He was afflicted with asthma and could scarcely breathe, but, notwithstanding, he must be seized and dragged before the authorities. “Who is the God of the Christians?” asked the governor. The old man quietly told him that he could only come to the knowledge of the true God by showing a right spirit. Those who surrounded the tribunal strove with each other in giving vent to their rage against the venerable bishop. He was ordered to prison, and after receiving many blows on his way thither, he was cast in among the rest, and in two days fell asleep in Jesus, in the arms of his suffering flock.
What a weight of comfort and encouragement the words of the blessed Lord must have been to these holy sufferers. “Fear none of these things which thou shalt suffer,” had been addressed to the Church in Smyrna, and probably carried to the French churches of Lyons and Vienne by Fothinus. They were experiencing an exact fulfillment of this solemn and prophetic warning; “Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried.” They knew who was the great enemy—the great persecutor—though emperors, governors, and mobs might be his instruments. But the Lord was with His beloved suffering ones. He not only sustained and comforted them, but He brought out, in the most blessed way, the power of His own presence in the feeblest forms of humanity. This was, we venture to say, a new thing on the earth. The superiority of the Christians to all the inflictions of tortures, and to all the terrors of death, utterly astonished the multitude, stung to the quick their tormentors, and wounded the stoic pride of the emperor. What could be done with a people who prayed for their persecutors, and manifested the composure and tranquility of heaven, in the midst of the fires and wild beasts of the amphitheater? Take one example of what we affirm—an example worthy of all praise, in all time and in all eternity.
BLANDINA, a female slave, was distinguished above the rest of the martyrs for the variety of tortures she endured. Her mistress—who also suffered martyrdom—feared lest the faith of her servant might give way under such trials. But it was not so, the Lord be praised! Firm as a rock, but peaceful and unpretending, she endured the most excruciating sufferings. Her tormentors urged her to deny Christ, and confess that the private meetings of the Christians were only for their wicked practices, and they would cease their tortures. But, no! her only reply was, “I am a Christian, and there is no wickedness amongst us.” The scourge, the rack, the heated iron chair, and the wild beasts, had lost their terror for her. Her heart was fixed on Christ, and He kept her in spirit near to Himself. Her character was fully formed, not by her social condition, of course—that was the most debased in these times—but by her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, through the power of the indwelling Holy Ghost.
Day after day she was brought forth as a public spectacle of suffering. Being a female and a slave, the heathen expected to force her to a denial of Christ, and to a confession that the Christians were guilty of the crimes reported against them. But it was all in vain. “I am a Christian, and there is no wickedness amongst us,” was her quiet but unvarying reply. Her constancy wearied out the inventive cruelty of her tormentors. They were astonished that she lived through the fearful succession of her sufferings. But in her greatest agonies she found strength and relief in looking to Jesus and witnessing for Him. “Blandina was endued with so much fortitude,” says the letter from the church at Lyons, written seventeen hundred years ago, “that those who successively tortured her from morning to night were quite worn out with fatigue, and owned themselves conquered and exhausted of their whole apparatus of tortures, and were amazed to see her still breathing whilst her body was torn and laid open.”
Before narrating the closing scene of her sufferings, we would notice what appears to us to be the secret of her great strength and constancy. Doubtless the Lord was sustaining her in a remarkable way as a witness for Him, and as a testimony to all ages of the power of Christianity over the human mind, compared with all the religions that there were or ever had been on the earth. Still, we would say particularly, that her humility and godly fear were the sure indications of her power against the enemy, and of her unfaltering fidelity to Christ. She was thus working out her own salvation—deliverance from the difficulties of the way—by a deep sense of her own conscious weakness, indicated by “fear and trembling.”
When on her way back from the amphitheater to the prison, in company with her fellow sufferers, they were surrounded by their sorrowing friends when they had an opportunity, and in their sympathy and love addressed them as “martyrs for Christ.” But this they instantly checked; saying, “We are not worthy of such an honor. The struggle is not over; and the dignified name of Martyr properly belongs to Him only who is the tine and faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, the Prince of life; or, at least, only to those whose testimony Christ has sealed by their constancy to the end. We are but poor humble confessors.” With tears they besought their brethren to pray for them that they might be firm and true to the end. Thus their weakness was their strength, for it led them to lean on the mighty One. And so it always is, and ever has been, in small as well as in great trials. But a fresh sorrow awaited them on their return to the prison. They found some who had given way through natural fear, and had denied that they were Christians. But they had gained nothing thereby; Satan had not let them off. Under a charge of other crimes they were kept in prison. With these weak ones Blandina and the others prayed with many tears, that they might be restored and strengthened. The Lord answered their prayers, so that when they were brought up again for further examination, they steadfastly confessed their faith in Christ, and thus passed sentence of death on themselves, and received the crown of martyrdom.
Nobler names, as men would say, than Blandina’s, had passed off the bloody scene; and honored names too, that had witnessed with great fortitude; such as Vittius, Pothinus, Sanctus, Naturus, and Attalius; but the last day of her trial was come, and the last pain she was ever to feel, and the last tear she was ever to shed. She was brought up for her final examination with a youth of fifteen, named Ponticus. They were ordered to swear by the gods: they firmly refused, but were calm and unmoved. The multitude were incensed at their magnanimous patience. The whole round of barbarities were inflicted. Ponticus, though animated and strengthened by the prayers of his sister in Christ, soon sunk under the tortures, and fell asleep in Jesus.
And now came the noble and blessed Blandina, as the church styles her. Like a mother who was needed to comfort and encourage her children, she was kept to the last day of the games. She had sent her children on before, and Was now longing to follow after them. They had joined the noble army of martyrs above, and were resting with Jesus, as weary warriors rest, in the peaceful paradise of God. After she had endured stripes, she was seated in a hot iron chair; then she was enclosed in a net and thrown to a bull; and having been tossed some time by the animal, a soldier plunged a spear into her side. No doubt she was dead long before the spear reached her, but in this she was honored to be like her Lord and Master. Bright indeed will be the crown amidst the many crowns in heaven, of the constant, humble, patient, enduring Blandina.
But the fierce and savage rage of the heathen, instigated by Satan, had not yet reached its height. They began a new war with the dead bodies of the saints. Their blood had not satiated them. They must have their ashes. Hence the mutilated bodies of the martyrs were collected and burned, and thrown into the river Rhone, with the fire that consumed them, lest a particle should be left to pollute the land. But rage, however fierce, will finally expend itself; and nature, however savage, will become weary of bloodshed; and so, many Christians survived this terrible persecution.
We have thus gone, more than usual, into details in speaking of the persecutions under Marcus Aurelius. So far, they are a fulfillment, we believe, of the solemn and prophetic warnings of the address to Smyrna; and also, in a remarkable manner, of the Lord’s promised grace. The sufferers were filled and animated by His own Spirit. “Even their persecutors,” says Neander, “were never mentioned by them with resentment; but they prayed that God would forgive those who had subjected them to such cruel sufferings. They left a legacy to their brethren, not of strife and war, but of peace and joy, unanimity and love.”