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Evidences of Christianity by William Paley

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_________

* "Pererebuerat oriento toto vetus et contans opinio, esse in fatis, ut
eo tempore Judaea profecti rerum potirsatur." Sueton. Vespasian. cap.
4--8.

"Pluribus persuasio inerat, antiquis sacerdotum literis contineri, eo
ipso tempore fore, ut valesecret oriens, profectique Judaea rerum
potirentur." Tacit. Hist. lib. v. cap. 9--13.
_________


The character of the new institution was, in other respects also,
ungrateful to Jewish habits and principles. Their own religion was in a
high degree technical. Even the enlightened Jew placed a great deal of
stress upon the ceremonies of his law, saw in them a great deal of
virtue and efficacy; the gross and vulgar had scarcely anything else;
and the hypocritical and ostentatious magnified them above measure, as
being the instruments of their own reputation and influence. The
Christian scheme, without formally repealing the Levitical code, lowered
its estimation extremely. In the place of strictness and zeal in
performing the observances which that code prescribed, or which
tradition had added to it, the new sect preached up faith,
well-regulated affections, inward purity, and moral rectitude of
disposition, as the true ground, on the part of the worshipper, of merit
and acceptance with God. This, however rational it may appear, or
recommending to us at present, did not by any means facilitate the plan
then. On the contrary, to disparage those qualities which the highest
characters in the country valued themselves most upon, was a sure way of
making powerful enemies. As if the frustration of the national hope was
not enough, the long-esteemed merit of ritual zeal and punctuality was
to be decried, and that by Jews preaching to Jews.

The ruling party at Jerusalem had just before crucified the Founder of
the religion. That is a fact which will not be disputed. They,
therefore, who stood forth to preach the religion must necessarily
reproach these rulers with an execution which they could not but
represent as an unjust and cruel murder. This would not render their
office more easy, or their situation more safe.

With regard to the interference of the Roman government which was then
established in Judea, I should not expect, that, despising as it did the
religion of the country, it would, if left to itself, animadvert, either
with much vigilance or much severity, upon the schisms and controversies
which arose within it. Yet there was that in Christianity which might
easily afford a handle of accusation with a jealous government. The
Christians avowed an unqualified obedience to a new master. They avowed
also that he was the person who had been foretold to the Jews under the
suspected title of King. The spiritual nature of this kingdom, the
consistency of this obedience with civil subjection, were distinctions
too refined to be entertained by a Roman president, who viewed the
business at a great distance, or through the medium of very hostile
representations. Our histories accordingly inform us, that this was the
turn which the enemies of Jesus gave to his character and pretensions in
their remonstrances with Pontius Pilate. And Justin Martyr, about a
hundred years afterwards, complains that the same mistake prevailed in
his time: "Ye, having heard that we are waiting for a kingdom, suppose
without distinguishing that we mean a human kingdom, when in truth we
speak of that which is with God."* And it was undoubtedly a natural
source of calumny and misconstruction.

_________

* Ap. Ima p. 16. Ed. Thirl.
_________


The preachers of Christianity had, therefore, to contend with prejudice
backed by power. They had to come forward to a disappointed people, to a
priesthood possessing a considerable share of municipal authority, and
actuated by strong motives of opposition and resentment; and they had to
do this under a foreign government, to whose favour they made no
pretensions, and which was constantly surrounded by their enemies. The
well-known, because the experienced, fate of reformers, whenever the
reformation subverts some reigning opinion, and does not proceed upon a
change that has already taken place in the sentiments of a country, will
not allow, much less lead us to suppose that the first propagators of
Christianity at Jerusalem and in Judea, under the difficulties and the
enemies they had to contend with, and entirely destitute as they were of
force, authority, or protection, could execute their mission with
personal ease and safety.

Let us next inquire, what might reasonably be expected by the preachers
of Christianity when they turned themselves to the heathen public. Now
the first thing that strikes us is, that the religion they carried with
them was exclusive. It denied without reserve the truth of every article
of heathen mythology, the existence of every object of their worship. It
accepted no compromise, it admitted no comprehension. It must prevail,
if it prevailed at all, by the overthrow of every statue, altar, and
temple in the world, It will not easily be credited, that a design, so
bold as this was, could in any age be attempted to be carried into
execution with impunity.

For it ought to be considered, that this was not setting forth, or
magnifying the character and worship of some new competitor for a place
in the Pantheon, whose pretensions might he discussed or asserted
without questioning the reality of any others: it was pronouncing all
other gods to be false, and all other worship vain. From the facility
with which the polytheism of ancient nations admitted new objects of
worship into the number of their acknowledged divinities, or the
patience with which they might entertain proposals of this kind, we can
argue nothing as to their toleration of a system, or of the publishers
and active propagators of a system, which swept away the very foundation
of the existing establishment. The one was nothing more than what it
would be, in popish countries, to add a saint to the calendar; the other
was to abolish and tread under foot the calendar itself.

Secondly, it ought also to be considered, that this was not the case of
philosophers propounding in their books, or in their schools, doubts
concerning the truth of the popular creed, or even avowing their
disbelief of it. These philosophers did not go about from place to place
to collect proselytes from amongst the common people; to form in the
heart of the country societies professing their tenets; to provide for
the order, instruction and permanency of these societies; nor did they
enjoin their followers to withdraw themselves from the public worship of
the temples, or refuse a compliance with rites instituted by the laws.*
These things are what the Christians did, and what the philosophers did
not; and in these consisted the activity and danger of the enterprise.

_________

* The best of the ancient philosophers, Plato, Cicero, and Epictetus,
allowed, or rather enjoined, men to worship the gods of the country, and
in the established form. See passages to this purpose collected from
their works by Dr. Clarke, Nat. and Rev. Rel. p. 180. ed. v--Except
Socrates, they all thought it wiser to comply with the laws than to
contend.
_________


Thirdly, it ought also to be considered, that this danger proceeded not
merely from solemn acts and public resolutions of the state, but from
sudden bursts of violence at particular places, from the licence of the
populace, the rashness of some magistrates and negligence of others;
from the influence and instigation of interested adversaries, and, in
general, from the variety and warmth of opinion which an errand so novel
and extraordinary could not fail of exciting. I can conceive that the
teachers of Christianity might both fear and suffer much from these
causes, without any general persecution being denounced against them by
imperial authority. Some length of time, I should suppose, might pass,
before the vast machine of the Roman empire would be put in motion, or
its attention be obtained to religious controversy: but, during that
time, a great deal of ill usage might be endured, by a set of
friendless, unprotected travellers, telling men, wherever they came,
that the religion of their ancestors, the religion in which they had
been brought up, the religion of the state, and of the magistrate, the
rites which they frequented, the pomp which they admired, was throughout
a system of folly and delusion.

Nor do I think that the teachers of Christianity would find protection
in that general disbelief of the popular theology, which is supposed to
have prevailed amongst the intelligent part of the heathen public. It is
by no means true that unbelievers are usually tolerant. They are not
disposed (and why should they?) to endanger the present state of
things, by suffering a religion of which they believe nothing to be
disturbed by another of which they believe as little. They are ready
themselves to conform to anything; and are, oftentimes, amongst the
foremost to procure conformity from others, by any method which they
think likely to be efficacious. When was ever a change of religion
patronized by infidels? How little, not withstanding the reigning
scepticism, and the magnified liberality of that age, the true
principles of toleration were understood by the wisest men amongst them,
may be gathered from two eminent and uncontested examples. The younger
Pliny, polished as he was by all the literature of that soft and elegant
period, could gravely pronounce this monstrous judgment:--"Those who
persisted in declaring themselves Christians, I ordered to be led away
to punishment, (i. e. to execution,) for I DID NOT DOUBT, whatever it
was that they confessed, that contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought
to be punished." His master Trajan, a mild and accomplished prince,
went, nevertheless, no further in his sentiments of moderation and
equity than what appears in the following rescript:--"The Christians are
not to be sought for; but if any are brought before you, and convicted,
they are to be punished." And this direction he gives, after it had been
reported to him by his own president, that, by the most strict
examination, nothing could be discovered in the principles of these
persons, but "a bad and excessive superstition," accompanied, it seems,
with an oath or mutual federation, "to allow themselves in no crime or
immoral conduct whatever." The truth is, the ancient heathens considered
religion entirely as an affair of state, as much under the tuition of
the magistrate as any other part of the police. The religion of that age
was not merely allied to the state; it was incorporated into it. Many of
its offices were administered by the magistrate. Its titles of pontiffs,
augurs, and flamens, were borne by senators, consuls, and generals.
Without discussing, therefore, the truth of the theology, they resented
every affront put upon the established worship, as a direct opposition
to the authority of government.

Add to which, that the religious systems of those times, however ill
supported by evidence, had been long established. The ancient religion
of a country has always many votaries, and sometimes not the fewer,
because its origin is hidden in remoteness and obscurity. Men have a
natural veneration for antiquity, especially in matters of religion.
What Tacitus says of the Jewish was more applicable to the heathen
establishment: "Hi ritus, quoquo modo inducti, antiquitate defenduntur."
It was also a splendid and sumptuous worship. It had its priesthood, its
endowments, its temples. Statuary, painting, architecture, and music,
contributed their effect to its ornament and magnificence. It abounded
in festival shows and solemnities, to which the common people are
greatly addicted, and which were of a nature to engage them much more
than anything of that sort among us. These things would retain great
numbers on its side by the fascination of spectacle and pomp, as well as
interest many in its preservation by the advantage which they drew from
it. "It was moreover interwoven," as Mr. Gibbon rightly represents it,
"with every circumstance of business or pleasure, of public or private
life, with all the offices and amusements of society." On the due
celebration also of its rites, the people were taught to believe, and
did believe, that the prosperity of their country in a great measure
depended.

I am willing to accept the account of the matter which is given by Mr.
Gibbon: "The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world
were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosopher as
equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful:" and I would ask
from which of these three classes of men were the Christian missionaries
to look for protection or impunity? Could they expect it from the
people, "whose acknowledged confidence in the public religion" they
subverted from its foundation? From the philosopher, who, "considering
all religious as equally false," would of course rank theirs among the
number, with the addition of regarding them as busy and troublesome
zealots? Or from the magistrate, who, satisfied with the "utility" of
the subsisting religion, would not be likely to countenance a spirit of
proselytism and innovation:--a system which declared war against every
other, and which, if it prevailed, must end in a total rupture of public
opinion; an upstart religion, in a word, which was not content with its
own authority, but must disgrace all the settled religions of the world?
It was not to be imagined that he would endure with patience, that the
religion of the emperor and of the state should be calumniated and borne
down by a company of superstitious and despicable Jews.

Lastly; the nature of the case affords a strong proof, that the original
teachers of Christianity, in consequence of their new profession,
entered upon a new and singular course of life. We may be allowed to
presume, that the institution which they preached to others, they
conformed to in their own persons; because this is no more than what
every teacher of a new religion both does, and must do, in order to
obtain either proselytes or hearers. The change which this would produce
was very considerable. It is a change which we do not easily estimate,
because, ourselves and all about us being habituated to the institutions
from our infancy, it is what we neither experience nor observe. After
men became Christians, much of their time was spent in prayer and
devotion, in religious meetings, in celebrating the Eucharist, in
conferences, in exhortations, in preaching, in an affectionate
intercourse with one another, and correspondence with other societies.
Perhaps their mode of life, in its form and habit, was not very unlike
the Unitas Fratrum, or the modern methodists. Think then what it was to
become such at Corinth, at Ephesus, at Antioch, or even at Jerusalem.
How new! How alien from all their former habits and ideas, and from
those of everybody about them! What a revolution there must have been of
opinions and prejudices to bring the matter to this!

We know what the precepts of the religion are; how pure, how benevolent,
how disinterested a conduct they enjoin; and that this purity and
benevolence are extended to the very thoughts and affections. We are
not, perhaps, at liberty to take for granted that the lives of the
preachers of Christianity were as perfect as their lessons; but we are
entitled to contend, that the observable part of their behaviour must
have agreed in a great measure with the duties which they taught. There
was, therefore, (which is all that we assert,) a course of life pursued
by them, different from that which they before led. And this is of great
importance. Men are brought to anything almost sooner than to change
their habit of life, especially when the change is either inconvenient,
or made against the force of natural inclination, or with the loss of
accustomed indulgences. It is the most difficult of all things to
convert men from vicious habits to virtuous ones, as every one may judge
from what he feels in himself, as well as from what he sees in others.*
It is almost like making men over again.

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* Hartley's Essays on Man, p. 190.
_________


Left then to myself, and without any more information than a knowledge
of the existence of the religion, of the general story upon which it is
founded, and that no act of power, force, and authority was concerned in
its first success, I should conclude, from the very nature and exigency
of the case, that the Author of the religion, during his life, and his
immediate disciples after his death, exerted themselves in spreading and
publishing the institution throughout the country in which it began, and
into which it was first carried; that, in the prosecution of this
purpose, they underwent the labours and troubles which we observe the
propagators of new sects to undergo; that the attempt must necessarily
have also been in a high degree dangerous; that, from the subject of the
mission, compared with the fixed opinions and prejudices of those to
whom the missionaries were to address themselves, they could hardly fail
of encountering strong and frequent opposition; that, by the hand of
government, as well as from the sudden fury and unbridled licence of the
people, they would oftentimes experience injurious and cruel treatment;
that, at any rate, they must have always had so much to fear for their
personal safety, as to have passed their lives in a state of constant
peril and anxiety; and lastly, that their mode of life and conduct,
visibly at least, corresponded with the institution which they
delivered, and, so far, was both new, and required continual
self-denial.





CHAPTER II.

There is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original
witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours,
dangers and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the
accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief
of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives,
to new rules of conduct.

After thus considering what was likely to happen, we are next to inquire
how the transaction is represented in the several accounts that have
come down to us. And this inquiry is properly preceded by the other,
forasmuch as the reception of these accounts may depend in part on the
credibility of what they contain.

The obscure and distant view of Christianity, which some of the heathen
writers of that age had gained, and which a few passage in their
remaining works incidentally discover to us, offers itself to our notice
in the first place: because, so far as this evidence goes, it is the
concession of adversaries; the source from which it is drawn is
unsuspected. Under this head, a quotation from Tacitus, well known to
every scholar, must be inserted, as deserving particular attention. The
reader will bear in mind that this passage was written about seventy
years after Christ's death, and that it relates to transactions which
took place about thirty years after that event--Speaking of the fire
which happened at Rome in the time of Nero, and of the suspicions which
were entertained that the emperor himself was concerned in causing it,
the historian proceeds in his narrative and observations thus:--

"But neither these exertions, nor his largesses to the people, nor his
offerings to the gods, did away the infamous imputation under which Nero
lay, of having ordered the city to be set on fire. To put an end,
therefore, to this report, he laid the guilt, and inflicted the most
cruel punishments, upon a set of people, who were holden in abhorrence
for their crimes, and called by the vulgar, Christians. The founder of
that name was Christ, who suffered death in the reign of Tiberius, under
his procurator, Pontius Pilate--This pernicious superstition, thus
checked for a while, broke out again; and spread not only over Judea,
where the evil originated, but through Rome also, whither everything bad
upon the earth finds its way and is practised. Some who confessed their
sect were first seized, and afterwards, by their information, a vast
multitude were apprehended, who were convicted, not so much of the crime
of burning Rome, as of hatred to mankind. Their sufferings at their
execution were aggravated by insult and mockery; for some were disguised
in the skins of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs; some were
crucified; and others were wrapped in pitched shirts,* and set on fire
when the day closed, that they might serve as lights to illuminate the
night. Nero lent his own gardens for these executions, and exhibited at
the same time a mock Circensian entertainment; being a spectator of the
whole, in the dress of a charioteer, sometimes mingling with the crowd
on foot, and sometimes viewing the spectacle from his car. This conduct
made the sufferers pitied; and though they were criminals, and deserving
the severest punishments, yet they were considered as sacrificed, not so
much out of a regard to the public good, as to gratify the cruelty of
one man."

_________

* This is rather a paraphrase, but is justified by what the Scholiast
upon Juvenal says; "Nero maleficos homines taeda et papyro et cera
supervestiebat, et sic ad ignem admoveri jubebat." Lard. Jewish and
Heath. Test. vol. i. p. 359.
_________


Our concern with this passage at present is only so far as it affords a
presumption in support of the proposition which we maintain, concerning
the activity and sufferings of the first teachers of Christianity. Now,
considered in this view, it proves three things: 1st, that the Founder
of the institution was put to death; 2dly, that in the same country in
which he was put to death, the religion, after a short check, broke out
again and spread; 3dly, that it so spread as that, within thirty-four
years from the Author's death, a very great number of Christians (ingens
eorum multitudo) were found at Rome. From which fact, the two following
inferences may be fairly drawn: first, that if, in the space of
thirty-four years from its commencement, the religion had spread
throughout Judea, had extended itself to Rome, and there had numbered a
great multitude of converts, the original teachers and missionaries of
the institution could not have been idle; secondly, that when the Author
of the undertaking was put to death as a malefactor for his attempt, the
endeavours of his followers to establish his religion in the same
country, amongst the same people, and in the same age, could not but be
attended with danger.

Suetonius, a writer contemporary with Tacitus, describing the
transactions of the same reign, uses these words: "Affecti suppliciis
Christiani genus hominum superstitionis novae et maleficae." (Suet.
Nero. Cap. 16) "The Christians, a set of men of a new and mischievous
(or magical) superstition, were punished."

Since it is not mentioned here that the burning of the city was the
pretence of the punishment of the Christians, or that they were the
Christians of Rome who alone suffered, it is probable that Suetonius
refers to some more general persecution than the short and occasional
one which Tacitus describes.

Juvenal, a writer of the same age with the two former, and intending, it
should seem, to commemorate the cruelties exercised under Nero's
government, has the following lines: (Sat. i. ver. 155)

"Pone Tigellinum, taeda lucebis in illa,
Qua stantes ardent, qui fixo gutture fumant,
Et latum media sulcum deducit arena" (Forsan "deducis.")

"Describe Tigellinus (a creature of Nero), and you shall suffer the same
punishment with those who stand burning in their own flame and smoke,
their head being held up by a stake fixed to their chin, till they make
a long stream of blood and melted sulphur on the ground."

If this passage were considered by itself, the subject of allusion might
be doubtful; but, when connected with the testimony of Suetonius, as to
the actual punishment of the Christians by Nero, and with the account
given by Tacitus of the species of punishment which they were made to
undergo, I think it sufficiently probable that these were the executions
to which the poet refers.

These things, as has already been observed, took place within thirty-one
years after Christ's death, that is, according to the course of nature,
in the life-time, probably, of some of the apostles, and certainly in
the life-time of those who were converted by the apostles, or who were
converted in their time. If then the Founder of the religion was put to
death in the execution of his design; if the first race of converts to
the religion, many of them, suffered the greatest extremities for their
profession; it is hardly credible, that those who came between the two,
who were companions of the Author of the institution during his life,
and the teachers and propagators of the institution after his death,
could go about their undertaking with ease and safety.

The testimony of the younger Pliny belongs to a later period; for,
although he was contemporary with Tacitus and Suetonius, yet his account
does not, like theirs, go back to the transactions of Nero's reign, but
is confined to the affairs of his own time. His celebrated letter to
Trajan was written about seventy years after Christ's death; and the
information to be drawn from it, so far as it is connected with our
argument, relates principally to two points: first, to the number of
Christians in Bithynia and Pontus, which was so considerable as to
induce the governor of these provinces to speak of them in the following
terms: "Multi, omnis aetatis, utriusque sexus etiam;--neque enim
civitates tantum, sed vicos etiam et agros, superstitionis istius
contagio pervagata est." "There are many of every age and of both
sexes;--nor has the contagion of this superstition seized cities only,
but smaller towns also, and the open country." Great exertions must have
been used by the preachers of Christianity to produce this state of
things within this time. Secondly, to a point which has been already
noticed, and, which I think of importance to be observed, namely, the
sufferings to which Christians were exposed, without any public
persecution being denounced against them by sovereign authority. For,
from Pliny's doubt how he was to act, his silence concerning any
subsisting law on the subject, his requesting the emperor's rescript,
and the emperor, agreeably to his request, propounding a rule for his
direction without reference to any prior rule, it may be inferred that
there was, at that time, no public edict in force against the
Christians. Yet from this same epistle of Pliny it appears "that
accusations, trials, and examinations, were, and had been, going on
against them in the provinces over which he presided; that schedules
were delivered by anonymous informers, containing the names of persons
who were suspected of holding or of favouring the religion; that, in
consequence of these informations, many had been apprehended, of whom
some boldly avowed their profession, and died in the cause; others
denied that they were Christians; others, acknowledging that they had
once been Christians, declared that they had long ceased to be such."
All which demonstrates that the profession of Christianity was at that
time (in that country at least) attended with fear and danger: and yet
this took place without any edict from the Roman sovereign, commanding
or authorizing the persecution of Christians. This observation is
further confirmed by a rescript of Adrian to Minucius Fundanus, the
proconsul of Asia (Lard. Heath. Test. vol. ii. p. 110): from which
rescript it appears that the custom of the people of Asia was to proceed
against the Christians with tumult and uproar. This disorderly practice,
I say, is recognised in the edict, because the emperor enjoins, that,
for the future, if the Christians were guilty, they should be legally
brought to trial, and not be pursued by importunity and clamour.

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