Martyrdom, i.e. testimony given, by means of suffering and death,
to the reality of a fact and the divinity of a doctrine, is an
exclusive privilege of Christianity. There were no martyrs of
philosophy, no martyrs of paganism, nor even of Judaism. Christians
were alone in sacrificing their life, in the hope of asserting the
reality of fundamental facts and the doctrines of their religion,
of which they wished to be the witnesses and the respondents. This
testimony as a proof of Christianity, and of its reality and
superiority, entered into the plans of the Founder. Sending His
disciples into the world, Christ had commanded them to be witnesses
to His person and mission: "You will be My witnesses even to the
ends of the earth." The writer's task was then to show how the
disciples of Christ gave this testimony which they had been
commanded to give, and also to show what demonstrative force
attaches to this testimony in favour of the divinity of the
Christian religion. This task has been admirably performed. The
writer has shown, with all the amplitude which such an important
subject demands, the motives which occasioned the testimony, the
situation in which it was given, the number of those who gave it,
the proceedings taken against them, the tortures and sufferings
which they endured, the impression made by their testimony on the
minds of their contemporaries, the honours bestowed on their
relics, and the inferences which we are entitled to draw from all
this. All these questions are dealt with and suitably answered.
Martyrdom having followed the expansion of Christianity, it was
only right that the author should begin with a brief consideration
of the spread of the Christian faith during the first three
centuries. This he has done with much learning. If he does not
leave us under the impression that Christianity became at once a
universal religion, this is because he is too well acquainted with
the facts, and can demonstrate by the study of texts that its
diffusion took place by degrees, more rapidly in some localities
than in others. He sketches the geographical growth of
Christianity" at first in the Roman world, spreading gradually
through Greece, Italy, Gaul, Great Britain, Germany, Sarmatia, and
the Iberian peninsula, North Africa, Eg..ypt, and the immense
provinces of Western Asia, and he completes his map of the places
about to become the scene of martyrdom by tracing the progress of
Christian beliefs in the countries lying beyond the limits of the
Roman Empire. What historical fact could be more exceptional and
inexplicable by ordinary means than the progressive conquests of a
doctrine which spread amongst the most diverse and hostile
surroundings, which seemed to thrive in every state of civilisation
and to adapt itself to the highest and the simplest minds, which
was accepted by corrupt natures, though it meant in their case the
sacrifice of all that they had held dear, which surmounted all
obstacles and all persecutions, though in itself it seemed to
contain nothing but weakness and utter want of power? Besides
considering the rapid propagation of the Gospel, the author was
also justified in seeking to find to what social classes the
witnesses to Christ's divinity belonged, for knowing this we obtain
a yet more accurate knowledge of the degree in which the different
classes of society had been permeated by Christianity. From the
documents brought together by Allard it is evident that
Christianity, far from having been, as some imagine, a democratic
religion which at first was confined to the lower classes and only
later on ascended to the higher ranks of society, was in reality
from its very beginning, and by the Apostles themselves, preached
to everyone, poor and rich, scholars and ignorant men; scarcely had
it made its first appearance in the world than it leaped the Jewish
horizon and reached the highest quarters of the Roman world,
finding adherents, and martyrs too, on every rung of the social
ladder.
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