Stoics and Saints - College of Stoic Philosophers

WHY THE ROMANS PERSECUTED. 79
guarantee for the welfare of human society. The best
emperors, we must remember, had the highest conception
of what the Empire was to do for the world. In their
judgment it offered the one hope
golden Saturnian reign. A spirit by
of the restoration of the
which men were led
to question the imperial decrees, to judge them by some
unseen, unknown standard, and if they were found wanting,
to die rather than obey them, seemed to the rulers the very
principle of confusion. It was in their sight simple obstinacy
and malignity, because there was nothing within their sight
which could explain
it. The Romans were the most clement
of conquerors, the most tolerant of rulers, just because they
found nothing in the world which when once conquered was
intolerant of their rule. But a Sect which had an unseen
King of whom the Eomans knew nothing, but who was obeyed
with a fidelity which the Eoman scourge and axe could not
shake, seemed to them to strike at the very root of the order
of society. To them the Empire was the sacred thing; the
better the ruler the more sacred was the Empire
sight. On such a one it
appeared
in his
all the more incumbent
to strangle a Sect which dishonoured the majesty
Empire,
of the
a Sect that set above the head of the State the
prcesens Jupiter of his subjects a King whom the legions
could not reach, and yet who wielded a power over His
people which cast that of the emperors quite into the shade.
Strictly parallel with the conduct of some of the wisest
and most clement of the emperors, is that of some of the
most sagacious and merciful of the Popes. The worst
Papal persecutors have not been, as a rule, the worst men
who have occupied the Pontifical throne. The worst men
did not care enough
about the matter. It was the best
men, who had the largest idea of the blessing with which
the Church was charged for the world, who were most
impatient of any heresies which threatened to intercept it.