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| Chapter II.—Urbicus condemns the Christians to death.
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Chapter II.—Urbicus condemns the
Christians to death.
A certain woman
lived with an intemperate1925
| 1925
ἀκολασταίνοντι,
which word includes unchastity, as well as the other forms of
intemperance. [As we say, dissolute.] | husband; she herself,
too, having formerly been intemperate. But when she came to the knowledge
of the teachings of Christ she became sober-minded, and endeavoured to
persuade her husband likewise to be temperate, citing the teaching of
Christ, and assuring him that there shall be punishment in eternal fire
inflicted upon those who do not live temperately and conformably to right
reason. But he, continuing in the same excesses, alienated his wife from
him by his actions. For she, considering it wicked to live any longer as
a wife with a husband who sought in every way means of indulging in
pleasure contrary to the law of nature, and in violation of what is
right, wished to be divorced from him. And when she was overpersuaded by
her friends, who advised her still to continue with him, in the idea that
some time or other her husband might give hope of amendment, she did
violence to her own feeling and remained with him. But when her husband
had gone into Alexandria, and was reported to be conducting himself worse
than ever, she—that she might not, by continuing in matrimonial
connection with him, and by sharing his table and his bed, become a
partaker also in his wickednesses and impieties—gave him what you
call a bill of divorce,1926
| 1926
ῥεπούδιον, i.e.,
“repudium,” a bill of repudiation. | and was
separated from him. But this noble husband of hers,—while he
ought to have been rejoicing that those actions which formerly she
unhesitatingly committed with the servants and hirelings, when she
delighted in drunkenness and every vice, she had now given up, and
desired that he too should give up the same,—when she had gone
from him without his desire, brought an accusation against her, affirming
that she was a Christian. And she presented a paper to thee, the
Emperor,1927
| 1927 [Rather,
“to thee, autocrat:” a very bold apostrophe, like that of
Huss to the Emperor Sigismund, which crimsoned his forehead with a blush
of shame.] | requesting that first she be permitted to arrange
her affairs, and afterwards to make her defence against the accusation,
when her affairs were set in order. And this you granted. And
her quondam husband, since he was now no longer able to
prosecute her, directed his assaults against a man, Ptolemæus, whom
Urbicus punished, and who had been her teacher in the Christian
doctrines. And this he did in the following way. He persuaded a centurion
—who had cast Ptolemæus into prison, and who was friendly to
himself—to take Ptolemæus and interrogate him on this sole
point: whether he were a Christian? And Ptolemæus, being a lover of
truth, and not of a deceitful or false disposition, when he confessed
himself to be a Christian, was bound by the centurion, and for a long
time punished in the prison And, at last, when the man1928
came to
Urbicus, he was asked this one question only: whether he was a Christian?
And again, being conscious of his duty, and the nobility of it through
the teaching of Christ, he confessed his discipleship in the divine
virtue. For he who denies anything either denies it because he condemns
the thing itself, or he shrinks from confession because he is conscious
of his own unworthiness or alienation from it, neither of which cases is
that of the true Christian. And when Urbicus ordered him to be led away
to punishment, one Lucius, who was also himself a Christian, seeing the
unreasonable judgment that had thus been given, said to Urbicus:
“What is the ground of this judgment? Why have you punished this
man, not as an adulterer, nor fornicator, nor murderer, nor thief, nor
robber, nor convicted of any crime at all, but who has only confessed
that he is called by the name of Christian? This judgment of yours, O
Urbicus, does not become the Emperor Pius, nor the philosopher, the son
of Cæsar, nor the sacred senate.”1929
| 1929 On this passage, see Donaldson’s Critical
History, etc., vol. ii. p. 79. | And he said nothing else
in answer to Lucius than this: “You also seem to me to be such an
one.” And when Lucius answered, “Most certainly I am,”
he again ordered him also to be led away. And he professed his thanks,
knowing that he was delivered from such wicked rulers, and was going to
the Father and King of the heavens. And still a third having come
forward, was condemned to be punished.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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