Sermons Practical and Occasional Dissertations, Translations, Including New Versions of Virgil's Bucolica, and of Milton's Defensio Secunda, Seaton Poems, &c. &c. By the Rev. Francis Wrangham ... In Three Volumes |
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| THE
SUFFERINGS
OF THE
PRIMITIVE MARTYRS:
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 | Sermons Practical and Occasional |  |
THE SUFFERINGS OF THE PRIMITIVE MARTYRS:
A SEATON PRIZE POEM, 1811.
ORIGINALLY DEDICATED TO MRS. GRANT, AUTHORESS OF THE ‘DISSERTATION ON THE SUPERSTITIONS OF THE HIGHLANDERS OF SCOTLAND.’
ARGUMENT.
Introduction. Stephen; and his Jewish Persecutors. Nero burns Rome; and charges the crime upon the Christians. First Persecution: Peter and Paul suffer; the former crucified with his head downward. Domitian causes Clemens, his collegue in the Consulship, to be martyred, and banishes his widow Domitilla to Pandataria. St. John exiled to Patmos, where he writes the Apocalypse. Ignatius thrown to wild beasts. Polycarp burnt. Pliny, Proconsul of Bithynia.—The English Martyrs; Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, &c. Apostrophe to Faith. Affliction no test of demerit. Other species of Martyrdom: Missionaries; the Macleods, &c. Conclusion.
The Mandate, with unconscious evidence
Stablishing the sure word prophetical,
That ‘they who will in Jesus godly live
Shall suffer persecution.’ This 'twas thine
First, Stephen, to attest (in Christian tomes
Thence Proto-martyr named) ere Nero yet
His crimson rescript issued; thine to see,
As on thy bruised form beat the stony shower,
Thy Saviour on his throne of adamant
Seated by God's right-hand. It's pearled gates
Heaven opens wide to cheer, before they close
In momentary sleep, thy languid eyes,
And with it's own effulgence gild thy brow:
O rapture far surpassing all thy pangs,
Were they ten thousandfold; when thy worst foes,
Struck with the sudden lustre, in thy face
Discern reflected Deity, and shrink,
Even while they perpetrate the deed of blood!
Ah wretched race, beloved of God in vain!
Unequal war, and on his embassies
Heap contumely and anguish! Lifted erst
By his strong arm from error's deathful shade,
To thee, high-favour'd One, 'twas given to catch
On thy tall pinnacles the purple dawn,
And glow while all was dreariest gloom around.
As when his tube some Herschel to the moon,
Crescent or waning, points, intent to note
And fathom all her depths, fast by her marge
Of some proud mount he marks the golden top
Glittering with heaven's first beam, while at it's foot
Flows darkness; so did'st thou, Judæa, rise—
Thou radiant singly, 'midst a world of night!
—But thou art fall'n; and who shall weep thy fate?
And keener woes. With devilish malice bent,
Tremendous frolic! to renew the scene
Of burning Troy, the felon prince applies
His secret torch; and, ere the night's pale orb
Has reach'd it's noon, with more than rival flame
Rome reddens. Perish in that mortal blaze
Phidias, and Myron, and Praxiteles,
The pride of ancient Greece; and more than these,
Perish the Valour which achieved, the Taste
Which prized the rich possession, Intellect,
Youth, Beauty, Innocence, beneath the sweep
Of the wide-wasting fury. He meanwhile
Perch'd, heartless ravager! like some foul bird,
That croaks and scents the carnage of the field,
From his safe battlements surveys afar
The beauteous glare, and with his lyre derides
The ruin he has caused. Are such the works
Unto a God of love, his creatures doom
To crimeless, cureless wretchedness? Yes—so
Nero pronounces, their Accuser-Judge;
And other fires are kindled. Wrapp'd in coats
Bituminous, or in the shaggy spoil
Of Libyan lioness, alternately
They blaze a living flambeau; or engaged
Less savage than the fiend who let them slip)
They die by the stern gripe of horrid fangs;
Or, dragg'd along the crowded hippodrome,
With head supine in the empurpled sand
Trace the prolific furrow. Then fell ye,
Peter and Paul, through many a toilsome day
Your race of duty run; fell but to rise,
Where long your pure ambition had aspired,
From earth to paradise. Inverted there,
As loth to rival even upon the Cross
His Saviour, Cephas hangs; how changed from him,
Who once with oaths that Saviour disavow'd,
And back from death recoil'd, as from a thing
Which heaven would poorly compensate! Where now
Thy gorgeous dreams of hierarchal state,
The sceptre and the crosier intertwined,
Themes of thy morning-visions? Vanish'd all;
Or rather for a more enduring pomp,
Wreaths æther-dipt and crowns above the stars,
Richly exchanged.
Her breathing-space. Not always can her sword
Drink blood, not always blaze her murtherous pyre.
Brief time she pauses. O'er the Capitol,
Ere many a year has roll'd, it's baleful orb
The Flavian meteor lifts; and by it's beam,
Of his own lictors victim, Clemens dies.
Him not the majesty of fasces borne
Conjunctive, nor the softer charities
Domestical, protect from the fell sway
Of his Imperial Collegue. But he falls,
Not singly stricken by the storm. In faith,
As in their fortunes one, and still in fame—
Expiates her creed, and whom she loved in life,
Loves and laments—even in the festering tomb.
Tyrannic to the cauldron's hissing rage
Consign'd in vain. The solitary isle
Received thee next, where on thy gifted eye
Burst visions of futurity, thine ear
Caught sounds of distant days, and angel-friends
Sooth'd thy lone exile. Earthly dwelling none
Open'd to thee it's hospitable door,
With the sweet converse of the wise and good
Gladdening thine heart: but New Jerusalem
From heaven descending, deck'd in bridal state,
Her walls of jasper and of gold her domes,
Dazzled thy view. Sapphire and topaz there,
Beryl and amethyst and chrysolite,
Their various rays commingled; and her streets,
Bright with irradiant Deity, were throng'd
With forms celestial. Lightly values he
To commerce thus with natives of the skies.
Which hunted David's issue, bent to crush
Messiah's kindred lineage; to the gaunt
And famish'd tigress gave Theophorus,
Antioch's good Bishop, and with fire's dread scourge
Smote mitred Polycarp. ‘His ashes flew,
No marble tells us whither.’ Rome could point
Of yore, when darkness veil'd her Vatican,
To where each several relic was enshrined,
Single or duplicate; for might we trust
The legendary lore apocryphal
Of that long night, each martyr'd saint would seem
(So crowded is her hallow'd charnel-house)
Geryon, or fabled Briareus! Thou too,
To trace Religion's triumphs and her tears,
Her corporal suffrances, her bosom'd joys;
Thou too, Bithynia's ruler, should'st attest
(Even while thou doom'st) her zeal, impregnable
To earthly fears or hopes; and prove how far,
The Christian's clemency surpass'd thine own.
Though worthy ye even of seraphic chords,
Who when again rejected Rome, by turns
Tempting and threatening, wooed you to her arms,
Her lures, her lowering, mark'd with equal scorn,
And for your new-pledged faith endured to die;
Cranmer, and Ridley thou, and Latimer
The pure, the primitive! But lightly ye,
Even in your day of frail humanity,
Reck'd human eulogy; or he would mourn,
Much as he longs to wake the lyre to praise,
His numbers all too weak, his narrow'd theme.
The palmy wreath thou twinest, and to the skies
Whirl'st them exulting in thy car of fire,
Snatch'd from a hostile world. Thus through their frame
Thou breathest the buoyant spirit, undepress'd
By dungeons damp where Pestilence collects
And by those ties uncheck'd whose tender force
Even in death's hour, when other bonds dissolve,
With tightening pressure grasps the beating heart.
Who in the perilous time when Murther, mask'd
In saintly garb, with ravenous tooth devour'd
His myriads at a meal, defied the fiend—
Because they sunk within his withering clutch?
Then have we vainly read, that God in love
Scourges his favour'd sons, and by the keen
And bleaching winter of adversity
Braces and purifies: then have we read
Vainly, that ‘light and momentary pangs,
Encounter'd firmly for the Crucified,
With heavenly glory's everlasting weight
Bear not comparison.’ In juster scale
We poise even human counsels. Who not waits,
When sceptred Glo'ster stalks in guilty pomp,
Expectant—till on Bosworth's righteous field,
Avenging the brief triumphs of his pride,
The crown'd assassin bleeds? When Epopee
Leads forth her shadowy phalanx, who condemns,
If for a little space Vice rears his crest,
She lifts her candid front: the clouds disperse,
And in the sun-bright throng of coming years
She hails her high reward. Nor fears the wretch,
Whom Justice summons to his country's bar—
Be but that country England—that his judge,
Or ere the long-spun narrative be closed,
Will with impatient spleen pronounce his doom.
No: 'tis but when th' Unerring Artist weaves
His plots mysterious, we explore the work
With blind precipitation, madly hiss
As passion prompts, and heedless of the sure
Though late catastrophe, with daring hand
Hurl our weak bolt before the curtain falls.
The wheel and cross? With mingled joy and pain
Thrills there no heart save his, who at the stake,
When Nature shrinks from the resistless flame,
Feels strong within him the sustaining God?
Answer me ye, who traverse Greenland's wastes,
And 'mid her regions of perennial snow
Plant Sharon's rose! Or answer ye, who brave
In climes of torrid fire the yellow plague:
Or, where it's inland sea Ontario spreads,
Fearless unto his lonely haunt pursue
The sullen savage; destined to receive,
Haply, from the dire object of your toils
Your mortal stroke! Nor shall ye of the Muse
Sleep unremember'd in your distant tomb,
Gallant Macleods, whom war's precarious game
The fervid noon, and drenching dews by night,
Alternate parch'd and chill'd you. Food was yours,
Which Famine lothed to taste. No soothing voice,
Honour's firm tone, or whisper'd hope of fame,
Lured, animated, solaced. Far from all
That nerves the soul, the sympathising friend,
Th' applauding world; from Caledonia far,
Loved by her sons beyond all other loves,
Ye met the shock, though life and liberty
(Such liberty, as despots can bestow!)
Clung to the offer'd turban; and with faith
Primeval, worthy of a nobler lyre,
Spurn'd the rich bait. As some fair cluster'd flowers,
Which in the desert waste their transient sweets,
Shrivell'd by heat or shivering in the storm,
Ye died. Now life and liberty are yours—
Such liberty as despots cannot give,
Such life as despots cannot take away!
Arctic or tropic, or the myriad isles
Nameless in thick profusion scatter'd o'er
The vast Pacific, bends th' excursive Muse?
Answer her ye, who in your Saviour's cause
Even from the babbling of compatriot tongues
The worldling's specious scoffings have endured,
And infidel's light gibes. Yet hostile shafts,
Barb'd with sharp sophistry or venom'd sneer,
Securely mail'd. But who unpain'd can bear,
When friend encounters friend, the pitying glance,
Pitying or scornful; who the kind reproach,
Which chides to serve, and wounds because it loves?
Or chiding tongue; on some triumphant day
Doom'd haply from thy Master to receive
(Fruit of thy firmness, and it's recompence!)
That friend's conversion. Grappled to thee then
By sympathy, than steeled hook more strong,
How will he bless the pious stubbornness,
Which won him from his error? How delight
To mix sweet counsels in the house of God,
Catch from thy glowing lip intenser flame,
And with united incense perfume heaven!
Transporting intercourse for fawning crowds
Ill-barter'd; when two harmonising souls,
From the world's feverish bustle far removed,
Together pour their humble orisons
Of prayer and praise, or with consentient glance
Explore creation's wonders! Happier still,
Ah then most happy they of human kind,
If to the raptured pair the holy names
Of Sire and Son belong! Deep in their hearts
The memory lives of many a tender look,
And many a fond caress. The hawthorn'd vale
Hand link'd in hand they traverse, Health and Peace
And Competence attending, or ascend
The mountain's brow, or on the ocean-beach
Stray the long summer-morn. With varied voice
Beach, vale, and mountain hymn their maker God.
They join in nature's concert. Tutor'd thus
And fitted for eternity, though Death
Sever by fate's decree the hallow'd bond,
With all the Martyr'd, all the Sainted Just
Of every age, their earthly warfare o'er—
Welcome, blest hour!—no more to part, in heaven.
Per sex dies septemque noctes eâ clade sævitum est ... Tunc præter immensum numerum insularum domus priscorum ducum arserunt, hostilibus adhuc spoliis adornatæ, Deorumque ædes ab Regibus ac deinde Punicis ac Gallicis bellis votæ dedicatæque, et quidquid visendum atque memorabile ex antiquitate duraverat. Hoc incendium è turri Mæcenatianâ prospectans, lætusque flammæ (ut aiebat) pulcritudine, αλωσιν Ilii in illo suo scenico habitu decantavit. (Suet. Ner. xxxviii.) Xiphilin in his Νερων adds, Και πολλοι μεν οικοι ερημοι του βοηθησοντος σφισιν απωλοντο, πολλοι δε και υπ' αυτων των επικουρουντων προσκατεπρησθησαν. Οι γαρ στρατιωται, οι τε αλλοι, και οι νυκτοφυλακες, προς τας αρπαγας αφορωντες ουχ οσον ου κατεσβεννυσαν τινα, αλλα και προσεξεκαιον. Opinion omnium, says Sulpicius Severus (Sacr. Hist. II.) on the authority of Tacitus, invidiam incendii in Principem retorquebat, credebaturque Imperator gloriam innovandæ urbis quæsîsse. See Ann. XV. 40. In 41. is subjoined, Jam opes tot victoriis quæsitæ et Græcarum artium decora, exin monimenta ingeniorum antiqua et incorrupta, quamvis in tantâ resurgentis urbis pulcritudine, multa seniores meminerant quæ reparari nequibant: and, in 44., Sed non ... decedebat infamia, quin jussum incendium crederetur. Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos, et quæsitissimis pœnis affecit, quos per flagitia invisos vulgus ‘Christianos’ appellabant. Auctor nominis ejus Christus, qui Tiberio imperitante per Procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat. Repressaque in præsens exitiabilis superstitio rursùs erumpebat, non modò per Judæam originem ejus mali, sed per urbem etiam, quò cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque. Igitur primò correpti, qui fatebantur; deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens, haud perinde crimine incendii quàm odio humani generis convicti sunt. Et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis contecti laniatu canum interirent, aut crucibus affixi, aut flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies in usum nocturni luminis urerentur. Seneca, likewise, commemorates illam tunicam, alimentis ignium et illitam et intextam. (Epist. XIV.) See, farther, his De Irâ, III. 3., and Juv. Sat. I. 156.
Τον Φλαβιον Κλημεντα υπατευοντα (tantùm non ipso ejus consulatu, says Suet. Domit. XV.)
καιπερ ανεψιον οντα, και γυναικα—και αυτην συγγενη εκυτου—Φλαβιαν Δομιτιλλαν εχοντα, κατεσφαξεν ο Δομιτιανος: επηνεχθη δε αμφοιν εγκλημα αθεοτητος, υφ) ης και αλλος ες τα των Ιουδαιων ηθη εξοκελλοντες πολλοι κατεδικασθησαν: και οι μεν απεθανον, οι δε των γουν ουσιων εστερηθησαν η δε Δομιτιλλος υπερωρισθη μονον εις Πωνδατερειαν. (Xiphil. Δομιτ.)
Eusebius states, that she was sent to Pontia. The contemptissima inertia, by which Clemens is characterised in Suetonius, involves the crimination, as well as Xiphilin's εις τα των Ιουδαιων ηθη εξοκελλοντες, of being a Christian: Infructuosi in negotiis dicimur is the language of Tertullian, Apolog. xlii.
“Domitian murthered all the nephews of Jude, called ‘the Lord's Brethren,’ and slew all he could find of the stock of David, as Vespasian did before him, lest any of that race should enjoy the kingdom.”—“Some of the stock of David were brought to Domitian to be slain; but he, finding them to be poor simple unlearned men who, as it appeared by the hardness and callousness of their hands, worked hard for their bread, and discovering that Christ's Kingdom (which they were always talking about, and which indeed seemed to be the cause of all the Emperor's jealousy) was not of this world, but divine and heavenly, they were soon dismissed.”
By this name Ignatius designated himself, as meaning “One who has Christ in his breast,” in his interview with Trajan, A. D. 107. See Milner's excellent ‘History of the Church of Christ,’ I. 166— 190. The two letters likewise of the Proconsul of Bithynia, and the emperor Trajan in the same volume (160—162) do indeed, as Mr. M. observes, abundantly prove that “virtue in Pliny's writings, and virtue in St. Paul's, mean not the same thing.” See Plin. Epist. X. 97, 98. Polycarp was Bishop of Smyrna.
“All the graves and catacombs were exhausted to furnish Relics: not a bone, not the least scrap of any saint, that was not removed into the holy wardrobe, to raise money to the showers. Where the monuments were dubious and blended, the names and bodies of pagan slaves were taken into the Church-calendar and treasury. Disputes and quarrels arose among the numerous pretenders to one and the same relic, which could never be decided; but the victory was various and alternate, according to the fruitful inventions and ingenious lies of the contending impostors.” (Bentley's Sermon at Cambridge, Nov. 5, 1715.) This however, it should be remembered, was written very nearly a hundred years ago, and but a little week before the first rebellious attempt to supersede the Brunswicks by the Stuarts had been happily suppressed by the actions at Preston and Dumblaine. The learned preacher himself admits, in the sequel of his Discourse, that “Popery since the Reformation had, even in it's own quarters, permitted learning and humanity:” and I myself some years ago, addressing an Academical audience, ventured to express my conviction that “Time, the grand agent in diffusing intellectual and civil blessings, had not passed over the Vatican alone” without leaving behind him a share of his bounties. Whether, indeed, the relative state of the Romish (even Gallican) and English church be accurately expressed by Archbishop Wake in his last Letter to the Ecclesiastical Historian Dupin, In dogmatibus, prout à te candidè proponuntur, non admodùm dissentimus, I may still be permitted to retain the Academicorum εποχη: but our remaining differences are surely not of a nature to justify the withholding of those rights, which the more temperate Irish Catholics now claim at our hands; even if policy did not appear most vehemently to urge the concession, and the example of Catholic states entrusting themselves with unabused confidence to the Protestants Saxe and Neckar and Wurmser and Alvinzy could not be pleaded against us, and the names of Burke and Windham and Grenville and Grey and Pitt and Fox (a Sextumvirate, to which it would be difficult in these times to add a seventh) were not marshalled in their favour. Archdeacon Balguy's Discourses contain a very spirited charge on Religious Liberty.
As Martyrs, entitled to the appellation of primitive only by their creed and their lives. I have made no mention of the infant victims of heathen persecution, the
Quos lucis ipso in limine
Christi insecutor sustulit,
Ceu turbo nascentes rosas;
(Prudent. Περι Στεφ.)
though I am not ignorant of the distinctions made upon the subject by the early Christian Writers, particularly Gregor. Roman. who assigns two species—unum in mente, aliud in mente simul et actione (In Evang. Conc. xxxv.), and Bernard, who adds a third: Habemus in B. Stephano Martyrii simul et opus et voluntatem; habemus solam voluntatem in B. Joanne; solum in B. Innocentibus opus (Conc. in Fest. Innocent.) because of their unconscious and merely passive testimony. Infantia passionis ignara, says Peter of Ravenna, ‘the Golden-speeched’ (Serm. cliii.), martyrii palmas rapuit et coronas.
Εδοξαν εν οφθαλμοις αφρονων τεθναναι, και ελογισθη κακωσις η εξοδος αυτων, και η αφ' ημων πορεια συντριμμα: οι δε εισιν εν ειρηνη. Και γαρ εν οψει ανθρωπων εαν κολασθωσιν, η ελπις αυτων αθανασιας πληρης: και ολιγα παιδευθεντες μεγαλα ευεργετηθησονται, κ. τ. λ. (Σοφ. Σολ. iii. 2—5.)
Τοις δε αθλιοις των ανθρωπων θανατος ειναι ο βιαιοτατος η δι αιματος Μαρτυρια του Κυριου δοκει, ουκ ειδοσι της οντως ουσης ζωης αρχην ειναι την τοιαυτην του θανατου πυλην. (Clem. Alex. Strom. IV.)
Και οι Μαρτυρες τα προσωπα μεν του σωματος προς τους δικασας εξ αναγκης εχοντες, τη δε δυναμει λοιπον οντες εν Παραδεισω, κατεπτυσαν των φαινομενων χαλεπων. (Cyrill. Catech. xvi. í.)
For an account of the sufferings and steadfastness of these ‘noble Martyrs,’ see Mrs. Grant's late interesting ‘Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland,’ II. 138—142. The regiment, of which they formed a part, consisted of Highlanders from the Isles, under the command of a General Macleod; and I have therefore ventured to distinguish them all, on the principle of clanship, by his name. Of above two hundred, who fell into the hands of Tippoo Saib, very few survived. Their sad story is detailed, with nearly historical accuracy, in the above lines. Warmly has the same delightfully-national Authoress of ‘Letters from the Mountains’ proclaimed,
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