19 6
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
2 Thess. ii. 7,1 that the Roman empire would last to the end of the world. 2 The persecution of Julian was caused by the feeling of the danger which menaced the pagan empire from the Christian religion. His hostility was not founded on his attachment to the old religion of Rome, which he did not attempt to save. He endeavoured to replace it by a new system which was to furnish the State with ne\v vigour to \vithstand the decay of the old paganism and the invasion of Christianity. He felt that the old religious ideas in which the Roman State had gro\vn up had lost their po\ver, and that Rome could only be saved by opposing at all hazards the new ideas. He was inspired rather with a political hatred of Christianity than with a religious love of paganism. Consequently Christianity was the only religion he could not tolerate. This was the beginning of the persecution of the Church on principles of liberalism and religious toleration, on the plea of political necessity, by men who felt that the existing forms of the State were incompatible with her progress. It is with the same feeling of patriotic aversion for the Church that Symmachus says (Eþist. x. 6 I): " We demand the restoration of that religion which has so long been beneficial to the State . . . of that worship which has subdued the universe to our laws, of those sacrifices \vhich repulsed Hannibal from our walls and the Gauls from the Capito1." Very soon after the time of Constantine it began to appear that the outward conversion of the empire \vas a boon of doubtful value to religion. (C Et postquam ad Christian os principes venerint, potentia quid em et divitiis major sed virtutibus minor facta est," says St. Jerome (in Vita Male/d). The zeal with \vhich the emperors applied the secular arm for the promotion of Christianity was felt
1 August. de Civ. Dei, xx, 19, 3' 2 "Christianus nullius est hostis, nedum imperatoris, quem. . . necesse. est ut , . , salvum velit cum toto Romano imperio quousque saeculum stabit; tamdiu enim stabit" (Tert. ad Scapulam, 2), " Cum caput illud orbis occiderit et þúp.:YJ esse coeperit. quod Sibyllae fore aiunt, quis dubitet venisse jam finem rebus humanis orbique terrarum? .. (Lactantius, IllS!, Div. vii. 25). .. Non prius veniet Christus. quam regni Romani defectio fiat" (Ambrose ad ep, i, ad Thess,).
