Antoninus Pius

“ No period in Roman history could have been selected more unlikely and improbable for the death of a Christian Bishop at Rome on account of his religion, than the reign of Antoninus Pius. Not one drop of Christian blood was spilt in Rome during his reign of twenty-three years. Not only was there no blood spilt in Rome, but he forbade the persecution of Christians in the provinces by an express edict. A modern writer, speaking of him, says: "Open to conviction, uncorrupted by the vain and chimerical philosophy of the times, he was desirous of doing justice to all mankind. ”

“ Pius, applied at first to faithful filial love, as in the case of Æneas, assumed a higher sense with Christianity, and from being an occasional agnomen, became the name of a martyr Pope, under Antoninus Pius, and thus passed on to be one of the papal appellations most often in use, called Pio at Rome, and generally left to the pontiffs, though the feminine Pia is occasionally used in Italy. ”

“ Marcus Antoninus, who succeeded Antoninus Pius, was far from enjoying the tranquillity which the northern rampart was expected to give. He was obliged to carry on very troublesome wars with the Britons, and with much difficulty kept them in check. ”

“ Arrius Antoninus, the maternal grandfather of the Emperor Antoninus Pius,940 had twice borne the consulship with antique dignity, and shown himself a model governor as proconsul of Asia.941 He was devoted to Greek literature, and seems to have preferred to compose in that language. We need not accept literally Pliny’s praises of his Atticism, and of the grace and sweetness of his Greek epigrams. ”

“ In the days of Antoninus Pius the harrying of Christians even grew more and more general and cruel, and when Marcus Antoninus became Emperor, the sufferings of the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth became decidedly more acute and pronounced, and a terrible period of persecution set in and became the lot of the Christian subjects of Rome. ”

“ And he wrote books in defence of the Gospel against heathens, Jews, and heretics, or false Christians.
The old Emperor Antoninus Pius, under whom the Christians had been allowed to live in peace and safety, died in the year 161, and was succeeded by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, whom he had adopted as his son. Marcus Aurelius was not only one of the best emperors, but in many ways was one of the best of all the heathens. He had a great character for gentleness, kindness, and justice, and he was fond of books, and liked to have philosophers and learned men about him. ”

“ This remarkable portrait of Antoninus Pius is to be compared with the shorter sketch in vi. 30. 2. Together they make one of the noblest tributes that a great man has paid to another. Without them and the familiar letters of Fronto we would know almost nothing of Antoninus, since this part of the history of Dio Cassius is absent even from the epitome of his work, and the biography is a slight thing. The method which Marcus follows is to enumerate particular traits, beginning with his public and ending with his private life. ”

“ Thus Marcus begins with his paternal grandfather, Annius Verus, and his own father, passes to childhood's discipline, the Greek training adopted in Rome, introduces next his earlier and later tutors, thus leading up to his instruction by his adoptive father, the Emperor Titus Aurelius Antoninus Pius, for public life. Finally, he remembers his debt to the immortal gods for the many good persons, in his own family and kinsfolk, who had assisted him. ”

“ Other Christian slaves in the royal household survived him. If he wished to put down Christianity, why did he not begin with his own palace and with Rome? [10]
So far from persecuting them, we know that as subordinate ruler with Pius [11] he was responsible for the letter to the Greek cities forbidding outrages against the Christians. The letter to the Common Assembly of Asia, given below, if authentic, emanated from him in conjunction with Pius or from him alone. Its genuineness in the main has been upheld by Harnack, and is certainly capable of defence. ”

“ It is not at all impossible—I think it highly probable—that Marcus looked upon the Christians as misguided enthusiasts, who had to be punished as the law then stood, [5] but whom he no more than Hadrian and Pius [6] wished to punish. Again (vii. 51) he quotes the indignant cry of whom but the Christians? They kill us, they cut us limb from limb, they execrate us! ”

“ His love of old ways, his religious conservatism is opposed to Hadrian's variety and caprice, his public economy and private thrift to Hadrian's extravagance, his simplicity to Hadrian's passion for building, for luxurious dinners and boy favourites. Hadrian too was envious and intolerant of rivals, even of men of genius like the architect Apollodorus, and the fantastic extravagance of his famous villa at Tivoli may have seemed to Marcus in strange contrast to the old-fashioned country residences of Pius. ”

“ Xystus was his successor." (Ib., book iv. chap. 4.) "And Adrian being now in the twelfth year of his reign, Xystus, who had now completed the tenth year of his episcopate, was succeeded by Telesphorus." (Id., book iv. chap. 5.) "The Emperor Adrian, having finished his mortal career after the twenty-first year of his reign, is succeeded by Antoninus, called Pius, in the government of the Romans. ”

“ Anderson of Drury Lane can furnish any amount of popular feeling or pious awe at a shilling a head; and the managers know these things in Rome, where labor is much cheaper than with us. Pius returned to Rome under cover of the French bayonets, to find a people cowed and sulky—contrasting their traditions with the presence of the Gaul, remembering in bitterness the days before the Papacy, and imputing this crowning finish of their disgrace to the Pope forced back upon them. ”

“ He believes that the thoughts and desires of his soul are in reality the counsels of God made known to him by inspiration, and that if by following these counsels he accomplishes the deliverance of the Church and of mankind, it is the Hand of God which uses him as an instrument. And why should not Pius see a sign of his election to high and extraordinary destinies in the circumstance of his having already sat longer than any of his 256 predecessors, even Pius vi., on the apostolic throne? ”

“ Even after his dispossession, for a time, no doubt, heart might have been kept up among his more refined and cultivated followers; but the most faithful peoples have always demanded a tangible standard or beacon of their faith—a pillar of fire or a visible church. When Pius left Rome, the rock became tenantless; the mansion of St. Peter was vacant; a Pope in lodgings was no Pope of Europe. And so it was felt.
But the bodily restoration of Pius the Ninth to the capital of his states is not the restoration of the Pope to his spiritual throne. That can no more be effected. ”

“ The pope's answer was as characteristic as the smile that accompanied it. "Come," he said, "did he not allow that after all I was a good priest? Now, of all praise, that is the only one I have ever valued."
"A man who hid a boundless ambition under a pretence of humility," wrote another opponent. And in one sense most certainly Pius X was a man of ambition, an ambition that had taken shape within him as he knelt before the altar of the cathedral of Castelfranco to receive the priesthood with all that it entailed. Study, prayer, labour, self-denial and unlimited self-devotion ”

“ Men spoke little in those times but of what the Pope was doing, or purposed to do. Unlike his predecessor, who shrunk from any discussion on public affairs, Pius invited all who had any grievances to report, or plans of improvement to propose, to come freely to his presence. He removed the most irksome restraints from the Jewish population; lent a favourable ear to projects of railroads and other scientific and industrial enterprises, as well as to the diffusion of instruction among the lower classes; and permitted the establishment at Rome of a political journal, the first known in Italy. ”

“ Little indeed did Pius want of being a perfect Christian, in heart and in practice. Yet all this display of goodness and merciful indulgence, nay, all his munificence, would have availed him little with the people at large, had he neglected to furnish shows and exhibitions in the arena of suitable magnificence. Luckily for his reputation, he exceeded the general standard of imperial splendor not less as the patron of the amphitheatre than in his more important functions. ”

“ But the movements of the Roman populace are matters of more rapid execution. What the Pope was a month since, every one knows;—Pius the powerful, Pius the popular, Pius the restorer of liberty to all the aggrieved nations of Italy, with a slight appendix, including the aggrieved nations of Europe. But the populace, which gave him his titles, have now changed them, and he is "Pius the Monk."
In a year whose every week produces a revolution, who can predict the events of a month? In the middle of this month of May, Pope Pius is virtually a prisoner in his palace ”

“ That is expressly stated in the Brief; and these are no mere phrases, such as the Curia frequently indulges in, but are uttered in sober earnest. Pius really holds his infallibility to be the divinely ordained panacea for effecting a thorough cure of mankind, who are now sick unto death. He is convinced that the fount of unerring inspiration, which will henceforth flow incessantly from the holy Father at Rome, will fructify all Christian lands like a supernatural Nile stream, and overflow all human science for its purification or its destruction. ”

“ The people had abhorred Gregory, had adored Pius, upon whom they looked as a saviour, as a liberator; finding themselves deceived, a mourning-veil had overshadowed their love. Still, had Pius remained here, and had courage to show himself on agitating occasions, his position as the Pope, before whom they had been bred to bow, his aspect, which had once seemed to them full of blessing and promise, like that of an angel, would have still retained power. Probably the temporal dominion of the Papacy would not have been broken up. He fled; the people felt contempt for his want of force and truth. ”

“ Young men, leaders of armies, courted death in battle to win the favour of their sovereigns; wherefore he, a decrepit old man, might surely await his end with calmness. He then wanders off into a long disquisition on the philosophy of Polybius, and forgets entirely to set down further details of his imprisonment, or to explain the cause thereof.
Pius IV. had died at the end of 1565, and had been succeeded by Michele Ghislieri, the Cardinal of Alessandria, as Pius V. Like his predecessor, the new Pope was a Milanese by birth, but in character and aims the two Popes were entirely different. ”

“ So according to this belief, which is not confined to the vulgar, Pius has only one year more to live. But in spite of his age he is healthy and wonderfully strong, and, as he belongs to a long-lived family, he has the prospect of still living some time, only not as reigning Pope. It is no pleasing prospect for a man, in whose character there is a large element of amour propre, to be treated as the setting sun, while all are speculating on his speedy death. ”

“ Peter, an event which threw the Romans, gentle and simple, into a state of delirious joy. Pius VI had died in captivity at Valence, on the 29th of August, 1799; his, successor, Cardinal Chiaramonti, was elected at Venice (Rome being in the hands of the French) on the 16th of March, 1800, and on the 3d of July of the same year the French, having been expelled from the Papal States by the Neapolitans and Austrians, the new Pope, who had taken the name of Pius VII, came back to his own. Everybody believed that once more “the Church would have peace” ”

“ The spiritual sovereignty, “with which,” to use the words of a British statesman, “there is nothing on this earth that can at all compare,” was crowned with surpassing glory. Doctrines which, hitherto, had been open to theological discussion, were ascertained and pronounced to be in accordance with the belief of all preceding Christian ages. The Church was enabled, through the labors of her Chief and the zeal of her Priesthood, to extend vastly the place of her tent. The life of Pius IX. himself was a marvel and a glory. None of his predecessors, not even Peter, attained to his length of days. ”

“ They stated with sorrow that the pamphlet decided in favor of the revolution. But the boldest condemnation proceeded from Rome itself. The Popes, it is well known, hesitate not to use the proper terms when there is question of stigmatizing iniquity. No matter though they be at the mercy of those whom they brand, they define each error and each act of injustice with the same precision as in writing a theological thesis. Pius IX., who was mildness itself, more than once startles the delicate ear by the liberty of his language, so different from the minced and often ambiguous style of diplomacy. ”

“ It rested secure, so men believed, on the firm foundation of enlightened public opinion. Philosophy, as represented by M. Cousin, hailed its advent. The statesmanship of France, headed by M. Thiers, extolled its champion. Protestantism, forgetting its illiberal prejudices, re-echoed with enthusiasm the warm vivats of reformed Italy. Pius IX., meanwhile, enjoyed his reward,—not in the flattering echo of the thousand voices which sounded his praise, but in the one still voice of approving conscience. ”

“ At this moment, while Sovereigns and statesmen are threatening him with the seizure of the ancient inheritance of the Church, which is intrusted to his care, and himself with banishment, not only is he calm, but he prophesies that, from these present trials, great glory shall result to the Church. Pius the Ninth is a man who lives in close union with God. ”