The Roman Empire then filled the world:
...the sublimest incarnation of power, and a monument the mightiest of greatness built by human hands, which has upon this planet been suffered to appear. [1]
The State is Supreme
That empire, proud of its conquests, and exceedingly jealous of its claims, asserted its right to rule in all things, human and divine. In the Roman view, the State took precedence of everything.
It was entirely out of respect to the State and wholly to preserve the State, that either the emperors or the laws ever forbade the exercise of the Christian religion. According to Roman principles, the State was the highest idea of good.
The idea of the State was the highest idea of ethics, and within that was included all actual realization of the highest good; hence the development of all other goods pertaining to humanity, was made dependent on this. [2]
Man with all that he had was subordinated to the State; he must have no higher aim than to be a servant of the State; he must seek no higher good than that which the State could bestow. Thus every Roman citizen was a subject, and every Roman subject was a slave.
The more distinguished a Roman became, the less was he a free man. The omnipotence of the law, the despotism of the rule, drove him into a narrow circle of thought and action, and his credit and influence depended on the sad austerity of his life. The whole duty of man, with the humblest and greatest of the Romans, was to keep his house in order, and be the obedient servant of the State. [3]
It will be seen at once that for any man to profess the prin ciples and the name of Christ was virtually to set himself against the Roman Empire. For him to recognize God as revealed in Jesus Christ as the highest good, was but treason against the Roman State.
It was not looked upon by Rome as anything else than high treason; because, as the Roman State represented to the Roman the highest idea of good, for any man to assert that there was a higher good, was to make Rome itself subordinate. And this would not be looked upon in any other light by Roman pride than as a direct blow at the dignity of Rome, and subversive of the Roman State.
Christians Accused of Treason
Consequently the Christians were not only called "atheists," because they denied the gods, but the accusation against them before the tribunals was of the crime of "high treason," because they denied the right of the State to interfere with men's relations to God. The common accusation against them was that they were
...irreverent to the Caesars, and enemies of the Caesars and of the Roman people. [4]
To the Christian, the word of God asserted with absolute authority:
"Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." (Ecclesiastes 12:13)
To him, obedience to this word through faith in Christ was eternal life. This to him was the conduct which showed his allegiance to God as the highest good,-a good as much higher than that of the Roman State as the government of God is greater than was the government of Rome.
The State is God
This idea of the State was not merely the State as a civil in stitution, but as a divine institution, and the highest conception of divinity itself. The genius of Rome was the supreme deity.
Thus the idea of the State as the highest good was the reli gious idea; consequently religion was inseparable from the State. All religious views were to be held subordinate to the State, and all religion was only the servant of the State.
The genius of the Roman State being to the Roman mind the chief deity, since Rome had conquered all nations, it was demonstrated to the Roman mind that Rome was superior to all the gods that were known.
And though Rome allowed conquered nations to maintain the worship of their national gods, these as well as the con quered people were considered only as servants of the Roman State. Every religion was held subordinate to the religion of Rome:
All forms of religion might come to Rome and take their places in its pantheon, they must come as the servants of the State. [5]
The State being the Roman's conception of the highest good, Rome's own gods derived all their dignity from the fact that they were recognized as such by the State.
It was counted by the Romans an act of the greatest condescension and an evidence of the greatest possible favor to bestow State recognition upon any foreign gods, or to allow any Roman subject to worship any other gods than those which were recognized as such by the Roman State. A fundamental maxim of Roman legislation was,
No man shall have for himself particular gods of his own; no man shall worship by himself any new or foreign gods, unless they are recognized by the public laws. [6]
Vox Populi, Vox Dei
Again: the Roman State being the supreme deity, "the Senate and people" were but the organs through which its ideas were expressed; hence the maxim:
Vox populi, vox dei: "the voice of the people is the voice of God."
As this voice gave expression to the will of the supreme deity, and consequently of the highest good, and as this will was expressed in the form of laws, hence again the Roman maxim:
"What the law says is right."
It is very evident that in such a system there was no place for individuality. The State was everything, and the majority was in fact the State. What the majority said should be, that was the voice of the State, that was the voice of God, that was the expression of the highest good, that was the expression of the highest conception of right; and everybody must assent to that or be considered a traitor to the State.
The individual was but a part of the State. There was there fore no such thing as the rights of the people; the right of the State only was to be considered, and that was to be considered absolute.
The first principle of their law was the paramount right of the State over the citizen. Whether as head of a family, or as proprietor, he had no natural rights of his own; his privileges were created by the law as well as defined by it. The State in the plenitude of her power delegated a portion of her own irresponsibility to the citizen, who satisfied the conditions she required in order to become the parent of her children; but at the same time she demanded of him the sacrifice of his free agency to her own rude ideas of political expediency. [7]
It is also evident that in such a system there was no such thing as the rights of conscience; because as the State was supreme also in the realm of religion, all things religious were to be subordinated to the will of the State, which was but the will of the majority. And where the majority presumes to decide in matters of religion, there is no such thing as rights of religion or conscience.
Notes:
1. De Quincy, The Caesars.
2. Neander, History of the Christian Religion and Church, Vol. i, part i, sec. i, div. iii, par. 1.
3. Mommsen, Quoted by James Freeman Clarke in Ten Great Religions, chap. viii, sec. iv, par. 1.
4. Joseph Torrey, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, Chapter 3, "Persecutions of the Christian Church".
5. James Freeman Clarke, Ten Great Religions, Chapter VIII, "The Religion of Rome".
6. Cicero, quoted in Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church, sec. I, div.iii, par. 2.
7. Merivale, Romans under the Empire, chap. xxii, par. 21.