Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1877-10-25
HeaihenisIm and Christianity.

10 The nedtDen nations the CHRISTIANS were
atheists; for in every age this name has been
given to those who did not agree with the
prevailing conceptions of the Deity; not only
when they denied his existence, but when
they sought to instill just and more worthy
idea of God. "Down with the atheists ?"-
this was the war cry of the heather mob
against the Christians 1t was with this cry,
for example, that in A. D. 156 the venerable
Bishop Polycarp was received on the race
course at Smyrna. The only gods the people
knew anything about, whose temples they fire.
qnented, whose statues they worshipped, to
whom they offered sacrifices and prayers,
were denied by the Christians, they were de-
clared to be the inventions of mans supersti-
tion. and sometimes to be evil spirits, devils.
Can we wonder that the people who were still
devoted 10 these gods felt the attack upon
themselves, their most sacred and cherished
possessions; that they were the more deeply
incensed at it the more seriously they feared
by liberation of it to lose the favor of the
gods on whom their welfare depended? The
dangerous that could be brought against the
Christians. In that ''Down with the athe-
ists!" with which the yells of the mob greet
ed Polycarp at Smyrna was included the SEN
tence of death, which they at once proceeded
to execute by preparing the stake. And the
cry was followed in numberless cases by the
same results. If any public misfortune, any
alarming event occurred, which seemed TO in
dicate the displeasure of the gods-a pesti-
lence, dearth, flood, an eclipse, an earth
quake superstition was always ready to make
the Christians responsible for it, as enemies of
the gods; the exclamation was sure to be
heard, "The Christians to the lionsl" Both
the educated and uneducaled have always
attributed every other wickedness to the enc
mics of the gods, and SO it was with the Chris
tians. Being atheists, they were also crimi-
mails, and all manner of horrible stories were
told of them. 1t was not enough that they
were said to worship god with the head of
an ass, which we see represented to this day
in caricature of that period, the well-known
mock crucifix in the Kircher Museum at
Rome; it was said, also, that in their secret
assemblies they practiced all sorts of horrors,
killed and devoured children, and gave them
selves up to frightful excesses. Scarcely any
evils were attributed to the Jews in the
middle ages by Christian fanatics which
had not been before attributed to the Chris
tians by heather superstition. How ancient
this bad opinion of them was we learn from
the account given by Tacitus of the persecu-
tion under Nero. When more than two
thirds of Rome was burnt to ashes in his
reign, and report accused the Emperor him
self of setting fire to it, he tried to find peo-
pie on whom he could lay the blame, and Sc
lected the sect, says Tacitus, "who were uni
versally hated for their shameful deeds, to
whom the people gave the name of Chris
tians." These stupid misrepresentation of the
Christians then were not only circulated, but
so generally believed, that but few years af-
ter their rise US a community at Rome, and