It is obvious that a ruler so highly interested in all the issues and circumstances of his time, could not fail to take account of Christi- anity, either in Rome or during his journeys, which led him into Chris tendom's principal districts and centers (Ephesus, Antioch, Alexandria, Bithynia). Among his immediate attendants his trusty freedman Phlegon had deemed it important enough to refer to its history in his writings (cf. Harnack, Litteratur, i. 867-868). On the other hand, Hadrian's much quoted letter to the consul Servianus (Vopiscus, Vita Satumini, viii.), with its utterances concerning Christendom and Christians, must be characterized as a clumsy counterfeit of the fourth century (cf. Victor Schultze, Hadriani epistola ad Servianum, TLB, xviii., 1897, 561-562). Events in Asia Minor, however, elicited a momentous imperial manifesto concerning the Christians, which is still extant. When Hadrian, in the years 123-124, was in western Asia, a native Christian of high standing, Quadratus (others transfer the occurrence to Athens, and date it about 125-126), presented to him an apology, which was inspired by an undoubtedly ominous oppression of the Christians at the hands of "evil men." There soon afterward followed, possibly by mandate and in consequence of this letter, an official report to the emperor by the proconsul, Quintus Licinius Silvanus Granianus. By the time the imperial decision had been rendered, the proconsul had already found a successor in Caius Minucius (Minicius) Fundanus, and accordingly the rescript was issued to the latter. Exact chronological data are lacking, but it is customary to assign the proconsulship of Silvanus Granianus to the years 123-124 and that of his successor to 125-126, and this date for the apology of Quadmtus is supported by both internal and external reasons (see Quadratus).
The substance of the rescript is as follows: the statutory methods of proceeding against the Christians are to be accorded to the provincials; if any unlawful act be ascertained as a result of a statutory judicial investigation, the legal penalty is to he im- posed. But all compulsion of official intervention by means of public rioting, or underhand promotion of the same by self-seeking denunciation, is to be repelled, and, if need be, to be severely punished. At the very beginning the emperor declares it his earnest will, that there be an end of both turbulence and sycophancy. The sense is plain: the Christians in Proconsular Asia are exempted from uncertain and arbitrary official procedure, and committed, when calumnies are charged against them, to the due course of criminal law. Justin Martyr appends this rescript, in its original Latin text, to his first apology, either because it became known to him only after completing his work, or because he disdained to derive his evidence in favor of the claims of tolerance elsewhere than from the essence of Christianity. Eusebius (Hist. eccl., iv. 9) turned it into Greek, and this translation subsequently took the place of the original text, and caused the latter to pass out of use. The genuineness of this rescript, important in its eccesiastical and civil bearings alike, is insured beyond doubt, on both internal and external grounds. On the other hand, the story that comes to light in a later author (Lampridius, Vita Alexarulri, xliii.), to the effect that it was a part of the emperor's purpose to have Christ accepted into the number of the gods, and to dedicate a temple to him, must be regarded as legendary.
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