ecutions of
the early Christians, not as the conflict of a false theology
with a true, but as what all such persecutions essentially are:
an attempt to suppress a propaganda that seemed to threaten the
interests involved in the established law and order, organized
and maintained in the name of religion and justice by politicians
who are pure opportunist Have-and-Holders. People who are shown
by their inner light the possibility of a better world based on
the demand of the spirit for a nobler and more abundant life, not
for themselves at the expense of others, but for everybody, are
naturally dreaded and therefore hated by the Have-and-Holders,
who keep always in reserve two sure weapons against them. The
first is a persecution effected by the provocation, organization,
and arming of that herd instinct which makes men abhor all
departures from custom, and, by the most cruel punishments and
the wildest calumnies, force eccentric people to behave and
profess exactly as other people do. The second is by leading the
herd to war, which immediately and infallibly makes them forget
everything, even their most cherished and hardwon public
liberties and private interests, in the irresistible surge of
their pugnacity and the tense pre-occupation of their terror.

There is no reason to believe that there was anything more in the
Roman persecutions than this. The attitude of the Roman Emperor
and the officers of his staff towards the opinions at issue were
much the same as those of a modern British Home Secretary towards
members of the lower middle classes when some pious policeman
charges them with Bad Taste, technically called blasphemy: Bad
Taste being a violation of Good Taste, which in such matters
practically means Hypocrisy. The Home Secretary and the judges
who try the case are usually far more sceptical and blasphemous
than the poor men whom they persecute; and their professions of
horror at the blunt utterance of their own opinions are revolting
to those behind the scenes who have any genuine religious
sensibility; but the thing is done because the governing classes,
provided only the law against blasphemy is not applied to
themselves, strongly approve of such persecution because it
enables them to represent their own privileges as part of the
religion of the country.

Therefore my martyrs are the martyrs of all time, and my
persecutors the persecutors of all time. My Emperor, who has no
sense of the value of common p