The city shook through all its streets;
houses, palaces, theatres, temples fell crashing down. Many were killed:
the Consul Pedo died of his hurts. The Emperor himself hardly escaped
through a window, and took refuge in the Circus, where he passed some
days in the open air. Whence this terrible blow but from the wrath of
the Gods, who must be appeased by unusual sacrifices? This was towards
the end of January; early in February the Christian Bishop, Ignatius,
was arrested. We know how, during this century, at every period of
public calamity, whatever that calamity might be, the cry of the
panic-stricken Heathens was, 'The Christians to the lions!' It maybe
that, in Trajan's humanity, in order to prevent a general massacre by
the infuriated populace, or to give greater solemnity to the sacrifice,
the execution was ordered to take place, not in Antioch, but in Rome."
[108:1] I contend that these reasons, on the contrary, render execution
in Antioch infinitely more probable. To continue, however: the
earthquake occurred on the 13th, and the martyrdom of Ignatius took
place on the 20th December, just a week after the earthquake. His
remains, as we know from Chrysostom and others, were, as an actual fact,
interred at Antioch. The natural inference is that the martyrdom, the
only part of the Ignatian story which is credible, occurred not in Rome
but in Antioch itself, in consequence of the superstitious fury against
the [Greek: atheoi] aroused by the earthquake.
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