115. Claudius Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis, addressed an Apology for Christianity to the Emperor Marcus, about A.D. 176. It is lost, but reference to it, as it would appear, or at least to one of his works, is made by Eusebius 1, in which Apollinaris bore witness to a remarkable answer to prayer received a year or two before by the Christian soldiers of that very Emperor’s army in the celebrated war with the Quadri. Tertullian, writing about A.D. 200, and also in a public Apology, urges the same fact upon the Proconsul of Africa whom he is addressing.
116. The words of Eusebius, introductory of the evidence of Apollinaris and Tertullian, are these: “It is said that when Marcus Aurelius Cæsar was forming his troops in order of battle against the Germans and Sarmatians, he was reduced to extremities by a failure of water. Meanwhile the soldiers in the so-called Melitene 2 legion, which for its faith remains to this day, knelt down upon the ground, as we are accustomed to do in prayer, and betook themselves to supplication. And whereas this sight was strange to the enemy, another still more strange happened immediately,—thunderbolts, which caused the enemy’s flight and overthrow; and upon the army to which the men were attached, who had called upon God, a rain, which restored it entirely when it was all but perishing by thirst.” He adds, that this account was given by heathens as well as by Christians, though they did not allow that the prayers of Christians were concerned in the event. Then he quotes Apollinaris for the fact that in consequence the legion received from the Emperor the name of “Thundering.” Again, Tertullian speaks of “the letters of Marcus Aurelius, an Emperor of great character, in which he testifies to the quenching of that German thirst by the shower gained by the prayers of soldiers who happened to be Christians.” 3 He adds that, “while the Emperor did not openly remove the legal punishment from persons of that description, yet he did in fact dispense with it by placing a penalty, and that a more fearful one, on their accusers.” And in his Ad Scapulam: “Marcus Aurelius in the German expedition obtained showers in that thirst by the prayers offered up to God by Christian soldiers.” 4 The statement, then, as given by two writers, one writing at the very time, the other about twenty years later, is this: that the soldiers in or of one of the Roman legions, gained by their prayers a seasonable storm of rain and thunder and lightning, when the army was perishing by thirst, and was surrounded by an enemy; and they add two evidences of it—Apollinaris, that the legion in which these soldiers were found was thenceforth called the Thundering Legion; and Tertullian, that the Emperor in consequence passed an edict in favour of the Christians.
117. Here we are only concerned with the fact, not with its alleged evidences; and this is worth noticing, for it so happens that the fact is true, but the evidences, as evidences, are not true; that is, there is just enough incorrectness in the statement to hinder their availing as evidences. This, I say, is worth noticing, because it may serve in other cases to make us cautious of rejecting facts stated by the Fathers because we discredit (rightly or wrongly is not the question) the grounds on which they rest them. Did we know no other evidence than what Apollinaris and Tertullian allege for the sudden relief of the Roman legions in Germany, we should have rejected the fact when we had invalidated the evidence; but this, as the event shows, would have been a hasty proceeding. Sometimes facts are so notorious that proof is ex abundanti; and sometimes writers like those in question hurt a good cause by not leaving it to itself.
118. Now, as to the corroborative statement made by Apollinaris, writers of great authority assume that he, or other early writers, speak as if a legion in the Roman army was composed wholly of Christians 5. Yet even Eusebius does but speak of “the soldiers in the Melitene legion,” which is an ambiguous form of expression; while Tertullian uses the phrase, “Christianorum forte militum precationibus,” “Christianorum militum orationibus,” no mention being made of a legion at all, and the word “forte” strongly opposing the idea that the Christians formed an entire body of troops. As to Apollinaris, he, it is true, stated in his lost work, that in consequence of the miracle a legion was called “Thundering”; but we may not assume that he said more than that the Christians who prayed were in the legion, since there is nothing strange in the idea of a whole body obtaining a name from the good deed of some of them, nor strange, again, considering that bodies of troops were drawn, then as now, from particular places, and were open to various local or other influences, that Christians should have been numerous enough in one particular legion to give a character to it. This difficulty, however, being disposed of, a more important objection remains; there was indeed a Thundering Legion, as Apollinaris says, but then it was as old as the time of Trajan, nay, of Augustus 6. This circumstance, of course, is fatal to his argument. Moyle, upon this, observes that “Apollinaris, the first broacher of the miracle, was grossly mistaken, to say no worse;” 7 but, though it was a mistake, it surely is not grosser than if a country clergyman at this day were to commit a blunder in speaking of the Queen’s regiments serving in India or Canada. In spite of our advantages from the present diffusion of knowledge, certainly our parish priests do not know much more of the constitution or history of the British army than the Bishop of Hierapolis of the military establishments of Rome.