Persecution in the Early Church: Did You Know?
Beginning as a despised, illicit religious sect, Christianity endured 300 years of hostility to emerge as the dominant force in the Roman Empire.
Early Christians expected suffering. Christ had died on
the cross, so there was no higher honor than to imitate that death
through accepting martyrdom (witness by one’s blood). The Jewish legacy
portrayed, in writings such as the Fourth Book of the Maccabees, the
glorious nature of death rather than renunciation of Israel; even
without this, Christianity would inevitably have held the martyr’s death
in high esteem. As the writer of 1 Peter expressed it, “If you suffer
as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that
name.” (4:16).
Why Were Christians Persecuted?
How was it that the church underwent such sacrifices?
The Roman religion was not intolerant; Rome had accepted into its
pantheon deities from the Italian tribes and from Asia Minor. In the
provinces, the great territorial gods—such as Saturn in North Africa and
Jehovah among the Jews—were accepted as “legal religion” on the grounds
that their rites, even if barbarous, were sanctified by ancient
tradition. Countless local gods and goddesses, worshiped by the ordinary
inhabitants of the Greco-Roman world, were often provided with a
classical equivalent name and worshiped as “Roman” deities.
Despite this toleration, by the early second century the
Roman governor of Bithynia (on the Black Sea) had no hesitation in
sending to immediate execution those who had been denounced as being
Christians. The name alone was a sufficient death warrant.
Reasons for the persecution emerge from the record of Christianity’s first three centuries.
Fratricidal Strife
Persecution did not begin with the Roman authorities.
The New Testament writings tell of fratricidal strife between Jews and
Christians, the latter challenging the Jews by claiming to be “the New
Israel.” In the early chapters of Acts, Stephen (7:57) and James, the
brother of John the disciple (12:2), became victims of the Jerusalem mob
and of King Herod Agrippa, respectively. Indeed, the writer of
Luke-Acts appears to go out of his way to reassure the Roman authorizes
of the loyalty and general value of the Christians and the hostility of
the Jews toward them.
The persecutors and their motives changed in A.D. 64. On
July 19 that year a great fire engulfed much of Rome; only four of the
fourteen quarters of the city escaped damage. Suspicion immediately fell
on Emperor Nero: was this a madcap way of clearing part of the city to
make room for new, magnificent streets and buildings in his honor? Nero,
however, managed to deflect blame first, apparently, on the Jews, who
had a reputation for large-scale arson but also had friends at court;
and then onto the Christians. Many Christians (perhaps including Peter)
were seized, tortured, and done to death in the arena.
Tacitus, writing in c. 115, included an account of the incident in his Annales
(XV, 44). Except for the manner of the Christians’ deaths, which he
thought excessively cruel, he showed no sympathy for the Christians.
Recording that “Christus, from whom the name [Christians] had its
origin” was executed by “one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate,”
Tacitus described the Christians as a “class hated for their
abominations” and guilty of “hatred of the human race,” an accusation he
also made against the Jews. Theirs was not a “religion” but a “deadly
superstition,” and hence worthy of repression. Though there was no
immediate sequel to Nero’s persecution, the fire forfeited any chance
Christians might have had of being recognized as “legal religion” (religio licita) separate from Judaism.
Imperial Policies
Another 30 years pass before we hear of further action against the Christians, and then the evidence is not watertight.
Emperors were extremely suspicious of anything that
seemed like “superstition” (for example, carrying a memento given by a
Druid priest cost one Roman officer his life!). In 95–96, the emperor
Domitian acted drastically against some members of the Roman nobility
accused of “atheism” and “lapsing into Jewish customs.” It is not sure
that Christianity was meant. However, Domitlla, the emperor’s kinswoman (neptis)
who was exiled to the island of Pantelleria [near Sicily], was believed
to have been a Christian. The accusation of “atheism”—denial of the
existence and power of the gods—might point in that direction.
The veil is lifted, however, about 15 years later. In c.
112, Pliny was sent by the emperor Trajan (98–117) to Bithynia to
restore the province from ravages caused by maladministration and
corruption. He toured the province and when he reached the far east end,
near Amastris, he encountered Christians. Pliny, though a lawyer by
profession, had never been at a trial of Christians. The procedure he
used was the same as for the vast majority of criminal cases in the
province: cognitio extra ordinem, an arbitrary system of trial
before a magistrate for offenses that fell outside the range of
“statutory crimes” such as treason, forgery, or adultery.
As already mentioned, Pliny condemned to immediate
execution those who confessed to being Christians, “for I held no
question that whatever it was that they admitted, in any case obstinacy
and unbending perversity deserve to be punished.” Christianity itself
was punishable, but the defiant, martyr-attitude of the accused left
Pliny in no doubt that his action was right.
Pliny’s difficulties arose when individuals agreed that
they had been Christians once but were so no longer, and his letter to
the emperor indicated his preference for lenience toward them. Trajan
responded in an ambiguous but fair-minded way. Christians were “not to
be sought out” (i.e., treated like common criminals). If they recanted
and “worshiped our gods,” they were to be freed, but those who persisted
must be punished. Anonymous denunciations, however, were to be rejected
as being “a bad example and unworthy of our times.”
Twelve years later (in 124–125), Christian gained a
further concession. Anti-Christian riots had broken out in the province
of Asia (western Asia Minor) in 122–123, and the governor had written to
Emperor Hadrian for advice. In response, Hadrian’s rescript (imperial
order) allowed cases against Christians to be brought to trial, but
ordered that the Christians had to be proven guilty of illegal acts
before they could be condemned. Once again, “slanderous attacks” against
Christians were forbidden. The rescript helped protect Christians, for
now the emphasis was less on their name than on specific misdeeds.
Christians might be unpopular, and their cult technically illegal, but
it would take a bold man to file an accusation that, if in any way
flawed, could rebound with serious consequences. An accuser also had to
await the arrival of the one senior of ficial (the proconsul) able to
try a capital case in the large province of Asia. No wonder Justin
Martyr attached the text of Hadrian’s rescript to the end of his First Apology, written c. 155.
Precarious Toleration
Between 125 and 160, Christians enjoyed a precarious
toleration. Few martyrdoms are recorded in this era of prosperity that
marked the climax of the Greco-Roman achievement.
With the accession of Marcus Aurelius as emperor in 161,
however, the situation changed. First, the Christians were becoming
exceedingly unpopular; they were blamed for causing natural disasters by
refusing to worship the deities that protected communities. Christians
were also accused of immorality, unnatural vice, and black magic, all
calculated to bring the rest of the population into peril.
An urban mob demanded the arrest of Polycarp, bishop of
Smyrna, during what the ecclesiastical historian Eusebius of Caesarea
termed “great persecutions that disturbed the province of Asia” (perhaps
in February 156, but more likely 166–69). Other Christians had been
seized, tried, and executed before Polycarp was arrested. One, a
Phrygian, had rushed toward martyrdom—only to recant at the sight of the
beasts in the amphitheater.
Polycarp was brought before the proconsul, who begged
him to have respect for his great age (he was probably nearly 100),
saying, “Swear by the genius of Caesar” and denounce “the atheists.” But
Polycarp, seeing “the lawless heathen” in the amphitheater, “waved his
hands at them, and looked up to heaven with a groan and said, ‘Away with
the atheists.’ ” The proconsul persisted, “Swear, and I will release
you. Curse Christ.” And Polycarp replied, “Eighty-six years have I
served him, and he has done me no wrong; how can I blaspheme my King who
saved me?” He was condemned to death and burned alive.
The story shows the efforts made by an average,
reasonable administrator in the second century to persuade a Christian
leader not to sacrifice his life, and the latter’s complete commitment
to Christianity, even in the face of death. Between the two outlooks
there was little room for compromise.
Later in Marcus’s reign, in c. 175, we hear of “new
decrees,” probably emanating from the proconsul of Asia, making it
easier for enemies to denounce Christians and seize their property. In
one terrible pogrom at Lyon in Gaul [modern France] in 177, forty-eight
Christians were done to death in the amphitheater.
Rising Tension
A new dynasty, the Severan Dynasty, seized power in 193,
at a crucial moment in the church’s relations with the Empire. Though
it remained illegal, the church was now much stronger than in the
previous century. Christians were consolidated around urban communities
governed by bishops, who were in frequent contact by letter with one
another. The church had its own liturgy, its own sacred writings
separate from those of the Jews, and established rules of faith on which
orthodox doctrines could be built. It also had begun to acquire
property (the Areae, or cemeteries; and in Rome, the earliest
catacombs date to c. 200). Most important, the church had recovered its
missionary urge, which after St. Paul and his disciples seems to have
diminished through much of the second century. The result was great
tension between Christians and pagans in provinces where the church was
strong.
The dynasty’s individual emperors—Septimius Severus
(193–211), Caracalla (211–217), Elagabalus (218–222), and Alexander
Severus (222–235)—do not seem to have been personally ill-disposed
toward Christians. In Alexander Severus’s reign, the first building
identifiable as a house-church was erected in the frontier town of
Dura-Europos on the River Euphrates. The emperors’ individual
dispositions, however, were nullified by the wave of anti-Christian
feeling in Carthage, Alexandria, Rome, and Corinth from about 202 to
210. The recorded victims of persecution were mainly converts—such as
Perpetua and Felicitas in Carthage (martryed March 7, 203), or the
disciples of Origen in Alexandria. The bishops and clergy seem not to
have been affected.
The end of the Severan Dynasty in 235 brought another
brief period of persecution under its supplanter, Maximinus Thrax
(235–238), aimed, according to Eusebius, against the “leaders of the
Church.”
This was followed, however, by 12 years of calm in which
the church expanded, extended its catacombs in Rome, and through its
great teacher Origen (186–254), established for the first time an
intellectual superiority over its pagan contemporaries. Origen, however,
perceived the danger of the situation. There might not have been many
martyrs to date, but persecution, if it came now, would be on a
worldwide scale. He was right.
Empire-Wide Persecution
Under the emperor Decius (249–251) the church
experienced what, in retrospect, was its most severe test. Decius had
come to power at a moment of grave military threat from the Goths, and
economic and social decline in the cities. He blamed his predecessor,
Philip, for military incompetence and the Christians, whom he believed
Philip had favored, for the breakdown of morale in the Empire. His
remedy was an explicit return to former Republican virtues (Roman mores)
and the association of all inhabitants of the Empire with the emperor’s
yearly sacrifice to the gods of Rome on the Capitol. Decius combined
this move, evidently, with an order (probably in December 249) to seize
leading Christians. By January 20, 250, Pope Fabian had been tried
before the emperor himself and sentenced to be executed.
The authorities went to great lengths to ensure
compliance. In major cities, such as Carthage, commissions saw that
individuals did perform sacrifice and punished those who refused. In
Egypt, at least, there were commissioners in the country areas, and 44
of the certificates (libelli) have survived. They follow a set
pattern. One reads, “To those appointed to see the sacrifices: From
Aurelia Charis of the Egyptian village of Theadelphia. I have always
continued to sacrifice and show reverence to the gods, and now, in your
presence, I have poured a libation and sacrificed and eaten some of the
sacrificial meat. I request you to certify this for me below.” The date
and official signatures follow, occupying several lines of papyrus.
Charis retained one certificate for herself, and the other was deposited
in the official archives, so one can imagine the bureaucratic nightmare
the order caused.
Contemporaries, both pagan and Christian, and Christian
historians of the next century indicate that Decius’s measures were
initially very successful. “All cowered with fear,” as one contemporary
writer said of the Christians in Alexandria. Many fled; few wished to
defy the emperor openly. Alexandria and Carthage saw massive apostasies.
In Smyrna, the bishop himself performed sacrifice. Those who defied the
authorities, like the presbyter Pionius of Smyrna, were often regarded
as simpletons or fanatics eager to throw away their lives. The edict
caused deep divisions among Christians, moreover, that brought merriment
to pagan authorities.
Decius’s main aim had been to secure universal support
by a sacrifice to the gods to “restore Roman liberty.” Once that had
been achieved, by the early months of 251, the persecution was over.
Decius died in June 251 on a campaign against the Goths, and Bishop
Cyprian, who had fled, returned to Carthage to aid demoralized and
disorganized congregations.
The church recovered its adherents rapidly but faced
problems: what to do about the multitudes who had lapsed, and how to
treat the Novatianist schism in Rome and North Africa, which had
repercussions throughout much of the church. The Novatianists, according
to Eusebius, called themselves “the pure.” They would not allow those
who had given in during the persecution to return to the church. Their
movement foreshadowed more permanent division in the Christian church
between those who put its integrity above all other values, and those
who regarded universality (the Katholike) as all important.
“Sacrilegious Instigators”
The new emperor, Valerian (253–60), at first tolerated
the Christians but in the summer of 257 suddenly altered his attitude.
The emperor’s policy was not to destroy the Christian church but to
bring it into conformity with public rites (aimed at safeguarding the
empire in time of peril). In July-August he sent orders to deport
Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, and Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria. Other
bishops were sent to the mines. In addition, Christian places of worship
and cemeteries were closed, and anyone entering did so at risk of
execution.
For nearly a year there was an uneasy calm. The
Christians, however, were not cowed as they were a few years before. We
learn of numbers of visitors to Curubis, where Cyprian was living; of
forbidden Christian assemblies in a suburb of Alexandria; and of
proselytizing by Dionysius where he had been exiled.
The emperor’s patience broke. Around July 258, Valerian
ordered that bishops, priests, and deacons be executed, that church
property be confiscated, that socially superior (honorati) laity lose their privileges and imperial civil servants (Caesariani) be reduced to slavery (a status from which many had emerged).
In some parts of the Empire this persecution of 258 259
was the bloodiest the church endured. On August 6 Pope Sixtus II was
discovered conducting a service in the Catacomb of Praetextatus and was
martyred, as were all seven of his deacons. Next month, Cyprian was
brought from his place of exile to face the ailing governor, Galerius
Maximus. Once again Cyprian refused to perform sacrifice. In words that
summed up the authorities’ case against the Christians, the proconsul
said, “You have lived a sacrilegious life, and you have gathered around
yourself many vicious men in a conspiracy. You have set yourself up as
an enemy of the Roman gods and of their sacred rites. And the pious and
most religious emperors Valerian and Gallienus Augusti, and Valerian,
the most noble Caesar, have been unable to bring you back to the
observance of their own sacred rituals. Therefore, having been
apprehended as the instigator and ringleader of a criminal conspiracy …
you will be executed.” Conspiracy, illegal association, enmity toward
the gods of Rome—these charges formed the basis for the persecutions
during the first three centuries.
Lull Before the Storm
Valerian’s death brought more than 40 years of peace
(260–303). Christian could still be arrested, however. For example, a
Christian soldier, Marinus, lost his life when a jealous fellow soldier
found that Marinus was to be promoted to the rank of centurion and
denounced him as a Christian. Yet bishoprics multiplied, and church
building seems to have gone on unhindered. In the imperial capital at
Nicomedia (on the opposite side of the Bosporus to Constantinople), the
Christian church stood in full view of the imperial palace. More
important, the church now became a movement of the countryside as well
as of the towns. In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius quoted
Dionysius of Alexandria, who hailed Gallienus as an emperor under whom
“the monarchy, as it were, put aside its old age and cleansed itself
from its former wickedness and now blossoms forth in fuller bloom.… ”
Final, “Great Persecution”
In 303, however, came 10 years of persecution, the
“Great Persecution” as it became known. How and why, after 43 years of
peace, did this happen?
First, while the church appeared to be accepted,
opposition to it was never far below the surface. Since 270 the pagans,
inspired by the Neo-Platonist philosopher, Porphyry, had begun to mount a
serious intellectual assault on Christianity. “The evangelists,”
Porphyry wrote in 15 books Against the Christians (c. 280–290)
“were the inventors, not the historians, of those things they record
about Jesus.” This propaganda war between Christian and pagan champions
intensified in the 290s.
Second, in 284 Diocletian seized power by a coup d’etat
and survived to become one of the greatest conservative reformers of all
time. In March 286 he appointed a comrade-in-arms, Maximian, as
co-emperor (Augustus) in the West; and on March 1, 293, the two Augusti
appointed two other military men, Constantius and Galerius, as their
assistants, or Caesars. The emperors’ ideal was to return to the
traditional values of Rome. They imposed a uniform system of
administration, currency and, in 301, prices throughout the Empire.
Uniformity and discipline were the watchwords of the age, yet Christian
remained a standing challenge to the unifying and conservative ideals of
the emperors.
Persecutions might not have occurred, however, but for
the fortunes of war. In 296 Caesar Galerius, who was strongly
anti-Christian, won a decisive victory over the Persians. With his
victory his influence over Diocletian increased. Diocletian’s family
contained some who were pro-Christian, and he was unwilling to act
against the Christians. But his hand was forced, partly by Galerius’s
steady pressure and partly by anti-Christian propaganda from some
provincial governors. Between 298 and 302 the civil service and army
were gradually purged of Christians Late in 302 the emperors visited the
shrine of Apollo at Didyma and the oracle complained of the baneful
influence of the Christians (“the just on earth”) in its pronouncements.
The die was now cast. On February 23, 303, the Feast of Terminalia,
repression would start.
Churches were destroyed, Christian services banned, and
the Scriptures seized and burned. Christians in high places lost civil
rights, and “those in households” (perhaps meaning, “private citizens”)
were deprived of their liberty. One concession Diocletian secured: no
bloodshed.
A second edict imposed an obligation on all clergy to
sacrifice, but the prisons became too full, and in the autumn of 303
this was modified and most of those imprisoned for refusing were
released.
So far the persecution had not been as severe as under
Valerian. Scriptures were seized, but among Christians there was often
consternation and grudging compliance. Only a minority of determined
souls held out. Years later, the “day of handing over” was remembered as
a day of disaster by the North African Christians.
In 304, with Diocletian ill in Rome, Galerius seized his
chance and imposed a universal obligation to sacrifice on pain of
death. Up to then only the clergy had been involved directly; now the
pressure was on every Christian. The number of martyrs increased, as did
the defiance of the Christians. One inscription from a North African
church lists 34 men and women who “suffered under the laws of the divine
emperors Diocletian and Maximian.” In Phrygia a whole community was
wiped out, and Egypt saw eight years of ruthless repression, which among
the Coptic Christians earned the reign of Diocletian the title “The era
of the martyrs. ”
A Grudging Concession
This phase ended on May 1, 305, when Diocletian and his
western colleague, Maximian, formally abdicated, to be succeeded by
Galerius and Constantius respectively. In the West, Constantius took no
further action, and on his death, his son Constantine was proclaimed
emperor by his troops. In the next five years Constantine gradually
increased his authority, and though an adherent of Apollo, followed his
father’s policy of toleration toward Christians.
In the East, however, Galerius renewed persecution,
accompanied by anti-Christian propaganda and a great effort to
reorganize paganism along Christian hierarchical structures.
It was too late. Steam gradually ran out of the
enforcement of the edicts, and no martyrs are recorded in this phase
after 310. In April 311, Galerius, realizing that he was dying, decided
that enough was enough and revoked the edicts of persecution. In the
spirit of Diocletian’s reform, he wrote, “We wished previously, always
acting for the good of the commonwealth, to correct all things according
to the ancient laws and public discipline of the Romans.” However, too
many Christians had failed to conform, and rather than they should not
worship any god, “they might henceforth exist again. Their meeting
houses were to be restored,” and their prayers “for our good estate”
were asked. This last request was in vain, for Galerius died six days
later. Galerius’ concession of failure was grudging but decisive. The
Empire could not be preserved by the “immortal gods” with the Christian
God possessing a veto over their powers.
In the spring of 312, Constantine entered on a final bid
for supremacy in the West. Campaigning against his rival, Maxentius,
through north and central Italy, he reached within five miles of Rome on
October 27. That night he had a vision or dream that convinced him that
his own destiny lay with Christianity. Next day he defeated Maxentius’s
superior forces and entered Rome in triumph. In February 313
Constantine met Licinius (who had succeeded to Galerius’ European
dominions), and in a document that has become known as the Edict of
Milan formally ended the persecution. All individuals were to be free to
follow their own consciences. In fact, the Edict proved to be the
deathknell of the immortal gods. Eleven years later (in 324),
Constantine defeated Licinius and proclaimed his adherence to
Christianity and his aim that Christianity should become the religion of
the Empire now united under his sole rule. The church had triumphed.
Why the Christians Triumphed
Why had the Christians won?
First, they had become too strong to be defeated. In
some provinces, such as Bithynia and Cyrenaica [today, northern Egypt
and Libyal, they may already have formed a majority, and they were well
organized.
Further, Christians attracted people, as a Neo-Platonist
philosopher explained c. 300, by their religion’s “simplicity,” its
direct moral teaching and promise uncomplicated by its rivals’
mythology.
More than that, Christianity had never lost its martyr
spirit. As one contemporary (Lactantius) explained, “There is another
cause why God permits persecutions to be carried out against us, that
the people of God may be increased.” People rejected the old gods
because of the cruelties perpetrated in their names. People inquired
what was so good that it seemed preferable to life itself, “so that
neither loss of goods, nor of the light, nor bodily pain or tortures
deter them.” In Egypt in 311–312, Eusebius of Caesarea was an eyewitness
of the final horrors of Maximinus’s persecution. He writes that “we
ourselves beheld, when we were at these places, many [Copts] all at once
in a single day, some of whom suffered beheading, others punishment by
fire, so that the murderous axe was dulled, and worn out, was broken in
pieces, and the executioners grew utterly weary.… It was then that we
observed a most marvelous eagerness and a truly divine power and zeal in
those who placed their faith in the Christ of God. Thus, as soon as
sentence was given against the first, some from one quarter and others
from another would leap up to the tribunal before the judge and confess
themselves Christians.… ”
Popular opinion had been changing in favor of
Christianity in the previous 30 years. Against such spirit the pagan
authorities were powerless. They might sometimes win intellectual
combats, proving Plato was a cleverer man than St. Paul, but those who
regarded death as liberation had the last word.
Dr. Everett Ferguson is professor of Bible at Abilene
Christian University and author of Backgrounds of Early Christianity
(Eerdmans, 1987)
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