Persecution and Martyrs

"Christians to the lion!"

Tertullian, a sharp-tongued North African Christian writing around AD 200, mocked the way pagans blamed Christians for everything. If the Tiber floods or the Nile does not, he wrote, if the sky stands still or the earth moves, if there is famine or plague, the cry goes up at once: "The Christians to the lion!" (Shelley borrows the image for one of his chapter titles.)

The picture of Christians constantly hiding in catacombs and being thrown to lions every day is exaggerated. For most of the first three centuries most Christians lived fairly normal lives. They worked, traded and raised families. But they lived under a cloud. Their faith was illegal. At any moment a hostile neighbor, a mob, or an ambitious governor could bring accusations, and the result could be death.

Why did Rome persecute?

Rome tolerated many religions, so why not this one? Several reasons combined:

• "Atheism": Christians refused to worship the gods. Since Romans believed the gods protected the state (see Rome and Its Empire), this endangered everyone.
• Disloyalty: They would not offer incense to the emperor's image, which looked like treason.
• Novelty: Unlike Judaism, Christianity was new. Romans respected ancient traditions and distrusted new cults.
• Secrecy and rumor: Christians met privately, before dawn, and only the baptized could attend the Eucharist. Rumors spread of "cannibalism" (eating "body and blood") and "incest" (the "love feast" between "brothers and sisters").
• Exclusiveness: They avoided festivals, the theater and the army's religious rituals, and they spoke of their own "kingdom." They seemed antisocial, haters of the human race.
• Economics: Sometimes, as with the silversmiths of Ephesus, they hurt business for temples and idol-makers.

The policy: Pliny and Trajan

Our clearest window on Roman policy comes from around 112. Pliny the Younger the Younger, governor of Bithynia in northern Turkey, wrote to the emperor Trajan for advice. People were being accused of being Christians, and he was not sure what to do. He had executed those who refused to deny Christ, simply for their "stubbornness." But when he investigated, he found nothing criminal. Christians met before dawn, sang a hymn "to Christ as to a god," swore to avoid theft and adultery, then shared an ordinary meal. He called it a "depraved, excessive superstition."

Trajan's reply set policy for over a century. Christians were not to be hunted down. Anonymous accusations were to be ignored. But if someone was properly accused and refused to sacrifice to the gods, they were to be punished. Anyone who recanted and offered sacrifice should be pardoned. So simply being a Christian was a capital crime, but the state would not go looking for Christians. Persecution depended on local accusers and local officials.

Persecution: mostly local, sometimes empire-wide

Famous martyrs

The stories of the martyrs were written down, read aloud on the anniversaries of their deaths, and treasured. Some of these accounts are among the most moving documents of early Christianity.

• Ignatius of Loyola of Antioch (c. 108) was taken under guard to Rome to face the beasts. On the way he wrote letters to churches, begging the Roman Christians not to try to save him: "Let me be food for the wild beasts, through whom I can reach God."
• Polycarp of Smyrna of Smyrna (c. 155), an elderly bishop who had known people who knew the apostles, was arrested and ordered to curse Christ. He replied: "Eighty-six years I have served him, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?" He was burned at the stake.
• The martyrs of Lyon (177) in Gaul included a slave girl, Blandina, whose endurance under torture amazed even her torturers.
• Perpetua and Felicity (203) died in the arena at Carthage. Perpetua, a 22-year-old noblewoman with a nursing baby, kept a prison diary, one of the earliest surviving writings by a Christian woman. Her father begged her to save herself. She refused. Felicity, her slave, gave birth in prison days before they died together.

The empire-wide persecutions

In the 200s the empire fell into crisis. Barbarian invasions, plague, economic collapse and a rapid turnover of emperors (more than twenty in fifty years) made people anxious. Some emperors concluded that the gods were angry and that Christians were to blame.

In 250 the emperor Decius ordered every inhabitant of the empire to sacrifice to the gods and obtain a certificate (libellus) proving they had done so. Some of these certificates have survived in the sands of Egypt. For the first time, persecution was universal and systematic. Many Christians were martyred. But many more gave in: they sacrificed, or bribed officials for fake certificates. Under Valerian (257–260) the attack targeted clergy and wealthy Christians. Among the victims were Pope Sixtus II in Rome and Bishop Cyprian of Carthage of Carthage.

Then came forty years of peace, during which the church grew rapidly and built its first public church buildings. The last and worst storm broke in 303. The emperor Diocletian, who had reorganized the empire, ordered churches destroyed, Scriptures burned, and clergy arrested, and finally demanded sacrifice from everyone. This "Great Persecution" was fiercest in the East and in Egypt, and lasted on and off until 311–313. It failed. In 311 the dying emperor Galerius issued an edict ending it, even asking Christians to pray for him. Two years later Constantine the Great and Licinius granted full religious freedom (see Constantine).

The lapsed: a crisis of forgiveness

Persecution left a painful question. What should be done with the "lapsed," those who had denied Christ under pressure and now wanted to return? Some confessors (survivors who had suffered for the faith) issued letters forgiving the lapsed on their own authority. Hardliners argued that denying Christ was unforgivable, or at least could be forgiven only by God, not the church. Bishops such as Cyprian took a middle way. The lapsed could be restored after a period of public Penance, with the bishop deciding.

In Rome a priest named Novatian rejected this leniency and set up a rival, "pure" church, which lasted for centuries. After Diocletian's persecution, a similar dispute in North Africa created the Donatist schism. The Donatists refused to accept clergy who had handed over Scriptures to be burned (see Augustine). These debates shaped the church's understanding of itself. Was it a community of the pure, or a hospital for sinners?

"The blood of martyrs is seed"

Tertullian made a famous claim: the more you mow us down, the more we grow; the blood of Christians is seed. There is truth in it. The calm courage of martyrs, including women, slaves and the elderly, impressed many pagans. Some converted after watching them die. Martyrs became the church's first saints. Their tombs became places of worship, their death-days were celebrated as "birthdays" into heaven, and churches were later built over their graves, including St Peter's in Rome.

The ideal of martyrdom also shaped Christian spirituality for centuries. When persecution ended, many looked for new ways to give their whole lives to God. One answer was the "white martyrdom" of the monks (see The Desert and the Monastery).