IN pre-Christian days the Roman government had for the most part allowed to the rivals of orthodox paganism a tolerance which they in turn had shown to the official and imperial cults; nothing was demanded from the adherents of new faiths except an occasional gesture of adoration to the gods and head of the state. The emperors were piqued to find that of all the heretics under their rule only the Christians and the Jews refused to join in honoring their genius. The burning of incense before a statue of the emperor had become a sign and affirmation of loyalty to the Empire, like the oath of allegiance required for citizenship today. On its side the Church resented the Roman idea that religion was subordinate to the state; it saw in emperor-worship an act of polytheism and idolatry, and instructed its followers to refuse it at any cost. The Roman government concluded that Christianity was a radical—perhaps a communist—movement, subtly designed to overthrow the established order.
Before Nero the two forces had found it possible to live together without blows. The law had exempted the Jews from emperor-worship, and the Christians, at first confused with the Jews, were granted the same privilege. But the execution of Peter and Paul, and the burning of Christians to light up Nero’s games, turned this mutual and contemptuous tolerance into unceasing hostility and intermittent war. We cannot wonder that after such provocation the Christians turned their full armory against Rome—denounced its immorality and idolatry, ridiculed its gods, rejoiced in its calamities,1 and predicted its early fall. In the ardor of a faith made intolerant by intolerance, Christians declared that all who had had a chance to accept Christ and had refused would be condemned to eternal torments; many of them foretold the same fate for all the pre-Christian or non-Christian world; some excepted Socrates. In reply, pagans called the Christians “dregs of the people” and “insolent barbarians,” accused them of “hatred of the human race,” and ascribed the misfortunes of the Empire to the anger of pagan deities whose Christian revilers had been allowed to live.2 A thousand slanderous legends arose on either side. Christians were charged with demonic magic, secret immorality, drinking human blood at the Paschal feast,3 and worshiping an ass.
But the conflict was profounder than mere pugnacity. Pagan civilization was founded upon the state, Christian civilization upon religion. To a Roman his religion was part of the structure and ceremony of government, and his morality culminated in patriotism; to a Christian his religion was something apart from and superior to political society; his highest allegiance belonged not to Caesar but to Christ. Tertullian laid down the revolutionary principle that no man need obey a law that he deemed unjust.4 The Christian revered his bishop, even his priest, far above the Roman magistrate; he submitted his legal troubles with fellow Christians to his church authorities rather than to the officials of the state.5 The detachment of the Christian from earthly affairs seemed to the pagan a flight from civic duty, a weakening of the national fiber and will. Tertullian advised Christians to refuse military service; and that a substantial number of them followed his counsel is indicated by Celsus’ appeal to end this refusal, and Origen’s reply that though Christians will not fight for the Empire they will pray for it.6 Christians were exhorted by their leaders to avoid non-Christians, to shun their festival games as barbarous, and their theaters as stews of obscenity.7 Marriage with a non-Christian was forbidden. Christian slaves were accused of introducing discord into the family by converting their masters’ children or wives; Christianity was charged with breaking up the home.8
The opposition to the new religion came rather from the people than from the state. The magistrates were often men of culture and tolerance; but the mass of the pagan population resented the aloofness, superiority, and certainty of the Christians, and called upon the authorities to punish these “atheists” for insulting the gods. Tertullian notes “the general hatred felt for us.”9 From the time of Nero Roman law seems to have branded the profession of Christianity as a capital offense;10 but under most of the emperors this ordinance was enforced with deliberate negligence.11 If accused, a Christian could usually free himself by offering incense to a statue of the emperor; thereafter he was apparently allowed to resume the quiet practice of his faith.12 Christians who refused this obeisance might be imprisoned, or flogged, or exiled, or condemned to the mines, or, rarely, put to death. Domitian seems to have banished some Christians from Rome; but “being in some degree human,” says Tertullian, “he soon stopped what he had begun, and restored the exiles.”13 Pliny enforced the law with the officiousness of an amateur (111), if we may judge from his letter to Trajan:
The method I have observed toward those who have been denounced to me as Christians is this: I interrogated them whether they were Christians; if they confessed it I repeated the question twice again, adding the threat of capital punishment; if they still persevered, I ordered them to be executed. . . . The temples, which had been almost deserted, begin now to be frequented . . . and there is a general demand for sacrificial animals, which for some time past have met with but few purchasers.
To which Trajan replied:
The method you have pursued, my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those denounced to you as Christians is eminently proper. . . . No search should be made for these people; when they are denounced and found guilty they must be punished; but where the accused party denies that he is a Christian, and gives proof … by adoring our gods, he shall be pardoned. . . . Information without the accuser’s name subscribed must not be admitted in evidence against anyone.14
The passage here italicized suggests that Trajan only reluctantly carried out a pre-existing statute. Nevertheless, we hear of two prominent martyrs in his principate: Simeon, head of the church of Jerusalem, and Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch; presumably there were others of less fame.
Hadrian, a skeptic open to all ideas, instructed his appointees to give the Christians the benefit of every doubt.15 Being more religious, Antoninus allowed more persecution. At Smyrna the populace demanded of the “Asiarch” Philip that he enforce the law; he complied by having eleven Christians executed in the amphitheater (155). The bloodthirst of the crowd was aroused rather than assuaged; it clamored for the death of Bishop Poly-carp, a saintly patriarch of eighty-six years, who was said in his youth to have known Saint John. Roman soldiers found the old man in a suburban retreat, and brought him unresisting before the Asiarch at the games. Philip pressed him: “Take the oath, revile Christ, and I will let you go.” Polycarp, says the most ancient of the Acts of the Martyrs, replied: “For eighty-six years have I been his servant, and he has done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” The crowd cried out that he should be burned alive. The flames, says the pious document, refused to burn him, “but he was within them as bread that is being baked; and we perceived such a fragrant smell as might come from incense or other costly spices. At length the lawless men commanded an executioner to stab him. When he did this there came out a dove, and so much blood that the fire was quenched, and all the crowd marveled.”16
The persecutions were renewed under the saintly Aurelius. When famine, flood, pestilence, and war overwhelmed a once happy reign, the conviction spread that these evils were due to neglect and denial of the Roman gods. Aurelius shared the public terror, or yielded to it. In 177 he issued a rescript ordering the punishment of sects that caused disturbances by “exciting the ill-balanced minds of men” with new winds of doctrine. In that same year, at Vienne and Lyons, the pagan populace arose in fury against the Christians, and stoned them whenever they dared to stir from their homes. The imperial legate ordered the arrest of the leading Christians of Lyons. Bishop Pothinus, ninety years old, died in jail from the effects of torture. A messenger was sent to Rome to ask the advice of the Emperor as to the treatment of the remaining prisoners. Marcus replied that those who denied Christianity should be freed, but those who professed it should be put to death according to the law.
The annual festival of the Augustalia was now to be celebrated in Lyons, and delegates from all Gaul crowded the provincial capital. At the height of the games the accused Christians were brought to the amphitheater and were questioned. Those who recanted were dismissed; forty-seven who persisted were put to death with a variety and barbarity of tortures equaled only by the Inquisition. Attalus, second to Pothinus in the Christian community, was forced to sit on a chair of red-hot iron and roast to death.17 Blandina, a slave girl, was tortured all day, then bound up in a bag, and thrown into the arena to be gored to death by a bull. Her silent fortitude led many Christians to believe that Christ made his martyrs insensitive to pain; the same result might have come from ecstasy and fear. “The Christian,” said Tertullian, “even when condemned to die, gives thanks.”18 I
Under Commodus the persecutions waned. Septimius Severus renewed them, even to the point of making baptism a crime. In 203 many Christians suffered martyrdom in Carthage. One of them, a young mother named Perpetua, left a touching account of her days in prison, and her father’s prostrate pleas that she should renounce Christianity. She and another young mother were tossed and gored by a bull; we have an indication of the anesthetic effect of fear and trance in her later query, “When are we to be tossed?” Story tells how she guided to her throat the dagger of the reluctant gladiator who had to kill her.19 The Syrian empresses who followed Septimius had little concern for the Roman gods, and gave Christianity a careless toleration. Under Alexander Severus peace seemed established among all the rival faiths.
The renewal of the barbarian attacks ended this truce. To understand the persecution under Decius (or Aurelius) we must imagine a nation in the full excitement of war, frightened by serious defeats, and expecting hostile invasion. In 249 a wave of religious emotion swept the Empire; men and women flocked to the temples and besieged the gods with prayers. Amid this fever of patriotism and fear the Christians stood apart, still resenting and discouraging military service,20 scorning the gods, and interpreting the collapse of the Empire as the prophesied prelude to the destruction of “Babylon” and the return of Christ. Using the mood of the people as an opportunity to strengthen national enthusiasm and unity, Decius issued an edict requiring every inhabitant of the realm to offer a propitiatory act of homage to the gods of Rome. Apparently Christians were not asked to abjure their own faith, but were commanded to join in the universal supplicatio to the deities who, the populace believed, had so often saved imperiled Rome. Most Christians complied; in Alexandria, according to its Bishop Dionysius, “the apostasy was universal”;21 it was likewise in Carthage and Smyrna; probably these Christians considered the supplicatio a patriotic formality. But the bishops of Jerusalem and Antioch died in jail, and the bishops of Rome and Toulouse were put to death (250). Hundreds of Roman Christians were crowded into dungeons; some were beheaded, some were burned at the stake, a few were given to the beasts in holiday festival. After a year the persecution abated; and by Easter of 251 it was practically at an end.
Six years later Valerian, in another crisis of invasion and terror, ordered that “all persons must conform to the Roman ceremonials,” and forbade any Christian assemblage. Pope Sixtus II resisted, and was put to death with four of his deacons. Bishop Cyprian of Carthage was beheaded, the bishop of Tarragona was burned alive. In 261, after the Persians had removed Valerian from the scene, Gallienus published the first edict of toleration, recognizing Christianity as a permitted religion, and ordering that property taken from Christians should be restored to them. Minor persecutions occurred in the next forty years, but for the most part these were for Christianity decades of unprecedented calm and rapid growth. In the chaos and terror of the third century men fled from the weakened state to the consolations of religion, and found them more abundantly in Christianity than in its rivals. The Church made rich converts now, built costly cathedrals, and allowed its adherents to share in the joys of this world. The odium theologicum subsided among the people; Christians intermingled more freely with pagans, even married them. The Oriental monarchy of Diocletian seemed destined to consolidate religious as well as political security and peace.
Galerius, however, saw in Christianity the last obstacle to absolute rule, and urged his chief to complete the Roman restoration by restoring the Roman gods. Diocletian hesitated; he was averse to needless risks, and estimated more truly than Galerius the magnitude of the task. But one day, at an imperial sacrifice, the Christians made the sign of the cross to ward off evil demons. When the augurs failed to find on the livers of the sacrificed animals the marks that they had hoped to interpret, they blamed the presence of profane and unbelieving persons. Diocletian ordered that all in attendance should offer sacrifice to the gods or be flogged, and that all soldiers in the army should similarly conform or be dismissed (302). Strange to say, Christian writers agreed with the pagan priests: the prayers of the Christian, said Lactantius,22 kept the Roman gods at a distance; and Bishop Dionysius had written to the same effect a generation before. Galerius at every opportunity argued the need of religious unity as a support to the new monarchy; and at last Diocletian yielded. In February, 303, the four rulers decreed the destruction of all Christian churches, the burning of Christian books, the dissolution of Christian congregations, the confiscation of their property, the exclusion of Christians from public office, and the punishment of death for Christians detected in religious assembly. A band of soldiers inaugurated the persecution by burning to the ground the cathedral at Nicomedia.
The Christians were now numerous enough to retaliate. A revolutionary movement broke out in Syria, and in Nicomedia incendiaries twice set fire to Diocletian’s palace. Galerius accused the Christians of the arson; they accused him; hundreds of Christians were arrested and tortured, but the guilt was never fixed. In September Diocletian ordered that imprisoned Christians who would worship the Roman gods should be freed, but that those who refused should be subjected to every torture known to Rome. Infuriated by scornful resistance, he directed all provincial magistrates to seek out every Christian, and use any method to compel him to appease the gods. Then, probably glad to leave this miserable enterprise to his successors, he resigned.
Maximian carried out the edict with military thoroughness in Italy. Galerius, become Augustus, gave every encouragement to the persecution in the East. The roll of martyrs was increased in every part of the Empire except Gaul and Britain, where Constantius contented himself with burning a few churches. Eusebius assures us, presumably with the hyperbole of indignation, that men were flogged till the flesh hung from their bones, or their flesh was scraped to the bone with shells; salt or vinegar was poured upon the wounds; the flesh was cut off bit by bit and fed to waiting animals; or bound to crosses, men were eaten piecemeal by starved beasts. Some victims had their fingers pierced with sharp reeds under the nails; some had their eyes gouged out; some were suspended by a hand or a foot; some had molten lead poured down their throats; some were beheaded, or crucified, or beaten to death with clubs; some were torn apart by being tied to the momentarily bent branches of trees.23 We have no pagan narrative of these events.
The persecution continued for eight years, and brought death to approximately 1500 Christians, orthodox or heretic, and diverse sufferings to countless more. Thousands of Christians recanted; tradition said that even Marcellinus, Bishop of Rome, denied his faith under duress of terror and pain. But most of the persecuted stood firm; and the sight or report of heroic fidelity under torture strengthened the faith of the wavering and won new members for the hunted congregations. As the brutalities multiplied, the sympathy of the pagan population was stirred; the opinion of good citizens found courage to express itself against the most ferocious oppression in Roman history. Once the people had urged the state to destroy Christianity; now the people stood aloof from the government, and many pagans risked death to hide or protect Christians until the storm should pass.24 In 311 Galerius, suffering from a mortal illness, convinced of failure, and implored by his wife to make his peace with the undefeated God of the Christians, promulgated an edict of toleration, recognizing Christianity as a lawful religion and asking the prayers of the Christians in return for “our most gentle clemency.”25
The Diocletian persecution was the greatest test and triumph of the Church. It weakened Christianity for a time through the natural defection of adherents who had joined it, or grown up, during a half century of unmolested prosperity. But soon the defaulters were doing penance and pleading for readmission to the fold. Accounts of the loyalty of martyrs who had died, or of “confessors” who had suffered, for the faith were circulated from community to community; and these Acta Martyrum, intense with exaggeration and fascinating with legend, played a historic role in awakening or confirming Christian belief. “The blood of martyrs,” said Tertullian, “is seed.”26 There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.