Romans and Christians

      In the third century C.E., Christianity rose from a religion of counter-cultural converts to an increasingly popular one embraced by a strong minority of the Roman world, even reaching to important persons in the highest positions of power. To an empire in which religion and politics were inextricably commingled, the popularity of Christianity posed a threat to the Roman traditions. The Roman government tolerated and persecuted Christians in waves caused by a plethora of motives, not just religious or political.

      The worship of the emperor was an important part of a Roman's participation in the state. By honoring the emperor through sacrifice and festival, the Roman recognized his deity and showed support for the regime. As important as this practice was in the Roman world, Christians refrained from loyal participation. Writing in the second century in his "First Apology" Justin Martyr quoted Matthew 22.17-21 in saying that as a Christian he served the emperor as an authority above him and prayed for his ability to rule. The Christian apologist Tertullian (160-240 C.E.) wrote that Christians respected the emperor not by worshipping him but by commending him to God as a man, for the emperor is even reminded in triumph that he is but a man. His loyalty to the Empire is proven when he states, "For we know that an immense catastrophe looms over all the world, and the very end of humanity amid terror and suffering is held back only by the continued existence of the Roman Empire." So in general the Christians were not refusing the civic religion because of any ill will that they had toward the Empire, but their enemies continued to use this against them. In her book, The Christians and the Roman Empire, Marta Sordi notes, "At the time of Septimius Severus, the chief pretext for taking action against the Christians was certainly this question of the cult of the emperor. It was, however, a pretext rather than a genuine reason; the Emperor himself had clearly shown that he did not consider a refusal to worship him a particularly grave fault in the Christians." Concerning the more systematic anti-Christian attitudes later in the third century, Fergus Millar writes, "The persecutions cannot be explained in political terms...; ... they were motivated by feelings which we must call religious. The imperial cult was not of any real significance." The difference of emphasis on the imperial cult from the beginning of the century to the end may be explained by the lack of stability in the emperor's position. The rapid succession of deaths, assassinations, and other factors created a lack of deified emperors and a lack of faith in the regime. The focus of ritual thus turned to the traditional gods.

      For the Roman people, religion was always a public matter. Everyone came together at festivals to revel in worldly pleasures as they celebrated and worshipped their gods, of which there were many borrowed from various cultures that had been assimilated by the Roman Empire. The practicing of rituals ensured favor with the gods, but more than that, it was also seen as a sign of loyalty to the Empire in much the same way that the cult of the emperor was. A good Roman citizen wishing the eternal glory and prosperity of the Empire would naturally want to participate in necessary rituals that allied the people with gods who could either proliferate peace or declare destruction. The Constitutio Antoniniana of 212 was a significant step in unifying the peoples of the empire. With universal Roman citizenship bestowed upon all free persons in the empire, religion too felt the force of this unification. The diverse gods and religious traditions of an equally diverse people were bound together by a syncretism most notable in the Severi and Aurelian. This was almost a form of monotheism in the way that the worship of all the other gods came under the worship of a supreme god (summus deus). This god was the sun, and the other gods of the empire were worshipped as different forms of this supreme sun god in whom the many aspects of the other gods could be found and praised simultaneously. Christianity was also included in this new concept of unified religion, and the Christian God became a manifestation of the sun just like all the others. While this opened up new possibilities for religious tolerance at the highest levels of government, anti-Christian sentiment at the local level could not properly be checked. Dr. Paula Fredriksen of Boston University notes that "empires in general, and... the Roman Empire, in particular, are religiously tremendously ecumenical." It follows that acts of focused persecution and deviation from the imperial, religious tolerance thus point to something different about the Christian religion, perhaps something dangerous.

      Stories of martyrdom held a very special place within the church. Though there was much effort by the church to continue participating in the Roman culture, the history of Christian and Roman reaction made this a difficulty. While Christ himself was extra-legally condemned by the will of the Jews, he was publicly killed by crucifixion, a Roman form of punishment, under the legal order of Pontius Pilate, a Roman governor. Roman soldiers placed the crown of thorns on his head and mockingly worshipped him as the "King of the Jews." From the very beginnings of this religious movement, there was the stigma of Roman opposition to Christianity. Stories of martyrdom produced "a new cult of the martyrs... which strengthens the church, which feeds on anti-government sentiment in... those remote geographical areas distant from Rome which have always been suspicious of Rome." The influence of these martyr stories was to bolster the faith and perseverance of the church. While the number of martyrs remained at a small minority of the Christian populace, everyone admired those who had the strength of faith to die while confessing the name of Jesus Christ, and they found strength for their own lives in the face of persecution. Rarely did anyone ever volunteer for martyrdom by throwing himself before a magistrate, but rather it was the policy of the church to flee persecution. Clement of Alexandria wrote that Jesus urged believers "neither to be the authors nor abettors of any evil to any one, either to ourselves or the persecutor and murderer." This is an exhortation for the Christians not to be guilty of forcing the persecutor to do sin. Similarly Athanasius wrote in his Apology for His Flight that the Christians who fled persecution were blessed and holy in hiding and also in being discovered to be martyred. There was no shame in trying not to stir troubled waters. Thus the Christians were not actively seeking to bring trouble on themselves or to cause trouble for the Empire, yet they were treated with fierce animosity at times.

      The interplay between race and religion can be seen as a significant factor in the Roman reaction to Christians in the third century. In the ancient world, there were several racial distinctions of note. Eusebius wrote that during the time of peace after the rule of Gallienus there was a "freedom that... was accorded by all men, both Greeks and Barbarians, to the gospel of worshipping the God of the universe." This division of the inhabitants of the world into Greek and Barbarian was one of the principle distinctions accepted by the ancient world. In this worldview, Greek culture was supreme, and all others were subordinate and counted as lesser. Romans (in the ethnic sense), though technically Barbarians, also held a special place in the hierarchy of the races, as they had modeled their own culture after the classical Greek one. Upon the martyring of Saint Cyprian it was written that "his body was laid out nearby to satisfy the curiosity of the gentiles." This points to the other significant distinction, the one between Jews and Gentiles, though the use of it in this instance is odd. Cyprian himself was a Carthaginian, a Gentile, and the text seems to say that his body was made a spectacle before the Gentiles. But the distinction of Jew and Gentile would not make sense in this context unless perhaps the writer was making a new distinction between Christians and Gentiles. This may be a sign of how the Christians, like the Jews before them, considered themselves a people set apart from the rest of the world, though when one considers that Christians came from all walks of life and all races within the empire the distinction quickly ceases to be one based on race to become one based on religion. But race did play a major role in religious tension. The third century was marked by many emperors who were not of Greco-Roman ancestry. Chief among these were the emperors of the Afro-Syrian Severan dynasty and also Philip the Arab. They became the targets of Hellenophiles who looked down upon Syrians and Semitic peoples as some of the basest Barbarian ethnic groups. The effect of toleration of the Christians under these emperors who were ethnically inferior was the violent reaction of systematic persecution enacted under the emperors who came from more favored races. These included the Thracian Maximinus, the Pannonian Decius, and the Etruscan Valerian, all of whom attempted to revive tradition and ancient forms of worship characteristic of Greco-Roman culture and religion. Eusebius saw the changing winds of tolerance and persecution as reactions by emperors who found the emperors of the preceding regimes distasteful. He wrote that "[Emperor Maximinus] through ill-will towards the house of Alexander, since it consisted mostly of believers, raised a persecution" and also that "[Decius], because of his hatred of Philip, raised a persecution against the churches." While these references do not explicitly mention race as a factor in the reversal of the regime's religious policy, examination of the evidence shows a very probably connection as Christianity may have been branded as a foreign religion that threatened tradition.

      The reign of the Severan dynasty during the first third of the third century was marked by a remarkable amount of toleration towards the Christians. It was during this period that there was a flourishing of Christian thought in the Empire. Christian theology and philosophy became the subjects of serious erudition within the Alexandrian catechism school. So popular was Christian theology that even the mother of Alexander Severus, Julia Mamaea, requested the presence of the renowned Christian theologian Origen in 232. Because the Severi were themselves of Eastern extraction, they were not tied into solely the traditional religions of Rome, and they accorded much grace to this popular eastern religion. It was in fact the case that Christian writers were even dedicating their theological literature to the members of the imperial family. There is a record of an earlier summons of Origen in 215 by the governor of Arabia who used official channels to make the request to the bishop of Alexandria and the Egyptian prefect. Clearly there was no official persecution in this time when the magistrates themselves were summoning and granting requests for the export of Christian thinkers. The popular rise of Christianity in this period may also be evinced by the appointment in 227/8 of the Palestinian Christian Sextus Julius Africanus as the overseer of the Pantheon Library. The Severan emperor most noted for his favor towards Christianity was Severus Alexander. Aelius Lampridius consistently wrote how Alexander treated the Christians with respectful benefaction. Lampridius wrote, "When the Christians took possession of a certain place, which previously had belonged to the State, and the keepers of an inn were insisting that it was their rightful property, Alexander ruled that it was better to have, for instance, a god worshipped there than to have the place handed over to innkeepers." Other references even seem to show that Alexander admired Christ and the Christians in their practices and way of life. Lampridius claimed that Alexander worshipped statues of Christ and the Biblical patriarch Abraham in his anctuary that included statues of deified emperors and his ancestors. Similarly, he claimed that, like Hadrian, Alexander had a desire to build temples dedicated to Christ so that He could be worshipped as one of the gods of the Empire. Of the Christian practices, Alexander was said to have modeled parts of his bureaucratic practices after them including the public announcement of appointments to provincial governorships and military offices. But even more telling than this is Alexander's practice of publicly quoting the Bible. Lampridius wrote "[Alexander] used often to proclaim what he heard from some people, either Jews or Christians, and he remembered it and had announced by a herald whenever he was correcting someone: "What you do not wish to be done to you, do not do it to another." The rule of the Severi seems to have been a blessed time for Christians in the Empire.

      Upon the death of Gordian in 244, the first Christian emperor, Philip the Arab, came to power. In his Historia Ecclesiae, Eusebius wrote that Philip submitted to the authority of a Christian bishop when he was asked to do penance for the sins of which he was being accused, "demonstrating by his actions how genuine and religious was his disposition towards the fear of God." Philip's sin likely involved his possible implications in the death of Gordian, to which he never publicly confessed though he did perform penance. This is representative of Philip's balancing of his position and his supposed Christianity. As emperor he was still pontifex maximus, and he performed the proper duties of that office. But he made many concessions to the Christians and the atmosphere was such that Origen could publicly release a response to the various accusations of Celsus against the Christians. Philip himself corresponded with Origen on several occasions, and imperial favor continued to be shown to the Christians through the first half of the century, minus the brief persecution enacted by Gordian's predecessor Maximinus. Philip became the focus of the ire of the people, partly because he was an Arab and partly because his tax reforms were unpopular. In any case, the people turned on their emperor and also the Christians whom he favored. In this way, the persecution of the Christians became a reaction of the people against the emperor rather than against the Christians in themselves.

      Decius caught onto this popular discontent and became the first emperor to enforce a systematic, empire-wide persecution of the Christians. The edict of Decius proclaimed that all citizens of the empire had to obtain a libellus signed by an official of a commission as proof that they were participating in the traditional civic religion by loyally and faithfully sacrificing to the gods. John R. Knipfing of Ohio State University notes that the libelli were formulaic and that they "called for the address, the name of the petitioner, his filiation, his place of birth and of residence, his personalia (such as age, identification marks, honorific employment), the declaration of religious loyalty and of sacrificial performance, and the complimentary close." The sacrificial performance here involved pouring out a libation, sacrificing an animal, eating its meat, and professing that one had always sacrificed to the gods without interruption. Christians could not in good conscience obey this order to perform counter-Christian rituals. Bishop Dionysius noted that "some went as far as chains and imprisonment, but certain of these, when shut up for many days, and even before coming to court, renounced their faith, and still others, remaining firm for a while even under torture, subsequently denied the faith." This edict affected not only Christians but also everyone else. There is even an extant libellus for the priestess of the goddess Petesuchos. The edict may be seen specifically as a persecutory attack on the Christians and generally as a push towards religious traditionalism. The effect of the Decian persecution was hardly uniform or even up to the author's original intent. By involving the peoples of the Empire in traditional sacrifice to the gods, Decius had hoped to restore something he felt was lost by the religious tolerance that had preceded his reign. The new religions, and Christianity especially, were endangering the continued existence of traditional Roman religion. The edict was a failure in that it was enforced according to the popular opinions of the people. In Africa, persecution had already been taking place when the edict increased its fervor, but in Rome, the capital city, persecution was relatively mild because of religious toleration, and the Christians considered Rome a safe haven from the persecutions all around, even convening a meeting of bishops when Decius left the city in 250. Marta Sordi believes that the Decian persecution was actually detrimental to the Empire, performing an effect opposite to what was intended. She argues that "by imposing on all the citizens of the empire the proof of loyalty which Trajan had required only from the Christians, Decius in effect put the entire empire on trial, and with the pretext of saving Roman tradition he actually subjected it to one of the most trying acts of oppression of its whole history." It is also argued that corruption resulted as officials began to sell unauthentic libelli to Christians who would not sacrifice. This was the Christian's alternative to martyrdom or apostasy. Despite the shortcomings of the edict's effects, the persecution felt by the Christians was nevertheless fiercely painful.

      The reasons for Valerian's persecution of the Christians appear to have been more complex than those of Decius. Eusebius recorded that "no other of the previous emperors was so kindly and favorably disposed towards [the Christians]" and that "all [Valerian's] house had been filled with people who worshipped God and was itself a church of God." This seems to have been the characteristic state of affairs from 253 until 257 when Valerian exiled the clergy and forbade the Christians to assemble. It is difficult to ascertain the precise impetus that caused Valerian to forsake four years of peace with the Christians. Part of the reason may have been similar to Decius' desire to reinstate tradition. Related to this was Valerian's fear of the gods. The years of Valerian's reign saw crises on every front. Foreign invaders plagued the security of the borders as a plague of disease was also taking the lives of the citizens. War depleted the treasury and caused an inflationary economic crisis. To Valerian and Roman traditionalists it must have seemed like the gods were against them. "[The Christians] are exempting themselves from the peace of the gods, the Pax Deorum and therefore,... they are used as an explanatory device whenever there are unusual natural insults of human existence. Plague. Earthquake. Flood. It's because the Christians, as gentiles who are not doing their duty to heaven... why should the gods do anything for the city then?" By persecuting Christians as scapegoats, Valerian may have been trying to focus the people's indignation away from the intangible crises to something they had the power to destroy. Valerian's second edict in 258 called for the seizure of property of wealthy, upper class Christians. It was not enough for them to deny their faith as in the Decian persecution which created many apostates. Property was summarily seized, and the death penalty was accorded to those who continued in their Christian practice. The obvious conclusion for the motivation here is that Valerian used this edict to seize Christian wealth for the restoration of his coffers, but Christopher J. Haas of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor points to the lack of evidence that a significant amount of property was ever actually seized and suggests other motivations. Valerian's targeting of the upper classes might instead be his reaction to the ever-increasing number of Christians in a segment of society that had been the bastion of conservative Roman traditionalism. Marta Sordi writes "[Valerian's predecessors] had wanted the Christians to take part in the life of the empire at all levels; Valerian seems... to have had a real fear that the Christians were taking over the key positions in the empire and that the state was, indeed, becoming 'christianised'."

      It is clear that many factors rose to significance in the imperial reactions to the Christians of the third century. It was inevitable that a changing government would react to so important an issue in diverse ways. Reaction ran the gamut from the public favor of a Christian emperor to respectful toleration by an admirer to public persecution by a die-hard traditionalist to a shift in policy by an emperor overwhelmed by the pressures of his time. Roman Christians truly learned the lesson of Job when "he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Christians endured much at the hands of the emperor, and with the patience of Job, they survived.