CHAPTER
V
OBSTACLES
TO THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY AND CAUSES OF THE PERSECUTIONS –
THE
LEGAL PROCESS
Introduction
As we have
already seen, there were many circumstances that favored the growth of Christianity. At the same time there were obstacles and
difficulties to be overcome which, humanly speaking, were utterly
insurmountable.
St.
Paul the Apostle says that preaching Christ, the Crucified, is a stumbling
block to Jews and folly to the Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23). But the greatest opposition between
Christianity and paganism did not happen so much in the field of doctrine and
belief. It occurred more in the field of
public life. In ancient times, religion
was not, as such, a private matter or an exclusively private affair. It was, on the contrary, first and above all,
an affair of the state. Family, society, culture were closely related and
united with polytheism. The Roman State
insisted on due honor being paid to the national gods.
The
Roman State, in particular, sustained with great vigor the cult of pagan
deities. In general, Rome allowed all
those conquered countries the practice of their own religion. Not only this, most of those deities were
accepted, quite easily, by the Romans.
The Roman Pantheon admitted all kinds of foreign gods. Of these concessions, as we can imagine,
those belonging to the Monotheistic religions could not avail themselves
because it was not lawful to them, as it was to pagans, to adore the deity of
Rome together with their own deity.
Jewish and Christian Religions
The Roman State, nevertheless, was quite tolerant in
regard to the Jews because their religion was national and the Hebrew
proselytes were but few. Tertullian,
(Apol. 21,1) calls Judaism a “religio certe valida” under whose shadow
Christianity was at first tolerated.
But
the situation of the Christians was wholly different from that of the
Jews. The Christian religion was not an
ancient and national religion like that of the Jews, but new and universal. The Church had followers in all the nations
of the world and tried to eliminate all other religions. Given the straight and, in appearance,
indissoluble union between the faith in the gods and the ancient Roman State,
many people believed that paganism was menaced from the root. All these worries were the more real because
the Christians, wholly justified from their own point of view rejected the cult
of the emperor. This divine cult of the
Emperor, a living Emperor was considered vital to the Empire (together with the
apotheosis to the dead emperor). The
cult already diffused in the East, became common in the West during Nero’s
reign (54-60), and even more after Domitian (81-96). On this divine cult to the Emperor rested the
Roman religion of the state; the cult became the touchstone of civil fidelity
and patriotism; in fact, those who rejected it could be accused of treachery.
This was, in general, the main danger for the accused Christians.
Rejection of Roman Ways by
Christianity
Added
to all this, we find that the Christians did not want to participate in the
public and base spectacles of the pagans.
They did not go to the theater, shun away from the gladiatorial games,
did not participate in public sacrifices. They too did not want to decorate and
ornate with wreaths their houses under the excuse or motive of any public feast
and celebration; and some rigorists like Tertullian and Origen, denied also the
need of military service. For the rest,
the Christians recognized the rights of the state. They followed the precept of Christ (Mt 22:21
and parallels) and the apostles (Rm 13:1; Pt 2:13-17), that is, they
conscientiously fulfilled their duties toward the Emperor (Clem., 1Cor.
61; Polycarp, Phil. 12,3; Athenagoras, Legatio 377; Theopilus, Ad
Auth. I,11; Tertullian, Apol. 30).
But that way of feeling and acting was enough to make them suspects and
enemies of the Roman State and Emperor (Tert., Apol, 35).
On
the other hand, from the very beginning, the most fantastic calumnies, traces
of which can be found in the writings of the Roman historians Tacitus (55-120)
(Annals XV, 44) and Suetonius (The Twelve Caesars, 16), were
spread about the Christians. Most of
these calumnies were fomented, no doubt, by the Jews of the dispersion, due to
their hatred of Christianity. On the
other hand, it was also due paradoxically to the widespread anti-semitism
already prevalent in antiquity, which considered Christianity at the beginning,
a sect of Judaism.
Accusations Against the
Christians
The
main accusations can be reduced to four:
a.
The abstention from the part of the Christians of the
cult of the State and their faith in God, pure and without images, was
interpreted by pagans as “atheism” (Justin, Apol. I,6,13; Athen.,
Leg. 3-12; Marty., Polycarp 3) and, consequently, as a collection
of all wickedness.
b.
By a monstrous confusion, the Christian Eucharistic
banquet and agape were presented as a “Thyestean Banquet”[1] (Sacramentum
infanticidii et pabulum inde; [Tert. Apol. 7, 1] that is ritual
infanticide or ritual killing.
Christians were accused of killing children and eating them at banquets.
c.
And again, this very Eucharistic celebration was
the occasion of “oedipoid impurity” (incest) [Justin, Apol. I.26; Dial.
10; Leg. 31-36; Theop. Ad Auth. III, 4-15; Minucius Felix, Octavius
9.30.31; Tert. Apol. 7-9).
The Christians were accused of having incestual relationships, perhaps
because they called themselves brothers and sisters and had very close lives.
d.
Enemies of the national culture. The Christians did not identify themselves
totally with the way of life of the Romans.
The Christians belong to all races and people and rejected the Roman
ways, as we have seen. Hence they were
considered enemies of the national culture.
There were many other charges,
such as: superstition, witchcraft, adoration of the sun, adoration of the head
of an ass, and many more, of which Suetonius (Nero, 16: Superstitio
nova et malefica), Tertullian (Apol. 16) and Minucius Felix (Oct.
9), make mention. Tacitus, (55-120),
Epictetus (42-101), and Mark Aurelius (161-180) accuse the Christians of hate
against the human race (misanthropy) and of being habitually disposed to death.
Other
accusations still were of not going to the theater, to the gladiatorial
games. The Christians did not participate
in the public sacrifices, they led a sad and lugubrious life; they tried to
escape public life; they lacked friends and made converts of the lowest
classes. [They were “gentes
latebrosae, conveniebant secreto praesertim conventibus noctiurnis”]. In one word, they were guilty of all the
imaginable and possible crimes. Because
of this, people were not sympathetic towards the Christians. People usually reject all those who don’t
think like them and more so if it looks that those who do not follow them feel
a little derision. People are suspicious
of everything, misinterpret things and, without realizing, pass from suspicion
to hatred and from hatred to open hostilities.
Accusations, then, were mounting.
Towards
the end of the 2nd century the Christians were accused, because of
their contempt for the pagan deities, of being the cause of public
calamities, such as plagues, floods, wants, barbaric invasions. (Tert. Apol.
40; Orig. In Math. Comm-Serm. 39; Cyprian, Ad Demet. 23.
Arnob. Adv. Nat. I,13,26; Augustine, De Civ. Dei, 11,3). This blame for all the ills that befell the
Roman world is described by Tertullian thus: “If the Tiber cometh up to the
walls, if the Nile cometh not up to the fields, if there be any earthquake, if
any famine, if any pestilence, The Christians to the lions is forthwith the
word.”
This
accusation was very dangerous because it was so insistent and widely diffused
up to the end of the 4th and 5th centuries, while the
others lost ground. The Christians, too,
were accused of being narrow-minded bigots, because they held that it was
sinful to make images of the pagan gods or to offer sacrifices to them. Every artist and image maker, every butcher
who sold the meat of animals offered to the gods, and every priest of the gods
who shared in the profits of their worship, was the sworn enemy of the
Christians. Because of this, the
Christians were accused of being “unproductive kind of people” Infructuosi
negotiis, Tert. Apol. 42,43; cfr. Acts, 19:24ff).
With
these accusations against the followers of Christ, so widely accepted by the
pagans, it is not strange that already during the 2nd century bloody
explosions of revenge and hatred took place against the Christians and that the
popular fury took a great many number of lives. Not only the populace reacted against the
Christians but also the Roman “Proconsuli” in the provinces,
either because of private denunciations or because of popular pressure or even
through their own private initiative.
Yet from the middle of the 3rd century it is the State which
systematically organized the persecutions against the Christians. These persecutions were ordered by the emperors
themselves with general edicts, with the idea of exterminating the Christian
Church as a presumed enemy of the State.
In the period between Decius (249-251) and Diocletian (284-305) the
battle against the Church of Christ was to death, a battle between two great
powers: the Church of Christ and the mighty Roman Empire. It lasted until the last pagan Emperor
himself bowed before the standard of the Cross.
Juridical Character of the
Persecutions
Why
did Rome, which was otherwise tolerant of all kinds of religions, even the most
degrading, rave with such fury against Christianity? This is one of the most exciting and, at the
same time, most controversial issues among scholars. Of the many explanations offered by
historians three theories stand out as the most important and representative:
a. System
of Penal Laws of Common Right – The persecutions were the effect of the
application of laws previously existing.[2]
The existence of a
special legislative act explicitly prohibiting Christianity has nevertheless
been much discussed. It has been said
that it was sufficient to apply to Christians existing laws specifying penalties
for the crimes of joining un-authorized societies (decreed by Trajan 98-117
AD), practice of magic and sorcery, atheism (crimen lease romanae religionis)[3]
and sacrilege or of lese majeste, as this would involve them in crimes
equivalent to high treason which is punishable by confiscation of all property
and goods and death for the authors of hostile actions against the Roman People
and public security as stipulated in Lex Julia Maiestatis. But sacrilege properly so called supposes a
positive criminal act, which could not be found in the case of Christians for
the crime of lese majeste, closely connected, in point of fact, with
that of sacrilege, committed in refusing to take part in the cult of the
emperor’s divinity, we do not see Christians explicitly accused of this in the
first two centuries: it is only in the third century that the magistrates tried
regularly to force Christians to sacrifice to the divinity of the emperor in
consequence of new edicts of persecutions, and condemned them if they refused
to do so.
Doubtless one may say
that the crime existed implicitly from the beginning inasmuch as Christians did
not recognize the emperor as a god, and hence adopted the attitude which was
bound to lead to their being regarded as defective citizens or subjects. But before the third century no text proves
that the proper motive of the persecution of the Christians was the refusal
which made them guilty of lese majeste.
They were accused rather, at first, of failing to reverence the gods of
the Empire in general, and even this did not make them officially atheists, as
they were judged to be by popular ignorance.
The same is true of the
accusation of other especially serious crimes against common law, such as
magic, incest, or infanticide: it was never more than popular rumor which
imputed these to the Christians, and official justice did not take up these
accusations. Hence we shall not find in
previous penal law the precise juridical basis of the persecutions.
b. Coercive
System – they were due merely to the coercive power (police power) of the
magistrates.[4]
Others have
sought for this basis in the power of coercitio, i.e. police powers
which belonged to all the Roman magistrates.
In order to maintain public order, these had a very extensive authority
which went as far as putting to death anyone who disturbed the peace. Hence it is suggested that it was a public
disturbance that the Christians, disobeying the injunction to abandon a
profession of faith which was in itself a public disorder, were condemned by
the decision of the magistrates, without any need of applying to them a more
expressed law.
But if the
magistrates merely had to exercise towards the Christians their power of coercitio,
why did they more than once think it necessary to consult the prince as to the
way to treat them, as we see Pliny the Younger writing to Trajan; and other
governors under Antoninus or Marcus Aurelius?
Moreover, Pliny speaks formally of the steps taken against the
Christians as resulting from the exercise of criminal jurisdiction, cognition,
and accordingly, not as a result of coercitio. Lastly, the coercitio
extending to the capital penalty could not be extended in the case of a Roman
citizen.
This is the
most common and probable opinion.
Scholars defend, following Tertullian, that from the earliest times,
from Nero’s reign (54-68 AD) and Domitian (81-95 AD), there were special
laws against the Christians or new interpretations of laws already in existence
that would be the same as to enact a new law.
Thus
we are compelled to accept the reality of special legislative measures against
the Christians, of which the Emperor Nero was the author, as in fact affirmed
by Melito of Sardes, Tertullian and Sulpicius Severus.[6] From Nero’s reign to that of Septimus Severus
(193-211), who introduced a new regime, the juridical situation of Christians
in the Roman Empire remained the same; they were proscribed, not as guilty of
crimes against the common law such as incest, cannibalism or magic, as imputed
to them so often by popular hostility, itself caused by difference of beliefs
and customs, nor of the crimes of sacrilege or lese majeste, but as
guilty of professing a religion which had been forbidden: Christianos esse
non licet. Thus it is the very name
of Christian, the nomen Christianum, that was forbidden and condemned,
as Christian apologists more than once contended.
The
questions put about half a century later by Pliny the Younger, Governor of
Bithynia, to the Emperor Trajan as to the attitude to be adopted towards the
Christians of his province, and asked the imperial rescript which sent him the
instructions asked for, prove the existence of an earlier legislation, the
application of which had only to be clarified.
Tertullian asserts, moreover, in the most formal manner that Nero was
the first to promulgate a law against the Christians, and it cannot be doubted
that the proscription of Christianity as such dates back to him: the
Christians, first of all persecuted as incendiaries through the dishonest
expedient of the frightened Nero, were evidently subsequently outlawed after
police enquiries which ascertained their religious profession.
Until
then they had continued to be confused with the Jews in the eyes of the Roman
authority; they were regarded doubtless as a particular sect, and thus enjoyed
the privileges which enabled the Jews to retain their national religion in the
empire without performing acts of obedience in respect to the official cults. But henceforth a discrimination was made;
possibly the Jews themselves were partly responsible for this, and this may be
the most exact element in the thesis which regards the Jewish element as in
some measure the cause of the outbreak of the first persecution. Henceforth Christianity was no longer
regarded as a dissident form of Judaism, and had no longer any right to the
favors enjoyed by the latter.
Consequently, the Christians were now bound, as citizens of the Empire,
to comply with the minimum of religious conformity called for the idea of the
ancient State or else disappear. Their
faith, which allowed no concession internal or external, to polytheism,
excluded such conformity, and so there remained only outlawry, and this is
undoubtedly the basis of the legislation made in their regard by Nero, and
which may be summed up in one short phrase; non licet esse Christianos,
(it is not lawful for Christians to exist).
[1] Thyestes,
n. L. Gr. Thyestes – in Greek legend, a brother of Atreus and son of Pelops. Thyestean
banquet – banquet at which human flesh is served. Thyestes had unwittingly eaten his own
children served to him by an enemy at a banquet.
[2] Systema
legum poenalium iuris communis
[3]
cf. Tertullian, Apol. 24.
[4] Systema
coercitionis
[5] Systema
legum specialium religionem Christianem proscribenda.
[6] “Institutum
Neronianum”, Apol. 5.
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