Persecution and Treatment of Christians Under Different Roman Emperors | Early European History And Religion

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BEGINNINGS OF THE ROMAN PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS

Nero with some Christains

Some say that in its first few centuries of its existence, Christianity was a martyr's religion. Persecutions of early Christians at the hands of Roman emperors from about A.D. 81 to 305 A.D. is well known. During this time the emperors made Christianity religion illegal and executed believers who would not renounce their faith. Roman authorities demanded that Christians worship Roman gods and emperor. In ancient Rome, the emperor was considered a god. Worshipping him and the gods of Rome were regarded as sign of loyalty and expected of good Roman citizens. Christianity, which taught there was only one God and that god was not part of Roman pantheon, was considered a threat. [Source: Encyclopedia.com]

Dr Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe of the University of Cambridge wrote for the BBC: “Christians were first, and horribly, targeted for persecution as a group by the emperor Nero in 64 AD. A colossal fire broke out at Rome, and destroyed much of the city. Rumours abounded that Nero himself was responsible. He certainly took advantage of the resulting devastation of the city, building a lavish private palace on part of the site of the fire. Perhaps to divert attention from the rumours, Nero ordered that Christians should be rounded up and killed. Some were torn apart by dogs, others burnt alive as human torches. Over the next hundred years or so, Christians were sporadically persecuted. It was not until the mid-third century that emperors initiated intensive persecutions.” [Source: Dr Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, BBC, February 17, 2011]

Websites and Resources: Early Christianity: PBS Frontline, From Jesus to Christ, The First Christians pbs.org ; Elaine Pagels website elaine-pagels.com ; Sacred Texts website sacred-texts.com ; Gnostic Society Library gnosis.org ; Guide to Early Church Documents iclnet.org; Early Christian Writing earlychristianwritings.com ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Christian Origins sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC on Christianity bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity ; Candida Moss at the Daily Beast Daily Beast Christian Classics Ethereal Library www.ccel.org

Nero and the Persecution of Christians — Exaggerated?

Christian tradition holds that after the Great Fire of Rome in A.D 64, Nero engaged in a violent crackdown on Christians. Nero allegedly ordered the slaughter of Christians. Among them, according to tradition, were the apostles Peter and Paul. Nero began persecuting Christians on the grounds of disloyalty and blamed them, along with Jews, for the great fire in Rome in A.D. 64, something which some say he himself may have been involved in. Tacitus wrote that before the killing of Christians, Nero used them to amuse the masses. Some were dressed in furs, to be killed by dogs. Others were crucified. Still others were set on fire. Christians, wrote Tacitus, "were nailed on crosses...sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the night."

Although some persecution of Christian is believed to have occurred in Nero's reign, and some it was very cruel, the extent of it has been wildly exaggerated. Most of the victims were bishops or other male leaders. Nero is believed to have accused the Christians of starting the Rome fire in order to shield himself from the suspicion of setting the fire himself.

The height of the persecution of Christians was not during the reign of Nero, but much later. Domitian, Marcus Aurelius and Valerian all brutalized Christians after A.D. 150, when Christians held many high positions and presented a threat as "state within a state." In A.D. 202 the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus made baptism a criminal act. In A.D. 250 Emperor Decius increased the persecution of Christians. Persecution was most intense during the Great Persecution of Diocletian (A.D. 303-305).

Martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul

According to the traditional story, in A.D. 67, in the last year of Nero’s reign, St. Peter was hung upside down and beheaded at the Circus Maximus during a wave of brutal anti-Christian persecution after the burning of Rome. His brutal treatment was partly of the result of his request not to be crucified, because he didn't consider himself worthy of the treatment of Jesus. After Peter died, it is said, his body was taken to a burial ground, situated where St. Peter's cathedral now stands. His body was entombed and later secretly worshiped.

St Peter by Caravaggio

It is not exactly clear what happened to St. Paul but it is believed that he was martyred in A.D. 64, the year that Nero blamed the great fire of Rome on the Christian and Jews. Before he was killed St. Paul invoked his right as a Roman citizen to be beheaded. His wish was granted. According to some, Paul was martyred at the site occupied by the Monastery of the Three Fountains in Rome. The Cathedral of St. John Lateran, the oldest Christian basilica in Rome, founded by Constantine on A.D. 314, contains reliquaries said to hold the heads of St. Paul and St. Peter and the chopped off finger doubting Thomas stuck in Jesus' wound.

On the arrest of Paul, Acts 16:19-22 from The New Testament: (A.D. c. 90) reads: “When her owners saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them to the public square before the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, "These people are Jews and are disturbing our city [Philippi, a Roman colony] and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us Romans to adopt or practice." The crowd joined in the attack on them, and the magistrates had them stripped and ordered them to be beaten with rods....”

According to Listverse: “At the time of the first Christians, St Peter, the first Bishop of Rome (and thus first Pope) was put to death by being crucified upside-down in the Circus of Nero – a large open-air venue used for public events. His body was buried there. A mere 200 years later, the Roman Emperor Constantine I legalized Christianity and donated the Circus of Nero to the Church for what is now known as Old St Peter’s Basilica. It took only 30 years to build and survived until 1506 when it was demolished by Pope Julius II in order to make way for the Basilica which stands in its place today and remains the seat of the Papacy. The irony of the fact that the seat of the oldest and largest Christian population in the world stands on the spot where the first attempts were made to destroy the new religion is obvious. Given the temporal power the Church wielded (and still does to a certain degree, though more through influence now), one could say that the Roman Empire is still at the heart of Western society.” [Source: Listverse, October 16, 2009]

Tacitus’s Account of Nero’s Persecution of the Christians

Our understanding of the “first persecution” of Christians under Nero largely comes from the account of the Roman historian Tacitus, which is of great interest because it contains the first reference by a pagan author to Christ and his followers. The following passage shows not only the cruelty of Nero and the terrible sufferings of the early Christian martyrs, but also the pagan prejudice against the new religion. [Source: “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901), forumromanum.org \~]

Tacitus wrote: says: “In order to drown the rumor, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. [Source: “Annals,” Book. XV., Ch. 44, by P. Cornelius Tacitus, A.D. 109, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb]

Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his own gardens for this spectacle. The people were moved with pity for the sufferers; for it was felt that they were suffering to gratify Nero’s cruelty, not from considerations for the public welfare.”

Is Tacitus’s Account of the Nero Persecutions Fake News

Candida Moss wrote: Most of the historical evidence for Nero persecuting Christians comes to us from the writings of Tacitus, who wrote between 115-120 CE, at least fifty years after the events he was describing.” She and Brent Shaw believe Tacitus’s accounts were at the very least exaggerated and may be totally made up. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, July 23, 2017]

Shaw has argued that Tacitus was relying on Christian and Jewish legendary sources that portrayed Nero as the Antichrist for the information that Nero persecuted Christians and that in fact, no persecution under Nero took place. Shaw has questioned if the passage represents "some modernizing or updating of the facts" to reflect the Christian world at the time the text was written. [Source: Wikipedia]

Shaw's views have been strongly criticized and have generally not been accepted by other scholars. Christopher P. Jones (Harvard University) answered to Shaw and refuted his arguments, noting that the Tacitus's anti-Christian stance makes it unlikely that he was using Christian sources; he also noted that the Epistle to the Romans of Paul the Apostle clearly points to the fact that there was indeed a clear and distinct Christian community in Rome in the 50s and that the persecution is also mentioned by Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars. Brigit van der Lans and Jan N. Bremmer also dismissed Shaw's argument, noting that the Neronian persecution is recorded in many 1st-century Christian writings, such as the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Book of Revelation, the apocryphal Ascension of Isaiah, the First Epistle of Peter, the Gospel of John and the First Epistle of Clement;

Nero and a persecuted Christain

Pliny's Letter to Emperor Trajan

In the early A.D. 2nd century, Trajan appointed Pliny the Younger, a distinguished Senator and literary man, as governor of Bithynia (modern day Turkey) — a province that had previously been poorly administered. While he was there he corresponded with Emperor Trajan about various problems. In the year 112, Pliny was faced with a dilemma. A number of Christians were brought into his court and he wasn’t sure what to do with them. According to PBS: “It is unclear what the initial charges are, but he ultimately decided, despite the fact that the Christians seemed generally harmless to him, that he should execute them if they refused to recant their faith. Because he is unsure as to whether he can kill them legally for no other crime than their faith, he writes to his friend the Emperor for advice. These letters concern an episode which marks the first time the Roman government recognized Christianity as a religion separate from Judaism, and sets a precedent for the massive persecution of Christians that takes place in the second and third centuries. The Emperor replies that he did the right thing in excecuting them, but advises him not to seek out Christians for prosecution. [Source: Frontline, PBS, April 1998 ]

Pliny to Trajan: “It is my custom, Sire, to refer to you in all cases where I am in doubt, for who can better clear up difficulties and inform me? I have never been present at any legal examination of the Christians, and I do not know, therefore, what are the usual penalties passed upon them, or the limits of those penalties, or how searching an inquiry should be made. I have hesitated a great deal in considering whether any distinctions should be drawn according to the ages of the accused; whether the weak should be punished as severely as the more robust, or whether the man who has once been a Christian gained anything by recanting? Again, whether the name of being a Christian, even though otherwise innocent of crime, should be punished, or only the crimes that gather around it? [Source: Pliny the Younger (61/62-113 A.D.) and Trajan (r.98-117 A.D.): Letters, Book X. 25ff : “The Correspondence of a Provincial Governor and the Emperor Trajan,” c. 112 A.D.,William Stearns Davis, ed., “Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources,” 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the West, 196-210, 215-222, 250-251, 289-290, 295-296, 298-300]

“In the meantime, this is the plan which I have adopted in the case of those Christians who have been brought before me. I ask them whether they are Christians, if they say "Yes," then I repeat the question the second time, and also a third — warning them of the penalties involved; and if they persist, I order them away to prison. For I do not doubt that — be their admitted crime what it may — their pertinacity and inflexible obstinacy surely ought to be punished.

“There were others who showed similar mad folly, whom I reserved to be sent to Rome, as they were Roman citizens. Later, as is commonly the case, the mere fact of my entertaining the question led to a multiplying of accusations and a variety of cases were brought before me. An anonymous pamphlet was issued, containing a number of names of alleged Christians. Those who denied that they were or had been Christians and called upon the gods with the usual formula, reciting the words after me, and those who offered incense and wine before your image — which I had ordered to be brought forward for this purpose, along with the regular statues of the gods — all such I considered acquitted — especially as they cursed the name of Christ, which it is said bona fide Christians cannot be induced to do.

“Still others there were, whose names were supplied by an informer. These first said they were Christians, then denied it, insisting they had been, "but were so no longer"; some of them having "recanted many years ago," and more than one "full twenty years back." These all worshiped your image and the god's statues and cursed the name of Christ.

Death of St. Paul

“But they declared their guilt or error was simply this -- on a fixed day they used to meet before dawn and recite a hymn among themselves to Christ, as though he were a god. So far from binding themselves by oath to commit any crime, they swore to keep from theft, robbery, adultery, breach of faith, and not to deny any trust money deposited with them when called upon to deliver it. This ceremony over, they used to depart and meet again to take food -- but it was of no special character, and entirely harmless. They also had ceased from this practice after the edict I issued -- by which, in accord with your orders, I forbade all secret societies.

“I then thought it the more needful to get at the facts behind their statements. Therefore I placed two women, called "deaconesses," under torture, but I found only a debased superstition carried to great lengths, so I postponed my examination, and immediately consulted you. This seems a matter worthy of your prompt consideration, especially as so many people are endangered. Many of all ages and both sexes are put in peril of their lives by their accusers; and the process will go on, for the contagion of this superstition has spread not merely through the free towns, but into the villages and farms. Still I think it can be halted and things set right. Beyond any doubt, the temples -- which were nigh deserted -- are beginning again to be thronged with worshipers; the sacred rites, which long have lapsed, are now being renewed, and the food for the sacrificial victims is again finding a sale -- though up to recently it had almost no market. So one can safely infer how vast numbers could be reclaimed, if only there were a chance given for repentance.

Trajan to Pliny: “You have adopted the right course, my dear Pliny, in examining the cases of those cited before you as Christians; for no hard and fast rule can be laid down covering such a wide question. The Christians are not to be hunted out. If brought before you, and the offense is proved, they are to be punished, but with this reservation -- if any one denies he is a Christian, and makes it clear he is not, by offering prayer to our gods, then he is to be pardoned on his recantation, no matter how suspicious his past. As for anonymous pamphlets, they are to be discarded absolutely, whatever crime they may charge, for they are not only a precedent of a very bad type, but they do not accord with the spirit of our age.”

Marcus Aurelius’s Persecution of Christians

Marcus Aurelius

Although his philosophy dovetailed with many Christian doctrines Marcus Aurelius persecuted Christian because it is said they were regarded as a threat to the empire. This is perhaps the most striking example of the fact that the emperor’s sense of duty was not always in harmony with the highest welfare of people. [Source: “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901), forumromanum.org \~]

By Marcus Aurelius’s time, Christianity had found its way throughout the eastern and western provinces. It was at first received by the common people in the cities. As it was despised by many, it was the occasion of bitter opposition and often of popular tumults. The secret meetings of the Christians had given rise to scandalous stories about their practices. They were also regarded as responsible in some way for the calamities that inflicted the Roman Empire during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. \~\

Since the time of Nero, the policy of the rulers toward the new sect had varied. But the best of the emperors had hitherto been cautious like Trajan, or tolerant like Hadrian, or openly friendly like Antoninus. But Marcus Aurelius sincerely believed that the Christians were the cause of the popular tumults, and that the new sect was dangerous to the public peace. He therefore issued an order that those who denied their faith should be let alone, but those who confessed should be put to death. The most charitable judgment which can be passed upon this act is that it was the result of a great mistake made by the emperor regarding the character of the Christians and their part in disturbing the peace of society. \~\

Decian Persecution

Decius

The short but furious Decian persecution resulted from an edict issued in A.D. 250 by the Emperor Decius ordering everyone in the Roman Empire to perform a sacrifice to the Roman gods and the well-being of the Emperor. The edict ordered that the sacrifices be performed in the presence of a Roman magistrate, and a signed and witnessed certificate be issued to that effect. It was the first time that Christians had faced legislation forcing them to choose between their religious beliefs and death, although there is no evidence that Decius' edict was specifically intended to target Christians. The edict appears to have been designed more as an Empire-wide loyalty oath. Nevertheless, a number of Christians were put to death for refusing to perform the sacrifices, many others apostatized and performed the ceremonies, and others went into hiding. The effects were long-lasting and caused tension between Christians who had performed the sacrifices or fled and those who had not, and left bitter memories of persecution. [Source: Wikipedia]

About 250 A.D., during the Decian persecution, persons suspected of Christianity were obliged to clear themselves by sacrificing to the old gods, then taking out a certificate to protect themselves against further legal proceedings. This example below comes from a papyrus found at Oxyrhyncus (in Egypt, 160 kilometers siuth of present-day Cairo). [Source: William Stearns Davis, ed. Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-1913), Vol. II: Rome and the West, p. 289, sourcebooks.fordham.edu].

To the Commissioners of Sacrifice of the Village of Alexander’s Island: From Aurelius Diogenes, the son of Satabus, of the Village of Alexander’s Island, aged 72 years: — scar on his right eyebrow. I have always sacrificed regularly to the gods, and now, in your presence, in accordance with the edict, I have done sacrifice, and poured the drink offering, and tasted of the sacrifices, and I request you to certify the same. Farewell.
— Handed in by me, Aurelius Diogenes.
— I certify that I saw him sacrificing [signature obliterated].
Done in the first year of the Emperor, Caesar Gaius Messius Quintus Trajanus Decius Pius Felix Augustus, second of the month Epith. [June 26, 250 A.D.]

Porphyry: Against the Christians

papyrus with records of the Decian persecutions

Porphyry (A.D. c. 234 – c. 305) was a leading "Neoplatonist", who sought to defend "reason". As Christianity spread, there was a strong, negative intellectual reaction to it among the classically oriented intellectuals.In the following passage, Porphyry attacks Christian unreason as reported by Eusebius. "Some persons, desiring to find a solution to the baseness of the Jewish Scriptures rather than abandon them, have had recourse to explanations inconsistent and incongruous with the words written, which explanations, instead of supplying a defense of the foreigners, contain rather approval and praise of themselves. For they boast that the plain words of Moses are "enigmas", and regard them as oracles full of hidden mysteries; and having bewildered the mental judgment by folly, they make their explanations." [Source: Eusebius, “Church History, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,” 2nd Series, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace, (repr. Grand Rapids MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1955), Vo1 I, pp. 265-266]

“"As an example of this absurdity take a man whom I met when I was young, and who was then greatly celebrated and still is, on account of the writings which he has left. I refer to Origen, who is highly honored by the teachers of these doctrines. For this man, having been a student of Ammonius, who had attained the greatest proficiency in philosophy of any in our day, derived much benefit from his teacher in the knowledge of the sciences; but as to the correct choice of life, he pursued a course opposite to his. For Ammonius, being a Christian, and brought up by Christian parents, when he gave himself to study and to philosophy straightway conformed to the life required by the laws.

“But Origen, having been educated as a Greek in Greek literature, went over to the barbarian recklessness. And carrying over the learning which he had obtained, he hawked it about, in his life conducting himself as a Christian and contrary to the laws, but in his opinions of material things and of the Deity being like a Greek, and mingling Grecian teachings with foreign fables. For he was continually studying Plato, and he busied himself with the writings of Numenius and Cronius, Apollophanes, Longinus, Moderatus, and Nicomachus, and those famous among the Pythagoreans. And he used the books of Chaeremon the Stoic, and of Cornutus. Becoming acquainted through them with the figurative interpretation of the Grecian mysteries, he applied it to the Jewish Scriptures."”

Christians Charged with Ritual Cannibalism

Octavius Minucius Felix (died A.D. c. 250), a Roman advocate, rhetorician, and Christian apologist, wrote: “And now, as wickeder things advance more fruitfully, and abandoned manners creep on day by day, those abominable shrines of an impious assembly are maturing themselves throughout the whole world. Assuredly this confederacy ought to be rooted out and execrated. They know one another by secret marks and insignia, and they love one another almost before they know one another; everywhere also there is mingled among them a certain religion of lust, and they call one another promiscuously brothers and sisters, that even a not unusual debauchery may by the intervention of that sacred name become incestuous: it is thus that their vain and senseless superstition glories in crimes. [Source: Minucius Felix, Octavius, R. E. Wallis, trans. in The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, N. Y.: The Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), Vol. 4, pp. 177-178, Frontline, PBS, April 1998]

demon cannibalism from 1450

“Nor, concerning these things, would intelligent report speak of things so great and various, and requiring to be prefaced by an apology, unless truth were at the bottom of it. I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of creatures, consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion, a worthy and appropriate religion for such manners. Some say that they worship the genitals of their pontiff and priest, and adore the nature, as it were, of their common parent. I know not whether these things are false; certainly suspicion is applicable to secret and nocturnal rites; and he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men, that they may worship what they deserve.Now the story about the initiation of young novices is as much to be detested as it is well known. An infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before him who is to be stained with their rites: this infant is slain by the young pupil, who has been urged on as if to harmless blows on the surface of the meal, with dark and secret wounds. Thirstily - O horror! they lick up its blood; eagerly they divide its limbs. By this victim they are pledged together; with this consciousness of wickedness they are covenanted to mutual silence.”

The charge of ritual cannibalism was probably based on confused accounts of the Christian eucharist. Hippolytus of Rome tells us what actually went on at a Christian service. This early eucharistic prayer still used in some churches dates from the beginning of the third century. In “Apostolic Tradition,” Hippolytus wrote: When one has been consecrated bishop all give him the kiss of peace . . . and the deacons bring him the offering . . . he lays hands upon it with all the priests and gives thanks, saying, "The Lord be with you." And all answer, "And with your spirit." "Lift up your hearts." "We have lifted them up to the Lord." "Let us give thanks to the Lord." "It is right and just." [Source: H. Achelis, Die Canones Hippolyti (Leipzig, 1881), pp. 48-55]

“And he thus continues, "We give thanks to you O God through your beloved son Jesus Christ whom in these last times you have sent to us as the redeemer and saviour and messenger of your will. He is your inseparable Word, through whom you created all things and who was acceptable to you. You sent him from heaven into the Virgin's womb and in her womb he was made man and was manifested your son, born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin. Fulfilling your will and buying for you a holy people, he stretched forth his hands when he suffered, that by his Passion he might deliver those who believed in you. When he was delivered over to his Passion of his own will, to destroy death, to break the bonds of the devil, to trample upon Hell, to enlighten the just, and to manifest his resurrection, taking bread and giving thanks to you, he said: Take and eat, this is my body which shall be broken for you. And taking likewise the cup, he said: This is my blood which shall be shed for you; when you do this, do it in memory of me.

"Mindful therefore of his death and resurrection, we offer you this bread and cup, giving thanks to you because you have found us worthy to stand before you and serve you. And we beg you to send the Holy Spirit upon the offering of the holy church and gather into one all who have received it . . . that we may praise and glorify you through your son Jesus Christ, through whom is glory and honor to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in your holy church both now and forever. Amen."”

Decian Persecutions Backfire

Decian Christian persecution papyrus

Professor Wayne A. Meeks told PBS: “After a long period in which the persecutions of Christianity were really spasmodic, local, [and] involved very few people, suddenly in the middle of the 3rd century, the year 250, the Emperor Decius decides that Christians are a real enemy of the Roman order, that they must be dealt with empire-wide, with all the police power that the emperor can bring to bear upon them. And he issues a decree that everyone has to sacrifice to the Roman gods and they must produce a certificate signed by a Roman official that they have done so. [Source: Wayne A. Meeks, Woolsey Professor of Biblical Studies Yale University, Frontline, PBS, April 1998]

“Why did this happen? Clearly, one of the things which this indicates is that Christianity, which begins with such tiny groups, scattered in various cities across the empire, have become numerous, they have become a significant segment of the population in many places. There is some evidence that in many towns in North Africa, the[y] may actually be a majority already. So they have come forcibly to the attention of the Emperor. At the same time, it clearly indicates that that counter-cultural tendency, which was one aspect of the self-understanding of Christians, from the very beginning..., they are the ones who worship, as Son of God, one who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, a Roman governor. This counter-cultural implication of their most fundamental beliefs still remains, and the Emperor has recognized this counter-cultural tendency and says, "This is dangerous - we can't have this large a group, which by the way, is also very highly organized, and, unlike other religious communities, is organized not just on a local basis, but is organized on an empire-wide basis. Something has to be done about it...."

“So, the Romans bring to bear all the power they have at their disposal. They say, "All right, let's hit the leaders. Let's find these bishops and bring them into court and force them to recant, and if they won't, we'll eliminate them."And so you have bishops fleeing to the countryside and you have others being martyred. You have ordinary people, for the first time, being rounded up, forced to sacrifice, or if they can buy a forgedcertificate of of sacrifice. There's some of those which have actually survived. And the odd thing is it fails.... The net effect of this is that a new cult of the martyrs appears in Christianity, which strengthens the the church, which feeds on anti-government sentiment in many segments of the empire, - those remote geographical areas distant from Rome which have always been suspicious of Rome. This simply brings those into the Christian fold and in many ways, it backfires. So the Decian persecution is very short-lived.

Diocletianic Persecution of Christians

Diocletien

Diocletian was a Roman emperor from A.D. 284 to 305. He was not regarded as a cruel and vindictive man, and was at first favorably disposed toward the Christians. But in the latter part of his reign he was induced to issue an edict of persecution against them. It is said that he was led to perform this infamous act by his assistant Galerius, who had always been hostile to the new religion, and who filled the emperor’s mind with stories of seditions and conspiracies. An order was issued that all churches should be demolished, that the sacred Scriptures should be burned, that all Christians should be dismissed from public office, and that those who secretly met for public worship should be punished with death. The persecution raged most fiercely in the provinces subject to Galerius; and it has been suggested that the persecution should be known by his name rather than by the name of Diocletian. [Source: “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901), forumromanum.org \~]

The Diocletianic Persecution (303–11) was Roman Empire’s last, largest, and bloodiest official persecution of Christianity. It failed to eliminate Christianity in the empire; indeed, after 324, Christianity became the empire's preferred religion under its first Christian emperor, Constantine. “Of the Manner in which the Persecutors Died” is a pamphlet listing the various persecutors of Christians, and how they died. It was written by Lactantius (A.D. c.240-c.320) and addressed to Donatus, (318 CE?). Here are some excerpts related to the Diocletianic Persecution period:

There are two authorities for the ten year period of the most intense persecution against the Christians, that initiated under Diocletian: Eusebius and Lactantius. These two men were contemporaries and eye-witnesses, the former in Phoenicia and Egypt, and the latter in Nicomedia. From them we get many details of the events leading up to the persecution edicts and decrees, as well as of the horrors and cruelty that took place once the persecution began.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Christian Origins sourcebooks.fordham.edu “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File); “ Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); King James Version of the Bible, gutenberg.org; New International Version (NIV) of The Bible, biblegateway.com; Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ccel.org , Frontline, PBS, Wikipedia, BBC, National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Live Science, Encyclopedia.com, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, Business Insider, AFP, Library of Congress, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2024