This essay will argue that persecution of the early Christians was initiated by a number of different actors, whose motivations included both reasons of principle and reasons of simple expediency. It will be structured as follows. The first section will consider Jewish hostility towards the Christians, this antipathy being motivated by religious reasons. The second section looks at the impact of the reign of Nero, which created a lasting legal precedent for persecution but did so for reasons of short-term political expediency. The third section examines the policy of the Roman state from the time of Trajan onwards. Here it will be argued that the state’s position was ambiguous, actually going some way to protecting the Christians, but only to the extent that this was coherent with the state’s own goals, therefore constituting another aspect of political expediency. The fourth section examines popular hostility towards the Christians. It will be argued that the Christians’ attitude towards Roman religion was a central reason for their being persecuted. The idea that Christians were immoral and reasons of self-interest will also be considered. The fifth section asks to what extent the Christians contributed to their own persecution, focussing on the issue of martyrdom. The final section considers the scale of the persecution faced by Christians, and will argue that this has implications for our understanding of the intensity as to how people felt about them.
Hostility from the Jews contributed to persecution of members of the diverse Christian churches , particularly in the first century. The sources relating to the first generation of Christians are very limited . However in the Antiquities of the Jews Josephus gives an account of the Sanhedrin’s role in executing James (an event not narrated in the New Testament) , and in Acts we hear of the stoning of Stephen by a Jewish crowd . Jewish hostility was linked to the process of Christianity separating from Judaism , and the idea that Christianity was a Jewish heresy. However different Jews had different ideas about most of the issues on which Christians took a stand, and Judaism had no central institution capable of imposing a ban on heretics . During this period there was pressure on the authorities to take action against the Christians, and there were also religiously motivated riots . While some Christians lost their lives, however, it is thought that popular opposition was on a fairly small scale . While it was not only Jews who objected to the Christians, the Roman government itself was not involved in the persecution , precisely because it viewed the Christians as being a Jewish sect, and therefore as being officially tolerated . Until just before the Great Fire there seemed to be no reason why this position should not be maintained .
Immediately after the Great Fire Nero falsely accused and savagely punished the Christians in order to distract attention from the rumours that he himself had started it . Given Paul’s recent trial at Rome, which had led to a distinction being made between the new Christian groupings from the ancient Jewish religion, the Christians were the obvious people to blame . Tacitus tells us that the Christians were convicted not just because of the crime of arson, but because they were thought to be hostile to society (odium generis humani) . It is striking that Tacitus, a highly educated man, takes a hostile view of the Christians, a point that perhaps reflects feelings that were held more widely. The idea of subversion was in fact a charge that had previously been made against the Jews , and may have been reinforced by association with the Jewish rebellion of AD 66 - 70. Further, Suetonius uses the word maleficus in association with the Christians, a terms that has connotations of black magic . Tacitus graphically describes the macabre and parodic executions that followed, but notes that the Christians were pitied and does not exonerate Nero . The use of human sacrifice to appease the gods was similar in its extremity to the reaction to the Bacchanal conspiracy of 186 BC, as recorded by Livy . This institutum neronianum was the genesis of the persecution of the Christians. In a sense it was almost accidental , brought about for reasons of political expediency. Crucially, however, it set a legal precedent . Magistrates could now condemn people simply on the charge of “being a Christian”, a charge that was to become familiar in the second century .
The correspondence between Trajan and the Younger Pliny was decisive in establishing the pattern of relations between Christians and the Roman authorities . Roman criminal law was much less developed than Roman civil law, which meant that Pliny’s imperium - as governor of the province of Bithynia - included wide discretion both in terms of defining what was criminal and in deciding how offences were to be punished (coercitio). To Pliny the Christians would have been a minor sect of little interest. He knew that precedent required their execution, but was uncertain as to whether there was any general law requiring this, and so wrote to the Emperor to seek clarification .
Trajan confirmed that individuals convicted of being Christians should be punished, and a number of reasons can be suggested as to why the state might have viewed Christians with a degree of hostility. First, in addition to having created a legal precedent, since the Great Fire Christians had been associated with treason and conspiracy. These accusations were complemented by the secrecy associated with Christianity (especially in its earliest years), and by the political disaffection implied by their refusal to participate in religious ceremonies . In addition, many (although not quite all) Christians viewed Rome with hostility, as illustrated by Revelations’ portrayal of Rome, thinly disguised as Babylon . Secondly, according to Pliny, Christians’ “obstinacy and unbending perversity deserved to be punished” . We hear that the first martyrs “gazed steadfastly” to heaven, and that some refused to reveal their personal details . This defiance of the Roman state’s superiority and greatness was arguably an offence in its own right , and certainly the governors would not have been accustomed to disobedience. Thirdly, the attitude of the Christians risked undermining the authority of the empire and the emperor, in the light of the role played by religion in the Roman political sphere. As Polybius had observed of the Republic, “the multitude must be held in by invisible terrors and suchlike pageantry” . This point applied all the more to the imperial political framework, in which Augustus had taken care to restructure the religion of place around the person of the emperor . Fourthly, the governors’ personal motivations were also relevant: it is no surprise that many governors referred recalcitrant Christians to the imperial cult, given that many would have owed their position to the patronage of the emperor .
However Trajan limited the state’s basic position that those convicted of being Christians should be punished. The first limitation was that anonymous accusations should be rejected . Secondly, Christians were not like ordinary criminals in that they were no to be sought out, and there was no punishment for having been a Christian in the past . This provision that discouraged governors from creating difficulty by taking personal initiative against Christians . Thirdly, Christians were to be given every opportunity to change their position, and those that did would not be punished . Individual governors’ responses would have varied. Those lacking in hostile predisposition, might, drawing on Roman ideas of good governance and in what Trajan calls “the spirit of the age”, strive for compromise with the Christians , even sending the obstinate to the mines rather than to their execution . This occasional clemency confirms the importance of discretion, and suggests that Christians were being punished “for the name” rather than being charged with treason.
Trajan’s policy has been described as ambivalent towards the Christians . Although those convicted of being Christians were to be executed, there was no public prosecutor and that Christians were not to be hunted out. Governors had enough to do with their core duties of keeping the peace and collecting taxes , and thereby keeping on the right side of the emperor. They had little interest in adding to their already extensive judicial duties. The Roman state in general was essentially passive, and had little ambition to interfere with the personal lives or beliefs of those living within it. If prosecutions were not brought against Christians then the state would not seek them out. In this sense Trajan’s position offered Christians a measure of protection .
However if local feeling against Christians rose to such a pitch that it might threaten order then it was better for a small number of Christians to be executed than for the governor to be faced with a religiously motivated riot . Governors would respond only if feeling was such that members of the community would initiate prosecution themselves . Protection was therefore offered only to the extent that this was coherent with the Roman state’s own aims. In this sense Trajan’s policy offered a pragmatic and locally flexible approach to the management of different degrees of local hostility, in the light of the need to pacify public opinion . Prosecution and execution acted as a kind of safety valve to local hostility. Given the limited and reactive position of the state, one might draw a distinction between the state’s expedient acquiescence in prosecution, and the phenomenon of persecution.
We will now consider the reasons for popular hostility towards the Christians. In the first century those pushing for action against Christians would usually be Jews . In the second century those pressuring the authorities to act were generally pagans , although the Jews joined together with Pagans in AD 155 to execute Polycarp. No clear separation can be drawn between “state” opposition and “popular” opposition, however, given that some governors may have shared the views held by the populace. Nor did persecution always take place under the auspices of the law . Eusebius tells us of violent popular persecutions during the second half of the second century . Persecution was sporadic and local in nature . While some Christians lost their lives, opposition towards them could take varied forms: from social ostracism, to violence, to legally sanctioned punishment .
The Romans’ central motivation for persecuting the Christians was the fact that the Christians would not take part in Roman religious ceremonies . This led the Christians to be thought of as “atheists” and as proselytizers for atheism , and this term was applied to Polycarp at Smyrna when he refused to swear on the genius of Caesar and was burnt alive . The Romans’ world was deeply religious, a society of diverse and overlapping polytheistic beliefs and rites , directed towards their familiar gods who were respected for their antiquity – many having been worshipped for over a thousand years - and who had assisted Rome on its rise . The Romans assumed that the gods demanded worship, and the performance of public cult acts was central to their conception of religion. Emphasis was on religio (the appropriate worship of each god) and the following of the ius divinum (body of state law relating to sacred matters), which as Cicero affirmed, drew its moral force from the fact that it rested on the auctoritas maiorum . If these were not complied with it was feared that the pax deorum (the harmonious relationship between gods and men) would be placed under threat . It was feared that the interventionist Roman gods , whose very existence was evidenced by their actions , would vent their anger against communities that dishonoured them . When Homer wrote, “hard indeed is the anger of a god”, he was enunciating a genuine fear . The writings of Tertullian suggest that the Christians were in fact blamed for natural disasters: “if there is famine, if there is plague, the cry is at once “The Christians to the lion”” . Peternus, proconsul of Africa, speaking to Cyprian in 257 AD put it in the following way: “Those who do not profess the Roman religion…must not refuse to take part in Roman religious ceremonies” .
The real problem was the exclusive nature of Christianity, and it was this that the Roman persecution was trying to break down . Unlike other elective cults common at the time (these cults often originating from the East) , the Christian God supplanted rather than complemented the traditional constellation of deities. Christianity broke radically with polytheism, animal sacrifice and temple worship, subverting the calendar of rituals and public festivals, and introducing very different imagery and ideology (for example, the worship of a criminal / rebel) . The substance of what the Christians believed was not directly the issue; no attempt was ever made to prohibit the Christians from worshipping their own god in private , and while the so-called Gnostic sects were similar to Christianity, they were left alone because they sacrificed when required to do so . The Jews were also seen as atheists , and were exclusive in terms of both religious practice and society . Although hated by many Romans , it was acknowledged that their rites were both ancient and ancestral . The Jews were ready to sacrifice for the benefit of the emperor and to dedicate their synagogues in his honour . Finally, the Christians drew attention to their religious difference by attacking pagan beliefs and values ; Paul had argued that paganism was a sin , and in the second century apologists like Justin wrote that the Roman stories were demonic in origin - not merely foolish, as the Jews might argue, but wicked .
Christians were viewed as being morally suspect in various ways in addition to their treachery, black magic, atheism and perverse beliefs as discussed above. Christians were accused of “sacred rites more foul than any sacrilege…drunken orgies ...incest…and some horrid rituals involving a tethered dog” . The charges of incest may have been linked to the Christian emphasis on love, and further charges of cannibalism probably arose from the language of the Eucharist . While Christian authors rebut these slanders (suggesting their common currency), the Greek pagan Celsus does not mention them despite the fact that he is attacking Christianity . The ruling classes gave these allegations little weight – a Christian who recanted went free . Interestingly, Christian martyrdom itself was found shocking by the Romans , which is reminiscent of our being shocked by Muslim martyrs today.
Baser motivations also applied. Accusations might be made by those who wanted Christians’ property, their jobs, or by collegia who thought that their livelihoods were threatened . In Acts we also hear of difficulties faced by Paul caused by the silversmiths of Ephesus in whose interests it was to maintain the cult of Artemis . Additionally, Tertullian alludes to whole churches that had bought their way out of danger . Simple xenophobia, due to the foreign origins of some Christians, may have exacerbated some situations .
Christians’ attitudes towards martyrdom contributed to their own persecution. Originally a Jewish ideal , martyrdom came to have considerable and sustained importance to Christian identity . The theology of righteous suffering drew on the example of Jesus himself , and saw martyrs as intercessors between man and God , with their relics as having healing properties . Martyr literature, such as that of Ignatius , saw the martyr’s body as a Eucharistic offering, the martyr as an athlete, as a gladiator, a hero, as being tortured yet unsuffering on his expedited journey to “a country of lovely meadows” . The public arena was the fate of many early Christian martyrs, all the more appealing because they included so many women . Tertullian describes how some believers volunteered for death . But others lapsed , were bought by ransom, or – given the low numbers of deaths - managed to evade official attention altogether.
The intensity of feeling towards the early Christians can be gauged in the light of some relevant trends and statistics. First, the total number of Christians who died for their faith in the first two centuries is, over the breadth of the entire empire, only in the hundreds . As Origen noted, “few” Christians had died for their faith . It was not until the accession of Decius that the state began to take the initiative against Christians , This point must impact on our understanding as to how strongly the state and ordinary people really felt about this issue. Secondly, during this period the numbers of Christians throughout the empire rose substantially . This confirms the limited nature of the persecution that they faced, and suggests that attitudes towards the Christians were not uniformly hostile.
In conclusion: it has been argued that religious motivations were central to both the Jews’ and the Romans’ antipathy towards the Christians. The Roman state’s position, however, was characterised by political expediency. This took different forms, first under Nero and then in the light of Trajan’s guidance on the matter. It has been argued that from the time of Trajan Roman state’s position actually protected Christians, but only to the extent that this helped the state to manage hostility and keep the peace. The low number of Christians who actually died during this period calls into question the level of intensity with which the principled objections against Christianity were held. They suggest that while some were sufficiently motivated to attack Christians by legal or extra-legal means, the predominant attitudes would have been those of disinterest and distaste. Given the sporadic and localised nature of hostility towards the Christians, one might draw a distinction between persecution and the less systematic prosecutions and extra-legal mistreatment that they actually faced.
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