From Persecution to State Church

The New Testament describes persecution which emerged from the conflict between Christians as those who proclaimed Jesus’ messiahship, and mainstream Jewish authories or Synagogue authorities.

Following the Great Fire of Rome (July AD64), suspicion pointed to the Emperor (Nero), who scapegoated the Christians as responsible. So Tacitus, Annals XV.44.2-8

It seems likely that Peter and Paul died in this persecution, and this is referred to by Clement of Rome (First Epistle to the Corinthians, V-VI).

Later persecution occurred under the reign of Domitian (AD81-96), which is mentioned by the Roman historian Dio Cassius mentions that Domitian

Pliny the Younger records putting a number of Christians to trial when he was governer of Bithynia. This took place around AD112 . Accusations were brought against certain people, who were challenged to deny it by Pliny, but they refused and were executed – except for the Roman citizens. The punishments became widely known in the area, and more people were accused and this seems to have caused Pliny concern.

The Rescript of Hadrian, which is dated AD125, insisted that any complaint against a Christian must state what exactly they were doing which was illegal.

Common early complaints against Christians, as we know from the writings of Christian apologists, included incest and cannibalism. Can you work out why these accusations might have arisen?

The first universal outbreak of state-sponsored persecution took place under the Emperor Decius (249 – 251). The mission of Christianity in the 2nd century had raised its significance as a religious, intellectual and cultural force to be reckoned with in the Empire. Success had even brought the problem of ‘nominal’ Christianity to the fore (references are found in both Origen and Cyprian). In addition, Christianity was becoming popular among the wealthy and influential.

The most likely reason for the Decian persecution was because invasion of barbarian tribes posed a serious threat to the Empire. In earlier times of danger and national crisis, the classic Roman response had been to appease its historical gods with sacrifice and devotion. But what about these relatively new Christians? Doubts would have been felt and their patriotism would need putting to the test.

The method Decius chose to test this was to issue a decree for a universal sacrifice to the pagan gods of Rome. Everyone who sacrificed would be given certificates (Latin, Libelli) which would prove they had done so.

The attention was particularly focussed on the wealthy, influential and prominent among the Christian communities. Result: large-scale apostasy in many place. There are cases of whole churches being led by their bishops to the pagan altars to sacrifice. At the same time, other bishops refused to sacrifice and were either exiled, sent to labour camps, or in many cases executed. This happened in the cases of Rome, Antioch and Jerusalem. The bishop of Alexandria went into exile and the bishop of Carthage (Cyprian) went into hiding.

So a double calamity happened in the short-term: the collapse of the community through apostasy and the removal of its key leaders. The threat of persecution subsided with Decius' death in 251, but did not really end until 261.

The speed and ease of apostasy was a shock to the Church and an indication of its spiritual laxity. Lapsing from the Faith took two main forms: there were those who genuinely sacrificed (called the sacrificati), and who therefore apostasized. There were also others who obtained libelli by bribes (called the libellatici), rather than by sacrifice.

Of those who withstood the persecution, a number were killed. Others were imprisoned or sent to labour camps, and others who had their property confiscated by the authorities.

Those who had withstood and suffered has considerable spiritual authority as a result of their bravery. Some were just imprisoned. Others were killed after a period of imprisonment. This had two effects:

a) it led to the cult of the saints, as petition continued to these confessors after their death. b) it led those who survived to have a very high spiritual authority, including the authority to forgive the sin of apostasy. This challenged the authority of the bishops, who previously controlled who was and was not absolved from sin – especially where those bishops, like Cyprian, had gone into hiding rather than facing certain death.

Schism over reconciliation of the lapsed: this centred on Rome, where a presbyter, Novatian, was elected by some of the more rigorist clergy against a moderate bishop, Cornelius. Novatian was against at the practice of readmitting the libellatici back into fellowship after a period of penance.

A key figure in all these disputes was Cyprian – council in Carthage in 251 clarified that confessors did not have special authority to remit the sin of the lapsi themselves. Cyprian held Novatian guilty of schism (literally, tearing) apart the Body of Christ.

For Cyprian, the position of the schismatic was effectively outside not only the Church, but therefore outside of the salvation which the Church offered. This was summed up in the most memorable phrase of Cyprian’s – extra ecclesia, nulla salus - 'outside the Church there is no salvation'. Schism was therefore no small matter.

The problem of baptism by schismatics: the issue of the interchangability of ministries had to be dealt with: if a newly converted person moved from a Novatianist congregation to a catholic one, how would their baptism be regarded? On this, Cyprian was clear – only the true Church had the authority to administer the true sacraments of Christ, so any baptism (or any other sacrament) administered in a schismatic group was null and void. Converts from Novatianism would have to be re-baptised. The Novatianist groups behaved similarly.

Not all agreed: most of the churches in the East of the empire did not rebaptise schismatics. This led to even further schism in the church of Africa, between rebaptisers (following Cyprian) and non-rebaptisers (following the majority Christian practice). The problem of this schism was not resolved for 100 years, until the time of St Augustine.

Under Diocletian (emperor 284 – 305), the empire was divided into four: West under Maximian, (equal with Diocletian, Augustus) and East under Diocletian himself. Each augustus had a deputy (a ‘ceasar’), who were Constantius (under Maximian) and Galerius (under Diocletian).

Galerius didn’t like Christians and brought reports of Christian inconsistency in the army to Diocletian. Resulted in a purge of Christians from the armies in 302.

In early 303 a second edict came which ordered that all copies of the scriptures should be confiscated and burnt, all churches should be dismantled and forbidding Christian worship.

In addition, follow-up to the edict deprived all Christians of honours and titles, making them liable to torture and withdrawing legal rights.

A third edict, later in 303 ordered the arrest of all bishops and clergy. Then, in later 303, Diocletian ordered a compulsory pagan sacrifice for all the clergy. This was pursued vigorously and led to the apostasy, the imprisonment and the martyrdom of wide swathes of the leadership of the Church.

In 304, Diocletian became ill and power passed to Galerius, who issued an edict commanding a general pagan sacrifice for the entire populace, on pain of death or work in the mines. This meant that not only Christian leaders, but all Christians were being persecuted.

Both Diocletian and Maximian abdicated in 305 and the new Augusti became Galerius and Constantius – Constantius’ son, Constantine was being trained up as successor to his father and Maxentius, Maximian’s son, as his successor.

Under Galerius and Maxentius the second and worst bout of persecution took place. A number of the Christian leadership handed over the church goods willingly to escape. There was a brief respite from persecution in 305, then another edict came, commanding every man, woman and child to sacrifice to the gods. In Palestine, serious attempts at discrediting Christianity even went so far as the writing of an apocryphal 'Acts of Pontius Pilate' claiming to tell the story of the death of Jesus, justifying the sentence against Jesus.

A number of factors led to the decline of the persecution: the first was the death of Galerius, who was persuaded, almost on his death bed to pass an edict of greater toleration, allowing worship and the rebuilding of churches, which had been pulled down. However, with the death of Galerius, a power struggle developed between two rulers, one of whom, Licinius, supported the Christians, and asked for their military support; the other, Maximin, who, after initially supporting toleration, turned against them with new vehemence.

Meanwhile, in the West, Constantine, Constantius’ son had made his way to Britain, where, in York, he was proclaimed Augustus by the forces there, shortly after the death of his father. Meanwhile, power in the East had passed on the death of Galerius to Licinius. Constantine, Licinius and Maxentius all proved much more tolerant of Christianity.

Things between Constantine and Maxentius came to a head with the Battle of Milvian Bridge. According to the historians Eusebius and Lactantius, who were both alive at this time, Constantine had a vision before the battle that he should fight under the sign of the cross in order to achieve victory. The exact shape of the sign is contested by historians, but it was a version of the cross, and probably was the Chi-Rho symbol, which later was on Constantine’s standards. Constantine looked up to the sun to see a symbol and read the Greek words, 'en toutō Nika', in this sign, conquer!’ In Latin, these words are 'In hoc signo, vinces!' The battle was a rout, in which Maxentius died, leaving Constantine as ruler in the West.

There was initial peace between Constantine and Licinius, the ruler in the East. They met in Milan and agreed a policy of toleration for Christians. They had common cause to conquer Maximin, the remaining ruler from earlier days, which they duly did. The text of the Edict of Milan (313) was disseminated, which guaranteed full tolerance of Christians and a restoration of their property and the right to rebuild churches throughout the empire. The Edict did not make Christianity the official religion of the Empire (indeed, it was more than a hundred years later that this came to pass), not did it just grant freedom to Christians, but it did allow free expression to a faith which was by now widely held and whose spread since the second century had been unparalleled. With guaranteed toleration and the patronage of the Emperor himself, its total success was widely predictable. With one minor blip, the reign of Julian the Apostate (361 – 363), the policy of tolerating and encouraging the spread of Christianity was universally adopted by all successive emperors.