The Rise of Christianity

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The Rise of Christianity

Christianity as a Jewish Sect.

Christianity began with a group of Jews who followed the teachings of Jesus, a Jewish carpenter who attracted many followers during his three-year ministry which began in 30 c.e. Jesus' teachings regarding the Jewish law and his claim to be the "messiah" (the savior of the people) long-awaited by the Jews threatened the Jewish religious leaders, who managed to have him crucified by the Roman authorities in 33 c.e. on charges of heresy. Although the religion initially faltered after Jesus' death, reports that Jesus had risen from the dead bolstered the fledgling church in spite of its continued persecution by the Jewish religious leaders. The years following Jesus' crucifixion saw an increase in the number of "Christians"—so-called because they followed Jesus "the Christ." The religion was not without its growing pains, however. According to the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul, there soon arose a division of opinion among the followers of Jesus. On the one hand, there was a conservative group centered in Jerusalem, led by James, the brother of Jesus. They clung to the Jewish law of Moses and insisted that all Gentile converts should be circumcised. The other group centered on Paul, a Jew of the diaspora, that is, the Jewish communities living outside Judaea. He had not known Jesus personally, but he had been converted to the new religion that he believed that Jesus had preached, and he was full of zeal. He wanted to reach out to the Gentiles, and he considered the dietary restrictions of Mosaic law and circumcision unimportant. Probably Paul and his followers would have lost the quarrel, except that a Jewish revolt intervened. A sect of Jewish nationalists in Judaea called the Zealots rose in rebellion in the final years of the emperor Nero's reign. The suppression of the revolt was delayed by Nero's dethronement and a year of civil war before Vespasian took over as emperor in 69 c.e.; the next year, Jerusalem was taken by an army led by Vespasian's son, Titus. The Temple was destroyed and its treasures taken to Rome as booty. The Jewish priesthood that had presided over the sacrifices at the Temple no longer had a center for their rituals. The future of Judaism lay with the synagogues and their rabbis, and a rabbinical school that was established at Yavna—later moved to Tiberias—in Judaea was actually encouraged by the Roman authorities. Judaism developed into a religion of the Talmud, which was the collection of writings that constituted Jewish civil and religious law. The Jewish-Christian community in Jerusalem that had opposed Paul had not supported the revolt, but still it was a casualty. It was dispersed, and many of its leaders were probably killed. Others fled, particularly to Alexandria.

Persecution.

The future of Christianity lay with the followers of Paul's teachings. They had not supported the Jewish revolt, and their lack of support was not forgotten. Christianity had spread rapidly, partly because Christian preachers were welcome in the synagogues of the Diaspora. That welcome began to grow thin, however, and by the reign of Nero (54–68 c.e.), the Roman authorities began to recognize the Christians as a sect separate from the Jews, and an unpopular one at that. In 64 c.e. more than two-thirds of Rome was destroyed in a great fire. Nero needed a scapegoat, and the Christians were unpopular; in some quarters they were blamed for setting the fire. In fact, many Christians at this point in history expected an imminent Second Coming of the risen Christ and may have imagined that the fire that consumed Rome was the opening scene in the destruction of an evil empire. The Christians suffered their first state persecution at this time, but there were more to follow. The persecutions were sporadic until the middle of the third century c.e. when the empire made a systematic attempt to wipe out Christianity. The emperor Decius (249–252 c.e.) faced a Gothic invasion, the first of many that the empire would suffer. The gods seemed to be angry with Rome, and Decius insisted that everyone sacrifice to them and present certificates to that effect. Had Decius lived longer, he would have done Christianity serious damage, but he was killed in battle, and the persecution slowed. At the beginning of the fourth century c.e. there was another determined persecution, but by then Christianity was too powerful to be wiped out.

The Roman Attitude Toward the Christians.

In 111 c.e., a Roman named Pliny was governor of the province of Bithynia in Asia Minor, and encountered a cell of Christians. He wrote to the emperor Trajan to report how he had handled the case, and his letter has survived. As far as Pliny could ascertain, all the Christians did was to meet before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses antiphonally in honor of Christ "as if to a god" and to bind themselves by an oath, in Latin, a sacramentum. Then they would disperse and meet later to eat. Despite these innocuous proceedings, Pliny demanded that all of them make a little sacrifice before the emperor's image, and those that refused be put to death. Pliny sought of Trajan the legal basis for punishing the Christians, asking if Christianity was a crime per se, or whether it was the actions of Christians that were recognized as crimes by Roman law. Trajan's answer was brief. He approved of Pliny's actions. As for Pliny's question, the reply was simple. Christianity was a crime perse. This decision to outlaw Christianity as a religion made it markedly different from Judaism, which suffered from Roman disdain but was always a legal religion. Christianity was considered dangerous for several reasons. For one thing, the Roman authorities saw Christianity as a secret society, and secret societies made them nervous. The empire was always afraid of subversion. For another, it is clear from early Christian writings that the Christians

THE TRIAL OF THE SCILLITAN MARTYRS

introduction: "The Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs" is a transcript of the trial of a group of Christians from the city of Scillium in the province of Africa Proconsularis, the capital of which was Carthage. Saturninus, the proconsul—that is, the former consul who was acting as governor of the province—presided. The date was the year when Calusian and Praesens held the consulship, 180 c.e. This was a time when the Roman government had outlawed the relatively new religion of Christianity because its followers did not recognize other religions, including the cult of emperor worship. Christians were given the opportunity to renounce their faith in court; those who did not do so were put to death.

On July 17, when Calusian and Praesens were consuls, the latter for the second time, Speratus, Nartzalus, Cittinus, Donata, Secunda and Vestia were arraigned at Carthage in the court.

Saturninus, the proconsul: If you come to your senses, you will gain the pardon of our Lord the emperor.

Speratus: We have never hurt anyone. We have never committed any crime. We have never libeled anyone. But when we were mistreated, we showed our thanks, because we reverence our own emperor.

Saturninus, the proconsul: We Romans are also a religious people. Our religion is very simple: we swear by the genius of our Lord the emperor and pray for his well-being. That is what you also ought to do.

Speratus: If you would only listen to me quietly, I would explain to you the mystery of simple belief.

Saturninus: If you are going to deride our sacred ceremonies, I shall not listen to you. Swear, instead, by the genius of our Lord the emperor.

Speratus: I do not recognize the kingdom of this world. Rather I serve the God whom no one has seen nor can see. I have committed no theft. I pay taxes on everything I buy. And this because I recognize my Lord, the king of kings, and emperor of all mankind.

Saturninus, the proconsul, then said to the others: "Cease to adhere to this belief."

Speratus: Any doctrine that teaches that we should commit murder or bear false witness—that would be evil.

Saturninus, the proconsul: [speaking to the others] Take no part in this business—it is madness.

Cittinus: The only one we fear is the Lord our God in Heaven.

Donata: Respect Caesar as Caesar, but fear God.

Vestia: I am a Christian.

Secunda: I want to be none other than what I am.

Saturninus, the proconsul, to Speratus: Will you persist in remaining a Christian?

Speratus: I am a Christian. (And all the rest agreed with him.)

Saturninus, the proconsul: Would you like some time to think this over?

Speratus: Where our duty is so clear there is nothing to think over.

Saturninus, the proconsul: What do you have as the documents in your case?

Speratus: The sacred writings, and the epistles of a saint named Paul.

Saturninus, the proconsul: You may have a thirty-day reprieve to think this over.

Speratus again said: I am a Christian. (And all the others were of the same mind.)

Saturninus, the proconsul, then read out the sentence from his tablets: Whereas Speratus, Nartzalus, Cittinus, Donata, Vestia, Secunda, and the others, have admitted that they live in accordance with the religious rites of the Christians, and whereas they have persevered in their stubbornness even when given the opportunity to return to the Roman religion, it is hereby decreed that they should die by the sword.

Speratus: Thank God!

Nartzalus: Today we shall be martyrs in heaven—thank God!

source: "The Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs," in The Fathers of the Primitive Church. Ed. Herbert A. Musurillo (Toronto: The New American Library of Canada, 1966): 150–152.

regarded the empire as evil. They looked forward to its final destruction and the Last Judgement. Then, too, there was misunderstanding at fault. There were rumors of horrific Christian rituals including cannibalism, and the liturgy of the Eucharist that professes to offer the body and blood of Christ to Christian worshippers must have nourished this misconception. Finally, unlike the ancient religion of Judaism, Christianity was a new sect, and it was founded by a man who had been crucified by the Romans on a charge of high treason. The Romans had reason to be apprehensive.

The Retreat of Paganism.

Rome's change of attitude towards Christianity began with the conversion of the emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 c.e. In 313 c.e. he persuaded his co-ruler Licinius, who ruled the eastern portion of the empire, that freedom of religion should be extended to all. Licinius was not a Christian, but he wanted to maintain good relations with Constantine. The proportion of the empire that was Christian at the time of his conversion is a matter of conjecture, but it is generally agreed that it was a minority and perhaps a small minority at that. As Constantine began to favor the Christian church, however, new converts flocked to it. Constantine allowed pagans freedom of religion, but he banned sacrifices and thereby inflicted great damage on the pagan cults, for sacrifices were vitally important for them. He also helped himself to the wealth of the pagan temples. Constantine's new gold and silver coinage that helped stabilize the runaway inflation of earlier reigns used bullion from the pagan temples. The laws recorded in the Roman law codes mark paganism's retreat. Rome's machinery for enforcing its laws was always weak. There was no public prosecutor, and thus when a law appears in the law code, it should not be assumed that it was universally obeyed. If the law is repeated a number of times over a period of years, it can be assumed that there was widespread evasion. The ban on pagan sacrifice is a case in point. It was repeated again and again.

THE ILLEGALITY OF CHRISTIANITY

introduction: Pliny the Younger was a Roman litterateur and a gentleman of the governing class who was sent by the emperor Trajan to the province of Bithynia (in northwest Asia Minor) which had been misruled by its senatorial governors and needed someone to remedy the situation. Pliny arrived in Bithynia in 111 c.e. and died there two years later. Pliny's policy towards the early Christian church was harsh in accordance with Rome's suspicious attitude towards these radical believers who neither adhered to Roman pagan gods nor worshipped the emperor. He gave those persons admitting Christianity three chances to deny it, and if they persisted in their avowal, he ordered them executed. If they were Roman citizens, they had a right to a trial at Rome, and Pliny entered them on the list of persons to be sent to Rome to have their cases judged there. His efforts to elicit information about the Christian sect, however, revealed nothing that might endanger the state. Christianity seemed merely to be a "degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths." Therefore Pliny consulted the emperor Trajan to discover what course of action he should take regarding the Christian church and he received the following reply.

You have followed the right course of procedure, my dear Pliny, in your examination of the cases of persons charged with being Christians, for it is impossible to lay down a general rule to a fixed formula. These people are not to be hunted out; if they are brought before you and the charge against them is proved, they must be punished, but in the case of anyone who denies that he is a Christian, and makes it clear that he is not by offering prayers to our gods, he is to be pardoned as a result of his repentance however suspect his past conduct may be. But pamphlets circulated anonymously must play no part in any accusation. They create the worst sort of precedent and are quite out of keeping with the spirit of our age.

source: Pliny, The Letters of the Younger Pliny. Trans. Betty Radice (London, England: Penguin Books, 1969): 295.

Changeover to Christianity.

The changeover from a pagan to a Christian empire took up most of the fourth century c.e. On the coins that Constantine minted, three-quarters of the symbols shown belong not to Christianity but to Sol Invictus, the "Unconquerable Sun." Constantine, like his predecessors since the emperor Augustus, was pontifex maximus, that is high priest of Rome, and his successors continued to hold the post until Gratian (367–383 c.e.). The imperial cult did not die a sudden death. When Constantine received a request from a town in Italy to erect a temple to him, he gave permission, provided that they did not offer him sacrifices. In 356 Constantine's son, Constantius II, ordered all temples closed, but in 371 the emperor Valentinian ruled that everyone should be free to worship as he wished. The exceptions were astrologers, magicians, and Manichaeans—the last a sect on the fringes of Christianity which actually had its roots in Zoroastrianism, the national religion of Persia before the rise of Islam, the doctrines of which envisaged an ongoing struggle in this world between the forces of Good and the dark forces of Evil. In 381, sacrifices were forbidden again, and again in 391 and 392, and in one of those years an event took place that dismayed the pagans who still clung to the old religion: the great temple of Serapis in Alexandria was destroyed by a Christian mob. The pagans expected the god to show his anger by refusing to let the Nile flood and water the fertile fields of Egypt, but the Nile flooded as usual. The pagans were disheartened at the impotence of their god. This was an example of a Christian tactic against paganism which had dramatic effect—demonstrating that the old gods could be flouted without fear of divine punishment.