The Triumph of Christianity

by Bart D. Ehrman

  The Christians take a remarkable approach to these periodic love feasts, with an inventive way of turning out the lights to encourage anonymous and random sex:

  On a special day they gather for a feast with all their children, sisters, mothers—all sexes and ages. There, flushed with the banquet after such feasting and drinking, they begin to burn with incestuous passions. They provoke a dog tied to the lampstand to leap and bound towards a scrap of food which they have tossed outside the reach of his chain. By this means the light is overturned and extinguished, and with it common knowledge of their actions; in the shameless dark with unspeakable lust they copulate in random unions, all equally being guilty of incest, some by deed, but everyone by complicity.

  It is not simply the sexual congress of consenting adults and children that offends Caecilius’s ethics. Christians have a gruesome and criminal initiation ritual for new members:

  The notoriety of the stories told of the initiation of new recruits is matched by their ghastly horror. A young babe is covered over with flour, the object being to deceive the unwary. It is then served before the person to be admitted into their rites. The recruit is urged to inflict blows onto it—they appear to be harmless because of the covering of flour. Thus the baby is killed with wounds that remain unseen and concealed. It is the blood of this infant—I shudder to mention it—it is this blood that they lick with thirsty lips; these are the limbs they distribute eagerly; this is the victim by which they seal their covenant; it is by complicity in this crime that they are pledged to mutual silence; these are their rites, more foul than all sacrileges combined.

  So this is what it means to be Christian! Modern readers may find it incredible that anyone could take such scurrilous reports seriously. But they must have done so. Otherwise we would not have such a consistent allusion to them. Still, how could anyone credit them?

  It is important to remember that Christian meetings were private and secret. The Christian church was not the building on the street corner. It was a gathering of believers in a private home or a secluded outdoor setting. These meetings usually occurred at night or before sunrise, in the dark. There was a very good reason for that: almost everyone had to work for a living, and in this world there were no weekends. Any meeting would have to take place outside of working hours. But who knew what those people were doing in the dark?

  Scholars have had a field day suggesting additional explanations for why the outrageous activities mentioned by Justin, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, and others came to be associated with Christian meetings in particular.5 Some have pointed out that charges of incest make sense for a sect in which “brothers” and “sisters” regularly engaged in the “holy kiss” as far back as New Testament times. Siblings kissing in the dark? What is that? As to the charge that Christians were killing babies and eating them, surely it was known that Christians had a special meal every week where they ate the flesh and drank the blood of the Son (of God). They were eating a child?

  Other scholars have expressed doubt that charges of profligate activities stemmed from an imperfect knowledge of Christians and their periodic meetings.6 Charges of sexual licentiousness, infanticide, and cannibalism were standard fare in ancient polemics of all sorts. Anyone wanting to malign their enemies could, and often would, say the most scandalous things imaginable to impugn their morals. There was nothing more scandalous than energetically engaging in incest, murdering children, and consuming their flesh and blood. So, while it is possible that imperfect knowledge influenced the charges occasionally leveled against the Christians, these may also simply be standard charges leveled against an unknown but hated group, attacked not only in court but also in scurrilous public opinion.

  EARLY ACCOUNTS OF THE MARTYRS

  Actual judicial charges against Christians do not appear to have been related to sexual improprieties or other flagrant forms of immorality. This much is clear from the accounts of Christian prosecution, conviction, and execution that have survived antiquity. Unfortunately, trial records are few and far between. As Candida Moss, a historian of early Christianity, has recently argued, we have only six martyrdom accounts handed down to us from before 250 CE, and two or three of these may be forgeries.7 One or two of the others, however, appear to be based on actual eyewitness testimony, and all of them contain historical information that can be gleaned from a close reading.8

  In particular, they support what we have seen from Pliny: the “crime” committed by the followers of Jesus was simply their refusal to renounce the name “Christian,” since this entailed a refusal to worship gods other than their own. Pagans on the whole had no difficulty with Christians worshiping whichever god they chose, so long as they did not oppose or resist worshiping other divinities as well. That is what everyone else in the world did, except Jews, who for centuries had been the exception. Christians were not an exception. They were non-Jews who spurned traditional religions. That was a punishable offense.

  One of the oldest surviving accounts of a Christian martyrdom involves the arrest and execution of Polycarp, a mid-second-century bishop of the city of Smyrna in Asia Minor and an important figure in early Christianity. The Martyrdom of Polycarp was long believed to be an eyewitness report produced not long after the event itself, often dated to 155 or 156 CE. Recent scholarship, however, has argued that the narrative is a forgery produced sometime in the early third century.9 Whatever its precise date, the account reveals how Christians understood the charges leveled against them and shows that Roman magistrates responsible for issuing a sentence often did so only with great reluctance, compelled principally by the urgings of the mob.

  The account is allegedly a letter sent by the Christians of Smyrna to those of Philomelium in what is now central Turkey. At the outset the anonymous author indicates his intentions: “We are writing you, brothers, about those who were martyred, along with the blessed Polycarp, who put an end to the persecution by, as it were, setting a seal on it through his death as martyr. For nearly everything leading up to his death occurred so that the Lord might show us from above a martyrdom in conformity with the gospel” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 1.1).10

  We clearly do not have a disinterested report here. The author’s guiding purpose is to show that Polycarp’s death mirrored that of Jesus, so that it was “in conformity with the gospel.” He attains this end through a number of literary touches: like Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels, Polycarp does not turn himself in but waits to be betrayed; he predicts to his followers his coming execution and its specific method; he prays intensely before being arrested, asking that God’s will be done; the official in charge of his arrest is named Herod; and Polycarp rides into town on a donkey.

  Moreover, like Jesus, the martyr Polycarp is calm and fearless in the face of death. The author foreshadows this divinely inspired bravery by providing a brief narrative of other Christians subjected to torture during the violent persecution:

  For they endured even when their skin was ripped to shreds by whips, revealing the very anatomy of their flesh, down to the inner veins and arteries, while bystanders felt pity and wailed. But they displayed such nobility that none of them either grumbled or moaned, clearly showing us all that in that hour, while under torture, the martyrs of Christ had journeyed far away from the flesh, or rather, that the Lord was standing by, speaking to them. (Martyrdom of Polycarp 2.2)

  The crowd, not sated by these gory deaths, calls for the arrest of their leader: “Away with the atheists! Find Polycarp!” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 3.1). Following a long account of his search and arrest, Polycarp, once in custody, is urged by the arresting party simply to do what he is being asked: “Why is it so wrong to save yourself by saying ‘Caesar is Lord,’ making a sacrifice, and so on?” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 8.2). Polycarp steadfastly refuses.

  When he appears in a makeshift trial in a packed stadium, the governor himself urges Polycarp to repent and say, “Away with the atheists”—that is, to condemn the sacrilegious Christians. In a nice but not overly
subtle use of irony, Polycarp looks at the crowd gathered for the festivities, gestures to them with his hand, sighs, and addresses heaven: “Away with the atheists.”

  The governor repeatedly attempts to get Polycarp off the hook. He urges Polycarp to convince the crowds he does not deserve to die. He threatens to throw him to the beasts unless he recants. He warns he will be sent to the flames. Nothing avails. The governor finally caves in and sends his herald into the center of the arena to announce that Polycarp “has confessed himself to be a Christian” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 12.1). The incensed mob cries out against him: “This is the teacher of impiety, the father of the Christians, the destroyer of our own gods, the one who teaches many not to sacrifice or worship the gods” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 12.2).

  The governor orders him burned at the stake. But a divine intervention prevents the fire from touching the saint’s body, and so the executioner takes the dagger to him. Even then there are miracles to behold: so much blood gushes from his side that it douses the entire conflagration, and a dove emerges from the wound and flies up to heaven. Polycarp’s spirit has ascended.

  Despite such theologically driven details, the account reveals the principal cause of occasional animosity toward the Christians and the corresponding judicial charge leveled against them. Again, it was their steadfast refusal to worship the traditional gods. Equally important, the narrative shows that ruling magistrates were not out for blood. They wanted to keep the peace and much preferred for Christians to come to their senses and perform simple cultic acts. Almost no one else in their known universe had qualms about doing so. Why should the Christians? Throughout our early martyrdom accounts it becomes clear that the Christians’ persecutors were not opposed to religion. Quite the contrary: they were often highly religious people who opposed the Christian faith for religious reasons. The Christians—nonsensically—refused to worship any god but their own.

  A second account of martyrdom corroborates these conclusions. This one does indeed appear to be based on an eyewitness report, possibly an actual trial transcript. The date was July 17, 180, and the place was Carthage in North Africa. The governor was a pagan named Publius Vigellius Saturninus. On trial before him were a Christian named Speratus and eleven others from the nearby town of Scillium. Unlike the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs is spare and seemingly unbiased. It is all the more revealing.

  Most notable is the repeated insistence of the governor Saturninus that the twelve Christians repent and accept the traditional religious practices of the empire: “If you return to your senses, you can obtain the pardon of our lord the emperor.”11 The Christians insist they have done nothing wrong and will not stray from their religious commitments. Saturninus indicates that he also stands within a religious tradition: “We too are a religious people, and our religion is a simple one: we swear by the genius of our lord the emperor and we offer prayers for his heath, as you also ought to do.” Speratus offers to explain the “mystery of simplicity” of his own religion, but Saturninus warns him: “If you begin to malign our sacred rites, I shall not listen to you. But swear rather by the genius of our lord the emperor.”

  The Christians will hear nothing of it. Saturninus repeatedly tries to persuade them: “Cease to be of this persuasion.” “Have no part in this folly.” “Do you persist?” “You wish for no time for consideration?” Finally, out of desperation, he grants them a reprieve of thirty days to think it over. They do not want it. They are Christians and will not deny it. And so Saturninus orders their execution. They are beheaded on the spot.

  These accounts of martyrdom we have just considered—those under Pliny in Bithynia-Pontus, the martyrdom of Polycarp in Smyrna, and the trial of the Scillitan Christians in Carthage—all concern local conditions and local magistrates. None of them involves an empire-wide persecution ordered from the upper reaches of government. There were times, however, when emperors became involved with the persecution of Christians. At first even these were local affairs. Beginning in the middle of the third century, they became empire-wide. The changes in scope and intensity are almost certainly related to the fact that, as time went on, the church grew. It went from being a minor local irritation to becoming an imperial problem.

  PERSECUTIONS SPONSORED BY EMPERORS

  We have seen that Christian numbers were relatively minuscule in the first century. But it was not long before Christians became known at the highest level of government, just three decades after the religion had its first converts. The emperor Nero had heard of the Christians, and that led to disaster for the church, at least in the city of Rome.

  Nero (Ruled 54–68 CE)

  Our principal source of information for Nero’s involvement with the Christians comes not from a Christian source but from the writings of the Roman historian Tacitus. His Annals of Rome narrates imperial history during the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. It is in book fifteen that he describes the disastrous fire in Rome in 64 CE.

  The fire started in the Roman circus, spread to surrounding neighborhoods, and soon took over major sections of the city, destroying houses and businesses and killing large numbers of people. Nero at the time was away from Rome in the town of Antium, but he returned as the fire was approaching one of his mansions. It eventually destroyed his palace on the Palatine Hill. The fire raged for six days before being stamped out, but it then revived. In the end, ten of the fourteen districts in Rome were affected, three completely leveled and seven “reduced to a few scorched and mangled ruins.”12

  No one knew for sure how the fire had started. The leading question was whether it had been a disastrous accident or if Nero himself was behind it. Tacitus himself is not sure: “Whether it was accidental or caused by a criminal act on the part of the emperor is uncertain—both versions have supporters.” He seems, however, to lean toward imperial arson, since he reports that in some places gangs prevented anyone from fighting the fire and some were throwing torches into buildings to keep it going—all, they said, “under orders.”

  Nero did not do much during the conflagration itself to calm suspicions, at least as rumor would have it: “While the city was burning, Nero had gone on his private stage and, comparing modern calamities with ancient, had sung of the destruction of Troy.” Fiddling while Rome burns. And why? “People believed that Nero was ambitious to found a new city to be called after himself.” If Nero had architectural designs for a new Rome, he could scarcely implement them while old Rome was still standing. Or so it was said.

  In any event, Nero needed to shift the blame from himself, and so, Tacitus indicates, he “fabricated scapegoats” by arresting and charging “the notoriously depraved Christians.” This group, Tacitus notes, originated with “Christ [who] had been executed in Tiberius’ reign by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilatus.” But despite Christ’s execution “the deadly superstition had broken out afresh, not only in Judea (where the mischief had started) but even in Rome,” where “all degraded and shameful practices collect and flourish.”

  The Christians were the perfect solution to Nero’s problem. Infamous for their “hatred of the human race,” they could be expected to find but few supporters. From around the city Nero had them rounded up and subjected to grisly public executions. Some he had wrapped in wild animal skins before letting ravenous dogs loose on them. Others he had crucified. And others he had rolled in pitch and set aflame to serve as human torches for his gardens and in the circus.

  This is the first instance on record of a Roman emperor persecuting Christians. Several points need to be made about the event. First, nothing in the account suggests that Nero declared Christianity illegal. On the contrary, as we have seen in our discussion of Pliny and Trajan from nearly fifty years later, no such law was known. Second, and even more important, Nero did not, technically speaking, prosecute Christians for being Christian. He executed them for committing arson. True, they probably were not guilty, but that was the charge. Being a Christian was not punishab
le, but setting fire to Rome was.13 Third and finally, Nero’s persecution was localized. It involved only the city of Rome. Nothing indicates that Christians elsewhere in the empire suffered any consequences.

  Even more significant, it appears that none of Nero’s successors down to Trajan (ruled 98–117 CE) persecuted Christians. Later Christian legend asserted that the emperor Domitian did so at the end of the first century, but no convincing evidence supports the claim. It is important to recall that Christians were a barely noticeable portion of the population in the first two centuries. They did not demand attention and rarely received any. Between Nero in 64 CE and Marcus Aurelius in 177 CE, the only mention of an emperor’s intervention in Christian affairs, apart from the episode involving Trajan found in Pliny’s letters, is a letter from the emperor Hadrian that gives instructions to a local governor to conduct his trials against the Christians fairly.14

  Marcus Aurelius (Ruled 161–80 CE)

  We would not know of Marcus Aurelius’s involvement in a persecution of Christians were it not for one brief reference to him in a Christian source later quoted by the fourth-century church historian Eusebius. Even there the emperor is not called by name. The source is one of the most gripping accounts of Christian martyrdom on record, the Letter of Lyons and Viennes, usually dated to 177 CE. This is an actual letter—assuming its authenticity—written by Christians of these two cities of Gaul, modern France, to describe their escalated tensions with the pagan population, culminating in horrific torments imposed on them in an attempt to force them to recant their faith. The heroes of the narrative never do so, even after days of brutal treatment.15

  The zeal of the pagans leaps off the pages of the account. Again, these were not irreligious people who wanted to torture others for sheer sadistic pleasure. On the contrary, “they imagined in this way they would avenge their gods” by forcing the Christians to worship pagan cult statues. And so “they subjected them to every horror and inflicted every punishment in turn, attempting again and again to make them swear.” In most cases, if the account is to be believed, these efforts were doomed to failure. The Christians, we are told, were “reminded by the brief chastisement of the eternal punishment of hell.” Better to suffer for a horrible week than for all eternity.