Why Early Christians Were Persecuted by the Romans

Jewish customs and religion excited popular disfavour in general, the pagan attitude in the Hellenic East being more intolerant than western Roman opinion.

The reaction of the people of Thessalonica to the missions of Saint Paul was that as Jews these missionaries taught illegal practices. Philo’s De legatione tells of Caligula’s antipathy for the Jews; he considered their refusal to worship him as a deity to be an instance of treason, but allowed them to escape the penalty for such a crime. Popularly as well, the Jews were attacked, being considered atheists for not worshipping idols. The evidence of popular disapproval is such that at least one historian has felt justified in stating that the Neronian persecution was against the Jews—that Tacitus injected the Christians into his account of the persecution because of knowledge gained of them in his own time.

In any case, the regarding of Christians as an extreme sect of Judaism is shown by the Roman protection of them from the excesses of Jewish persecution. And though the Roman authorities apparently distinguished between Christians and Jews as early as AD 64, the distinction did not prevent their being associated as adherents of a single monotheistic creed, springing from the same root and potentially hostile to Graeco-Roman society.

Many links between these two dubious sects were apparent to contemporary pagans. As late as 170 the Christians in Asia continued to observe the Passover, while the dating of Easter was commonly 14 Nisan (the first month of the year in the Hebrew calendar) throughout the Church during the first centuries. Attacking Jesus as a rebel Jew, Celsus in his De veritate said that Christ had started the sect by persuading people of the lower and ignorant classes to his belief; just as the Israelites were an offshoot of the Egyptian religion, Celsus reported, so was Christianity a despicable byproduct of Judaism.

Even as late as the beginning of the third century we find the linking of Christianity with Judaism in an anecdote of Tertullian; he told of the appearance in Carthage of someone carrying a placard on which was depicted a man with the ears of a donkey and having a cloven hoof, under which figure was written, ‘the god of the Christians—orokoétns' (he who lies with an ass). The meaning of the placard is clarified by Tacitus, who gave credence to the following tale about the Jews.

Wandering in the desert and apparently doomed to die of thirst before reaching the Promised Land, the Jews, said Tacitus, were saved by following a group of wild asses to water. After the passage through the desert:In this noteworthy passage there appear many similarities between Jew and Christian and even more between the charges brought against both. Of special note is the odium generis humani, significantly, the phrase is applied to Jew and to Christian in two places by the same author. This ‘hatred of the human race’ was for Tacitus obviously a phrase covering a multitude of sins and was not meant in any narrowly legal sense.

Specific crimes could also be attributed to the Christians. An early instance of applicable criminal law was a senatusconsultum of A.D. 16 which made a capital offence of the practice of magic or the prophetic arts in Italy; this infraction was punished in the provinces as well. Such a ruling would certainly have comprehended the eschatological teachings of those Christians of the Pauline persuasion, and later the millenary views of the adherents of Montanism. Magic also was cited continually as a crime of Christians. The broad scope of such crimes could include the messianic teaching of many Jews as well as the apocalyptic predictions of certain Christians.

In the persecution under Domitian (81-96) the association of Jew and Christian was of definite importance. Dio Cassius said that Flavius Clemens and Domitilla, probably Christians, were charged with atheism and described as ‘citizens who had adopted Jewish customs’. Indeed, it seems that not until the end of the first century did Christians and Jews finally and clearly recognize the distinctions between their respective religions. Well into the second century the pagan mind continued to confuse the two.

As differentiations came to be made, it was the Christians who suffered more. While the Jews were looked upon with distaste, yet generally tolerated as a nation of ancient origin, the Christians were considered revolutionaries, showing no respect for traditional values and mores. Here we can begin to survey the almost innumerable suspicions and charges against the Christians, either as a separate sect or as the worst manifestation of the detested Jewish race.

It was not the novelty, organization, or theology of Christianity that irritated the pagans, but rather the pretension to live apart, to break with traditional piety, even gradually to overcome all that was not Christian. One fact commonly held against Christianity was the nature and origin of so many of its converts—slaves. Saint Paul, in his epistle to the Ephesians, mentioned the Christian slaves and exhorted them in a manner that might have aroused the suspicion of pagan slave-owners. Paul advised:Christians as was the rabble. Lucian of Samosata attributed (about 170) the love of admiration, notoriety, and attention to the Christians and described them as quite gullible. Such crimes as incest, murder, and cannibalism had to be refuted continually by apologists like Justin, Athenagoras, and Theophilus of Antioch. Lucius Apuleius (second century) made a Christian of the woman who played a role in one of the most ignoble episodes of his book.

Celsus considered Christianity an association contrary to the law upon secret gatherings and societies; this religion, he said, stemmed from a barbarian source, taking its disdain for idols from the Persians. To show what a mockery might be made of Christianity, he cited its tenet: ‘Do not question, only believe; your faith will save you’; to see wisdom in this life as folly, and simplicity of mind as good, seemed to Celsus the height of foolishness.

Further persecutions, under Marcus Aurelius (161-180), offer more evidence of the great part played by popular agitation against unknown or disfavoured groups. Various military catastrophes as well as plague, famine, and flood were seen by the pagan populace as retribution for the toleration of Christians, natural scapegoats for all such catastrophes. Nor were the people discouraged from such a belief by Christian avoidance of religious ceremonies instituted by Marcus Aurelius in order to end the plague.

Among the most famous martyrdoms in the reign of Marcus Aurelius was that of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. Popular movements against Christians were especially virulent in the Greek East and resulted (about 177) in the summoning of the Bishop before the provincial Governor of Asia; the people desired blood and demanded the condemnation and execution of the notorious Christian leader. The following exchange between the Governor and the Bishop was reported.

The Bishop was then led away and was burned. The power of mob action in the provinces, as illustrated in the passage on Polycarp, was often irresistible. In order to maintain peace it was necessary for an official in such a situation to accede to the demands against the Christians.

In the first year of the reign of Commodus (180-192) occurred the initial chapter in the African persecutions. Twelve Christians were executed by the Proconsul, Vigellius Saturninus, for refusing to swear by the Genius of the Emperor. Yet the Proconsuls generally sought only to bend Christian persistence from a path which would be harmful to them. Cincius Severus and Vespronius Candidus (183/5-193), for example, suggested to Christians brought before them the answers that would gain them their liberty.

Arrius Antoninus, the Proconsul of Asia, while assembling a group of denounced Christians (about 185) asked, ‘Unhappy ones, if you wish to die, have you not enough ropes and cliffs?’ The feeling among provincial Governors seems to have been much the same throughout the persecutions. Christians would be accused by groups demanding their execution. The Governors would seek what seemed a simple solution, the denial of their religion by those accused in order to save their lives. In the face of aloofness and obstinacy on the part of the accused, the Governor, frustrated and often suspicious, gave way to the demands of the people.

That various heinous crimes were attributed to Christians throughout the second century can be seen in an apology by a Christian. The apologist, Minucius Felix, gave the following description of contemporary Christians as probably seen by an educated Roman citizen of the day:

continually blaming them for natural and political troubles and bringing charges of specific crimes. Thus we find one list of crimes held against the Christians with forty-two entries. The key to the causes of the early persecutions lies primarily in the pagan mobs rather than in the imperial or proconsular attitudes.