Draft Version
PERSECUTION 193-249
In this section I provide a quick summary--with minimal analysis--of
the known clashes between Roman authorities and the Christian communities
in the first half of the third century.
'Persecution' of Christians by Roman officials had been in the course
of the second century sporadic and unsystematic, and basically local in
range, and is best seen in the context of the occasional harassment of
many another exotic group equally regarded as deviant (astrologers, soothsayers,
magicians and the like). However, Christians had been considered troublesome
enough to have been brought to the attention, from time to time, not just
of Roman provincial governors or of the Roman urban prefect but on rare
occasions of Roman emperors themselves (Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius),
so much so that early in the third century Ulpian was able to draw up a
register of imperial rescripts (i.e. imperial responses to referrals by
provincial governors, possibly responses to complaints or queries by provincial
councils etc.) demonstrating the punishments that by then were deemed appropriate
for Christian adherents:[1] there was by that date an adequate accumulation
of case-histories with imperial authority. But the intermittent and regional
nature of the outbreaks needs to be emphasized: Christians were ipso
facto potentially on the wrong side of the law but it required local
circumstances to realize that potentiality, especially through popular
agitation (whether out of religious fervour, or of superstitious fear occasioned
by earthquake, drought, flood, plague or famine) or, occasionally, through
Christian enthusiastic provocation. In either case it was pressure from
below, rather than imperial initiative, that gave rise to troubles, breaching
the generally prevailing, but nevertheless fragile, limits of Roman tolerance:
the official attitude was passive until activated to confront particular
cases and this activation normally was confined to the local and provincial
level. There is a strong tendency in later sources to universalize these
local outbreaks as the heroisation of the past age of martyrdom gained
pace in the post-Constantinian era but there are no solid grounds for concluding
that the same pattern did not apply for the first half of the third century
as it had throughout the second century.
And throughout this first half of the third century we have to appreciate
that this intermittent trouble is brought to our attention by casual evidence:
our sources being so fitful, we have to allow that we have but a sample
of what Christians may well have experienced elsewhere (thanks to Eusebius,
a fundamental source, our view is notoriously biassed towards Eastern evidence).
And we have to allow that, additionally, victims belonging to other Christian
sects may well have been crowded out of that imperfect record: with martyrdom
valued as the supreme sign of the elect, memory of these sectaries was
promptly erased in what emerged as the orthodox tradition, in the rush
to lay claim to the spiritual high ground of martyrdom. It was of course
solemnly and consistently argued by the orthodox that there can be no true
martyrdom outside the church. Thus under the Antonines Montanists and Marcionites
and other non-orthodox groups could lay claim to 'innumerable martyrs'
(ap. Euseb. H.E. 5.16.20f) but typically our knowledge of
individuals comes basically in efforts to discredit their spiritual credentials
eg. ap. Euseb. H.E. 5.18.5ff (Montanists), Tert. Adv.
Prax. 1.4. (Praxeas). A century later, in the martyrdom of Pionios
(250) we casually--but significantly--encounter (without elaboration) a
Marcionite martyr (c.21.5f) and a Montanist confessor (c.11.2)--such sectaries,
generally suppressed, have to be added mentally to our register of Christian
victims[2]. In all this the frequent occurrence of confessors (that is,
released Christians) as opposed to perfected martyrs is noteworthy: in
the case of provincial governors, wielding as they did the ius gladii,
their discretionary powers (the arbitrium iudicantis) could
be crucial. A period of imprisonment after an initial hearing (with pressure
to recant) appears to have been standard, to be followed, in a significant
number of cases, by eventual release as hopelessly recalcitrant--or as
renegade (Tert ad Scap. 4 provides, among many other instances,
some pertinent illustrations). Arrest as a Christian did not inevitably
lead to a martyr's death: adventitious circumstances such as the hostility
of a crowd or the strength of the religious sentiments of a governor could
be determinant.
Under Septimius Severus the spotlight for us falls on Egypt and Africa,
but that focus may well be due to the vagaries of our surviving documentation
(Eusebius H.E. 6.1-5, Tertullian's writings especially de Corona
Militis, Scorpiace and ad Scap., and the Passio of Perpetua
and Felicity).[3] Eusebius H.E. 6.1 (in typical fashion) asserts
that 'when Severus was stirring up persecution against the churches, in
every place splendid martyrdoms of the athletes of piety were accomplished
and this was especially frequent at Alexandria', and he goes on to illustrate--without
further reference to the emperor or to other places--the cases of ten specific
(Alexandrian) individuals whilst declaring 'countless numbers' donned the
crowns of martyrdom (H.E. 6.2.3). There is no good reason to doubt
the reality of the particular cases that Eusebius cites, only the generalisation
that he draws from them and the imperial source he attributes to them.
The named victims are Plutarch (brother of Heraclas, later to be bishop
of Alexandria), Serenus, Heraclides, Hero, a second Serenus, Herais ("of
the women'). Potamiaena (these seven are all identified by Eusebius as
being converts and disciples of Origen's, several being catechumens or
only recently baptized, H.E. 6.3.2, 3.13, 4.1ff), Marcella (the
mother of Potamiaena) and the soldier Basilides (also a catechumen?, H.E.
6.5.6). These all appear to suffer under the Egyptian prefect Ti. Claudius
Subatianus Aquila (H.E. 6.3.3, 5.2--attested in office from at least
206 until 211). The tenth named victim is Leonides, Origen's father: his
death, and the subsequent confiscation of his property (H.E. 6.2.13),
is dated by Eusebius unequivocally to the tenth year of Severus (H.E.
6.2.2) under the prefecture of Quintus Maecius Laetus (attested for at
least 200 to 203). Despite the impression of Eusebius, his case might well
be an incident quite separate from that of the other victims: at least
a furthur prefecture of Egypt, that of Claudius Julianus, intervened (204-205/6).[4]
There does seem to be a popular element in the attack on the catechetical
school and its members--Origen barely escaped stoning from the heathen
mob, he needed to be defended in his own home by soldiers and was forced
to flee from house to house for safety from the unbelievers (or so Eusebius
defensively declares, H.E. 6.2.4ff). But this is no mob pogrom:
some of the victims are beheaded.
At about the same time (traditionally remembered as March 7) when the
procurator Hilarianus was acting proconsul in Africa Proconsularis (?203,
but 202 or 204 are also possible) a group of five youthful catechumens
along with their teacher was condemned to death fighting the beasts in
the amphitheatre of Carthage (though the location is not actually attested
in the Passion), at games celebrating the birthday of Geta, the
emperor's younger brother. They were two slaves, Revocatus and Felicity,
Saturninus and Secundulus (who actually died in prison before the ordeal,
c. 14) along with the twenty-two year old Perpetua highlighted in our account
as being 'of good family, well-educated and a married Roman matron' ('honeste
nata, liberaliter instituta, matronaliter nupta' c. 2.1). Their teacher,
Saturus, not arrested with his catechumens, voluntarily surrendered himself
subsequently (c. 4.5). The dream account of Saturus, adds four named others,
seen to be already in the garden of Paradise, 'Jucundus, Saturninus, and
Artaxius, who were burnt alive in this same persecution, together with
Quintus who had actually died as a martyr in prison' (c. 11.9) whilst they
also recognized in Paradise 'many of their brethren, including martyrs'
(c. 13.8).[5] The extraordinary document of their trial preserves the record
written by Perpetua herself of her imprisonment including four of her dreams
(cc. 3-10) along with Saturus' account of his vision (cc. 11-13). By these
accounts we gain a remarkable insight into the contemporary mentality of
such martyrs, their sense of privileged spiritual access (a prophetic dream,
on request, to determine whether they would indeed suffer--or be reprieved,
c. 4), their sense of spiritual powers (Perpetua's deceased brother Dinocrates
released from his sufferings, cc. 7-8), their sense of spiritual superiority
(they act as mediators of the contention between their bishop Optatus and
the presbyter Aspasius c. 13), their sense of immediate election to Paradise
(cc. 10ff.). Apart from graphically perceiving the stark realities of their
periods of imprisonment (awaiting formal trial before the acting proconsul
and then, after condemnation, awaiting the games) we also perceive in Perpetua's
case familial tensions ('I grieved for my father's sake because he alone
of all my kindred [genus] would not be rejoicing at my suffering'
c. 5.6) with a brother also a catechumen (her younger brother having died,
it seems, unbaptised cc. 7f.) and presumably mother and (absent) husband
already Christian. Other-worldly aspirations are highlighted by her preparedness
to abandon her infant son at the breast (as well as by Felicity's abandonment
of her new-born child). The crowd (populus) is variously shown to
be sympathetic and hostile (eg. cc. 17, 18.9, 20.2, 21.7). The grounds
for condemnation are importantly (and unequivocally) reported by Perpetua:
'The procurator Hilarianus ... said: "Have pity on your father's white
hairs, have pity on your infant son. Perform sacrifice (fac sacrum)
for the well-being of the emperors. And I replied: I will not. Hilarianus
said: Are you a Christian? And I replied: I am a Christian. ... Then Hilarianus
pronounced sentence on us all and condemned us to the beasts"' (c. 6.3ff.).
The sequence of official thinking is clear: so long as Perpetua was prepared
to conform to accepted public Roman ritual ceremonies, she could go free
(whatever the beliefs--and indeed practices--she might privately continue
to maintain). The exclusivity of Christian worship was the sticking-point.
That avenue refused, condemnation followed precisely on the grounds of
her persistent Christian adherence. (Had she refused to sacrifice, for
example, and then it emerged that she was Jewish, condemnation would not
have followed).
Many have attempted to link these (on the face of it, quite unrelated)
incidents in Egypt and Africa with a compressed and confused passage in
H.A. Septimius Severus 16.8f. which has Septimius, with Caracalla,
journeying from Syria through Palestine on their way to Alexandria (that
is, in 199 A.D.) and 'on their way he established many privileges (iura)
for the Palestinians. He forbade under severe penalty that people should
become Jews (Judaeos fieri). He also decreed the same concerning
Christians (idem etiam de Christianis sanxit).' However, if such
a linkage is made, there are clear chronological difficulties; the purported
imperial embargo does not find any resonance elsewhere in our sources--indeed
Tertullian ad Scap. 4 [212 A.D.] can wax eulogistic on Septimius'
favourable personal relations with Christians;[6] and not all of the known
victims fall into the envisaged category (of converts--? and their teachers)
eg. Leonides. The Historia Augusta passage is best regarded as spurious,
an invention reflecting the author's late fourth-century preoccupations
and prejudices, and the temptation to link these incidents should accordingly
be resisted.[7] They can be considered as typical of the perils that could
potentially befall anywhere openly enthusiastic converts and staunch Christian
adherents alike. Such a charged atmosphere in which Christians found themselves
living was guaranteed to generate eager talk of the coming of Antichrist
and perfervid millenarian expectations (so at this season Eusebius H.E.
6.7 [the writer Judas], Hippol. in Dan. 4.18 [Syria], 4.19 [Pontus],
Tert. adv. Marc. 3.24 [Palestine]).
However, de Corona (a Montanist work, dated to the time of a
military donative by joint Severan emperors, c. 1.1, i.e. datable to before
late 211[8]) has a (? Carthaginian) soldier brought to trial (reus ad
praefectos c.1.2) and imprisoned, there awaiting the largesse of martyrdom
(donativum Christi in carcere expectat c. 1.3) but by his ostentatious
refusal to wear the ceremonial laurel crown drawing the complaint of pusillanimous
Christians for 'jeopardizing for them a peace so long and so good' (tam
bonam et longam pacem periclitari sibi c.1.5). We must suppose that
there have not been too many incidents like that of Perpetua, Felicity,
and companions in the interim, since c. 203, known to Tertullian and his
audience.
Under early Caracalla it was to be no different. Tertullian bears incidental testimony to lethal danger in Numidia and Mauretania ('nam et nunc a praeside Legionis, et a praeside Mauretaniae vexatur hoc nomen, sed gladio tenus', ad Scap. 4.8), as well continuing stress in Africa Proconsularis itself (ad Scap., passim): one martyr is named, Mavilus of Hadrumetum, condemned to the beasts, ad Scap. 3.5 (there are textual uncertainties). We also encounter some later surviving confessors, implying that their stand for their faith had occurred under the earlier Severans. For example, bishop Alexander was in prison as a confessor in Cappadocia at the time of the appointment of Asclepiades as bishop of Antioch (Euseb. H.E. 6.11.5), in the first year of Caracalla, 211/12 (according to Eusebius' Chronicle): he was, however, soon to the released and translated from his see in Cappadocia to the bishopric in Jerusalem (H.E. 6.8.7). Asclepiades, in turn, had been a confessor by the time of his appointment to Antioch, H.E. 6.11.4--his confession (and release) presumably had taken place during the principate of Septimius; and Asclepiades' predecessor in the cathedra of Antioch, Serapion, had had occasion to write to one Domnus who had 'fallen away from the faith of Christ at the time of the persecution' H.E. 6.12.1, that is, again under Septimius, Serapion's bishopric extending from 191 to 210 according to Eusebius' Chronicle. We ought to deduce further trouble for Christians apart from Africa and Egypt, in Cappadocia and Syria. Likewise again for Africa: Cyprian (Ep. 39.3.1) in early 251 incidentally mentions the illustrious martyred forebears of the young (Decian) confessor Celerinus--his grandmother Celerina and his two uncles (paternal and maternal), Laurentinus and Egnatius, both soldiers. We must presume their deaths (in Carthage?--their anniversaries were annually commemorated there) occurred in the reasonably distant past--Cyprian in the de Lapsis (251) can blame the pax longa for its lulling effects in stultifying the faith of those who had recently lapsed (de Laps. 9)--but they will still have had to fall within the last generation or two. We have to suppose such scattered incidents were endemic, liable to occur anywhere at any time: however diminished these incidents may have become in frequency, there still remained a background of insecurity and some peril in which Christians had to live out their lives.
However, from our perception of things that pattern of peril does indeed
appear to be visibly changing. There is much less evidence of outbreaks
of popular hostility against Christians in the thirty-five years or so
before 250: was this as Christianity became a more familiar part of the
kaleidescopic religious landscape and being less secretive therefore became
less feared? And in parallel many fewer Christians are known to be arraigned
for trial. But appearances can be deceptive and our perception distorted
by the tyranny of our sources: we have, for example, scant western evidence
between Tertullian and Cyprian and where we do have it (eg. via the
papal Calendars) much is unreliable.[9] The earliest and the most reliable
(the Liberian) does record baldly the deportation of the Pope, Pontian
and the presbyter Hippolytus (one supposes the Hippolytus) to the
unhealthy island of Sardinia in 235 (and the resignation of the former
from his office in late September on that island).[10] We simply do not
know what circumstances may have occasioned this action. But here, once
again, the testimony of Eusebius has been invoked (though he was himself
apparently unaware of these particular events). For H.E. 6.28 reads:
When Alexander the Emperor of the Romans had brought his principate
to an end after thirteen years, he was succeeded by Maximin Caesar. He,
through ill-will towards the house of Alexander, since it consisted for
the most part of believers, raised a persecution, ordering the leaders
of the Church alone to be put to death, as being responsible for the teaching
of the Gospel. Then also Origen composed his work On Martyrdom,
dedicating the treatise to Ambrose and Protoctetus, a presbyter of the
community at Caesarea; for in the persecution no ordinary distress had
befallen them both, in which distress it is recorded that these men were
distinguished for the confession they made during the period, not more
than three years, that the reign of Maximin lasted. Origen has noted this
particular time for the persecution, in the twenty-second of his Expositions
of the Gospel according to John, and in various letters. (trans. J.E.L.
Oulton)
Regrettably we do not have Eusebius' collection of Origen's letters
(H.E. 6.36.3) nor the twenty-second Exposition on the Gospel of
John (from which Eusebius deduced the dates of the trouble) but we can
verify that in the Exhortation to Martyrdom Origen does address
Ambrose (deacon and Origen's patron) and the otherwise unattested priest
Protoctetus urging them to face with steadfast courage threatening troubles,
but in the most general of hortatory terms. There are in fact no deaths
(Ambrose surviving to be the dedicatee of the Contra Celsum composed
a dozen years later, c.248). The rest seem to be deductions and generalisations
of Eusebius' own (imperial motivation,[11] universal attack on Church leaders
specifically, as being responsible for preaching the gospel) based presumably
on his own more recent experiences. Ironically, where we do have some collateral
evidence it serves only to undermine further Eusebius' generalisation.
For Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, writes to Cyprian in
the autumn of 256 (Cyp. Ep. 75.10.1f):
10.1 I should like now to recount to you an incident, relevant to this
present matter, which happened in our area. About twenty-two years ago,
in the period after the Emperor Severus Alexander, a great number of trials
and tribulations befell in these parts both the whole community generally
and the Christians in particular. There occurred a long succession of earthquakes,
as a result of which many buildings throughout Cappadocia and Pontus collapsed,
and even towns were swallowed up by crevasses opening out in the ground,
sinking into the abyss. In consequence, there arose against us a violent
persecution for the Name; it broke out suddenly after there had been a
lengthy period of peace, and its effect was all the more devastating in
throwing our people into disarray because trouble of this kind was so unexpected
and novel to them. Serenianus was governor of our province at the time,
a bitter and relentless persecutor.
10.2 The faithful, finding themselves in the midst of this upheaval,
took to flight in all directions in fear of persecution; they abandoned
their home territories and moved to other parts of the country (they were
free so to move, in that this persecution was local and did not extend
to the whole world). Suddenly, a certain woman started up in our midst:
she presented herself as a prophetess, being in a state of ecstasy and
acting as if she were filled with the Holy Spirit. But she was so deeply
under the sway and control of the principal demons that she managed to
disturb and deceive the brethren for a long time by performing astonishing
and preternatural feats, and she even promised that she would cause the
earth to quake: not that her devil had such power that he was able to cause
an earthquake or disturb the elements by his own efforts, but that, as
an evil spirit, possessing the gift of foreknowledge and therefore perceiving
that there was to be an earthquake, he sometimes pretended that he was
going to do that which he saw was going to happen.[12]
Firmilian is insistent that the persecution of 235 which he is describing
was local to Cappadocia and Pontus (unlike the recent one under Decius)
and he is clear about its origins (not the emperor but the reaction of
the pagan population--including the governor Licinnius Serenianus, PIR2L245--to
a series of local earthquakes)[13] and about its victims (Christian congregations,
not exclusively church leaders). The general air of superstitious hysteria
engendered by the natural disasters is significant--as equally is the long
period free from persecution that the region had enjoyed (to our knowledge,
extending since the governorship of Claudius Lucius Herminianus and the
confession of bishop Alexander). So far as we know this may well have been
typical of the histories of the church communities in many regions of the
empire.
All told, it is prudent to deduce scattered troubles in Palestine, Cappadocia
and Rome at this period of 235-238 (and quite probably elsewhere) but no
universal proscription of church leaders as Eusebius posits.[14] And we
remain ignorant of any further troubles until over a decade later. Indeed
Origen writing towards the end of the 240's confirms the general impression
of the peace of this period for Christians (Contra Celsum 3.15):
That not even the fear of outsiders maintains our unity is clear from
the fact that by the will of God this has ceased for a long time now. It
is, however, probable that the freedom of believers from anxiety for their
lives will come to an end when again those who attack Christianity in every
possible way regard the multitude of believers as responsible for the rebellion
which is so strong at this moment,[15] thinking that it is because they
are not being persecuted by the governors as they used to be. (trans. H.
Chadwick)
Likewise, writing with hindsight after the devastation of the persecution
of Decius, Dionysius of Alexandria can also refer to the preceding principate
of Philip as having been 'more kindly' (eumenestera) towards Christians
(ap. Euseb. H.E. 6.41.9). Overall the record of persecution,
as it survives for us, would indicate an increasing acceptance of the Christian
presence in the empire as the first half of the third century progressed
and a corresponding easing in the physical molestation of the Christian
communities.[16] But the chance survival of part of a letter of Dionysius
of Alexandria (addressed to Fabius of Antioch c.251/2), preserved by Eusebius
H.E. 6.41, acts as some brake in forming too confident, and too
sanguine, a picture. Without it we would not know of marauding mobs of
chanting native Egyptian fanatics (that is, in the view of the sophisticated
Christian Hellene, Dionysius), rampaging through the streets and alleys
of Alexandria, looting the houses of Christians, forced to flee, and lynching
four victims (Metras and Quinta, stoned to death; Apollonia burnt; Serapion
hurled to his death from an upper story). This fierce and unruly pogrom
(it is no official persecution) lasted, we are told, a long time (epi
polu: ap. H.E. 6.41.8), starting a full year before the
actual arrival of Decius' orders (that is, in late 248/early 249). It is
salutary to be reminded that we know of this popular agitation only because
Dionysius wishes to emphasize the spiritual standing of his Alexandrian
church--before, eventually, lecturing the patriarch of Antioch on the need
to forgive sins of apostasy, as the Alexandrian church is doing (ap.
H.E. 6.42.5ff, 6.44.1ff). It is too easy to conclude (as many have)
that by mid-century Christians have virtually ceased to be targets of popular
outcry. The momentous events of the coming year are to witness repeat scenes
in Rome, Alexandria, Carthage, Smyrna (and no doubt elsewhere).
PERSECUTION OF DECIUS
1. Summary
I first provide a very summary account of the course of the persecution,
followed by some detailed sections justifying the construction of that
summary. Sources are abundant, comprising principally the correspondence
of Cyprian (especially Epp. 5-41) and his treatise de Lapsis,
the letters of Dionysius of Alexandria (largely preserved as extracts in
Euseb. H.E. 6 and 7), the Acta of Pionios and the forty-five
extant Decian libelli from Egypt.
By autumn 249 the emperor Decius was secured in power after his usurpation.
It cannot have been very long afterwards that orders went out from Rome
to all the provincial governors of the Empire that there was to be a universal
sacrifice to the gods of empire--possibly to be proclaimed on January 3,
250 at the public civic ceremony of the vota solemnia, the annually
celebrated sacrifices for the emperor's personal welfare (though attractive,
this is an entirely speculative setting). At any rate victims are attested
before the month of January 250 was over.[17] On the face of it, this was
a decidedly old-fashioned gesture--on the model of a supplicatio
when in the distant past the people of Rome were bidden in times of public
distress to come forward as a body to throng all the temples and shrines
of the tutelary deities of the state--but the scale of the operation was
entirely unprecedented: a religious rally by the inhabitants of the entire
empire to win the favour of the gods who protected that empire--and in
support of the new dynasty under whose sacred auspices the destiny of the
empire now lay. This was to be the dynasty inaugurating Rome's second millenium
(the millenial games and pageants having been celebrated with much pomp
and fanfare the previous year, 248). So far as our evidence goes the gods
to be so honoured were left unspecified, allowing for variants in local
civic divinities--whether it be, say, the Nemeseion in Smyrna, the Serapaeum
in Alexandria or the Capitoline triad of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva in the
more Romanized civitates or indeed some more personal cult (Pionios'
dialogue with the proconsul of Asia who vainly urges the Christian to offer
sacrifice to whatsoever deity he cares to have in mind--to the air, if
he likes--is a revealing vignette of this persecution, Acta Pionii
19f.). But a publicly accepted gesture of religious obeisance had to be
done by pouring libation and tasting sacrificial offerings.[18] The emperor-cult
was not directly involved, only insofar as it could (as in the past) be
used as a means of testing Christian obstinacy--or proving apostasy.[19]
Honour to the gods was the object, not necessarily entailing abjuration
of private or local beliefs or cult practices (which were of course legion
throughout the length and breath of the empire, Christianity included).
About Decius' edict there is, however, a foretaste of that autocracy which
marks fourth-century government: directives are being issued from above
affecting the lives of the entire empire as the central authorities attempt
to grapple with the problems of commanding and controlling an unwieldy
and extremely diverse empire. There is here a presage of those centralist
pressures for conformity and homogeneity. Christians, certainly, would
have seen it as a dramatic, indeed drastic, departure from their own experience
of the more laissez-faire attitude towards their religion that had characterized
the previous years, the preceding regimes now appearing benign by contrast.[20]
For there has been a significant shift: it is now the religious sentiment
of the imperial court--rather than that of the local populace--that is
to determine the well-being or otherwise of Christians. It is a watershed
moment. And the sources are repetitious in declaring the suddenness and
unexpectedness of the outbreak of persecution for Christians.
But it is clear that an attack on Christianity as such was not the object
of the legislation. However, bishops by this date could be figures of prominence,
especially in the major metropolitan cities, known to command sizeable
congregations. They are promptly put under pressure to lead their followers
to the pagan altars.[21] Christians, therefore, quickly become victims
by their refusal to comply (Jews appear to have been exempted, as by now
traditional in Roman religious matters).[22] And the sequel shows as the
year 250 progressed that in most cases various pressures to conform were
imposed (tortures, confiscations, exile, periods of imprisonment with varying
degrees of deprivation) rather than the (relatively rare) imposition of
the death penalty. Here, as before, the (variable) mood of the local populace
(which it was the course of prudence to assuage), or the patience (or piety)
of the governor, could be determining factors. Though incontestably a period
of intense anxiety and extreme apprehension for most confessing Christians,
the persecution of Decius--the first of the 'General Persecutions'--was
in fact less lurid than many modern accounts (and later Acta) might
lead us to believe.
One of the remarkable features of the orders is certification--the issuing
of certificates (libelli), signed by official witnesses, bearing
testimony to the recipients' having complied with the orders, and no doubt
protecting them from further harassment (not unlike the issuing of taxation
receipts). Copies of forty-five such certificates have been recovered from
Egypt.[23] There are no good grounds for believing that only Christian
suspects were required to produce such documents. The bureaucratic implications
must have been immense and, in many less urbanized or bureaucratized districts,
well-nigh insurmountable. We are forced to conclude that Decius' intentions
were far from idle: the depth of traditional piety involved ought not to
be underestimated. To issue those certificates and to supervise the sacrificial
actions panels of local commissioners were established, varying in composition
from place to place.[24] A fixed date dies ... praestitutus, Cyp.
de Lapsis 3) was also set locally by which time the local inhabitants
were to have presented themselves; thereafter the commissioners would have
had to deal with late-comers, defectors or defaulters drawn to their attention.
The recalcitrant were left to languish in prison, their cases referred
to a higher magistrate awaiting trial. All indications are that after a
lapse of twelve months from the date set for the sacrificial rites, the
various commissions were dissolved, Christians still imprisoned were released,
and exiles were recalled: refugees begin to return and those who have lain
concealed in hiding feel free to emerge. By March 251 bishops are planning
publicly to hold post-persecution Council meetings. By that date it was
clear all danger had passed. And this was well in advance of Decius' death
in June , 251.
We can guess that Decius would have been surprised by his posthumous
reputation in the Christian tradition--for Lactantius he is an execrabile
animal (de mort. persec. 4); matters of state more pressing
that the fate of a relatively few Christian recusants had claimed his attention.
And as for his religious programme generally, he may even have regarded
it as not unsuccessful. After all, so many pagans as well as lapsing Christians
throughout the empire had done honour to the empire's gods (though it is
difficult to penetrate a theology which might regard gods as honoured by
a false declaration of continuous piety, as lapsing Christians would
have had to profess).
2. The Orders
Who were enjoined to perform the sacrificial rites--all citizens or
all inhabitants (servile population included) of the empire? The wording
in several passages of Cyprian certainly leaves the impression that all
inhabitants, regardless of sex, age and citizen-status, were probably involved.
Ep. 15.4 reveals that entire households, having lapsed, were seeking
readmittance to communion 'up to twenty and thirty and more at a time who
claim to be the relations, in-laws, freedmen and domestics of the person
holding a certificate of forgiveness' (issued by one of the martyrs). Liberti
et domestici could well encompass the servile classes. A similar inference
could be drawn from Ep. 55.13.2: the case of a Christian who sacrificed
in person as proxy 'for his entire family, thereby protecting his wife,
his children and his entire household [domum totam]'.[25] Even babies
were not exempted (de Laps. 9, 25). [26] This is a religious rally
on the grandest of scales, and we have recorded by way of corroboration
evidence of the subsequent persecution for Spain, Gaul, Italy, Sicily,
Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Pontus and Asia.
The Egyptian libelli so far published were issued between mid-June
and mid-July, 250: that is a good six months since the promulgation of
the edict, at least in some other parts of the empire. Do libelli,
therefore, belong to a second and more intensive stage in Decius' persecution
when such certificates were required? Possibly so. But the evidence for
Rome indicates that certification was required there by at least March:
Numeria, in bribing her way out of actually sacrificing before Easter (April
7, 250), had thereby committed a sin entailing her exclusion from communion
(Cyp. Ep. 21.2.1, 3.2). She must have acquired an incriminating
certificate (compare the description in Cyp. Ep. 55.14.1f), an action
regarded by many (at least in the West) as tantamount to apostasy. Similarly
by May 250 Cyprian can mention grades of apostasy (i.e. libellatici
vs. sacrificati) in Ep. 15.3.1 (glossed in Ep.
20.2.2 as 'those who had stained their hands and lips with sacrilegious
contagion or had none the less contaminated their conscience with impious
certificates'). This he mentions casually, not as a recent new wave of
perils for Christians: there is already by May 250 a significant and importunate
group of purchasers of libelli in Carthage. Certification was part
of the routine of this persecution in his experience.
It is possible, given the locality of the known Egyptian libelli
(Theadelphia, Alexandru Nesus, Philadelphia, Oxyrhynchus, Arsinoe, Narmouthis,
Thosbis), that it took some time for Decius' orders to penetrate into these
areas up country and for a local date then to be set for their implementation
(there are parallel delays in the promulgation of Diocletian's first edict
against Christians--February 23, 303 in Nicomedia, June 5, 303 at a town
near Carthage). If this is so, there is one corollary: Christians up in
this locality could well have had advance warning of the coming trial from
their brethren down on the coast and have had every opportunity to make
themselves scarce. This reduces considerably the likelihood of finding
any apostate Christians among the finds of the Egyptian libelli.
3. Implementation of the orders
Our sources allow us to glimpse scenes of the commissions at work. We
see the appointed magistrates flocked by crowds anxious to prove (correctly
or not) their religious loyalties (de Laps. 8,25); at times among
the crowds Christians of prominent station are pushed forward, urged on
by pagan inciters to demonstrate their compliance (Dionysius ap.
Euseb. H.E. 6.41.11). Smoking altars are set up around the Forum
to help cope with the numbers, but characteristically, in the larger and
romanised town centres, long lines of slowly moving processions wind their
way up to the altars set before the Capitoline temple (Cyp. Ep.
8.2.3, Ep. 21.3.2). When the pilgrim reaches an altar, he (or she)
places on it a portion of ritual meat in offering, pours there a little
wine in libation, and tastes a morsel of the sacrificial meats provided.
(We hear of some apostates so eager to establish their pagan loyalties
that they brought their own hostia and victima with them
[de Laps. 8]). Our pilgrim now presents a libellus (possibly
in duplicate)[27] to the commission; it is often, for the illiterate--or
the speaker of a native language only--prepared by a local notary. It is
read out (publice legitur, Cyp. Ep. 30.3.1), the petitioner
acknowledges it as his or her own (Cyp. Ep. 30.31, Ep. 55.14.1),
and one or more of the commissioners then duly sign it as witnesses in
the appropriate place on the document.
Our sources also allow us to see clandestine evasions of the orders.
For what very many Christians did was not to perform the actual pagan rites
enjoined upon them but to bribe the official or officials concerned, and
purchase their libellus. They could thereby secure immunity from
the edict's penalties, and, they thought, retain their Christian faith
unimpaired (see Cyp. Ep. 55.14). Writing a good generation
or so earlier, Tertullian testifies that bribing one's way out of the clutches
of a persecutor was common practice for a Christian, and one which, with
his rigorous temperament, he personally disapproved of (De fuga
5.3, 12-14). Clearly others did not.
In the minds of the libellatici, or purchasers of libelli,
in the persecution of Decius, there was simply not much difference
between passing money over to a praeses or to an intending delator,
and thus securing freedom from threatened molestation (as Tertullian
testifies Christians had done in the past), and passing over money, either
in person or through a deputy (Cyp. Ep. 30.3.1, Ep. 55.14.1
for deputies), to a local official thus securing a libellus and
thereby freedom from molestation from Decius' edict. But to the legally-minded
ecclesiastical authorities, at least in the West, what was purchased was
significant (for the East our sources are comparatively meagre).[28] For
a Christian it was tantamount to a formal declaration of apostasy, and
by acknowledging a libellus as his own a Christian was, technically,
guilty of denying his faith. He joined the ranks of the lapsi, the
fallen (so, firmly, de Laps. 27f).
What many other Christians did, in order to escape detection by authorities,
or delation before a commission, was to take to flight. Bishops fled from
distant provinces to be lost in the crowds of Rome (Cyp. Ep. 30.8.1);
and we hear, for example, of 65 refugees from Carthage who were cared for
by the two sisters of Celerinus in Rome (Cyp. Ep. 21.4.1). In turn,
Christian refugees fled to the crowds of Carthage also; they required special
funds for their needs (Cyp. Ep. 7.2 [peregrini]), and they
might find shelter in Christian homes, as displaced fugitives and exiles
(extorres et profugi), in large numbers (Cyp. Ep. 55.13.2).
Gregory Thaumaturgus took to the safety of the Pontic hills (relying on
Gregory Nyssa, PG 46.945), and likewise many Egyptians fled to 'the Arabian
mountain' for refuge, and subsequent perils (Dionysius ap. Euseb.
H.E. 6.42.2ff.).
When the persecution died down Cyprian could muster for his African
Council, held in the first half of 251, a 'copious number of bishops' and
these bishops were 'whole in soul and body' (Ep. 55.6.1). The charity
of hospitable fellow-Christians had ensured that even the main figures
in the Church, the bishops, had managed to escape in safety and without
spiritual compromise. There is little evidence to suggest that any systematic
search was made for them. The authorities appear to have relied on delation
as the main weapon for subsequent detection; and if inhabitants were poor,
insignificant, and unobtrusive, they were most unlikely to be the victims
of delation. And very many Christians were poor and insignificant,
and they escaped. They were the stantes, the steadfast; they are
the silent, and characteristic, heroes of the persecution of Decius.[29]
4. The Victims
When a recusant was detected by or reported to a commission, when a
well-known Christian was arrested by searching soldiers or was hounded
by his neighbours to sacrifice and publicly refused, when an enthusiastic
Christian defiantly flaunted his refusal to comply, or when a person who
had initially sacrificed subsequently presented himself voluntarily in
order to repudiate his earlier actions, then the task of the local officials
was clear. After verifying the facts, and possibly putting some pressure
on the recalcitrant to relent (cf. Acta Pionii 15ff.), they referred
the case to the local governor, to be dealt with as he came on the rounds
of his assize conventus. For however tempted they might be in such
a case to act ultra vires, the matter was strictly beyond the legal
competence of such minor magistrates; the penalties liable (not laid down
perhaps with specificity) could be capital. After his initial ordeal, and
confession, the Christian could face a period in prison, awaiting trial,
followed by appearance before the governor's tribunal and eventual sentence.
At the trial the judge might exercise his rightful discretion and dismiss
the case,[30] or the accused might be sentenced to some form of exile (along
with confiscation of his property). However, as apostates (to honour the
gods) were wanted rather than martyrs, torture and further periods in prison
under conditions of varying stringency might be imposed. Under such circumstances
obstinacy might be repaid in the end by death in prison, or, in relatively
rare cases, by a death sentence, or by eventual dismissal as a hopeless
case.
Eastern Provinces
It is difficult to assess how far we may with any assurance extrapolate
from our surviving evidence to undocumented areas. Nevertheless, patterns
are discernible even in such erratic evidence as we do have.
Concerning the area about which he might best be informed, and about
events that occurred only about a decade perhaps before his own birth,
Eusebius can report that the bishops of Antioch in Syria (Babylas) and
of Jerusalem in Palestine (the aged Alexander) both died in prison as unrepentant
confessors (Euseb. H.E. 6.39.2ff.). Origen (domiciled in Palestinian
Caesarea) survived his long months of imprisonment; despite the dungeons,
tortures, chains and rack, which Eusebius found described in detail in
numerous letters of Origen's, he nevertheless outlived the emperor Decius.
We are left to wonder whether there can have been in this general area
any other resistance heroes the memory of whom had faded so quickly, within
half a century, in the local church tradition. The absence of the death
penalty is noteworthy.[31]
Further northwards in Smyrna (province of Asia), we encounter the arrest
on February 23, 250, of a group of Christians discovered praying together
in a house, namely the presbyter Pionios, together with another presbyter
(Limnos) and three of the laity (Sabina, Asclepiades, and Macedonia); [32]
we observe their refusal to sacrifice after appearing before the commission
in the city's forum, and their incarceration. In the face of provocation
and pressures from officials, soldiers and populace of Smyrna alike, they
adamantly await the arrival of the proconsul. Trial and tortures end with
Pionios' condemnation to death (by fire) on March 12, 250, along with a
Marcionite Christian. We are not told of the fate of his other companions,
nor of the three others they discover already in prison. Here the local
citizenry voice the threat of death--or females to the brothels--at the
outset; there prevails an atmosphere charged with religious hostility (though
some of the agoraioi are made out to be solicitously sympathetic,
Acta Pionii 5.2ff.).In such a setting the proconsul judges in the
end that little quarter should be given, nor was it expected.
Up in the more northerly district of Pontus the stress in the vague
and fulsomely rhetorical narrative of Gregory of Nyssa (in his life of
Gregory Thaumaturgus) is on the search for Christian fugitives, arrests,
imprisonments and tortures (PG 46.944ff.). One martyr's name only is given,
Troadius (a young man of prominent station), and he was seen in a miraculous
vision dying 'after many tortures' (PG 46.949); this does not sound like
execution but death as a result of tortures applied to induce apostasy.
The remaining Eastern evidence comes from Egypt and derives from a first-hand
account--excerpts from three letters by Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria
at the time, as preserved by Eusebius (H.E. 6.40.1ff., 7.11.20ff.).
In a few brief pages we meet (for Alexandria), five 'volunteer martyrs'
(Ammon, Zeus, Ptolemy, Ingenuus--all soldiers--and Theophilus), five Christians
sentenced to death by fire (Macar, Hero, Ater, Isidore and Nemesion), four
by quicklime (Julian, Cronion, Epimachus and Alexander), four by beheading
or the sword (Besas, Ammonarion, Mercuria, Dionysia)--altogether eighteen
named Alexandrian victims, a nineteenth (woman) being left unnamed, H.E.
6.41.18, plus the instance of a hired steward (Ischyrion) beaten to death
by his outraged employer, a government official (outside Alexandria).[33]
Throughout, statements and illustrations abound of desperate fugitives
and refugees, prisoners heroically enduring tortures, and the angry mob
violently harassing notorious Christians (the wealthy and the prominent).
What has to be recalled here is the religious atmosphere that has been
prevailing in Alexandria. That smouldering mood of bigotry and virulent
hostility revealed in the savage pogroms of the previous year was resuscitated
by the advent of Decius' edict and appears to be reflected in the apparently
high number of Alexandrian victims condemned to death for their religious
intransigence. How far this mood prevailed in Egypt generally outside the
city of Alexandria we do not know, but we do have Dionysius' general word
for it that 'very many others throughout the cities and villages were torn
to pieces by the heathen' (ap. Euseb H.E. 6.42.1). The forty-five
libelli surviving from the rubbish dumps of the towns and villages
of upper Egypt begin to acquire a moving, and human, context.
Western Provinces
Although our evidence from Spain and Gaul implies that the edict of
Decius was enforced there (Cyp. Epp. 67, 68), we do not chance to
have in our meagre records certain knowledge of Decian martyrs from these
localities. The same is true for Sicily (Cyp. Ep. 30.6.2), whereas
an odd note seems to preserve the names of two Decian victims in Campania
(Capua)--Augustine and Felicity.[34]
In Rome, however, pope Fabian certainly died a martyr's death, in late
January of 250 A.D. But no detailed account survives of his gloriosus
exitus (Cyp. Ep. 9.1.1); it may have been due to torture, or
simply the sudden shock of the adversities of Roman prison life. Thereafter,
though imprisonment, privations, and tortures were undoubtedly the lot
of a number of Christians arrested in Rome, we have to wait very many months
before there is any word of Christian deaths. There are indeed none by
the time Cyprian wrote Letter 28 (? August/September 250), but some had
occurred by Letter 37 (§3; winter of 250/251). The Roman presbyter
Moyses died subsequently to that letter, after a confinement lasting some
eleven months (Liber Pontif. ed. Duchesne 21); many of his companions
lived on to enjoy release from their prison only a short while later (see
Cyp. Ep. 49, Ep. 54.2.2). Here, in what was unquestionably
the largest Christian community in the West, defiant Christians are not
automatically punished with death. The pattern matches much of our other
evidence. Christians were not being extirpated, only being induced, by
variable means and at variable levels of intensity, to conform, and even
then some of those apprehended were simply dismissed in despair.
The rich details provided by the pages of Cyprian present much the same
picture for Africa: flight, trials, exiles, confiscations, imprisonments,
tortures--and a mob lynching (Ep. 40.1.1)--are all there to be sure,
with all their attendant fears and horrors, but deaths are relatively few
and none is certainly by way of legal condemnation. The best commentary
is to read Letter 22 which supplies all of the named victims (17 all told)[35]
apart from the pair Castus and Aemilius who died undergoing tortures and
very probably at this period (de Lapsis 13). But it remains a humbling
reminder of our ignorance, and of the haphazard nature of our testimony,
that had Cyprian not had occasion to include a copy of Letter 22 with his
correspondence, we would have been left largely unaware in any detailed
and personalized way of the harsh realities of the sufferings being endured
in Carthage.
Overall, to judge from the list of the victims we know, certainly by
no means all Christians 'died in prisons dark, by dungeon, fire and sword.'
Far from it. But the memory of the nightmare, if not of the details, of
this persecution lived vividly on, and understandably so.
And everywhere the churches were left in the aftermath with the devastation
of the fallen within their ranks. For Cyprian 'the wild tempest had overwhelmed
not only the majority of our laity' but 'it had included in its destructive
wake even a portion of the clergy' (Ep. 14.1.1). In Smyrna not only
had the bishop apostatized (Acta Pionii 15.2) along with 'many of
the Christian brethren' (Acta Pionii 12.2) but Pionios was urged
'to obey and offer sacrifice like everyone else' (Acta Pionii 4.1)
and the Proconsul could declare that 'many others have offered sacrifice
and are now alive' (Acta Pionii 20.3). Alexandria in turn saw many
defections especially among the more socially eminent including those in
official employ (ap. Euseb. H.E. 6.41.11). May we take Smyrna
and Alexandria as typical of the cities in at least the eastern Empire?
Even whole communities had been led by their bishops into apostasy (Cyp.
Ep. 55.11.1f, [Trofimus, in Italy], Cyp Ep. 59.10.3 [ Repostus,
in Africa Proconsularis]) and apostate bishops subsequently fought for
reinstatement (Cyp. Epp. 65, 67) or joined schismatic groups (Cyp.
Ep. 59.10.2). Decius' religious rally had left behind a long-lasting
legacy of disorder and disarray within the Christian ranks, with dissensions
over the proper conditions for readmitting the fallen bitterly dividing
the churches everywhere, and with bishops challenged for spiritual leadership
by surviving (and, by definition, inspirited) confessors.
PERSECUTION UNDER GALLUS
Dionysius writing from Alexandria in the early 260s addressed a festal
(presumably Easter) letter to Hermammon and the brethren in Egypt: this
was penned during 'the peace of Gallienus' (ap. Euseb. H.E.
7.22.12) and expanded on the congenial (but rhetorically unexceptional)
theme that emperors enjoy peace, health and prosperity (as, currently,
does Gallienus) whilst they engage the favours and prayers of Christians
but that they are beset with wars, plagues and disasters when they persecute
them (ap. Euseb. H.E. 7.1, 7.10.22ff., 7.22.12ff.). This
reading of the imperial history of the past decade was illustrated not
only from the recent histories of Decius, Valerian and the Macriani, but
also from the reign of Gallus, Decius' immediate successor (mid-251 to
mid-253). Consistent with this perspective Gallus is blessed--tendentiously--with
an initial period 'when his reign was progressing happily and affairs were
going according to his wishes' but subsequently he was unwise enough to
'drive away the holy men who were mediating before God for his peace and
well-being. Consequently when he banished these men away, he also banished
away their supplications on his behalf' (ap. Euseb. H.E.
7.1).
After carefully clearing Egyptian Christians of any taint of complicity
in the (now defeated) cause of the Macriani, Dionysius concluded his whole
argument resoundingly: 'And I am moved to make a further review of the
length of days in the imperial reigns. For what I observe is that it has
taken only a brief time for those who were utterly ungodly, though once
such renowned names, to become nameless, whereas he [= Gallienus], being
more pious and god-loving, has already left behind the seven year mark
and is now actually completing his ninth year, during which let us now
celebrate the feast. ...' (ap. Euseb. H.E. 7.23.4).
Unfortunately Dionysius leaves entirely vague the identity of the holy
men and what precisely Gallus did to them when he is said to have 'hounded
them out' and 'banished' them [elasen, edioxen].
Whilst such vagueness is not untypical of the panegyric mode in which his
festal letters are couched, were they fellow Egyptian heroes we
could reasonably expect some named identities. However, we can supply two
candidates--from overseas (Rome).
Cornelius the bishop of Rome was exiled to Centumcellae (Cyprian does
not know of his confession until late Spring, 253) and there he died whilst
apparently still in office, at least before June 25, 253 (the commencement
date of his successor's pontificate).[36] That successor, Lucius, was also
promptly relegated, immediately upon his election to office, sharing his
relegation with companions (Cyp. Ep. 61.1.1). Cyprian can write
not too long afterwards congratulating them on their release (Ep.
61). Their recall may possibly lie behind Valerian's (much exaggerated)
reputation for initially regarding Christians with favour (as witnessed
by Dionysius of Alexandria in the same--tendentious--festal letter to Hermammon,
ap. Euseb. H.E. 7.10.3).[37] We are without information as
to the circumstances which gave rise to these relegations, but the periods
of exile of these 'holy men' would indeed have coincided with the collapse
and downfall of Gallus' principate sufficient to lend credence to Dionysius'
loaded version of history.
Elsewhere, in a letter written in the summer of the previous year, 252,
Cyprian addresses Cornelius (at that time still in Rome) whose church can
be regarded at the time as greatly flourishing, i.e. not threatened with
difficulties (florentissimo illic clero tecum praesidenti, Ep.
59.19). And yet Cyprian has this to say of himself: 'In recent days, also,
just as I am writing this letter to you, there has been once again popular
outcry in the circus for me to be thrown to the lion: this has been occasioned
by the sacrifices which the people have been ordered by a public edict
to celebrate' (ob sacrificia quae edicto proposito celebrare populus
iubebatur) (Ep. 59.6.1). Obviously Cornelius (the addressee) and the
Roman church are not included in the troubles: this is a local outburst,
the edict presumably proclaimed by the local proconsul. (One can imagine
orders for a public expiation against the plague, at a ceremony in the
circus from which the notable figure of the leader of the Christians--popularly
blamed for the visitation of the plague through their failure to worship
'Roman gods', eg. ad Demet. 2,5--was enragingly absent).
The following year (253) we do hear in Carthage of anxious premonitions
of a threatened persecution, manifested by frequent ominous signs and minatory
visions (Cyp. Epp. 57, 58) but so far as we know these apprehensions
were never actualised: Epp. 57, 58 are datable to May, 253 at the
onset of another summer bringing with it the threat of further deaths in
Carthage by the devastating plague (see the contemporary descriptions in
de Mort. 14, Pontius Vit. Cyp. 9)--and the prospect of similar
terrifying scenes in the circus of Carthage.
We know of no troubles elsewhere. There was no 'persecution of Gallus',
no continuation of Decius' edict, merely the continuation of intermittent
local troubles and isolated incidents to which especially prominent church
leaders were constantly liable under the stress of local circumstances--and
at a particular season of social and political instability and insecurity.
Following on their unnerving experiences under Decius it was, however,
for many Christians a time of heightened apprehensions.[38]
PERSECUTION UNDER VALERIAN AND GALLIENUS
So far as we are able to judge, Valerian and Gallienus started off their
principate with the same general attitude of laissez-faire towards Christians
(as likely as not it was no delicately modulated policy, simply that other
and more pressing matters of state commanded their attention).[39] That
did not mean, however, that Christians were assured of going unmolested.
They were still individually liable to hostile attack. For example, a papyrus
of February 28, 256 (Oxy. Pap. 3035) reveals orders to arrest
from the Egyptian village of Mermertha one 'Petosorapis, son of Horus,
Christian': that could mean that the man's Christianity provided the grounds
for his arrest.[40] But in all events, in the course of the following
year, 257, as the regime now approached the completion of its first quinquennium,
that laissez-faire imperial attitude modified. The date is summer of that
year; the orders conveyed to the proconsul in Africa by imperial litterae
were implemented on August 30 in Carthage (Act. procons. Cyp.
1.1). While we are in ignorance of the precise and immediate circumstances
which may have triggered off the dispatch of these litterae,[41]
we do chance to have two precious documents which convey at a more general
level the official reasoning that lay behind them.(1) Dionysius, bishop
of Alexandria, in the course of defending his actions under persecution
against defamation from a brother bishop named Germanus, his occasion to
quote the ipsissima verba from the official court records of his
trial before Aemilianus (at the time vice-prefect of Egypt)[42] in Alexandria.
Dionysius was accompanied by a fellow-presbyter (Maximus), three deacons
(Faustus, Eusebius, Chaeremon), and 'one of the brethren who were in Alexandria
at the time from Rome' (=? Marcellus). (There seems to have occurred already
a court appearance followed by an adjournment while Dionysius and his clerical
companions were left time to think things over).
But listen to the actual words which were spoken
by both of us just as they are recorded in the official proceedings.
'Dionysius, Faustus, Maximus, Marcellus and Chaeremon
having been brought in, Aemilianus, the vice-prefect, said: And I also
talked with you off the record, discussing the clemency which our emperors
have displayed towards you: they have in effect granted you the power to
save yourselves, if only you are willing to adopt that which is according
to nature, worshipping gods that preserve their empire and abandoning those
that are contrary to nature.
'What, then, is your response to this? I do not imagine
that you are going to show yourselves ungrateful for their clemency, seeing
that what they are urging you to do is to adopt the better course.
'To this Dionysius replied: It is not true that all
men worship all gods but every group worships certain gods in whom they
believe. So in our case there is the one god, the creator of the universe,
the one who in fact entrusted the empire into the hands of the most pious
Augusti, Valerian and Gallienus. This is the god whom we both venerate
and worship and to whom we offer prayers without ceasing for their empire,
petitioning that it may continue unshaken.
'Aemilianus, the vice-prefect, said to them: Well,
then, who is stopping you from worshipping him as well, if indeed he is
a god, along with the gods that are according to nature? You were ordered
to worship gods--gods that everyone knows.
'Dionysius answered: We do not worship any
other.
'Aemilianus, the vice-prefect, said to them: I perceive that you are
being at once ungrateful and unappreciative of the generosity of our august
emperors. You shall, therefore, no longer stay in this city: instead, you
will be despatched to the regions of Libya, at a place call Cephro. This
is the place I have selected, in conformity, with the command of our august
emperors.
'And on no account will it be lawful for either you or anyone else to
hold assemblies or to enter the "cemeteries", as they are termed. But should
anyone be shown not to have been at this place I have ordered or is detected
at any meeting, he is going to bring himself into jeopardy. Rest assured:
this will be stringently enforced.
'Be off, therefore, to the place to which you have been ordered.' (ap.
Euseb. H.E. 7.11.6ff.).
The official concerns, we can observe, are for worship to be given to
known gods (not 'unnatural' ones) who preserve the empire and for public
conformity to be displayed as part of the process of winning that preservation
of the state (the 'unnatural' religious assemblies of Christians are, as
a corollary, to be forbidden). Dionysius' attempt to sidestep the imperial
demands is telling: Christians already pray for the continued security
of the empire without ceasing, and to the one God that matters. Maintaining
pax with the divine was understood by both sides to be the underlying
objective. And both sides appear to agree in closely interpreting the course
of contemporary history theologically.
(2) The court records (dated August 30, 257) are also preserved for
Cyprian's appearance before the proconsul in Carthage.[43]
The proconsul Paternus said to Cyprian the bishop: 'The most revered
emperors Valerian and Gallienus have honoured me with a letter in which
they command that those who do not practise Roman religion must observe
Roman rites. Accordingly I have made inquiries in your connection. What
is your answer to me?'
Cyprian the bishop said: 'I am a Christian and a bishop. I know no other
gods beside the one, true God who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all
that is in them. This is the God we Christians serve, to this God we pray
day and night for you and for all mankind, and for the well-being of the
emperors themselves.'
The proconsul Paternus said: 'And so you persist in this way of thinking?'
Cyprian the bishop answered: 'A good way of thinking which brings knowledge
of God cannot be changed.'
The proconsul Paternus said: 'Will you be able, then, to go into exile to the city of Curubis, in accordance with the orders of Valerian and Gallienus?'
Cyprian the bishop said: 'I go.'
The proconsul Paternus said: 'They have honoured me by writing not only
about bishops but also about presbyters. I want you to tell me, therefore,
who are the presbyters dwelling in this city?'
Cyprian the bishop answered: 'By excellent and beneficial legislation
you have outlawed informers. Hence I am unable to reveal or denounce them;
but they are to be found in their own cities. Our rules forbid anyone to
surrender himself voluntarily and you strongly disapprove of this as well;
they may not, therefore, surrender themselves but they will be discovered
if you search for them.'
The proconsul Paternus said: 'I shall certainly make a search for them
today from this community.'
Cyprian the bishop said; 'If you make inquiries they will be discovered.'
The proconsul Paternus said: 'I shall discover them.' And he added:
'They also command that no meetings are to be held in any place nor shall
they enter the cemeteries. If, therefore, anyone does not observe this
salutary command, he will suffer capital punishment' (Act procons. Cyp.
1).
We are able to discern the same stress on public conformity in acceptable ritual action (Romanas caeremonias recognoscere),[44] and Cyprian's defensive insistence that Christians pray without ceasing for the well-being of the emperors' persons (pro incolumitate imperatorum ipsorum) indicates what he, too, perceived to be the imperial motivation behind that stress on ritual conformity. Higher clerical orders only--involved in performing the 'unnatural' Christian caeremoniae--are concerned, viz. bishops, presbyters (deacons, as well--Dionysius' companions included three deacons), and Christians' ritual assemblies themselves and their sacred grounds are proscribed. There is a growing sense that the Christian caeremoniae, far from being mere harmless aberrations, are positively offensive to the 'natural' gods.
We do not chance to have a great deal of evidence for the actual implementation of these orders, save for Africa Proconsularis (the case of Cyprian), Egypt (the case of Dionysius and his five companions), and Numidia (the two exiled bishops Agapius and Secundinus in Act Marian. et Jacob. 3). Much will have depended on the initiative and zeal of the individual governor, the eminence of local clerics (too much in the public eye to allow them to be overlooked), and, of course, popular hostility against Christians in a particular area which could lead to the reporting of Christian lawbreaking or of the whereabouts of Christian clergy. Governors, however indifferently they felt towards religious matters or however anxious they were to avoid needless trouble, could not let themselves be seen too blatantly to disregard entirely the emperors' wishes: they had careers to foster. At least in one sector of Numidia the grinding hardships and ordeals that were to confront Christian clergy and laity alike were painfully real. Cyprian Epp. 76-79 (written whilst Cyprian was still in exile at Curubis) reveal not just exile but condemnation in metallum of bishops (9 are named) along with (unnamed) presbyters and deacons--together with laity (including women and children, Ep. 76.6.2). Deaths have occurred (Ep. 76.1.2). So far as we know this first stage of the Valerianic persecution singled out higher clergy only: lower clergy and laity would become involved only if they infringed (under threat of capital penalty) the regulations regarding assemblies and cemeteries--which we must presume these Numidian Christians, laity and clergy alike, have done.[45] We are simply left to extrapolate from these samples for other regions of the empire.
The version we have of Gallienus' later rescript of toleration certainly
implies that Christian places of worship (topoi) might be subject
to sequestration (and Christian cemetery grounds might be seized, as we
gather from the further imperial response which Eusebius paraphrases in
H.E. 7.13 ad fin). The litterae of 257 did not merely
convey a clear licence from the emperors, if a governor chanced to be so
inclined, to outlaw Christian officials and corporate Christian worship:
more positive action was being demanded.
But the last decade had given Christians practice in the skills required
for evading detection, and the elaborate international network of the brotherhood
(witness Cyp. Ep. 80) further assisted underground survival. Even
those actually apprehended for exemplary treatment and exiled continued
their proselytizing activities (so Dionysius declares at Cephro, ap.
Euseb H.E. 7.11.12f.); they even participated in the (forbidden)
assemblies (so Dionysius--defensively--claims at Colluthion, ap.
Euseb. H.E. 7.11.17); they were flocked with Christian visitors,
laden with their gifts (as Cyprian enjoyed at Curubis, Pont. Vit. Cyp.
12, cf. Dionysius both at Cephro ap. Euseb. H.E. 7.11.12
and at Colluthion ap. Euseb. H.E. 7.11.17); they might continue
lavishly to minister to the Christian poor (see Pont., Vit. Cyp.
13) or send sustaining support to fellow confessors (Cyp. Epp. 76-79).
The Roman Senate appears to have written to Valerian in the east requesting
official guidance for dealing with such public defiance of the imperial
wishes (as far as we know, the clergy of Rome had all so far managed to
survive unharmed). We learn from Cyp. Ep. 80 of the contents of
the imperial reply:
1.1 ... But you should now be informed that the men whom I had expressly
sent over to Rome are back; they were to find out the truth and report
to us the terms of the rescript concerning us, for there have been rife
a wide variety of unconfirmed rumours.
1.2 The truth of the matter stands as follows.
Valerian has sent a rescript to the Senate, directing that bishops,
presbyters, and deacons are to be put to death at once but that senators,
high-ranking officials, and Roman knights are to lose their status as well
as forfeit their property, and that if, after being so dispossessed, they
should persist in remaining Christians, they are then to suffer capital
punishment as well. Furthermore, that matrons are to be dispossessed of
their property and despatched into exile and that any members of Caesar's
household who had either confessed earlier or should have done so now,
are to have their possessions confiscated and are to be sent in chains,
assigned to the imperial estates.
1.3 Moreover, the emperor Valerian has added to his address a copy of
the letter which he has written to the governors of the provinces concerning
us. We are daily awaiting the arrival of this letter ...
1.4 You should be further informed that Sixtus was put to death in the
Cemetery on August 6, and, along with him, four deacons. Indeed, the prefects
in Rome are daily pressing on with this persecution: those who are brought
before them are being condemned, with their estates forfeited to the imperial
treasury.
The fact that the Senate--it would appear--had written to the emperor
requesting guidance in dealing with prominently recalcitrant Christians
(whether notables of the Church or of society and of Caesar's own household)
suggests there were conscientious enemies of Christianity to be found within
the conservative upper social circles of Rome: Valerian himself need have
been no different. (Porphyry Vit. Plot. 16 echoes the resentment
felt at the spread of Christianity, and other outlandish sects, in contemporary
Rome at the expense of the 'old philosophy.') And we need to remember that
the Christian intelligence network would have known of the Senate's referral
months before the imperial response came back from the east--hence long
weeks of apprehensive waiting by Christian communities (Cyp. Ep.
80.1.1). The virulence of the mood of hostility is reflected in orders
which entailed the recall and retrial of clergy already sentenced under
the first stage (thus the African bishops Agapius and Secundinus brought
back from exile to their execution, Act Marian. et Jacob. 2.5ff.,
as likewise Cyprian himself),[46] or harsher treatment for already confessed
(and presumably sentenced) Caesariani. But the most devastating
illustration of the violent change in temper comes with the stark news
of the execution on the spot of Pope Sixtus and four of his deacons at
the cemetery of Callistus in Rome (û1.4).
This heralds the bloodiest persecution known before the days of Diocletian.
An ingredient in Valerian's decision may have been reaction to the affront
cast upon the imperial dignity and Roman law by open Christian recalcitrance.
But an administrator, however hotly outraged, however hastily he may have
been obliged to act while in the midst of military campaigning, would still
have realized the grave consequences of these orders to be distributed
throughout the empire. This was persecution, because it was thought it
mattered that Christian religious leaders should be extirpated and that
Christians in positions of prominence should not be allowed to be seen
publicly to repudiate "Roman ceremonies" with impunity. The proconsul in
Africa, putting into effect the new ordinances on September 14, 258 in
Carthage, provides our most immediate gloss; he could well echo some of
the phrases in the preamble of the imperial rescript itself.
Galerius Maximus conferred with his judicial council and then with great
difficulty declared: 'You have long lived with sacrilegious views and you
have gathered to yourself many vicious men in a conspiracy. You have set
yourself up as an enemy to the Roman gods and to their sacred rites. And
the pious and most revered emperors Valerian and Gallienus, Augusti, and
Valerian, the most noble Caesar, have been unable to bring you back to
the observance of their own sacred rituals.
'Therefore, having been apprehended as the instigator and ringleader
in atrocious crime, you are yourself going to be made an example to those
whom you have gathered together through your criminal actions. The authority
of the law shall be ratified by means of your blood.'
He then read out the verdict from a tablet: 'It is the sentence that
Thascius Cyprianus be executed by the sword.'
Cyprian the bishop said: 'Thanks be to God.'
(Act. procon. Cyp. 4)
For the Roman governing circles, at least, it still remained incomprehensible
that Roman citizens should fail so signally in their civic duties of honouring
their Roman gods and acknowledging their sacred rites ('civic duties'--rather
than 'civil rights'--was certainly their inherited mode of thinking). The
comportment of Cyprian, himself of the local curial aristocracy but now
a Christian bishop, highlights this clash of perceived duties--and ideological
stances. Cyprian had spent a whole year in anxious expectation of this
moment before the proconsul's tribunal. His inspired words, uttered a year
before as confessor, had been promptly transcribed, treasured, and given
wide circulation and lavish laudation (witness Ep. 77.2, written
from mines in Numidia; and cf. Pont. Vit. Cyp. 11). A vision of
his as confessor had been relayed in detail and interpreted as prophetic
of this very day (so Pont., Vit,. Cyp. 12f). In recent weeks he
had spent long days with his assembled clergy meditating with them on this
very moment of his agon (Ep. 80.1.1), and then, in confident
expectation of the end, he had rallied the brethren with a series of rousing
exhortations (Pont. Vit. Cyp. 14 ad fin.). He had also contrived,
by eluding the proconsul's agents, that he should be seen to go forward
to take his seat as assessor on the celestial tribunal (as he would have
to put it) in the midst of his own Carthaginian Church (Ep. 81.1f.):
for the Church was in the bishop (Ep. 66.8.3) and the witnessing
people would thus become partners in the graces, and the gloria,
of their own inspirited bishop.
The entire Carthaginian congregation (universus populus fratrum),
so prepared and exhorted, thronged to witness the noble spectacle; they
all kept vigil outside his quarters throughout the night, then accompanied
him to the place of execution. There Cyprian enacted an exemplum
of conscious dignity, a Christian nobile letum, at last putting
into deed the words he had so often preached. The brethren spread out cloths
and handkerchiefs to catch the drops of his precious blood; the cultus
of saint Cyprian, bishop and martyr, had begun.
So Cyprian suffered and his body was laid out nearby to satisfy the
curiosity of the pagans. But at nightfall his body was moved from there
and, accompanied by tapers and torches, it was conducted with prayers in
great triumph to the burial ground of Macrobius Candidianus the procurator,
which lies on the Mappalian Way near the fishponds. And there it was buried
(Act. procons. Cyp. 5.6).
Within twelve months fellow martyrs could be numbered throughout the
empire securely attested all the way from the west (Bishop Fructuosus and
his two deacons Augurius and Eulogius, beheaded in Tarraco, Spain [January
21, 259]--the location being supplied by Prudentius, Peristephanon 6),
through the central Mediterranean (eventually, in Rome, all told, the bishop,
one of his presbyters, all of his seven deacons, a sub-deacon, a reader
and a doorkeeper [47] as far as the east (Priscus, Malcus, Alexander and
a Marcionite woman fed to the beasts in Palestine, Euseb. H.E. 7.12).
But it is the south, in the African provinces, which is especially rich
in testimony. Thus the Passion of Montanus and Lucius records (for Africa
Proconsularis) the deaths in prison of two recently baptized Christians
(Primolus and Donatianus, c.2); a presbyter, Victor, c. 7.2; Quartillosa,
her husband and her son, c.8; bishop Successus, Paulus and their companions,
c. 21.8; as well as Lucius, Montanus, Flavianus, Julianus and Victoricus
(presumably all clerics), c. 2. And in Numidia in the Passion of Marian
and James we encounter many in prison (in Cirta) to be sent on eventually
for trial (and death) before the governor at Lambaesis: altogether there
are the bishops Agapius and Secundinus, c. 3; James a deacon, Marian a
lector along with others of the clergy, c. 10, 11.3; lay martyrs, cc. 5.10,
9,10, including Aemilianus an equestrian, c. 8 (a unique attestation for
one of the specific lay categories of victim) and Tertulla and Antonia,
c. 11. The terms of Valerian's rescript of 258 had given rise to a deeply
divisive and bloody conflict throughout the Empire.
We are entirely dependent on Eusebius for our knowledge how that division
and conflict was resolved.
But not long afterwards Valerian underwent slavery at the hands of the
barbarians, and his son, succeeding to the sole power, conducted the government
with greater prudence, and immediate by means of edicts [programmata]
put an end to the persecution against us. He granted free power to those
who presided over the word to perform their accustomed duties, by a rescript
[antigraphe] which runs as follows: 'The Emperor Caesar Publius
Licinius Gallienus Pius Felix Augustus to Dionysius and Pinnas and Demetrius
and the other bishops. I have ordered that the benefits of my bounty should
be spread throughout all the world, namely that they should depart from
the places of worship. Therefore you too are entitled to make use of the
provisions contained in my rescript, so that none may molest you. And this
thing which it is within your power to accomplish has long since been granted
by me. Therefore Aurelius Quirinius, the procurator summae rei (?),
will observe the provisions granted by me.
Let this, which for the sake of greater clearness was translated from
the Latin, be inserted. And there is also another ordinance of the same
emperor, which was issued to other bishops, giving permission to recover
the sites of the cemeteries, as they are called. (H.E. 7.13).
Valerian's ignominious capture is best dated to early summer 260.[48]
Eusebius certainly places the revoking, by imperial edicts (programmata),
of the previous orders against Christians as an immediate (autika)
reaction to the disaster. We know no more than that--and this may be Eusebius'
own interpretation, a theological reading of the dire event by the imperial
authorities. That is a fair surmise, but there were no doubt proffered
also prudential counsels to avoid at all costs exacerbating internal strife
and divisions (as Valerian's second rescript had manifestly been doing)
in an empire that must have seemed at the time perilously fragmenting--and
perhaps to disassociate the now sole emperor from policies identified with
his father Valerian.
Dionysius and his fellow bishops have petitioned the emperor and the
imperial response which they receive[49] allowing freedom of worship asserts
that the ordinance has been operative 'long since' (ede
pro pollou): given the successive revolts and civil war in which
Egypt has been embroiled (Macrianus and Quietus, Aemilianus [260-261])
the ordinance has not yet been effective there. The Egyptian bishops now
have a document guaranteeing their (delayed) rights--and Eusebius has a
copy of a further imperial response, assisting bishops in the recovery
of their (confiscated) burial grounds.
It is possible to make too much of Gallienus' ordinance: in strict legality
Christians are now only back to where they were before Valerian's orders
were issued--that is, they are still potentially liable, qua Christians,
to fall foul of the law. But in revoking those earlier orders, by the very
act of having positively to permit unmolested Christian worship, Gallienus
was in effect also conceding a major degree of official toleration: some
forty years of relative peace follow from this significant move. To those
minds inclined to read the events of 257-260 theologically the Christians'
god may now have appeared to be a god of vengeful power--to be treated
with due caution.
For the full decade that effective toleration appears basically to have
held, so far as our knowledge goes--apart from the case of the soldier
Marinus of Caesarea (Pal.)[50]--until under Aurelian (270-275) there was
a strong and persistent rumour (Eusebius and Lactantius are both reporting
within their youthful personal experience) that the emperor was intending
to initiate a persecution, an intention thwarted at the very last moment
by the emperor's death (275). (Lactantius de mort. pers. 6.2 dramatically
has the letters to governors issued but not yet reaching the more distant
provinces, Eusebius H.E. 7.30.21 has the hand of the Divine Justice
staying the emperor's arm as he is about to pen his signature to the decrees!).
Unfulfilled rumours are by nature unverifiable and all we can say is that
it would not have been out of character for Aurelian to have thought, and
planned, like a Valerian before him--or, eventually, a Diocletian and a
Galerius after him. (Constantine, Oratio 25, can later rank Aurelian
with Decius and Valerian as persecutors who deservedly met with miserable
deaths).
In the (earlier) dispute over the church house at Antioch--did it belong
to the (new deposed) Paul of Samosata or to the (newly installed) Domnus?--no
doubt the petition to Aurelian by the party of Domnus appealed to the ordinance
of Gallienus, an imperial predecessor, allowing bishops unmolested access
to their places of worship (Euseb. H.E. 7.30.19 cf. H.E.
7.13). Aurelian assigned the building 'to those with whomsoever the bishops
of the doctrine [tou dogmatos] in Italy and Rome were in communication'.[51]
From our perception it marks a significant moment: the realities of the
civil place of the Christian churches within the social organisation of
the empire are being officially recognized--and a presage set for Constantine
forty years later in his dealings with the Donatists. But for contemporaries,
with a growing church now a familiar, if still minor, presence in most
communities (especially urban), the significance may not have been visible:
the civil place of the churches had simply long been a social reality.
THE GREAT PERSECUTION
Mani (b. 216) and his disciple missionaries, the narrow band of high-achieving
'Elect' and their devoted faithful, the 'Hearers', had in the course of
the third century made remarkable proselytizing progress both inside and
outside the permeable boundaries of the Roman world, especially in the
Eastern Empire. Violently outspoken opposition had come both from the Christian
orthodox (as well as from pagan philosophers) from within the Empire[52]
as also from inside the Persian Empire, from zealous Zoroastrian clergy,
led by the Magian official Kartir, with not only Mani himself (d. 276)
and his followers but orthodox Christians as well persecuted.[53] In (very
probably) late March 302 Diocletian replied from Alexandria to an anxious
inquiry and report (sollertia tua serenitati nostrae retulit) forwarded
by the proconsul of Africa concerning these upstart Manichees. Not only
the ferociousness of the measures to extirpate the infectious poison but
the grandiloquent preamble on the religious, moral and political grounds
(typically, not disaggregated) for leaving traditional religion peacefully
undisturbed are highly revealing of the temper and the thinking current
in the imperial court.
We have heard that the Manichaeans, concerning whom your Conscientiousness [sollertia tua] has reported to our Serenity [serenitas nostra], have set up new and hitherto unheard of sects in opposition to the older creeds so that they might cast out the doctrines vouchsafed to us in the past by divine favour, for the benefit of their own depraved doctrine. They have sprung forth very recently like novel and unexpected monstrosities from the race of the Persians--a nation hostile to us--and have made their way into our empire, where they are committing many outrages, disturbing the tranquillity of the people and even inflicting grave harm on the civic communities [civitates]: our fear is that with the passage of time, they will endeavour, as usually happens, to infect the modest and tranquil Roman race, people of an innocent nature, and our whole empire with the damnable customs [consuetudines] and the perverse laws [leges] of the Persians as with the poison of a malignant serpent.
(Mos. et Rom. Legum Collatio XV. III 3f.)
Whilst the Persian connexion is clearly a major determining factor in
Diocletian's reaction, the preceding paragraphs make plain that his fundamental
objection is to the sacrilegious disturbance of what has been established
since antiquity (quae semel ab antiquis statuta et definita), laid
down by the immortal gods for the benefit of mankind: "ancient religion
ought not to be criticized by a new-fangled one" (neque reprehendi a
nova vetus religio deberet). The vulnerability of Christianity to this
enunciated line of thinking is obvious, and the savage measures enjoined
should have given Christians pause, however hateful to them may have been
the 'heresy' now under attack:
We order the authors and leaders of the sect [=the Elect], to be subjected to a very severe penalty, namely, to be incinerated in fiery flames, along with their abominable scriptures: but their followers [=the Hearers], who are persistently obstinate we order to be punished with death, and we ordain that their property be confiscated to our treasury. If any persons of the official classes, or of any rank, no matter what, or of superior status (si qui sane etiam honorati aut cuiuslibet dignitatis ve1 maiores personae), have betaken themselves to this unheard of, base, and utterly infamous sect, to this doctrine of the Persians, you will see that their property is attached to our treasury and that they are themselves committed to the mines of Phaeno or Proconnesus. In order that this abomination of wickedness be rooted out completely from our most blessed age, your Devotion will not delay to obey with all haste the orders and regulations of our Tranquillity.[54]
Mos. et Rom Legum Collatio XV. III. 6-8.
Christian apprehensions at this harsh treatment of what would have been
seen by many as simply yet another variant of a Christians sect were no
doubt exacerbated by the fact that it was only a year or two before (in
all likelihood)[55] that the Emperors Diocletian and Galerius had become
infuriated at repeated failures during the taking of the sacred auspices:
this was put down to the malign effect of Christians present, making the
sign of the cross on their foreheads. In enraged reaction, not only those
attending the rites but all serving in the palace were required to sacrifice
(on pain of flogging) and letters were then despatched to the army commanders
requiring their soldiers to sacrifice (on pain of dismissal). The eastern
imperial courts and the soldiers who served under their auspices were being
purged of the offending Christians.[56] Forty years of relative peace since
the toleration of Gallienus were coming to an end.[57] But this imperial
mood of moral and religious outrage, combined with a passion for disciplined
conformity, was no sudden novelty. A few years previously, for example,
in 295, an edict was issued from Damascus[58] on the moral offence of incestuous
marriages within degrees of kindred long forbidden by ancient Roman law,
marriages roundly declared to be a sacrilegious abomination and a barbarian
savagery by which men 'plunged into illicit unions with promiscuous lust
no better than cattle and wild beasts without a thought for morality and
piety'. The preamble didactically insists that it is the strict duty of
the pious and religious emperors to venerate and preserve the chaste and
sacred precepts of Roman law: 'For there can be no doubt that the immortal
gods themselves will favour and be at peace with the Roman name, as they
have always been in the past, if we have seen to it that all subject to
our rule entirely lead a pious, religious, peaceable and chaste life in
every respect'. And the edict concludes, declaring 'Our laws protect only
what is holy and venerable, and accordingly the Roman majesty has attained
to so great a plenitude by the favour of all the divine powers, for it
has wisely entwined about all its laws with the bonds of piety and the
observance of morality'.[59] The logic of this thinking, with its appeal
to antiquity and religious uniformity--and prosperity, could be ominously
turned against adherents of any deviant 'barbarian superstition'. But whereas
it had been feasible for Roman authorities any time over the preceding
forty years to draw the logical conclusions from these premises, it requires
an explanation why it was eventually now, on February 23, 303 that the
Empire was plunged, by stages-- but by no means uniformly nor continuously--into
a bloody decade of turmoil involving horrifying human pain and suffering
as the 'Great Persecution' against the Christians got under way. After
all, the senior Augustus, Diocletian, had been in power now some eighteen
years.
Both Lactantius and Eusebius (even more unequivocally) make Galerius,
the Caesar in the east, the originator and author of the deviation in policy.
Eusebius' version is without nuance (eg. H.E. 8.8.4, 16.2; 8 App.
1, 2), whereas Lactantius has a (maliciously slanted but basically credible)
account of lengthy secret debates between Diocletian and Galerius (by nature,
beyond documentation) during the winter months of 302/3, along with systematic
consultation of court amici and advisers, civil and military,--as
well as pagan intellectuals hostile to Christianity (eg. the anonymous
philosopher of D.I. 5.2.3ff., Sossianus Hierocles, de mort. pers.
16.4, D.I. 5.2.12ff., 3.22), with a reluctant Diocletian ultimately
overpersuaded by an oracular response from Apollo of Didyma (de mort.
pers. 11.3ff., cf. 31.1). All we are able to say is that Lactantius,
as eye-witness in Nicomedia, reflects informed rumour current at the time:
it is about as close as we can hope to get. And it is the virtue of his
version that the final decision is still made to lie with Diocletian, pressured
though he may well have been by the ferocious Galerius.[60] A power struggle
between a tiring Diocletian and his more junior colleague, the Caesar Galerius,
centred on a policy issue in which Diocletian was inextricably entangled
by the logic of his own premises makes realistic sense.[61] The inherent
weakness of Roman polytheism--pluralistic, fluid, assimilative, permeable--to
maintain a consistent long-term policy was once more revealed.
On February 24, 303 the first edict against the Christians was posted
up in Nicomedia, the current imperial residence in the East. The previous
day the edict had been issued and, symbolically, the church building in
Nicomedia, on high ground in view of the imperial palace, was searched
for its scriptures (which were burned), plundered of its valuables and
then razed to the ground. The terms of the edict now posted enjoined, inter
alia, that church buildings everywhere were to be destroyed, that the
scriptures and liturgical books should be burned and church plate and other
valuables confiscated, that Christians who enjoyed social status or juridical
privileges should be reduced to the status of humiliores (and be
liable to torture), that litigants (including Christians) be required to
offer sacrifice before any legal action was heard, and that Christian (?
imperial) freedmen, if recalcitrant, should be re-enslaved.[62]
By spring 303 the edict was posted in Palestine, by early June it was
already in operation in Africa.[63] The penalties for infringement were
probably not specified: there were adequate precedents for governors to
choose from for defiance of imperial orders and whilst Lactantius can report
that Diocletian prevailed in 'ordering that the business be carried out
without bloodshed' (de mort. pers. 11.8), this clearly would not
prevent the exercise of the death penalty, at their discretion, when judges
came to deal with any recusant. Not only were the Caesars to be seen putting
their own households in order:[64] corporate church organization was under
attack and, typically, the public presence of the church was to be erased
whether in physical terms or in terms of the socially prominent. Whilst
creating a tense atmosphere of peril and undoubted anxiety this edict still
left the church rank and file, being humiliores, not directly threatened
unless involved in litigation, and even then various forms of evasion,
ranging from the use of proxies to bribery, were time-honoured recources
available.[65]
This first edict was put into operation in both halves of the Empire,
although in Constantius' sphere (Britain, the Gauls) Lactantius insists
that at most church buildings were destroyed and even this is explicitly
denied by Eusebius.[66] Apologetic bias aside, Constantius could well have
had little sympathy for the operation, an initiative of his eastern colleagues,
Lact. de mort. pers. 15.6 (likewise, there were governors later
who could boast not having shed any Christian blood, Lact. D.I.
5.11.13). But there is no doubt about the effects in the territory of Constantius'
western senior colleague, Maximian: in Rome (Pope Marcellinus was a traditor,
or even worse),[67] in Sicily (Acta Eupli, at Catania on August
12, 304),[68] in Spain (reflected in Counc. Elvira can. 1-4) and
above all, in Africa. As the handing over of the sacred scriptures for
destruction (traditio) was regarded in the West as a most heinous
sin, the post-persecution witch-hunts, especially prompted by the rigorist
Donatists in Africa, have provided us with invaluable vignettes of the
implementation of this edict. Thus the Gesta apud Zenophilum reveal
the search made in Cirta on May 19, 303, not only of the church house (and
an inventory made of its plate and numerous chattels) but also of the houses
of the seven readers, confiscating all scriptures there found or surrendered
(C.S.E.L. 26.186ff.). The Acta Purgationis Felicis clear Felix of
Aptungi of charges of surrendering or burning the scriptures (C.S.E.L.
26.203f.), the Acts of the Council of Cirta, March 4, 305 (Aug. Contra
Cresc. iii. 27.30) disclose varieties of evasion (Donatus of Calama
surrendering medical codices, Victor of Rustica four illegible gospels,
Marinus of Aquae Tibilitanae some papers (cartulas) but not the
scriptural codices) whereas Mensurinus could claim surrendering
to the flames only heretical works (quaecumque reproba scripta haereticorum:
Aug. Brev. Coll. iii. 13.25). The Acta Felicis show what
might ensue when the bishop (in this case, of Tibiuca) refused to surrender:
Felix was beheaded on July 15, 303 in Carthage: similarly Secundus bishop
of Numidian Tigisis can mention the many martyrs who ' have been crowned
because they did not surrender' (Aug. Contra Cresc. iii 27.30, cf.
Brev. Coll. iii 13.25, 15.27). This was certainly no idle affair.
Nevertheless it has to be emphasized that when Constantius succeeded
Maximian as Augustus in 305, all active persecution ceased in the West.
The persecution had lasted 'less than two years'[69] and deaths securely
known (as opposed to later legend) are not many.[70] The following year
(306) saw the actual recovery of church property and full freedom for Christians
under Constantine in Britain, the Gauls and Spain (so Lact. de mort.
pers. 24.9 asserts); whereas in the territory under Maxentius' control
(Italy, Africa) Christians, though tolerated (Euseb. H.E. 8.14.1,
Optatus 1.18), had to wait a further five years until their properties
were restored (311: Aug. Brev. Coll. iii. 18.34) in a last-minute
bid by Maxentius to woo Christian support.[71] It is clear that, even so,
this restoration had not been fully enforced by the time of the victory
of the Milvian Bridge (Oct. 28, 312)--as the letter of Constantine to Anullinus,
proconsul of Africa, dated to the early months of 313 reveals (Euseb. H.E.
10.5. 15ff). For all these years Christians would have had to pass by their
places of assembly seeing them in ruins and live with an uncertain future
(spine-chilling accounts reaching them of events in the east which could
equally well befall them also). The persecution had bequeathed, meantime,
a rich legacy of disarray and disaccord, especially in Rome and North Africa,
over disputed penitential régimes, elections and consecrations.
But the 'Great Persecution' proved in the end to be no long-lasting bloody
affair for the western empire.
Not so in the east. The violent reaction to the treasonable tearing
down by a Christian protestor (Euethius) of the edict posted in Nicomedia
on February 24, 303 (Lact. de mort. pers. 13.2f., Euseb. H.E.
8.5) and the savage reprisals that followed the two outbreaks of fire in
the imperial palace in Nicomedia shortly afterwards, with a violent purge
of Christian civil servants, eunuchs and slaves in the imperial service,
set the contrasting tone, especially in the immediate environment of the
emperors (Diocletian being active in conducting trials personally, Lact.
de mort. pers. 14.3f., 15.1f., Euseb. H.E. 8.6--Dorotheus,
Gorgonius and Peter being named: cf. Oratio ad sanctos 25).
But it is well to remember that whilst deaths with appalling suffering
and tortures are a horrifying aspect of our received accounts of these
persecutions, especially in the east, such savage legal treatment was not
exclusive to Christian prisoners: it is simply one undeniable and brutal
fact of the late Roman régime of law.
'Soon afterwards' was issued a follow-up edict (? i.e. spring, 303),
an imperial order (prostagma basilikon) to arrest and imprison church
leaders everywhere (Euseb. H.E. 8.6.8f., M.P. 1 praef.;
cf Lact. de mort. pers. 15.2). The sequel indicates that this could
include anyone of clerical rank: this was a logical extension of the aim
to attack corporate church organization and to erase the public presence
of the church--as Valerian earlier had aimed to do. No evidence compels
us to believe that this order was distributed to the western empire: it
applied to the eastern only.
A further imperial letter (grammata) followed, as prisons became
overcrowded, requiring Christians so arrested to sacrifice (and secure
release) with tortures applied to those who resisted (Euseb. H.E.
8.6.10, cf. 8.2.5., M.P. praef.). Every form of physical
coercion was used to create recusants, at least in form, and thus to clear
the gaols--as well as honour the gods (Euseb. H.E. 8.3, M.P.(S)
1. 3-5).[72] Deaths were accordingly rare (cf M.P. 1.4f.: in Palestine
the deacon Zacchaeus and the reader and exorcist Alphaeus). Was this intended
to be by way of a celebratory amnesty in anticipation of Diocletian's vicennalia
(in late 303)? Despite Euseb. H.E. 8.6.10 ('how could one here number
the multitude of the martyrs in each province and especially those in Africa
and Mauretania...') this order, like its immediate predecessor, appears
to have been applied in the east only.
In the second year of the persecution (304/5) and very probably in the
early months of 304,[73] Eusebius reports that an imperial letter reached
Palestine, a universal order (katholikon prostagma) requiring entire
civic communities as a body to sacrifice (Euseb. M.P. 3.1: reflected
in Lact. de mort. pers. 15.4). No doubt, as was the experience with
similar orders earlier under Decius, enforcement was haphazard, particularly
given the lack of adequate civic registers, and many would have simply
made themselves scarce, escaping detection especially into more rural areas
or being hidden by pagan friends.[74] There was presumably, as was the
case in the parallel orders of Decius, a time-limit set for its enforcement.
The fourteen canons of Peter of Alexandria, a circular issued to Egyptian
bishops for Easter 306, appear to have been composed in the aftermath of
this new onslaught (and shortly before Maximinus repeated the exercise,
more efficiently, in his own diocese). This episcopal circular was written
in an endeavour to provide regulations over varieties of lapse, compromise
and evasion. Certificates could be issued, but not generally (as appears
to have been the case in Decius' orders), only as a means of protection
for their possessors against further molestation from enforcing officials
(see Peter of Alexandria, can. 5 PG 18. 473ff.). Nevertheless this
constituted outright repression of the Christian cult: defaulting Christians
(now lay as well as clerical) could find themselves liable to capital penalties
for failure to comply. The evidence is not compelling that this edict,
certainly issued throughout the east, was ever promulgated in the west:
if it was, it cannot have been enforced systematically.[75] There, the
Acta of Crispina (Theveste, Dec. 304) provide suspiciously isolated
testimony for such a major upheaval (the proconsul is made to claim, c.1.7:
omnis Africa sacrificia fecit nec tibi dubium est).
We can only speculate how Diocletian and Maximian may have regarded
their onslaught on Christianity at the time of their joint abdication on
1 May, 305: higher matters of state, other than religious, will certainly
have preoccupied their attention. But from their perception they would
have seen the churches wiped from the landscape, the Christian leadership
and organization broken, their revered texts destroyed, their followers
cleared from the army and the imperial service, and many satisfying defections
from all Christian ranks to the 'Roman gods' (Euseb. H.E. 8.3.1
reckoning defections as 'countless' [myrioi])--leaving still no
doubt some unimportant but inevitable fanatical Christian diehards. That
may have been the view from the eminence of the imperial courts: it need
not have been sympathetically shared either by all of the governing classes
or urban elites let alone the general population (popular hostility being
noticeably infrequent, with Gaza providing a rarely attested exception
in Euseb. M.P. 3.1 (L) [304]).
Whilst the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian (1 May, 305) set in
train events in the west that led ultimately to the triumphant liberation
of Christians, leaving them free to court imperial patronage--and to foment
quarrels, it was otherwise in the east. The newly appointed Caesar of the
diocese of Oriens, Maximinus, promptly revealed his personal hostility
towards Christianity by launching in 306 a vigorous onslaught, in a positive
drive to reach down to the level of the general population and exploiting
systematically freshly completed and detailed census rolls.[76] His orders
(by grammata) required city magistrates to compel the whole population
(men, women and children) together to make sacrifice and pour libation.[77]
No doubt, as before, many Christians managed to evade the demands, especially
in districts outside the major civitates; and it is a reasonable
assumption that this (far more efficient) variation of the Fourth Edict
was also issued in the territory of Galerius (the Danubian provinces and
Greece, the diocese of Asiana and Pontica): it does, however, go unmentioned
by Lactantius. At all events, the previously issued edicts against the
Christians were still to be in force there for a further five years, and
Eusebius accuses Galerius of relentlessly pressing on with the persecution
of Christians (H.E. 8.14.9ff.).
Certainly in Maximinus' own territory the pressure for religious conformity
continued: the narrative of Eusebius over the years 306-308 can record
for Palestine gruesome martyrdoms for every years under the governorships
of Urbanus and then of Firmilianus (M.P. 4-8). Eusebius then records
'a short relief and calm' from persecution--including release of confessors
condemned to working in the mines of the Thebaid M.P. 9.1(S) (lasting,
it would appear, from summer 308 until autumn 309--whilst Maximinus was
embroiled in imperial politics),[78] only to be broken without warning
by further orders sent down by Maximinus through praetorian prefect and
provincial governors to the city magistrates both to repair pagan temples
and to enforce mass sacrifice (once again) by the entire population: additionally,
items for sale at the markets were to be sprinkled with the blood and libations
from sacrifices and those entering the baths were similarly to be ritually
sprinkled (M.P. 9.2). In a valuable aside Eusebius remarks that
even the heathens regarded these latter, provocative, measures as 'harsh
and unnecessary' (M.P. 9.3). Reluctant city officials, away from
the immediate environment of the Caesar, could go far in thwarting even
the imperial will. Nevertheless Eusebius can go on to record (M.P.
9.4-13.10) a whole series of martyrdoms culminating in the horrific scene
of May 4, 311 when Silvanus bishop of Gaza, along with thirty-nine other
confessors (deemed too old or infirm to continue working usefully in the
copper mines of Phaeno) were executed by decapitation on a single day.
Persecution then ceased, for a few days earlier (posted at Nicomedia
on 30 April, 311) the dying emperor Galerius in the name of all his imperial
colleagues (including Maximinus)[79] had issued a proclamation, couched
in the form of a letter, ending persecution, allowing Christians a legal
existence and the right of assembly, at the same time encouraging all men
to worship the gods in the interests of the state. With this, prisons were
opened, those condemned to the mines were released and confessors freed
(Euseb. H.E. 9.1.7ff., Lact. de mort. pers. 35.2). Persecution
appeared everywhere now to be, joyously, at an end.
'Among all the other arrangements which we are always making for the advantage and benefit of the state, we had earlier sought to set everything right in accordance with the ancient laws and public discipline of the Romans and to ensure that the Christians too, who had abandoned the way of life of their ancestors, should return to a sound frame of mind; for in some way such self-will had come upon these same Christians, such folly had taken hold of them, that they no longer followed those usages of the ancients which their own ancestors perhaps had first instituted, but, simply following their own judgement and pleasure, they were making up for themselves the laws which they were to observe and were gathering various groups of people together in different places. When finally our order was published that they should betake themselves to the practices of the ancients, many were subjected to danger, many too were struck down. Very many, however, persisted in their determination and we saw that these same people were neither offering worship and due religious observance to the gods nor practising the worship of the god of the Christians. Bearing in mind therefore our own most gentle clemency and our perpetual habit of showing indulgent pardon to all men, we have taken the view that in the case of these people too we should extend our speediest indulgence, so that once more they may be Christians and put together their meeting-places [conventicula sua componant], provided they do nothing to disturb good order. We are moreover about to indicate in another letter to governors what conditions they ought to observe. Consequently, in accordance with this indulgence of ours, it will be their duty to pray to their god for our safety and for that of the state and themselves, so that from every side the state may be kept unharmed and they may be able to live free of care in their own homes.'
(Lact. de mort. pers. 34, trans. J.L. Creed)[80]
These dying words of Galerius underline clearly the theological thinking
on which the persecution has been based and the civic duties inextricably
associated in this thinking with traditional religion--along with a somewhat
reluctant acknowledgement of the existence of the Christians' god and of
the failure of the programme of persecution of that god's followers. The
grudging tone is clear--nothing is said about the restoration of confiscated
church properties.[81] But the unequivocal legitimization of the practice
of Christianity by the senior Augustus is a landmark. Henceforth from the
Balkans and the Danubian provinces westwards the Roman Empire was released
from persecution of Christians.
Here it would be well to pause and consider some of the implications of Eusebius' invaluable Martyrs of Palestine, his account of the Christian heroes of just one province up to this date of 311. The bald statistics first. There are cited ninety-one victims in Palestine itself over the years 303-311, thirteen of whom were condemned in 303-5 before the abdication of Diocletian,[82] and forty-four altogether in the last year (310/311) of the persecution under the military dux at the Phaeno mines. That leaves thirty-four deaths recorded over the years 306-310 (including the year's respite 308/9).[83] If one subtracts from the total of ninety-one the forty-four victims from the mines in 310-311, the remainder is four-seven and of these Eusebius' narrative reveals that some thirty-one either provocatively drew attention to themselves or volunteered themselves outright to the authorities. The authorities cannot be said to have been over-officious in seeking out the remaining sixteen. Even so Palestinian Christians may have been unlucky in their governors: Urbanus and then (even worse) Firmilianus are luridly depicted as virulent in their eager pursuit and punishment of Christians and it must be significant that Eusebius can report (after the last martyrdom at Caesarea on 7 March, 310) that 'affairs had taken a quieter and more peaceful turn' in the province until the edict of toleration of Galerius became known (M.P. 13.1(S)): that would have coincided with the departure of Firmilianus and the regime of a replacement governor (Valentinianus, PLRE 1.932). In addition Palestine was the recipient of many confessors from Egypt, sent to labour in the mines and quarries of Palestine:[84] these certainly helped to swell unusually the numbers of the victims put to death in Palestine, especially in the massacre of the confessors in the Phaeno mines (some two-thirds of the thirty-nine unnamed victims are more likely than not actually to have been Egyptian). That consideration would reduce the total of strictly Palestinian numbers by some twenty-six to (approximately) sixty-five over a total of some eight years, an average of eight martyrs per year. (Even so this latter computation still includes ten Egyptians martyred in earlier years in Palestine).
That constitutes our best statistical guide to actual deaths in one
province as some sort of model for elsewhere in the east. But other governors
may have been even more vigorous in their pursuit of Christians[85]--and
the presence of the imperial court, whenever it progressed, undoubtedly
stimulated action in its immediate environment. And there is one important
caveat to make on Eusebius' own figures. He is not necessarily giving
the full tally but recording for posterity those with whom he was personally
conversant:[86]
It is meet, then, that the conflicts which were illustrious in various districts should be committed to writing by those who dwelt with the combatants in their districts. But for me, I pray that I may be able to speak of those with whom I was personally conversant, and that they may associate me with them--those in whom the whole people of Palestine glories, because even in the midst of our land, the Saviour of all men arose like a thirst-quenching spring. The contests, then, of those illustrious champions I shall relate for the general instruction and profit.
(M.P. (L) Pref. 8, cf. H.E. 8.13.7)
Indeed, the narrative at various points casually discloses unnamed (and
unnumbered) companions of confessors and martyrs (presumably not personally
known to Eusebius), for example, M.P.(L) 1.1 (companions of Procopius,
sent from Scythopolis to Caesarea), 3.3(L) ('Agapius and his companions'),
7.1(L) (unnamed confessors on trial, approached by Theodosia of Tyre),
8.4(L) (unnamed Christians from Gaza and their companions, mutilated) etc.
We cannot, therefore, be in any way certain that even for Palestine we
have fully reliable statistics as some yardstick. Yet even these brute
statistics go nowhere in reflecting the human suffering of confessors,
enduring long years detained in the vile conditions of Roman prisons, the
irregular bouts of gruesome tortures, young girls sent to brothels, the
systematic maiming of batches of men, women, and children condemned to
the notorious drudgery and danger of Roman mines, some young men castrated,
most others with one leg hamstrung and one eye gouged out and cauterized
with branding irons--not to mention the mental anguish both of those who
had succumbed to apostasy as well as of those who contrived to continue
to escape detection. The 'Great Persecution' amounts to more than the simple
tally of the martyred dead.[87]
Eusebius reports that peace for Christians in the territory of Maximinus
(now significantly enhanced to include the diocese of Asiana and Pontica)
held for less than six full months (H.E. 9.2.1). In his later apologia
(December 312), Maximinus claims that he 'gave orders to each of the
judges that none of them in future was to deal harshly with the provincials'
(ap. Euseb. H.E. 9.9a.2) but the orders that he did issue
via his practorian prefect Sabinus (ap. Euseb. H.E.
9.1.3ff.) failed, crucially, to allow Christians specifically rights of
assembly (and of rebuilding churches) and customary ritual action (as the
palinode of Galerius had importantly legitimated). The first breakdown
of formal peace came with orders forbidding Christians to assemble in their
cemeteries (Euseb. H.E. 9.2.1: autumn 311) and was soon followed
by a concerted attack on prominent church figures (eg. Peter of Alexandria,
beheaded Nov. 26, 311 and 'many others of the Egyptian bishops', Euseb.
H.E. 9.6.2, cf. 7.32.31, 8.13.7; Lucian of Antioch, executed in
Nicomedia Jan. 7, 312, Euseb. H.E. 9.6.3, cf. 8.13.2), whilst Lactantius
claims that Maximinus rather ordered confessors to have 'their eyes gouged
out, their hands cut off, their feet amputated, their noses or ears severed'
(de mort. pers. 36.7).
Meantime cities throughout the east were encouraged (so our sources
declare, Lact. de mort. pers. 36.3, Euseb. H.E. 9.2.1, 9.4.1f.)
to petition the Emperor for special permission (and rewards) for expelling
Christians from their territory, a process Maximinus defends in his apologia
(ap. Euseb. H.E. 9.9a.6). Before long, bronze tablets
recording these petitions along with the imperial reply were being loyally
set up on display throughout the eastern cities--revealing the strength
of polytheistic piety (and/or political opportunism) among the urban elites
(Euseb. H.E. 9.7.1): Antioch (Euseb. H.E. 9.2.1); Nicomedia
(ap. Euseb. 9.9a.6: initially declined on the grounds of the number
of Christians dwelling there, ap. Euseb. 9.9a.4); Arycanda in Lycia
(a result of the petition of the province of Lycia and Pamphylia), TAM
2.3.785; Colbasa in Pisidia (April 6, 312);[88] Eusebius quotes the text
for the city of Tyre (clearly a standardised one), H.E. 9.7.3ff.
This threat of permanent exclusion of Christians from their home cities
(where they would be well known) had the potential to affect more deeply
Christians' lives than many of the previous measures (which their survival
clearly shows could be successfully negotiated one way or another), cf.
Euseb. H.E. 9.7.15. This process was accompanied by a positive encouragement
of polytheistic cults and priesthoods (Lact. de mort. pers. 36.4f.,
Euseb. H.E. 9.4.2) along with a sustained propaganda warfare against
Christianity (imperial distribution of copies of the scandalous Acts of
Pilate and of the (false) accounts by prostitutes of Damascus of Christian
orgies, Euseb. H.E. 9.5.1f.).
Some of the words of Maximinus' response to these petitions are worth
quoting as a remarkable theological statement of pagan piety:
For all these evils [= war, plague, tempest, earthquake], and evils even more terrible, have happened many a time before this, as everyone knows. And all these things happened at once because of the baneful error and vain folly of those unhallowed men [= Christians] when that error took possession of their souls, and, one might almost say, oppressed the whole world everywhere with its deeds of shame.... Let them behold in the broad plains the crops already ripe with waving ears of corn, the meadows, thanks to opportune rains, brilliant with plants and flowers, and the weather that has been granted us temperate and very mild; further, let all rejoice since through our piety, through the sacrifices and veneration we have rendered, the most powerful and intractable air has been propitiated, and let them take pleasure in that they therefore enjoy the most serene peace securely and in quiet. And let as many as have been wholly rescued from that blind folly and error and returned to a right and goodly frame of mind rejoice indeed the more, as if they were delivered from an unexpected hurricane or severe illness and were reaping life's sweet enjoyment for the future. But if they persist in their accursed folly, let them be separated and driven far away from your city and neighbourhood, even as you requested; that so, in accordance with your praiseworthy zeal in this respect, your city may be separated from all pollution and impiety, and, following its natural desire, may respond with due reverence to the worship of the immortal gods.
(ap. Euseb. H.E. 9.7.9ff., trans J.E.L. Oulton)
Ironically, this response, delivered to Tyre in (?) summer 312, was
accompanied by a year marked by drought, famine, plague and then war (in
Armenia, where there were many Christians), Euseb. H.E. 9.8.1ff.
And by autumn of that year, after Constantine's defeat of Maxentius (October
28), Maximinus was informed of 'a most perfect law in the fullest terms
on behalf of the Christians' drawn up by Constantine and Licinius (so Euseb.
H.E. 9.9.12, cf. 9.9a.12 ['edicts and laws'], Lact. de mort.
pers. 37.1, 44.11f.). Maximinus, in false compliance, issued via his
practorian prefect to his governors in late 312 an apologetic account of
his previous treatment of Christians, reiterating his (claimed) toleration
of Christians ('if some desire to follow their own worship, you should
leave it in their own power'), ap. Euseb. H.E. 9.9a.1ff.
But, again, he crucially failed to specify for Christians rights of assembly
and practice of customary rituals and permission to erect church-buildings
(cf. Euseb. H.E. 9.9a.11). But the end was near, and in the spring
campaign the following year (313) between Licinius and Maximinus, defeat
shook Maximinus' faith in his pagan gods. 'Less than a whole year after
the ordinances against the Christians' were set up on the bronze tablets
in the eastern cities (Euseb. H.E. 9.10.12), Maximinus felt constrained
at last to issue a law unequivocally restoring full freedom to Christians,
along with restoration of property:[89]
That, therefore, for the future all suspicion or doubt arising from fear may be removed, we have decreed that this ordinance (diatagma) be published, so that it may be plain to all that those who desire to follow this sect and religious observance [i.e. Christianity] are permitted, in accordance with this our bounty, as each one wishes or finds it pleasing, to join in that religious observance which from choice he was wont to practise. And permission has also been granted them to build the Lord's houses. Nevertheless, that our bounty may be even greater, we have decided to decree this also: that if any houses or lands, which used formerly to belong by right to the Christians, have by the injunction of our parents passed into the right of the public treasury or have been seized by any city--whether a sale of these has taken place, or they have been handed over to anyone as a gift--we have given orders that all these be restored to the Christians as their original right, so that in this also all may perceive our piety and solicitude.
(Euseb. H.E. 9.10.10f., trans J.E.L. Oulton)
But it was, in a sense, too late. When the victorious Licinius entered
Nicomedia in June 313 he brought with him letters for the governors of
the eastern provinces, the terms of which had been drawn up in the meeting
held at Milan between Constantine and Licinius the preceding winter (February,
313), Lact. de mort. pers. 45.1, 48.2; these terms will reflect
the ordinances already applying in the west (including state compensation
for any who may suffer by the restoration of church properties, previously
confiscated). As this constitutes a major statement of the Constantinian
(and Licinian?) view (at the time) of the place of Christianity within
the Empire, it deserves to be quoted in full.[90]
'When I, Constantine Augustus, and I, Licinius Augustus, happily met at Milan and had under consideration all matters which concerned the public advantage and safety, we thought that, among all the other things that we saw would benefit the majority of men, the arrangements which above all needed to be made were those which ensured reverence for the Divinity, so that we might grant both to Christians and to all men freedom to follow whatever religion each one wished, in order that whatever divinity there is in the seat of heaven may be appeased and made propitious towards us and towards all who have been set under our power. We thought therefore that in accordance with salutary and most correct reasoning we ought to follow the policy of regarding this opportunity as one not to be denied to anyone at all, whether he wished to give his mind to the observances of the Christians or to that religion which he felt was most fitting to himself, so that the supreme Divinity, whose religion we obey with free minds, may be able to show in all matters His accustomed favour and benevolence towards us. For this reason we wish your Devotedness to know that we have resolved that, all the conditions which were contained in letters previously sent to your office about the Christian name being completely set aside, those measures should be repealed which seemed utterly inauspicious and foreign to our clemency, and that each individual one of those who share this same wish to observe the religion of the Christians should freely and straightforwardly hasten to do so without any anxiety or interference. We thought that this should be very fully communicated to your Solicitude, so that you should know that we have given a free and absolute permission to these same Christians to practise their religion. And when you perceive that this indulgence has been accorded by us to these people, your Devotedness understands that others too have been granted a similarly open and free permission to follow their own religion and worship as befits the peacefulness of our times, so that each man may have a free opportunity to engage in whatever worship he has chosen. This we have done to ensure that no cult or religion may seem to have been impaired by us.
'We have also decided that we should decree as follows about the Christians
as a body: if, during the period that has passed, any appear to have purchased
either from our treasury or from anyone else those places in which the
Christians had previously been accustomed to assemble, and about which
before now a definite rule had been laid down in the letters that were
sent to your office, they should now restore these same places to the Christians
without receiving any money for them or making any request for payment,
and without any question of obstruction or equivocation, those who received
such places as a gift should return them in the same way but the more speedily
to these same Christians; both those who bought them and those who received
them as gifts should, if they seek something from our benevolence, make
a request of the deputy for their interests to be consulted by our clemency.
All these places must forthwith be handed over to the body of the Christians
through your intervention and without any delay.
'And since these same Christians are known to have possessed not only the places in which they had the habit of assembling but other property too which belongs by right to their body--that is, to the churches not to individuals--you will order all this property, in accordance with the law which we have explained above, to be given back without any equivocation or dispute at all to these same Christians, that is to their body and assemblies, preserving always the principle stated above, that those who restore this same property as we have enjoined without receiving a price for it may hope to secure indemnity from our benevolence. In all these matters you will be bound to offer the aforesaid body of Christians your most effective support so that our instructions can be the more rapidly carried out and the interests of public tranquillity thereby served in this matter too by our clemency. In this way it will come about, as we have explained above, that the divine favour towards us, which we have experienced in such important matters, will continue for all time to prosper our achievements along with the public well-being. Furthermore, so that the character of this ordinance and of our benevolence can be brought to the knowledge of all, it will be desirable for you to publish this document everywhere above a proclamation of your own, and to convey it to the attention of everyone, so that the ordaining of this benevolence of ours cannot remain hidden.'
(Lact. de mort. pers. 48.2ff., trans J.L. Creed)
When this was posted in Nicomedia on June 13, 313, ten years of persecution
effectively came to an end. This letter not unskilfully negotiates the
tensions between, on the one hand, individual civil rights ('freedom of
worship') and, on the other, traditional civic duties (the obligation to
cultivate the divine power for the benefit of the state), a tension which
underlay throughout the preceding century the clash between polytheistic
state authorities supported by many of the civic-minded elite, and monotheistic
Christian individuals. That tension now seemed to be resolved--for the
moment. But for the future, an unresolvable factor remained--the exclusivity
of Christianity.
But the shared theological viewpoint of the victorious Constantine and
of the defeated Maximinus also hardly needs emphasizing: for both, divine
power manifested itself in the daily events of history, and the potency,
favour or disfavour of their divine champion could be read directly and
unambiguously from those events. And in the aftermath the victorious side
appears to have behaved no differently from what we could have anticipated
from Maximinus. There was a purge of potential political and dynastic rivals
and of Maximinus' close followers--and former persecutors (religion and
politics being, characteristically, inseparable), victims including the
notorious persecutors Culcianus (Euseb. H.E. 9.11.4) and Firmilianus
(Euseb. M.P.(S) 11.31), the widows of the persecutors Galerius and
Diocletian (Lact. de mort. pers. 50f.), the wife of Maximinus (drowned
in the same river Orontes into which she had ordered Christian women to
be thrown), Lact. de mort. pers. 50.6, the pagan prophet Theotecnus
of Antioch and his associates, Euseb. H.E. 9.2f., 9.11.5f., P.E.
4.2.10f., even, it would appear, down to the priest of Apollo responsible
for the oracle that had ultimately swayed Diocletian to initiate persecution,
Euseb. P.E. 4.2.11. And, correspondingly, rewards, privileges and
favours began to be bestowed liberally on the ministers of the godhead
responsible for the benefits of victory--just as Maximinus himself might
well have done in different circumstances.
Licinius now established in the East was no rabid polytheist--but he
has far from being a militant Christian either. It would appear that in
his uneasy attempts over the succeeding years to compromise between contradictory
pressures in religious policy he fatally yielded sufficient ground to allow
himself credibly to be represented as an opponent of Christianity whose
liberation from fear and intimidation Constantine could champion. Eventually
(in suspicion of Christian disloyalty?) he purged his palace of Christians,
and 'the soldiers in the cities' (= imperial civil service) were to forfeit
rank if they persisted as Christians (Euseb. H.E. 10.8.10, V.C.
1.52, 1.54, cf. 2.20, 2.33). Later, 'in the final stage of his madness'
(Euseb. H.E. 10.8.14) he provocatively harassed bishops, restricting
visits to fellow bishops and forbidding synods and councils of bishops
to convene (Euseb. V.C. 1.51) and requiring congregational meetings
to be held outdoors, outside the city gates (Euseb. V.C. 1.53);
Christian women were to receive instruction from women only and were to
worship separately from men (Euseb. V.C. 1.53) and Licinius cancelled
exemption from liturgies and tax privileges (granted to Christian clerics),
Euseb. V.C. 2.20, 2.30. If this series of harassing measures was
not enough, one provincial governor went so far as to put to death the
bishop of Amaseia and punished other Pontic bishops, destroying or closing
churches there (Euseb. H.E. 10.8.14ff., V.C. 2.1f). Whatever
may have been the governor's motivation ('some of the bishops were plied
with penalties suitable for malefactors', Euseb. H.E. 10.8.17--were
they suspected of treasonable disloyalty?), all these actions certainly
provided Constantine with adequate propaganda grounds to launch a holy
crusade (in 324) to liberate Christians from what could be represented
as an immediate threat of widespread pagan persecution under Licinius (Euseb.
H.E. 10.8.18f., V.C. 2.2).
With victory won over Licinius, the victory of Christianity now seemed complete.
Notes
1. Lactantius D. I. 5.11.19:
recripta principum nefaria collegit ut doceret quibus poenis adfici
oporteret (from the seventh book of de officio proconsulis, composed
under early Caracalla).
2. Note also the anonymous Marcionite
woman, martyred in Caesarea (Pal.) under Valerian, Euseb H.E. 7.12,
and the Marcionite bishop Asclepius martyred also in Caesarea (Pal.) during
the Great Persecution, Euseb. M.P. 10.3 [309 A.D.], as well as the
condemned Thecla (who has Montanist companions in prison) M.P. 3.2
(L) [304 A.D.], cf.6.3.
3. Symptomatic of our incidental
knowledge are passing remarks made by Tertullian (ad Scap 3.4) in
a passage warning Scapula [212 A.D.] of the grim fate that awaits persecuting
governors: Claudius Lucius Herminianus (PIR2C888), angered at
his wife's conversion to Christianity, as governor of Cappadocia had cruelly
treated Christians and had succeeded in making some deny their faith through
torture. Likewise Tertullian implies by the remark attributed to Caecilius
Capella (partisan of Pescennius Niger) at the eventual fall of Byzantium
in 196 A.D. ('Christians rejoice') that Christians had been ill-treated
under his governorship there.
4. G. Bastiani, Lista dei Prefetti
d'Egitto dal 30a al 299p, ZPE 17 (1975), 304
ff. with Aggiunte et correzioni, ZPE 38 (1980), 85.
5. Tertullian's Scorpiace
could well be composed at this season when 'some Christians the fire has
tested, others the sword, others the beasts, whilst yet others are still
hungering in prison, having had in the meantime, through clubs and claws,
a foretaste of their martyrdom (c.1.11)': see T. D. Barnes, Tertullian's
Scorpiace, J.T.S.20 (1969), 105-132. On the Passion see the
study of Brent D. Shaw, The Passion of Perpetua, Past and Present
139 (May1993), 3-45.
6. Furthermore Severus, far from
inflicting harm on men and women of senatorial status [et clarissimas
feminas et clarissimos viros], knowing them to be of this persuasion,
actually bore distinguished testimony in their favour and publicly restored
them to us from out of the hands of a raging mob (populo furenti)',
ad Scap. 4.6.
7. See K. M. Swarte, Das angebliche
Christengezetz des Septimius Severus, Historia 12(1963), 185-208.
8. See R. Freudenberger, Der Anlass
zu Tertullians Schrift De corona militis, Historia 19(1970), 579-92.
9. For example, the legendary stories
of the deaths in Rome in 222 of pope Callistus (thrown down a well with
a stone tied to his neck), the aged Roman presbyter Calepodius (his body
thrown into the Tiber) and the Roman presbyter Asterius (hurled from a
bridge into the Tiber) are evidence, if genuine, of (on the face of it)
mob pogroms -- but attestation for them is late and untrustworthy (Acta
SS Octob.t.vi 439ff [acta], 410ff [discussion], L. Duchesne, Le
Liber Pontificalis, Paris, 1955, vol.1, xciif.).
10. Chron. min. vol.1, ed
Mommsen, 1892, 7ff. The later Liber Pontificalis has, unreliably,
Pontian die, beaten to death by clubs, in late October the same year, L.
Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis, Paris, 1955, 145f. (and discussion
xcivf.).
11. Compare the similar motivation
ascribed later to Decius (H.E. 6.39) after the alleged Christian
sympathies of his predecessor Philip (H.E. 6.34), and also Orac.
Sibyl. 13.87f ('And immediately there will be spoliation and
murder of the faithful because of the former king') with the commentary
(and text) of D.S. Potter, Prophecy and History in the Crisis of the
Roman Empire, Oxford, 1990, ad loc.
12. For commentary see The Letters
of St. Cyprian, vol 4 (=Ancient Christian Writers 47), New York, 1989,
263ff.
13. Origen in his commentary on Matt.
24.7 (GCS Origen 11.75, comm. ser. 39) has this personal
observation to make on the signs for the coming end of the world: "We have
personal knowledge (scimus autem et apud nos) of an earthquake
and destruction that occurred in certain areas. As a result, heathens without
the faith claimed Christians were to blame for the earthquake--hence churches
suffered persecution and were burnt--and even men who were considered wise
similarly claimed publicly that severe earthquakes occur because of the
Christians." It is perfectly feasible that Origen, the guest of Firmilian
in Cappadocia, is referring to these same events (hence we have the added
detail of the burning of churches).
14. Further discussion in Historia
15(1966), 445-453, A. Lippold, Maximinus Thrax und die Christen, Historia
24(1975), 479-492.
15. The stasis referred to
may well be that of T. Claudius Marinus Pacatianus, but there are other
candidates.
16. Lactantius also echoes the sentiment
that the persecution of Decius erupted unexpectedly after long peace: sed
et postea longa pax rupta est, de mort. persec. 3.5.
17. The earliest known victim is
the bishop of Rome, Fabian, who was dead by January 20, 250. (Lib. Pontif.
21--January 19; Mart. Hiero. XIII Kal. Feb.--January 20, PL 30.440).
Babylas, bishop of Antioch, died in prison (Euseb. H.E. 6.39.4):
his anniversary was usually celebrated on January 24 (AASS Nov. 2.2 (1931)
59f.)--but his death could have been in 251 rather than 250. Certainly
Dionysius ap. Euseb. H.E. 6.41.9 describes the edict as arriving
in Alexandria promptly after news of the change of imperial rulers.
18. In Ep. 55.2.1 Cyprian
uniquely describes in mitigation the renegade bishop Trofimus and his flock
as thurificati (i.e. offerers of incense) in contradistinction to
the more heinous sacrificati (i.e. offerers of sacrifice).
19. Thus Acta Pionii 8.4 (Polemon,
the temple verger, urges Pionios: 'Make sacrifice at least to the emperor'),
Acta Pionii 18.14 (the apostate bishop Euctemon swears by the emperor's
tyche that he is not a Christian).
20. The likely source of the popularly
held belief (which does not guarantee historical veracity) in Philip's
Christianity, reflected in Dionysius ap. Euseb. H.E. 7.10.3,
Euseb. H.E. 6.34, Orac. Sibyl. 13.88 (where see the commentary
of D.S. Potter, Prophecy and History in the Crisis of the Roman Empire,
Oxford, 1990, 267f.).
21. Thus in Alexandria a frumentarius
was despatched to seek out the bishop, Dionysius, the selfsame hour that
the imperial proclamation was issued by the prefect, Appius Sabinus, Dionys.
ap. Euseb. H.E. 6.40.2.
22. Act. Pionii 3.6, 4.2ff,
13f preserve a memory in which Jews could not have been molested in the
same way as were Christians. Would those Christians invited into the Jewish
synagogues be hoping for exemption from Decius' orders (Acta Pionii
13.1)? (Cf. Domnus, Euseb. H.E. 6.12).
23. See J.R. Knipfing, Harv. Theol.
Rev. 16 (1923) 345ff (editing forty-one): the further four are
published in PSI 778; J. Schwartz in Revue biblique 54(1947) 365ff.;
Oxy. Pap. 2990, 3929. The phraseology of the libelli is standardly
patterned: the petitioners declare that they had 'always and without interruption
sacrificed to the gods' and now in accordance with the edict's decree they
had 'made sacrifice and poured a libation and partaken of the sacred victims'.
24. In the Egyptian villages the
panels range, on our extant documents, from two commissioners plus a secretary
to a single local magistrate (prytanis); in Smyrna the commission
appears to have been composed of 'the temple steward Polemon and those
appointed with him' (Acta Pion. 3.1); in Spain Bishop Martialis
appeared before a procurator ducenarius, Cyp. Ep. 67.6.2.
In the large city of Carthage the examiners consisted of 'five prominent
citizens joined to the city magistrates', Cyp. Ep. 43.3.1 (quinque
primores ... magistratibus ... copulati) whereas in the
smaller African town of Capsa a single magistrate oversaw the operation,
Cyp. Ep. 56.1.1.
25. The nutrix of de Laps.
25 is as likely as not a slave. Sabina (Acta Pion. 9.3ff) was indeed
a slave--but, being a runaway, efforts were made to conceal her true identity.
Dionysius describes the numerous martyrs in Alexandria as comprising 'men
and women, both young men and old, both girls and aged women, both soldiers
and civilians, both every race and every age', ap. Euseb. H.E.
7.11.20. For the grounds for excluding slaves from the terms of the edict,
R. Selinger, Die Relgionspolitik des Kaisers Decius. Anatomie einer
Christenverfolgung, Frankfurt am Main, 1994, 105f.
26. Curiously, we do not hear of
soldiers confessors or martyrs (save the five voluntary martyrs at Alexandria,
ap. Euseb. H.E. 6.41.16, 22ff.)--neither are soldiers specified
in Valerian's Second Rescript at the end of the decade.
27. Two identical libelli
have survived for Aurelia Charis (Knipfing nos. 11, 26): one copy for the
municipal archives? One example appears to have archive numbering: see
the commentary by J.R. Rea on Oxy. Pap. 3929 n. 22. Certainly the finds
at Theadelphia, nineteen in number and at the same spot, suggest we are
dealing with official copies, promptly rendered redundant by the end of
the persecution, and discarded before being numbered and glued together
for the municipal files. One group written on papyrus of the same shape
and quality was written out by the same scribe's hand. One example is endorsed
with the title ajpogr(afhv), suggesting that an application was required
by at least the head of every household on the analogy with the census,
the kat joijkivan ajpografhv.
28. Though Dionysius of Alexandria
did discern different degrees of failure among the fallen in his lost work
(addressed to Those in Egypt) 'On Repentance', Euseb. H.E. 6.46.1.
He also wrote to the church in Armenia 'On Repentance' (Euseb. H.E.
6.46.2) which, Jerome asserts, again discerned degrees of sinfulness (de
viris illust. 69)--does this imply the province of Armenia Minor was
also subject to Decius' edict?
29. Cyprian, a person of eminence
in hiding, can insist that his (lower-class) clergy should carry on their
work in Carthage if they are mites, humiles, quieti,
taciturni, that is, if they do not excite attention eg. Epp.
5.2.1, 14.2.1. Likewise Dionysius (away in Libya) can report that four
of the presbyters continue to work secretly in Alexandria whereas two others
'being more prominent in the world' have gone off wandering in Egypt (ap.
Euseb. H.E. 7.11.24).
30. Some instances are Optatus (Cyp.
Ep. 29.1.1), Aurelius (Cyp. Ep. 38.1.2), 'Saturninus (Cyp.
Ep. 21.4.2), Celerinus (Cyp. Ep. 39.1.1ff.), Dioscorus (Dionysius
ap. Euseb. H.E. 6.41.15f.) etc.
31. Euseb. H.E. 6.39.5. Note
that in Origen's case 'the judge eagerly strove with all his might on no
account to put him to death'.
32. Another presbyter Limnos and
a Macedonian woman turn up, already in prison, in Acta Pionii 11.2:
some conflation and confusion is to be suspected.
33. On these see A. Rouselle, Les
persécutions des Chrétiens à Alexandrie, Revue
historique de droit français et étranger 52 (1974), 237ff.
34. Chronicle 395, MGH 9.738 ed.
Mommsen: hac persecutione Cyprianus hortatus est per epistolas suas
Augustinum et Felicitatem, qui passi sunt apud civitatem Capuensem, metropolim
Campaniae. And note Mart. Hiero. for xv Kal. Decemb.,
which reads: In Capua civitate, natalis sanctorum Augustini, Eusurii,
Felicitatis (PL 30.482).
35. See especially §2.2:
"And so, my very dear brother, send
our greetings to Numeria and Candida. [We grant them peace] in accordance
with the command of Paulus and of the other martyrs whose names I add:
Bassus (died in the [?] debtor's prison [in pignerario]), Mappalicus
(under interrogation), Fortunio (in prison), Paulus (after interrogation),
Fortunata, Victorinus, Victor, Herennius, Credula, Hereda, Donatus, Firmus,
Venustus, Fructus, Iulia, Martialis, and Ariston--all by God's will starved
to death in prison. You will hear that we too will be joining their company
within a matter of days. For it is now eight days--up to the time I write
to you--since we have been shut up again. And for the five days previous
to that we received but a small amount of bread and a ration of water".
(For commentary, see The Letters of St Cyprian of Carthage, vol.1,
New York N.Y. 1984, 336ff.)
36. Cyp. Ep. 60 (congratulating
Cornelius on his confession); Chronog. 354 ed. Mommsen MGH 9.75
(banishment and death at Centumcellae); Liber pontif. xxii ed. Duchesne
150 (reflecting the worthless Passio). Cyprian does not appear to
learn of Cornelius' confession until about May, 253 (see The Letters
of St. Cyprian of Carthage, vol. 3, 1986, 8ff.).
37. A possible context is a conciliatory
gesture, recalling exiles generally, upon the legitimation of Valerian
and Gallienus as emperors: compare the recent case of Philip, Cod. Iust.
9.51.7 (generalis indulgentia nostra reditum exsulibus seu deportatis
tribuit).
38. Lactantius notably fails to dilate
on any 'persecution of Gallus' though it would have been congenial to his
theme (de mort. persec. 4f.).
39. This enabled Dionysius of Alexandria
to pen his celebrated (but contentious) version of the benevolence of these
opening years of Valerian: "we have the opportunity ... to reflect how
his affairs stood so long as he was gentle and cordial towards the men
of God: for there was no other emperor among his predecessors--not even
those alleged to have been openly Christians--who was so sympathetically
and favourably disposed towards them as he manifestly was, welcoming them
as he did at the start with the greatest warmth and friendliness. Indeed
his whole household was not just filled with God-fearing men; it was a
very church of God" (ap. Euseb H.E. 7.10.3).
40. Eusebius--seldom strong on precise
chronology before his own day--places the martyrdom of Marinus in Caesarea
(Pal.) at a time 'when the churches everywhere were at peace'; Theotecnus
is the bishop. By implication Eusebius places the event after the 'peace
of Gallienus': but the narrative mentions emperors (plural). Is it feasible
that this might mean Marinus' death occurred in this period 253-257? (H.E.
7.15).
41. Dionysius certainly assigns--unverifiably--the
cause to the fanatical evil counsels and wicked profanities of Macrianus
the elder (conveniently defeated and discredited at the time of writing)--his
diabolical powers were being thwarted by the 'pure and holy men' i.e. Christians.
Gallienus' father Valerian is thereby indirectly exonerated of full blame
whilst Gallienus himself goes carefully unmentioned in the whole affair,
ap. Euseb H.E. 7.10.4ff. For a full study of the persecution
of Valerian (and references to other literature) see K.-H. Schwarte, Die
Christengesetz Valerians, in (ed.) W. Eck, Religion und Gesellschaft
in der römischen Kaiserzeit, Köln, 1989, 103-163.
42. L. Mussius Aemilianus, PIR2M
757, Pflaum, Carrières, ii. 925-7 (no. 349), J.R. Rea on
Oxy. Pap. 3112 (vol. 43, 58ff.).
43. A version of these Acta
appears to have been in circulation in Numidia within months of the event
(referred to in Cyp. Ep. 77.2.1), and Pontius Vit. Cyp. 11
(written shortly after Cyprian's martyrdom) can refer to transcripts of
this trial (et quid sacerdos Dei proconsule interrogante responderit,
sunt acta quae referant).
44. For explication of this phrasing
see R. Freudenberger, Romanas caerimonias recognoscere, in Donum gentilicium:
New Testament Studies in honour of David Daube, ed. E. Bammel, C.K.
Barrett and W.D. Davies, Oxford, 1978, 238ff.
45. J. Molthagen, Die römischen
Staat und die Christen in zweiten und dritten Jahrhundert, Göttingen,
1970 (Hypomnemata 28), 88-92 argues (unpersuasively) that the ban on gatherings
of Christians operated only if the clergy failed to comply with the call
to sacrifice.
46. Governors would appear to have
had some advance advice, recalling exiles, in readiness, to closer locations:
thus Cyprian from Curubis to house detention in his Carthaginian horti
(Acta procons. Cyp. 2.1), Dionysius from Libyan Cephro to Colluthion,
not far from Alexandria and other Egyptian confessors to villages in the
Mareotic nome (ap. Euseb. H.E. 7.11.1ff.). See also J.E.G.
Whitehorne, P. Oxy.XLIII 3119: A document of Valerian's persecution?, ZPE
24 (1977), 187-196.
47. Cyp Ep. 80.1.4 combined
with Liber pontif. 25 ed. Duchesne 155.
48. The evidence is conveniently
reviewed by D.S. Potter, Prophecy and history in the crisis of the Roman
Empire, Oxford, 1990, 331ff.
49. Strictly speaking they have obtained
an imperial subscriptio to their libellus: should we conjecture
a personal presentation of that petition by one or more of the bishops
before the imperial court? That would have constituted a symbolic moment.
50. Euseb. H.E. 7.15: though
we have names involved--governor Achaeus, bishop Theotecnus, Christian
senator Astyrius--the date cannot be fixed securely; cf. n. 40 above. Similar
individual cases could well have occurred elsewhere.
51. For full analysis, F. Millar,
Paul of Samosata, Zenobia and Aurelian: the Church, Local Culture and Political
Allegiance, J.R.S. 61 (1971) 1ff.
52. Examples are Euseb. H.E.
7.31 (possibly a later insertion?); the late third century circular letter,
perhaps issued from the chancery of Theonas, bishop of Alexandria, warning
the faithful against being deceived by the 'madness of the Manichaeans',
who require 'menstrual blood for the abominations of their madness', P.
Ryl. Grk. 469, ll. 30ff., ed. C.H. Roberts, Catalogue of the Greek
and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library Manchester, vol. 3, Manchester,
1938, 42; the neo-Platonist Alexander of Lycopolis, Tractatus de placitis
Manichaeorum.
53. S. Brock, A martyr at the Sasanid
court under Vahran II: Candida, Anal. Boll. 96 (1978) 167-181, S.N.C.
Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China. A Historical
Survey, Manchester, 1985, esp. 79ff. J. Brunner, The Middle Persian
Inscription of the Priest Kirder at Naqs-i Rustam, in Near Eastern Numismatics,
Iconography, Epigraphy and History. Studies in Honour of George C. Miles,
Beirut, 1974, 97ff at 105f. [l. 30: "And the Jews and Buddhists and Brahmans
and Nazarites and Christians and Maktag and Manichaeans in the kingdom
are being smitten"].
54. Actual Manichaean victims are
lost from the record, as also are any caught up in the ensuing 'Great Persecution'.
55. The dating is put by Lactantius
de mort. pers. 10.6 as interiecto aliquanto tempore before
Diocletian winters at Nicomedia in 302/3. Whilst Lactantius focusses on
Diocletian's role in de mort. pers. 10. 1ff, both emperors were
in fact present (implied by Lact. D.I. 4.27.4f.). The location is
in partibus Orientis: was this in Antioch in early 299, or was it
later in 301? (See T.D. Barnes, The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine,
Cambridge Mass., 1982, 55, 63f.)
56. The (more partial and provincial?)
version of Eusebius implies that Galerius had instigated a purge of his
own entourage and army on his own 'long (eti palai) before the movement
of the other emperors' H.E. 8 App. 1, cf. 8.1.7, 8.4.2ff., with
confessing Christian soldiers forfeiting their rank (or choosing to leave
the army) and a few actually being executed.
57. Note that in this interim, the
Acta preserve accounts of Christian conscientious objectors, the
most reliable of which are those of the recruit Maximilian, martyred on
March 12, 295: the punishment is for refusal to serve (Milita, ne pereas,
Acta Maximiliani 2).
58. By Galerius? See Barnes, New
Empire, 62 n. 76.
59. Mos. et Rom. Legum Collatio
VI. IV (esp. 1, 2, 6).
60. Note that Constantine, at the
time in Nicomedia, later attributes the blame to Diocletian, ap.
Euseb. V.C. 2.50f (letter of 324), Oratio ad coetum Sanctorum
25.
61. There are standard accounts of
the Great Persecution, the classic analysis being by G.E.M. de Ste Croix,
Aspects of the 'Great' Persecution, Harvard Theological Review 47
(1954), 75-109 as well as the rich commentary of J. Moreau, Lactance.
De la Mort des Persécuteurs, 2 vols., Paris, 1954 (= Sources
chrétiennes 39). For the political and religious context consult
T.D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, Cambridge Mass., 1981, esp.
cc. ii and ix. I make no attempts to provide any systematic coverage of
reasonably authenticated victims.
62. The major terms can be put together
by combining Lactantius de mort. pers. 13.1, cf. 15.5 with Euseb.
H.E. 8.2.4 and M.P. 1.1.
63. Euseb. H.E. 8.2.4, M.P.(S)
praef. [March/April]; Acta Felicis [June 5 at Tibiuca].
64. This appears to be the meaning
of Euseb. H.E. 8.2.4: 'those in households (tous d'en oiketiais)
if they persisted in their profession of Christianity, would be deprived
of their liberty,' referring presumably to Caesariani (cf. rescript
of Valerian, Cyp. Ep. 80.1.2).
65. Oxy. Pap. 2601 (Copres
uses as proxy his brother [? a pagan] to sacrifice, before pursuing a lawsuit
about family property); cf. Peter of Alexandria (Easter 306) can.
5 (proxies), can. 6f. (use of slave go-betweens), can. 11
(bribery), PG 18.473f:
66. Lact. de mort. pers. 15.7;
Euseb. H.E. 8.13.13, cf. V.C. 1.13 (although in MP
13.12 he does includes Gaul in the western areas that suffered the effects
of persecution).
67. For the tangled story see T.D.
Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, Cambridge, Mass., 1981, 38, and
notes 303f.
68. Euplus provocatively carries
'the holy gospels' which he refuses to surrender: arrested April 29, 304
and tried and martyred on August 12, 304 (the Latin version has him executed
with his book of the Gospels hung about his neck).
69. Euseb. MP 13.12: the last
dated western martyrdom is that of Crispina, Dec. 5, 304 at Theveste (Africa).
(This provides the best evidence for the [doubtful] possibility that the
fourth edict was ever enforced in the west). By February/March 305 the
Numidian bishops can be holding vituperative meetings in Cirta in the house
of Urbanus Donatus (the church being not yet rebuilt) to elect a new bishop
to replace the traditor Paulus, now deceased (Aug. Contra Cresc.
iii. 27.30, cf. Gesta apud Zenophilum C.S.E.L. 26.192f).
70. To those already mentioned (Felix,
Euplus, Crispina, the Numidian martyrs reported by Secundus) add, for example,
Saturninus and companions (numbering 46 according to the Passion
PL 8.689, though the young Hilarianus appears to survive; Feb. 12, 304,
in Carthage, Aug. Brev. Coll. iii 17.32); C.I.L. 8 6700 (19353)
[Mactar], the martyrs of Milevis (number unspecified) who suffered in
diebus turificationis. Together they form our best sample of the
range of fatal victims, from which we can only speculatively extrapolate.
71. African Christians were imperilled
in 311, under the impression they were hostile to Maxentius, Optatus 1.
17f.
72. See also on forced sacrifice
Peter of Alexandria can. 14 PG 18.505.
73. The Acta of Agape, Irene
and Chione (with four others, Agatho, Cassia, Philippa and Eutychia) take
place at Thessalonica in late March/1 April 304 apparently under this ordinance
(note c. 3.2).
74. The grandparents of Basil of
Caesarea (Cap.) took to the Pontic hills (presumably to their family estates)
for some seven years or so, Greg. Naz. or. 43.6 PG 36. 501a; the
Acts of Agape, Irene and Chione cc. 1.2, 5.5 (flight to the mountainous
area out of Thessalonica); Meletius ('bishop of the churches in Pontus')
was seven years on the run in Palestine, Euseb. H.E. 7.32.27f.;
and for flight generally, Peter of Alexandria can. 13 PG 18.501ff.,
Euseb. H.E. 8.2.1 and cf. V.C. 2.53 (quoting Constantine:
Christians flee to safely and freedom of worship to barbarians beyond the
imperial frontiers). For concealment by pagans Athan. Hist. Arian. ad
Monach. 64 and cf. Euseb. H.E. 9.3.1. Athan. Vit. Ant.
realistically depicts how Christian life could simply go on away from the
urban centres (but note cc. 46f.). For Africa [303 A.D.] see also Gesta
apud Zenophilum C.S.E.L. 26. 186 (fugivimus in montem Bellonae).
75. See n. 69 The best (but still
unpersuasive) case for its general enforcement is mounted by W.H.C. Frend,
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church, Oxford, 1965, 502f.:
individual governors may, nevertheless, have been in communication with
the eastern court--just as the proconsul of Africa, Julianus, had consulted
Diocletian on the subject of the Manichees (see above).
76. On these census rolls see T.D.
Barnes, The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine, Harvard
Mass., 1982, 227f. and for a (hostile) description of the processes of
registration, Lact. de mort. pers. 23.1ff.
77. Euseb. M.P. 4.8 (both
recensions) graphically depicts the enforcement in Caesarea (Pal.).
78. Adapting the chronology proposed
by T.D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, Cambridge Mass., 153.
79. Though in our extant versions
his name (later subject to damnatio memoriae) does not appear, it
is clear that it was issued by Galerius on behalf of all three of his imperial
colleagues (Lact. de mort. pers. 36.3); Maximinius, however, 'was
by no means pleased with what was written, and instead of making known
the letter set forth above gave verbal commands to the rulers under him
to relax the war against us' (Euseb. H.E. 9.1.1).
80. Euseb. H.E. 8.17.3ff.
provides a Greek version for provincials, along with the preamble.
81. The clause ut... conventicula
sua componant should allow the construction of new meeting-places (and
Eusebius' Greek version so understood).
82. This tally of thirteen includes
Thecla (whose ultimate fate is nowhere described M.P. 3.1(L)), and
two Egyptians among the six young men who volunteered themselves (M.P.
3.4(L)). Agapius, condemned in the second year of the persecution (M.P.
3.4), was not fed to the beasts--and ultimately drowned--until the fourth
year (M.P. 6). I have excluded Romanos, deacon and exorcist of Caesarea
(Pal.) but executed at Antioch (M.P. 2).
83. This total is reached excluding
Aedesius, a Palestinian executed in Egypt under Hierocles, M.P.
5.2f. It includes the Marcionite bishop Asclepius, M.P. 10.3.
84. M.P. 8.1 (S and L) reports
97 Egyptians plus women and children sent to work in the copper mines of
Palestine; M.P. 8.13 has a second batch of 130 Egyptians (some being
sent on to Cilicia); M.P. 9.10 reports that three Egyptians (among
other confessors) were seized and martyred; M.P. 11.6ff. records
a further five Egyptian martyrs; M.P. 13.1ff (L) reports that of
the approximately 150 confessors in the mines of Phaeno in 410/11 over
100 were Egyptians (with Egyptian bishops Peleus and Nilus along with Patermuthius
and Elijah, singled out for martyrdom). M.P. 13.10 (L) notes concerning
the thirty-nine unnamed martyrs executed at Phaeno on May 4, 311 that 'many
of these were Egyptians'.
85. Note, for example, the notorious
Sossianus Hierocles, PLRE 1.432, in Bithynia (eg. Lact. de mort. pers.
16.4) as well as in Egypt (eg. Euseb. M.P. (L) 5.3); likewise Clodius
Culcianus, PLRE 1.233f., in Egypt (eg. H.E. 9.11.4, M.P.
5.2, Acta Phileae et Philoromi).
86. M.P. 5.1 (S) reveals Eusebius
inserting briefly the account of the death of Ulpianus (at Tyre) not known
to him personally nor when the earlier (and longer) version was composed.
87. Numbers in Egypt and the Thebaid
may well have been grossly higher than in Eusebius' Palestine, Culcianus
being credited by Euseb. H.E. 9.11.4 with 'thousands' [myrioi]
of deaths, and executions in the Thebaid being reckoned (with suspicious
allusion to the parable of the sower) in tens, twenties and sometimes in
thirties, sixties and a hundred in a day, Euseb. H.E. 8.9.3. Such
rounded figures defy precision. The population of the village in Phrygia--where
all the inhabitants, as Christians, were burnt to death--cannot be quantified,
Euseb. H.E. 8.11.1, Lact. D.I. 5.11.10.
88. S. Mitchell, Maximinus and the
Christians in A.D. 312: a New Latin Inscription, J.R.S. 78 (1988),
105-124.
89. Issued in May, 313 (after the
defeat at Adrianople, April 30, Lact. de mort. pers. 46.8f., as
Eusebius believed, H.E. 9.10.3). or should it be dated to earlier
in Spring 313?
90. The addressee is a provincial
governor. There is a Greek version (with minor variations) quoted by Euseb.
H.E. 10.5.2ff., no doubt the version promulgated in Caesarea (Pal.).
Constantine was later to retreat from the principle, here enunciated, of
religious freedom: see T.D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, Cambridge
Mass., 1981, 245ff.