Faithful unto Death: Martyrs, Apologists and the Growing Church, 100-313

In the second century the Roman Empire was at the height of its power. Emperors from Trajan (98-117) to Marcus Aurelius (161-180) ruled from Britain to the Euphrates. The cities of Revelation 2-3, among them Ephesus, Smyrna and Pergamum, were rich and proud of their temples. Pergamum had a temple to Rome and Augustus from 29 BC; Smyrna built one to Tiberius. Roman religion was a matter of practice more than belief. Sacrifice and festival kept the peace of the gods, and a citizen who refused them put the whole city at risk.

Christians refused. They would not sacrifice or swear by the emperor's genius, so neighbours called them atheists. They met privately, before dawn or after dark, and spoke of eating the body and blood of the Son and loving their brothers and sisters. Rumour turned this into cannibalism and incest. Jews had an old exemption from sacrifice, but once Christians were no longer counted as Jews they had none. Tertullian of Carthage wrote about 197 that whenever the Tiber flooded or the Nile failed to rise, the crowd cried for the Christians to be thrown to the lion.

Until 250 there was no empire-wide law against Christians; persecution depended on a governor, a mob or an accuser. The pattern was set about 112 in letters between Pliny, governor of Bithynia in northern Asia Minor, and the emperor Trajan. In the third century, plague, invasion and civil war shook the empire; between 235 and 284 more than twenty men claimed the throne. Emperors seeking the favour of the gods then ordered everyone to sacrifice, and Christians were caught in empire-wide persecutions.

The church was not only Roman. Latin-speaking churches grew in North Africa around Carthage. In Egypt parts of the Scriptures were translated into Coptic in the third century, and the Coptic Church still counts its calendar from 284, the accession of Diocletian, as the Era of the Martyrs. East of Rome, the Persian king Shapur I sacked Antioch and other Roman cities in the 250s and 260 and deported thousands of their people, Christians among them, into Persia, where they strengthened the church in Mesopotamia. In Armenia King Tiridates III accepted Christianity through Gregory the Illuminator, traditionally in 301; many historians prefer a date near 314.

The framing passage is Revelation 2, the letters of the risen Christ to churches in Asia. To Smyrna he says the devil will throw some of them into prison, and 'be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life' (Revelation 2:10). To Pergamum he praises 'Antipas, my faithful martyr', killed 'where Satan dwelleth' (Revelation 2:13). The Greek martys means a witness. In these centuries the word came to mean one who bears witness by dying. The confessors of Lyons in 177, tortured but still alive, refused to be called martyrs and kept the title for Christ, 'the faithful and true witness' (Revelation 3:14), and for those who had already died. The account of Polycarp says his death was 'according to the gospel': he waited to be handed over, was betrayed by someone of his household, was taken by a police captain named Herod and was brought into the city on a donkey.

Jesus said, 'when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another' (Matthew 10:23). Polycarp withdrew to a farm and was taken there. The same account criticizes a man named Quintus, who gave himself up and then sacrificed when he saw the beasts, and says the gospel does not teach that. Cyprian hid under Decius and was criticized for it; the later Tertullian held that flight was not allowed. Christians also had to read Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17, which tell believers to honour the king, beside Revelation 13 and 17, where the beast and Babylon on seven hills were widely read as Rome. They prayed for emperors (1 Timothy 2:1-2) and refused to pray to them. Polycarp told the proconsul that Christians are taught to give rulers the honour due to authorities appointed by God, so far as it does not harm their souls.

After mass apostasy under Decius, a third question arose: what to do with those who denied Christ? Some cited Matthew 10:33, 'whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny', and Hebrews 6:4-6. Others pointed to Peter, who denied Jesus three times and was restored (John 21:15-17), and to Paul's call to forgive the repentant (2 Corinthians 2:6-8). Revelation 2:9 and 3:9 speak of 'the synagogue of Satan', words from a sharp first-century conflict in Asia. Later Christians turned such phrases against Jews as a people, and the account of Polycarp itself blames local Jews for helping gather wood for the fire, a detail historians weigh with caution.

About 112 Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, wrote to Trajan for advice. People had been accused anonymously of being Christians. Pliny asked each one three times and executed those who persisted, since their stubbornness, he said, deserved punishment. Those who denied it, called on the gods, offered incense and wine before the emperor's statue and cursed Christ, he released. He learned that Christians met on a fixed day before dawn, sang a hymn to Christ as to a god, bound themselves by oath not to steal or commit adultery, and later shared ordinary food. He tortured two slave women called deaconesses and found nothing but 'a depraved and excessive superstition'. Trajan approved: Christians were not to be sought out and anonymous accusations were not to be accepted, but if accused and convicted they must be punished unless they worshipped the gods. In the same years Ignatius of Antioch was led under guard to Rome. From Smyrna and Troas he wrote seven letters, begging the Roman Christians not to try to save him.

At Smyrna, about 155-160, a crowd at the games demanded that the aged bishop Polycarp be found. He was taken at a farm outside the city. In the stadium the proconsul urged him to swear by the fortune of Caesar and say 'Away with the atheists'. Polycarp waved his hand at the crowd and said, 'Away with the atheists.' Pressed to curse Christ, he answered that he had served him eighty-six years and Christ had done him no wrong; how could he blaspheme his King who saved him? He was bound to a stake. The account says the fire bent around him like a sail and an executioner finished him with a dagger. The church of Smyrna gathered his bones and resolved to meet each year on the day of his death.

In these decades Christian writers began to answer their critics in public. Justin, a philosopher born in Samaria, taught at Rome. In his First Apology he argued that Christians were punished for a name, not for crimes. He described Sunday worship: the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, the president preaches, the people pray, bread and wine mixed with water are given thanks over and shared, and gifts are collected for orphans, widows, the sick, prisoners and strangers. About 165 Justin and six companions were beheaded at Rome. In 177, at Lyons and Vienne in Gaul, a mob turned on Christians. The bishop Pothinus, over ninety, died in prison. Blandina, a slave woman, endured torture for days. To mock their hope of resurrection, the authorities burned the bodies and threw the ashes into the Rhone. Eusebius preserves the letter describing these events.

North Africa produced the first Latin Christian texts. On 17 July 180 twelve Christians from the town of Scilli stood before the proconsul at Carthage. Asked what was in their box, their spokesman Speratus answered: books, and letters of Paul, a just man. They were beheaded. About 197 Tertullian wrote his Apology, which said that the more Christians were cut down, the more they grew, and that the blood of Christians is seed. On 7 March 203 a young noblewoman named Perpetua, her slave Felicity, who had given birth in prison days before, and several catechumens died in the arena at Carthage at games for the emperor's son. Perpetua's prison diary records her father's pleas that she deny Christ for the sake of her baby, and her refusal.

In late 249 or early 250 the emperor Decius ordered every inhabitant of the empire to sacrifice before local commissioners and obtain a signed certificate, a libellus; dozens of these survive on papyrus from Egypt. Historians debate whether Decius aimed at Christians or at universal loyalty; Christians bore the brunt. Fabian, bishop of Rome, was executed in January 250. Origen of Alexandria was tortured and died a few years later. Many Christians sacrificed, and some bought certificates without sacrificing. When the persecution ended in 251, the church had to decide what to do with the lapsed. Confessors issued letters restoring them; Cyprian insisted that bishops in council decide. A council at Carthage in 251 allowed the lapsed back after penance. At Rome the presbyter Novatian refused readmission altogether and formed a rival church. A plague swept the empire from about 250, and Cyprian urged Christians at Carthage to nurse the sick, pagans as well as believers. Valerian's edicts of 257 and 258 forbade Christian meetings and ordered the execution of clergy. Sixtus II, bishop of Rome, was killed with his deacons in August 258, and Cyprian was beheaded near Carthage on 14 September. In 260 Valerian was captured by the Persians, and his son Gallienus ended the persecution and returned church property. About forty years of peace followed.

On 23 February 303 soldiers pulled down the large church that stood in sight of the imperial palace at Nicomedia, as Diocletian and Galerius began the Great Persecution. Edicts ordered churches destroyed, Scriptures burned, clergy arrested and, in 304, a universal sacrifice. In the West, under Constantius, enforcement was light; in Egypt, Palestine and Asia Minor it was severe and lasted years. Clergy who handed over Scriptures were called traditores, 'handers-over', and the bitterness over them later split the church of North Africa. In April 311 Galerius, dying, issued an edict permitting Christians to meet again and asking them to pray for him. In the West, Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge outside Rome on 28 October 312, fighting under a Christian sign after a vision or dream that Lactantius and Eusebius report differently. In 313 Constantine and Licinius agreed at Milan on freedom of worship for Christians and all others, and Licinius posted the terms at Nicomedia in June, ordering church property returned. The settlement is usually called the Edict of Milan, though the surviving text is a letter issued by Licinius.

Through all this the church grew. Historians have no reliable figures; estimates commonly put Christians at a small fraction of the empire in 100 and at perhaps a tenth or so by 300, more in the eastern cities and in Africa. Persecution was intermittent; most Christians in most years were not in danger. Outsiders noticed Christian care for the poor and the sick; Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote that Christians nursed the dying in the plague of the 250s, while others fled. The faith spread along family lines, through women, slaves and households. And the courage of the martyrs made people ask what they believed.

The first matter at stake was idolatry. Rome asked for a pinch of incense, not a creed. Christians held that it was a denial of the one God (Exodus 20:3-5) and of Christ, because sacrifice to idols is fellowship with demons (1 Corinthians 10:20-21), and because Jesus said that whoever confesses him before others he will confess before the Father, and whoever denies him he will deny (Matthew 10:32-33). The demand to say 'Caesar is Lord' collided with the church's confession that 'Jesus is Lord' (1 Corinthians 12:3).

The second matter was forgiveness and discipline. Could the church restore those who had denied Christ, and who had the right to say so? Novatian appealed to texts such as Hebrews 6:4-6 and held that the church could not forgive apostasy, though God might. Cyprian and Cornelius of Rome held that the church could restore the penitent after penance, appealing to the power to bind and loose (Matthew 16:19; 18:18) and to Peter's own restoration (John 21:15-17). Cyprian also argued that unity with the bishops was the test of belonging to the church, and he refused to accept baptism given by schismatics, which brought him into conflict with Stephen of Rome in 256. The debate over a pure or a forgiving church returned in the Donatist schism after 311.

The third matter was hope. The martyrs died expecting the resurrection of the body (1 Corinthians 15:42-44; Daniel 12:2), which is why the persecutors at Lyons burned the bodies and scattered the ashes. They read Revelation as a promise that Christ, not Caesar, rules history (Revelation 1:5; 11:15), and that those who are faithful to death receive the crown of life (Revelation 2:10).

Pliny, the earliest pagan witness to Christian worship, heard that Christians sang to Christ as to a god. Ignatius, a few years later, calls Jesus Christ 'our God' in his letters and insists against those who said Christ only seemed to suffer that he was truly born, truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, truly crucified and truly raised. If Christ suffered only in appearance, he wrote, then his own chains were pointless. Polycarp's last prayer, as the Smyrnaeans record it, gives thanks to the Father through the eternal and heavenly high priest Jesus Christ (compare Hebrews 4:14). At Lyons the fellow prisoners said that when they looked at Blandina hung on a stake they saw in her the one who was crucified for them. The martyrs saw their deaths as following Christ's (1 Peter 2:21), not adding to his work.

The record is not simple. Some Christians sought death in ways their own leaders condemned, and rigorists left little room for the mercy shown to Peter. The honour paid to martyrs' bones and anniversaries, which began with sober remembrance at Smyrna, later grew into a cult of relics that Christians assess differently. Hostility toward Jews appears even in the martyr texts. And within a century of 313, Christian emperors would use the coercive power of the state against pagans, heretics and other Christians. The church that suffered under the sword would soon hold it.