A Persecuted Church

In AD 313, Christianity became a legal religion. Most of the time before then, Christians were begrudgingly tolerated or the occasional object of local persecution. However, there were also certain key times under certain Roman emperors when there was intense and systematic persecution. Those years left an indelible imprint on the church.

Persecution in the Roman Empire thus was not a constant, unending experience for early Christians. Rather, it was sporadic, varying in intensity and often localized. It was not until the third century (200s) that empire-wide persecutions were systematically enacted. The reasons for persecution were various. Christians were often seen as subversive, refusing to participate in the civic religion of the Empire. That made them a liability to the “peace of the gods,” the pax deorum. The Romans believed the gods might get angry with them because of these “atheists” who did not worship them.

Early Persecutions

The earliest persecutions even during New Testament times were not a matter of policy but of individual situations. Stephen was stoned because of his bold preaching, and even though the Jewish leadership, the Sanhedrin, began to persecute Christians, it was primarily the Greek-speaking Jewish Christians they were after (Acts 8:1). The Aramaic-speaking apostles were able to stay in Jerusalem largely unscathed.

Herod Agrippa I put the Apostle James to death, and tried to kill Peter (Acts 12), but he apparently did not try to kill the other apostles in Jerusalem. Around the year AD 62, the high priest used a gap in Roman procurators to put James the brother of Jesus to death, but clearly the Roman presence generally protected James rather than persecuted him.

Paul repeatedly got into trouble with the local authorities. Yet he was not put to death at Philippi or Corinth or Ephesus. Many Christians believe that Paul was acquitted when he first appeared before Nero at the end of Acts. The martyrdom of Paul and Peter was thus not a matter of official policy but of their specific situation. 

Around the year 112, a Roman governor named Pliny wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan in which he informed him of how he had handled some Christians in the province of Pontus and Bithynia. The fact that he had to ask makes it clear that there was no official Roman policy against Christians even at the beginning of the 100s.

One of the first recorded persecutions occurred under Emperor Nero in 64 AD, following the great fire of Rome. Nero needed a scapegoat for the disaster because the people were blaming him, even accusing him of setting the city on fire on purpose. In response, he blamed Christians and began various types of gruesome executions. The Roman historian Tacitus describes Christians as being covered with the skins of beasts and torn by dogs, crucified, or set on fire to illuminate the night. However, this persecution was largely confined to Rome and was not an empire-wide policy.

There were similar persecutions occurred under emperors like Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, and possibly Domitian – the emperor when the book of Revelation was traditionally written. Pliny, whom we mentioned above, did not specifically seek out Christians. But if someone denounced them and they refused to recant, they were executed for stubbornness, if nothing else. This letter established a sort of uneasy tolerance of Christians, contingent upon their willingness to renounce their faith under pressure if they were reported.

Around the year 200, the early church father Tertullian claimed that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” He was in effect taunting the Romans to persecute the church. Because the church was of God, they would not be able to destroy it. Rather, it would only grow and grow. However, the church did not so much grow during persecution as in between it.

The “Age of the Martyrs”

The early third century shifted towards more systematic persecutions. Septimius Severus, in 202, forbade conversions to Christianity, leading to the martyrdom of figures such as Perpetua and Felicity in Carthage. The Decian persecution, beginning in 250 AD, was the first empire-wide attempt to force Christians to participate in Roman religious practices and to sacrifice to Roman gods. 

The Emperor Decius issued an edict requiring all citizens to perform a sacrifice to the Roman gods and for the well-being of the emperor. They needed to obtain a certificate, a libellus, confirming that they had made the sacrifice. This edict was not specifically aimed at Christians, but its requirement for a public act of apostasy especially affected them. Many Christians complied, others went into hiding, and some faced torture and execution rather than betray their faith.

The Valerian persecution in AD 257 specifically targeted the Christian clergy and ordered ordinary Christians to participate in Roman religious rites. Sixtus II, the bishop of Rome, and the deacon Lawrence were among the martyrs of this period. The persecution abated with the capture of Valerian by the Persians in AD 260.

The most severe persecution began under Emperor Diocletian in AD 303. This “Great Persecution” was marked by a series of edicts rescinding Christians’ legal rights, demanding that they comply with traditional Roman religious practices, and ordering the destruction of Christian scriptures and places of worship. The persecution extended to the entire social body of Christians, from the highest-ranking bishops to the ordinary believer. It was particularly intense in the eastern parts of the Empire, where the co-emperor Galerius was in charge. It was he who had primarily urged Diocletian to make these edicts.

The persecution varied in intensity across the empire, with some areas experiencing extreme measures. Other parts of the empire had minimal enforcement. Nevertheless, the period was marked by the widespread martyrdom and suffering of Christians, which was chronicled by writers such as the church history Eusebius, who lived in the early 300s.

Persecution had a profound impact on the church. It led to the development of a theology of martyrdom and the veneration of saints. The figure of the martyr, someone who is faithful even to the point of death, became central to Christian identity and piety. Theological debates arose over issues such as the treatment of those who apostatized under persecution but later wanted to return to the Church (the “lapsi”). 

Some groups, like the Novatians, refused to accept anyone back into the church who had lapsed, citing the book of Hebrews. They eventually split from the mainstream church. This fact led a leader named Cyprian (d. 258) to claim that “there is no salvation outside of the church.” By leaving the church, they were endangering their salvation.

This issue culminated in the Donatist controversy. The Donatists split from the church because they believed the baptisms of a priest who lapsed during persecution were not legitimate. At one point, there were actually two churches in North Africa, one of which considered itself to be pure and the other of which was in continuity with the rest of the church. This controversy eventually led to a sense that it is not the person doing a baptism that validates it. Rather, it is the “office” of the person performing the baptism that matters. The priest can be an evil fiend, but if he is operating officially as a priest, the baptism counts.

During the times of persecution, the Church developed a more secretive and organized structure. The roles of bishops and clergy became more defined. After all, they were responsible for the pastoral care of the persecuted and for making difficult decisions about whether to comply with or resist imperial edicts.

The culmination of these centuries of persecution was the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, issued by Constantine in the West and Licinius in the East. This edict gave Christians the freedom to practice their religion without interference. It represented a dramatic shift in imperial policy and set the stage for the eventual Christianization of the Roman Empire.