Early Church, Persecution

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Perpetua

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Martha

Mosaic of an unknown Sassanid woman

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“In popular imagination, the early Church is portrayed as undergoing repeated and ruthless persecution.”

Robert Louis Wilken

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Nero, playing the fiddle

as the city burned, AD 64

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Persecution in the Early Church

In spite of every human effort, of the emperor’s largess, and of the sacrifices made to the gods, nothing sufficed to allay suspicion nor to destroy the opinion that the fire had been ordered. Therefore, in order to destroy this rumor, Nero blamed the Christians, who are hated for their abominations, and punished them with refined cruelty. Christ, from whom they take their name, was executed by Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. Stopped for a moment, this evil superstition reappeared, not only in Judea, where was the root of the evil but also in Rome, where all things sordid and abominable from every corner of the world come together. Thus, first those who confessed were arrested, and on the basis of their testimony a great number were condemned, although not so much for the fire itself as for their hatred of humankind. Before killing the Christians, Nero used them to amuse the people. Some were dressed in furs, to be killed by dogs. Others were crucified. Still others were set on fire early in the night, so that they mighty illumine it. Nero opened his own gardens for these shows, and in the circus he himself became a spectacle, for he mingled with the people dressed as a charioteer, or he rode around in his chariot. All of this aroused the mercy of the people. Even against these culprits who deserved an exemplary punishment. For it was clear that they were not being destroyed for the common good, but rather to satisfy the cruelty of one person.

Tacitus

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Persecution in the Early Church

While persecution may have only seldom been systematic, all early Christians in the Roman empire, and most of those outside of it as well, were extremely vulnerable. If they were brought into court they could be persecuted or killed for failing to offer sacrifice even if they were vindicated of the initial charge.

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Persecution in the Early Church

“They are not to be sought out; but if they are accused and convicted, they must be punished.”

Trajan

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Persecution in the Early Church

Emperor Decius

201-251

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Persecution in the Early Church

“...the immediate impact of the commission’s work in the Christian community of Carthage was devastating. Many Christians complied, some coming forth voluntarily to sacrifice. Some even brought their own wine or other offerings. In one city a bishop showed up with a lamb under his arms for sacrifice.”

Robert Louis Wilken

Historia

Persecution in the Early Church

Candida Moss, The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom (New York: HarperOne, 2013).

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Persecution in the Early Church

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Persecution in the Early Church

Getting accurate statistics on contemporary martyrdom is tricky business, partly because the martyrs are voiceless, and partly because even suggesting they be given a voice is politically charged.

A study released in 2002 suggested that of the 70 million martyrs, 45.5 million (65%) were killed in the 20th century. Yearly estimates now run as low as 12 hundred, and as high as 160 thousand.

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Persecution in the Early Church

“Speculations become probabilities, which become assertions, which become facts, which prove the early Christians fraudulently invented martyrdoms.”

Ephraim Radner, review of Moss' The Myth of Persecution

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Persecution in the Early Church

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Persecution in the Early Church

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Persecution in the Early Church

Theoria

Perpetua

The editor’s object is not merely to glorify Perpetua

and her companions. His ambitions are far greater.

He is seeking nothing less than to convince the reader

that the words of Scripture are true. They are words to

live by, words that vindicate those that live by them.

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Perpetua

Aimee Semple McPherson

1890-1944

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Martha, Daughter of Posi

I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like

a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists

playing their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne

and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could

learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from

the earth. These are those who did not defile themselves with

women, for they remained virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever

he goes. They were purchased from among mankind and offered

as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. No lie was found in their

mouths; they are blameless.

Revelation 14:3-5

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Martha, Daughter of Posi

When she saw the knife being brandished by the officer, she laughed and said, “Now I can say, not like Isaac, ‘here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering”’ but rather I can say, ‘Here is the lamb and the knife, but where is the wood and the fire?’ But I do have wood and fire, for the wood is the cross of Jesus my lord, and I do have fire too—the fire that Christ left on earth, just as he said, ‘I came to

cast fire on earth: I only wish it had already caught alight!

-The Martyrdom of Martha

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Martha, Daughter of Posi

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Martha, Daughter of Posi

The account of Martha’s martyrdom attests to the participatory

orientation of early Christian worship. Early Christians knew the

Eucharist was about Christ’s sacrifice, but they also knew

that somehow the sacrifice was also about them,

since they were the body of Christ, and since their job

was to take on the form of Christ in history.

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Martha, Daughter of Posi

“The Passover still takes place today. Those who sacrifice Christ come out of Egypt,

cross the Red Sea, and see Pharaoh engulfed.”

Origen

“We do not, offer another sacrifice as the priest offered of Old, but we always offer the same

sacrifice. Or rather we, re-present the Sacrifice.”

Chrysostom

“Everything that the Son of God did and taught for the reconciliation of the world, we know

not only as a historical account of things now past, but we also experience them in the

power of the works that are present.”

Leo

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Martha, Daughter of Posi

Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh

what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of

his body, which is the church.

Colossians 1:24

Theoria

Martyrdom in Scriptural Context

All of the scriptural stories of God’s righteous martyrs, Jesus tells us, are drawn up into, and participate in, the story of his death and resurrection. By being placed alongside Abel, and Zechariah, Perpetua and Martha are staking their claim to be included among those who call out “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood” (Revelation 6:10).

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Martyrdom in Scriptural Context

Typology does not make scriptural contents into metaphors for extrascriptural realities, but the other way around. It does not suggest, as is often said in oru day, that believers find their stories in the Bible, but rather that they make the story of the Bible their story. The cross is not to be viewed as a figurative representation of suffering nor the messianic kingdom as a symbol for hope in a future; rather, suffering should be cruciform, and hopes for the future messianic. more generally stated, it is the religion instantiated in Scripture which defines being, truth, goodness, and beauty, and the nonscriptural exemplifications of these realities need to be transformed into figures (or types or antitypes) of the scriptural ones. Intratextual theology redescribes reality within the scriptural framework rather than translating Scripture into extrascriptural categories. it is the text, so to speak, which absorbs the world, rather than the world the text.

-Lindbeck 1984

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Martyrdom in Liturgical Context

Early Roman Catacomb

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Martyrdom in Liturgical Context

In the early Church, martyrdom was celebrated liturgically as the revelation of form of the Christian life, even for those who do not pay the ultimate price. It confirmed that, even in times of peace, the Christian life is the bodily experience, over the course of time, of coming “to know the power of His resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11).