The Gnostic Gospels (17 page)

Tacitus interprets Nero’s action in terms of his need for a scapegoat. As yet, the government may have considered the Christians outside Rome—if it considered them at all—too insignificant to initiate systematic action against the movement. But since the time that Augustus ruled as emperor (27
B.C.–A.D.
14), the emperor and the Senate had moved to repress any social dissidents whom they thought potential troublemakers, as they did astrologers, magicians, followers of foreign religious cults, and philosophers.
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The Christian group bore all the marks of conspiracy. First, they identified themselves as followers of a man accused of magic
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and executed for that and for treason; second, they were “atheists,” who denounced as “demons” the gods who protected the fortunes of the Roman state—even the
genius
(divine spirit) of the emperor himself; third, they belonged to an illegal society. Besides these acts that police could verify, rumor indicated that their secrecy concealed atrocities: their enemies said that they ritually ate human flesh and drank human blood, practices of which magicians were commonly
accused.
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Although at this time no law specifically prohibited conversion to Christianity, any magistrate who heard a person accused of Christianity was required to investigate.
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Uncertain about how to treat such cases, Pliny, the governor of Bythynia (a province in Asia Minor), wrote (c. 112) to Trajan, the emperor, requesting clarification:

It is my custom, Lord Emperor, to refer to you all questions whereof I am in doubt. Who can better guide me …? I have never participated in investigations of Christians; hence I do not know what is the crime usually punished or investigated, or what allowances are made … Meanwhile, this is the course I have taken with those who were accused before me as Christians. I asked them whether they were Christians, and I asked them a second and third time with threats of punishment. If they kept to it, I ordered them taken off for execution, for
I had no doubt that whatever it was they admitted, in any case they deserve to be punished for obstinacy and unbending pertinacity … As for those who said they neither were nor ever had been Christians, I thought it right to let them go
, when they recited a prayer to the gods at my dictation, and made supplication with incense and wine to your statue, which I had ordered to be brought into court for the purpose, and moreover, cursed Christ—things which (so it is said) those who are really Christians cannot be made to do.
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Trajan replied with approval for Pliny’s handling of the matter:

You have adopted the proper course, my dear Secundus, in your examination of the cases of those who were accused before you as Christians, for indeed, nothing can be laid down as a general rule involving something like a set form of procedure.
They are not to be sought out; but if they are accused and convicted, they must be punished
—but on the condition that whoever denies that he is a Christian, and makes the fact plain by his action, that is, by worshipping our gods, shall obtain pardon on his repentance, however suspicious his past conduct may be.
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But Trajan advised Pliny against accepting anonymous accusations, “since they are a bad example, and unworthy of our time.” Pliny and Trajan agreed that anyone who would refuse such a gesture of loyalty must have serious crimes to hide, especially since the penalty for refusing was immediate execution.

Justin, a philosopher who had converted to Christianity (c. 150–155
A.D
.), boldly wrote to the Emperor Antoninus Pius and to his son, the future emperor, Marcus Aurelius, whom he addressed as a colleague in philosophy and “a lover of learning,”
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protesting the injustice Christians endured in imperial courts. Justin relates a recent case in Rome: a woman who had participated with her husband and their servants in various forms of sexual activity, fueled by wine, then converted to Christianity through the influence of her teacher Ptolemy, and subsequently refused to take part in such activities. Her friends persuaded her not to divorce, hoping for some reconciliation. But when she learned that, on a trip to Alexandria in Egypt, her husband had acted more flagrantly than ever, she sued for divorce and left him. Her outraged husband immediately brought a legal accusation against her, “affirming that she was a Christian.” When she won a plea to delay her trial, her husband attacked her teacher in Christianity. Judge Urbicus, hearing the accusation, asked Ptolemy only one question: Was he a Christian? When he acknowledged that he was, Urbicus immediately sentenced him to death. Hearing this order, a man in the courtroom named Lucias challenged the judge:

“What is the good of this judgment? Why have you punished this man, not as an adulterer, nor fornicator, nor thief, nor robber, nor convicted of any crime at all, but one who has only confessed that he is called by the name of Christian? This judgment of yours, Urbicus, does not become the Emperor Pius, nor the philosopher, the son of Caesar [Marcus Aurelius], nor the sacred Senate.”
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Urbicus replied only, “You also seem to be one.” And when Lucias said “Indeed I am,” Urbicus condemned him—and a
second protester in the audience—to follow Ptolemy to death.

Recounting this story, Justin points out that anyone can use the charge of Christianity to settle any personal grudge against a Christian: “I, too, therefore, expect to be plotted against and crucified”
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—perhaps, he adds, by one of his professional rivals, the Cynic philosopher named Crescens. And Justin was right: apparently it was Crescens whose accusation led to his own arrest, trial, and condemnation in
A.D.
165. Rusticus, a personal friend of Marcus Aurelius (who, by that time, had succeeded his father as emperor), conducted the trial. Rusticus ordered Justin’s execution along with that of a whole group of his students, whose crime was learning Christian philosophy from him. The record of their trial shows that Rusticus asked Justin,

“Where do you meet?” … “Wherever it is each one’s preference or opportunity,” said Justin. “In any case, do you suppose we can all meet in the same place? Not so; for the Christians’ God is not circumscribed by place; invisible, he fills the heavens and the earth, and is worshipped and glorified by believers everywhere.”

Rusticus the prefect said, “Tell me, where do you meet? Where do you gather together your disciples?”

Justin said, “I have been living above the baths of a certain Martinus, son of Timiotinus, and for the entire period of my stay at Rome (and this is my second) I have known no other meeting place but there. Anyone who wished could come to my abode and I would impart to him the words of truth.”

The prefect Rusticus said, “You do admit, then, that you are a Christian?” “Yes, I am,” said Justin.
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Then Rusticus interrogated Cariton, the woman named Charito, Euelpistis, a slave in the imperial court, Hierax, Liberian, and Paeon—all of them Justin’s students. All declared themselves Christians. The account proceeds:

“Well, then,” said the prefect Rusticus, “let us come to the point at issue, a necessary and pressing business. Agree to offer sacrifice to the gods.”

“No one of sound mind,” said Justin, “turns from piety to impiety.”

The prefect Rusticus said, “If you do not obey, you will be punished without mercy.”
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When they replied, “Do what you will; we are Christians, and we do not offer sacrifice to idols,” Rusticus pronounced sentence: “Let those who have refused to sacrifice to the gods and to yield to the emperor’s edict be led away to be scourged and beheaded in accordance with the laws.”
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Given this danger, what was a Christian to do? Once arrested and accused, should one confess to being a Christian, only to receive an order of execution: immediate beheading if one was fortunate enough to be a Roman citizen, like Justin and his companions, or, for noncitizens, extended torture as a spectacle in the public sports arena? Or should one deny it and make the token gesture of loyalty—intending afterwards to atone for the lie?

Charged with the unpleasant duty of ordering executions for noncompliance, Roman officials often tried to persuade the accused to save their own lives. According to contemporary accounts (c. 165), after the aged and revered Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna, in Asia Minor, was arrested by the police,

the governor tried to persuade him to recant, saying, “Have respect for your age,”
and other similar things that they usually say
; “Swear by the
genius
of the emperor. Recant. Say, ‘Away with the atheists!’ ” Polycarp, with a sober expression, looked at all the mob of lawless pagans who were in the stadium … and said, “Away with the atheists!” The governor persisted and said, “Swear and I will let you go. Curse Christ!” But Polycarp answered, “For eighty-six years I have been his servant, and he has done me no wrong … If you delude yourself into thinking that I will swear by the emperor’s
genius
, as you say, and if you pretend not to know who I am, listen and I will tell you plainly: I am a Christian.”
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Polycarp was burned alive in the public arena.

An account from North Africa (c. 180) describes how the proconsul Saturninus, confronted by nine men and three women arraigned as Christians, worked to spare their lives, saying,

“If you return to your senses, you can obtain pardon of our lord the emperor … We too are a religious people, and our religion is a simple one: We swear by the
genius
of our lord the emperor and offer prayers for his health—as you ought to do too.”
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Meeting their determined resistance, Saturninus asked, “You wish no time for reconsideration?” Speratus, one of the accused, replied, “In so just a matter, there is no need for consideration.” In spite of this, the proconsul ordered a thirty-day reprieve with the words “Think it over.” But thirty days later, after interrogating the accused, Saturninus was forced to give the order:

Whereas Speratus, Narzalus, Cittinus, Donata, Vestia, Secunda, and the others have confessed that they have been living in accordance with the rites of the Christians, and whereas, though they have been given the opportunity to return to the Roman usage, they have persevered in their obstinancy, they are hereby condemned to be executed by the sword.
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Speratus said, “We thank God!” Narzalus said, “Today we are martyrs in heaven. Thanks be to God!”

Such behavior provoked the scorn of the Stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who despised the Christians as morbid and misguided exhibitionists. Many today might agree with his judgment, or else dismiss the martyrs as neurotic masochists. Yet for Jews and Christians of the first and second centuries, the term bore a different connotation:
martus
simply means, in Greek, “witness.” In the Roman Empire, as in many countries throughout the world today, members of certain religious groups fell under government suspicion as organizations that fostered criminal or treasonous activities. Those who, like Justin, dared to protest publicly the unjust treatment Christians received in court made themselves likely targets of police action. For those caught
in such a situation then, as now, the choice was often simple: either to speak out, risking arrest, torture, the formality of a futile trial, and exile or death—or to keep silent and remain safe. Their fellow believers revered those who spoke out as “confessors” and regarded only those who actually endured through death as “witnesses” (
martyres
).

But not all Christians spoke out. Many, at the moment of decision, made the opposite choice. Some considered martyrdom foolish, wasteful of human life, and so, contrary to God’s will. They argued that “Christ, having died for us, was killed so that we might not be killed.”
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As past events become matters of religious conviction only when they serve to interpret present experience, here the interpretation of Christ’s death became the focus for controversy over the practical question of martyrdom.

The orthodox who expressed the greatest concern to refute “heretical” gnostic views of Christ’s passion were, without exception, persons who knew from firsthand experience the dangers to which Christians were exposed—and who insisted on the necessity of accepting martyrdom. When that great opponent of heresy, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was arrested and tried, he is said to have accepted the death sentence with joyful exultation as his opportunity to “imitate the passion of my God!”
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Condemned to be sent from Syria to Rome to be killed by wild beasts in the public amphitheater, Ignatius, chained and heavily guarded, wrote to the Christians in Rome, pleading with them not to interfere in his behalf:

I am writing to all the churches, and I give injunction to everyone, that I am dying willingly for God’s sake, if you do not prevent it. I plead with you not to be an “unseasonable kindness” to me. Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, through whom I can attain to God. I am God’s wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become pure bread of Christ … Do me this favor … Let there come upon me fire, and the cross, and struggle with wild beasts, cutting and tearing apart, racking of bones, mangling of limbs, crushing of my whole body … may I but attain to Jesus Christ!
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