Persecution in Ancient Rome: Nothing is quite as it Seems

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As Elizabeth Digeser attests, “According to emperor Constantine (306-37 c.e.), the immediate cause for Rome’s ‘Great Persecution’ was a Pythian oracle’s complaint that Christians were preventing accurate prophecies.” [1] This event led directly to the Persecution under Diocletian. Constantine’s Oracle appears to be earlier than the Oracle consulted by Diocletian at Didyma. According to Digeser, “Clues in the Emperor’s letter and several other fourth-century texts…suggest that Constantine was describing a separate and earlier prophecy from an oracle of Apollo at Daphne near Antioch in 299.”[2]

Why is this important? It shows one of the persecutions that, according to Nixey, was prevalent in the early church towards Christians.[3] These persecutions were undeniably brutal. Christians were persecuted for the first three centuries of the Church, even by Nixey’s admission. Nixey may want to downplay these persecutions, but I don’t think they can be downplayed. Again, as Digeser attests, “This prophecy, in turn, triggered a purge of Christian soldiers from the army, an event that both Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea mark as the true beginning of Diocletian’s persecution.”[4] Digeser further states that Daphne’s Oracle was pivotal in justifying anti-Christian edicts, notably the Army purge.[5] Digeser concludes that Constantine’s paper sheds light on how the Oracle’s role in persecution is understood. “Constantine declares his intention to testify to the divine nature of Christ by using pagan sources…, but before he does so, he complains about Apolline prophecy in general.”[6] In so doing, he gives us insight into the beginning of the Diocletian Controversy.

The primary purpose of this paper is to provide insight into whether Christians or Pagans were more persecuted. Before delving into that topic, we have more background to cover. Jurgasch states that the idea that Christians and pagans existed as distinct and independent groups is questioned. “Christians and pagans cannot be considered as two discrete and separate groups…their interdependence lies on a conceptual level.”[7] Jurgasch argues that Christians invented the word pagan as it applies to Roman Pagans and other non-Christians. According to Jurgasch, the word Pagan comes from the Latin Paganus and refers to a “country district or community” with no religious meaning before Christianity.[8] Christians needed to define themselves against others, mainly non-Christian Romans, to solidify their identity. “Only in opposition to the non-Christian Romans could the Christian Romans understand what was characteristic for them.”[9] The term “paganus” therefore emphasized social exclusion, marking those outside the Christian Community rather than focusing purely on religious differences.[10] Jurgasch concludes by stating that “Paganism…is a creation of the dialectical opposition of two groups, but it is nonetheless socially real.”[11]

To understand this issue, you must also understand crowd behavior in Late Antiquity. According to Slootjes, “Crowd behavior is closely connected to many social, political, cultural, economic, and religious phenomena within urban contexts.”[12] Slootjes also states that “Crowd behavior lends itself well for an analysis of an urban phenomenon…affected by Christianity, but…also unaffected by religion.”[13] Terms like Populus, plebs, multitude, and turbo carried nuanced meanings depending on context. “For instance,” Slootjes says, “Populus often seems to have a more neutral or positive connotation…while plebs emphasize the distinction between plebeians and patricians.”[14]And authors like Tacitus used the crowd rhetorically to critique leadership.[15] Slootjes suggests that crowd dynamics changed with the emergence of organized Christian groups. “The organizational and hierarchical structures of the Christian churches…lent themselves to collective identity.”[16] Christianity, according to Slootjes, introduced a distinct collective identity to urban crowds. “Christian crowds proved an effective tool for their leadership.”[17]

Now that we have preliminaries out of the way, let’s navigate back to Nixey. Nixey, in her book The Darkening Age, highlights a lot of stuff as part of her hypothesis that Christian persecution of Pagans was harsher than Pagan Persecution of Christians. We’re going to cover just three of her main points. If we covered any more, we would have a 20-page paper rather than a 10-page paper. Nixey makes three main points to support her thesis. First, there was a law that the sacrifices of the Old Gods would lead to executions. Second, Temples were destroyed and Idols defaced. And third, that very few Christians were Persecuted.

While it is apparent that Nixey isn’t entirely wrong in her hypothesis if she was, there would be scholars coming out of the woodwork to refute her; at the end of the day, it is not straightforward. It’s a fact that while there were persecutions on both sides, no one side was, qualitatively, worse than the others. While Christians were persecuted in higher numbers than pagans and persecuted by the government, pagans were persecuted by mobs, and mob violence is always worse than violence by the state, even if it is on a small scale.

Nixey starts her book by discussing the laws passed against pagans while discussing Damascius.[18] To quote Nixey, “This was no time for a philosopher to be philosophical. ‘The Tyrant,’ as the philosophers put it, was in charge and had many alarming habits…Discussion of religious matters in public had been branded ‘damnable audacity’ and forbidden by law. Anyone who made sacrifices to the old gods could, the law said, be executed.”[19] However, this doesn’t change the fact that Christians were persecuted first. To quote Kereztes, “Diocletian was strongly influenced by Imperial counselors, who were often anti-Christian” and “When the highly respected oracle of the Milesian Apollo advised the persecution of the Christians, Diocletian was unable to act against Apollo’s suggestion.”[20] A natural decline in pagan religions such as Mithraism accompanied these trends. For example, Bjornebye states, “Mithraic activity would gradually lessen…as society became more Christian.”[21]

This, of course, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t persecution of pagans. However, as with Hypatia, rogue mobs usually persecuted the pagans. “Some of them, therefore (Speaking of Cyril’s men)…dragged her from her carriage and took her to the church called Caesarion, where they completely stripped her and then murdered her with tiles.”[22](Parenthesis mine, quote Socrates). According to Damscius, “Cyril, the bishop of the opposite sect…plotted her murder.”[23] Again, this doesn’t mean that the murder of Hypatia wasn’t an awful thing or that we shouldn’t condemn religious violence. However, what it does mean is that even though there were laws against paganism, most of the Christian persecution of pagans seems to have been by mob violence.

However, as Pliny to Trajan attests, Persecution against Christians was government-sanctioned. “I ask them whether they are Christians,” Pliny says, “if they say ‘Yes,’ then I repeat the question the second time, and also a third…and if they persist, I order them away to prison.”[24] Mehmet Alkan and Johannes Nolle also attest to this in their article on Heliodoros, a Christian Councilman of Perinthos. “Heliodoros had been a councilor of Perinthos and the president of the city’s Persia, but he finally moved to Kios and died there as a servant of the Christian god.”[25]

This is also seen in Perpetua. Perpetua, when on trial for being a Christian, was approached by her father, who tried to convince her to abandon her Christian faith, but she wouldn’t. “’ Father,’ said I, ‘do you see this vase here, for example, or water pot or whatever?’ ‘Yes, I do,’ said he. And I told him: ‘Could any other name call it than what it is?’ And he said: ‘No.’ ‘Well, so too I cannot be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.’”[26] Again, this isn’t to discount Christian persecution of Pagans but only to state that the two were of a different type than each other. One was mob violence. To my knowledge, nobody has ever been imprisoned for breaking the law against paganism. They were simply killed for it. However, violence against Christians was committed by the State and occurred usually after a trial. This means the number of Christian persecutions would be more significant because the government can persecute at scale.

Nixey’s second point, of course, is that Christians destroyed the Classical world. As an example, she uses the destruction of temples, specifically the temple of Serapis, to show that Christians did this. To Quote Nixey, “No one has heard of it now. While tourists still toil up to the Parthenon or look in awe at the Colosseum, few people know of the temple of Serapis outside academia. That is because in AD 392, a bishop, supported by a band of fanatical Christians, reduced it to rubble.”[27] Again, things like this most certainly happened. Christians have always believed that false gods are demons. Imagine this: imagine that you are a Christian living after the Great Persecution. You are old enough to remember the persecutions that happened before. You, as a Christian, believe that pagans worship demons. You look around you, and you see that part of paganism is hedonism, human sacrifice, infanticide, and blood sports. What do you conclude? You must conclude that this is the influence of demons. So, when you come to power, what is your first inclination? That the old gods have to come down. That temples must be destroyed. Does hatred of people then inspire such an action? No. But rather a hatred of those demons who inspired the evil you see in the world.

Then there’s the nuance. That is, while Christians did destroy the classical world to a degree, they also preserved it. For example, Christians reinterpreted Hercules in a Christian context. To quote Nagy, “Hercules, man and god with superhuman abilities, was a heroic figure for late antique Christians too.”[28] In this article, Nagy, not to be confused with Nixey, details how Christians turned Hercules into a Christian folk hero. They built statues and icons of Hercules, and inscriptions hailed his heroism. Another source on this, which I do not have time to go through, is Judith Herrin’s book “Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire,” where Herrin details how the Byzantine Empire preserved Roman and Greek Philosophy, Art, and Architecture. Again, I don’t have time to unpack her book, but I highly recommend picking it up. But back to Nagy, “Schumacher and Fink argue that the Hercules imagery in the catacomb compliments Christian ideas of resurrection.”[29] Iconography is essential to Christians. Even though some Christians don’t venerate Icons, I don’t; we still keep Icons because they are sources of Inspiration. If the Christians hated all pagans and everything related to paganism, then why did they make Hercules into an Icon? Shouldn’t they be smashing Icons of Hercules? Instead, they kept old Icons of Hercules and made new ones. I’m reminded of a one-time famous Christian actor who played Hercules by the name Kevin Sorbo. Why did Kevin do Hercules if Christians hate all things pagan? Because the truth is we don’t. Many church fathers regarded pagan philosophers like Aristotle and Plato as pre-Christian Gentile Prophets. Again, this doesn’t discount the defacing of idols and the destruction of temples. That happened as well. All my areas of disagreement are on the nuance of the related facts to Nixey’s hypothesis.

To add one more thing to the conversation, Pagans weren’t afraid to speak up under Christian rule. Cameron attests that “The polemic is always covert because it is assumed that pagans were afraid to express their beliefs openly. But this is pure assumption, for which no real evidence has ever been produced.”[30] Cameron details several things, including Symmachus’ letter, which suggests that pagans never actually feared persecution for speaking their minds.

The final point is that, according to Nixey, there were very few actual Christian persecutions. To quote Nixey, “Detailed analysis of the calendar of saints days revealed a picture that has been described as more romantic fiction than historical fact. Some saints appeared multiple times; other saints’ names had been, at best, misrecorded, mixed with the names of the consuls for that year. Several saints appear never to have existed at all. It is now thought that fewer than ten martyrdom tales from the early church can be considered reliable.”[31] I have touched on this already. I don’t feel that a complete treatment of this point is necessary. However, let me say a few words nonetheless before my conclusion. While it is true that accounts are exaggerated, that is true of many things. Lots of accounts of wars, for example, are exaggerated. For example, I am reminded of some of the exaggerations of the Ukraine war. However, exaggeration doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. It also doesn’t mean that there was less of one type of persecution than the other. As already previously stated, the two persecutions, that of Christians and that of Pagans, were of different types. One was mob violence. Unless Nixey neglected to put in sources that would change that impression, the impression that one was government-driven and the other by mob violence, then I don’t see how I can but conclude that Christians must have been persecuted in more significant numbers. Governments do things to scale. Mobs don’t. It would take a million mobs, all at once, every single day of the week, for pagans to be persecuted in more significant numbers than what Diocletian, for example, could persecute Christians in a day. There’s no good reason to believe that mob violence was of that magnitude.

In conclusion, while Nixey makes some valid points, she needs more nuance. Did Christians persecute pagans? Yes. Did they destroy temples? Yes. Were there some exaggerations in the records of Christian persecutions? Of course. However, there were also other things at play. Christians destroyed temples and defaced idols but also preserved stories such as those of Hercules and philosophers such as Aristotle. There was a law against paganism. But the law was only ever enforced by mob violence. And pagans were not afraid to speak their minds on any given subject. That is what the evidence suggests.

[1] Digeser, Elizabeth DePalma. “An Oracle of Apollo at Daphne and the Great Persecution.” Classical Philology 99, no. 1 (2004): 57. https://doi.org/10.2307/3488425. Pg. 57

[2] ibid

[3] Nixey, Catherine. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. First ed. New York, New York: MacMillan, 2017. Pg. 66

[4] Digeser, Elizabeth DePalma. “An Oracle of Apollo at Daphne and the Great Persecution.” Classical Philology 99, no. 1 (2004): 57. https://doi.org/10.2307/3488425. Pg. 59

[5] Digeser, Elizabeth DePalma. “An Oracle of Apollo at Daphne and the Great Persecution.” Classical Philology 99, no. 1 (2004): 57. https://doi.org/10.2307/3488425. Pg. 64

[6] Digeser, Elizabeth DePalma. “An Oracle of Apollo at Daphne and the Great Persecution.” Classical Philology 99, no. 1 (2004): 57. https://doi.org/10.2307/3488425. Pg. 68

[7] Jürgasch, Thomas. “Christians and the Invention of Paganism in the Late Roman Empire.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, n.d., 115–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.005. Pg. 115

[8] Jürgasch, Thomas. “Christians and the Invention of Paganism in the Late Roman Empire.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, n.d., 115–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.005. Pg. 116

[9] Jürgasch, Thomas. “Christians and the Invention of Paganism in the Late Roman Empire.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, n.d., 115–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.005. Pg. 125

[10]Jürgasch, Thomas. “Christians and the Invention of Paganism in the Late Roman Empire.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, n.d., 115–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.005. Pg. 129

[11] Jürgasch, Thomas. “Christians and the Invention of Paganism in the Late Roman Empire.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, n.d., 115–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.005. Pg. 132

[12] Slootjes, Daniëlle. “Crowd Behavior in Late Antique Rome.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, November 5, 2015, 178–94. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.008. Pg 178

[13] Ibid

[14] Slootjes, Daniëlle. “Crowd Behavior in Late Antique Rome.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, November 5, 2015, 178–94. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.008. Pg 180

[15] ibid

[16] Slootjes, Daniëlle. “Crowd Behavior in Late Antique Rome.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, November 5, 2015, 178–94. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.008. Pg 187

[17] Slootjes, Daniëlle. “Crowd Behavior in Late Antique Rome.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, November 5, 2015, 178–94. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.008. Pg 192

[18] Nixey, Catherine. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. First ed. New York, New York: MacMillan, 2017. xxiv

[19] Ibid

[20] Keresztes, Paul. “From the Great Persecution to the Peace of Galerius.” Vigiliae Christianae 37, no. 4 (December 1983): 379. https://doi.org/10.2307/1583547. 381

[21] Bjørnebye, Jonas. “Reinterpreting the Cult of Mithras.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, November 5, 2015, 197–212. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.009. Pg 209.

[22] “Hypatia of Alexandria: The Primary Sources.” Historian’s Notebook, June 11, 2019. https://faithljustice.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/hypatia-sources/. Pg 3

[23] “Hypatia of Alexandria: The Primary Sources.” Historian’s Notebook, June 11, 2019. https://faithljustice.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/hypatia-sources/. Pg 4

[24] “Ancient History Sourcebook.” Internet History Sourcebooks Project: Ancient History. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/pliny-trajan1.asp pg 1

[25] Alkan, Mehmet, and Johannes Nollé. “Heliodoros or the Fate of a Christian Councilman of Perinthos during the Great Persecution.” Gephyra 14 (May 15, 2017): 117–32. https://doi.org/10.37095/gephyra.318455. Pg 122

[26] Musurillo, H, trans. “The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas .” Essay. In The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 107–31. Oxford, 1972. Pg. 109

[27] Nixey, Catherine. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. First ed. New York, New York: MacMillan, 2017. Pg 89

[28] Nagy, Levente. “Myth and Salvation in the Fourth Century: Representations of Hercules in Christian Contexts.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, n.d., 379–400. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.019. Pg 377

[29] Nagy, Levente. “Myth and Salvation in the Fourth Century: Representations of Hercules in Christian Contexts.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, n.d., 379–400. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.019. Pg 380

[30] Cameron, Alan. “Were Pagans Afraid to Speak Their Minds in a Christian World? The Correspondence of Symmachus.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, November 5, 2015, 64–112. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.004. Pg 64

[31] Nixey, Catherine. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. First ed. New York, New York: MacMillan, 2017. Pg 67

Bibliography

“Ancient History Sourcebook.” Internet History Sourcebooks Project: Ancient History. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/pliny-trajan1.asp

“Hypatia of Alexandria: The Primary Sources.” Historian’s Notebook, June 11, 2019. https://faithljustice.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/hypatia-sources/.

Alkan, Mehmet, and Johannes Nollé. “Heliodoros or the Fate of a Christian Councilman of Perinthos during the Great Persecution.” Gephyra 14 (May 15, 2017): 117–32. https://doi.org/10.37095/gephyra.318455. Pg 122

Bjørnebye, Jonas. “Reinterpreting the Cult of Mithras.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, November 5, 2015, 197–212. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.009.

Cameron, Alan. “Were Pagans Afraid to Speak Their Minds in a Christian World? The Correspondence of Symmachus.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, November 5, 2015, 64–112. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.004.

Digeser, Elizabeth DePalma. “An Oracle of Apollo at Daphne and the Great Persecution.” Classical Philology 99, no. 1 (2004): 57. https://doi.org/10.2307/3488425.

Jürgasch, Thomas. “Christians and the Invention of Paganism in the Late Roman Empire.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, n.d., 115–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.005.

Keresztes, Paul. “From the Great Persecution to the Peace of Galerius.” Vigiliae Christianae 37, no. 4 (December 1983): 379. https://doi.org/10.2307/1583547.

Musurillo, H, trans. “The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas .” Essay. In The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 107–31. Oxford, 1972.

Nagy, Levente. “Myth and Salvation in the Fourth Century: Representations of Hercules in Christian Contexts.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, n.d., 379–400. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.019.

Nixey, Catherine. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. First ed. New York, New York: MacMillan, 2017.

Slootjes, Daniëlle. “Crowd Behavior in Late Antique Rome.” Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome, November 5, 2015, 178–94. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316274989.008.