The Blaze recently published a two part interview series about Christian martyrdom, its focus being a provocatively titled new book by University of Notre Dame professor Dr. Candida Moss, The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom. As this author's premise could be upsetting for less historically informed Christians, I would like to respond by posting a few paragraphs from Fr Alexander Schmemann's classic work, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy, as well as make some points concerning the modern wave of persecution of Christians by Muslims.
As can be seen from Fr Schmemann's remarks below, attempts to "deny or minimize the fact of" Roman persecution of Christians is not a new phenomenon. On the other hand, Fr. Schmemann illustrates that this persecution was generally "neither bloodthirsty nor fanatic."
Understanding the realities of the early persecutions is helpful for us, as tens of millions of Christians today are being increasingly persecuted throughout the Islamic world. While there are similarities, the differences are perhaps most important.
For example, as Fr Schmemann relates, Rome did not require the early Christians to deny Christ, just to "burn a few sticks of incense before the images of the national gods, call the emperor 'Lord', and celebrate the rites. Once he had fulfilled this, he was free to seek the eternal meaning of life wherever he wished." The Romans themselves often did not believe in the meaning of the pinch of incense, but complied out of necessity as a show of loyalty to the state and the emperor. For the Christians, however, one could render unto Caesar only the coins with his image; incense, worship and the title of “Lord” is due to God alone.
And, unlike in the Roman era, we are seeing, in the raging Muslim persecutions against the Copts in Egypt, the Orthodox in Syria, the Chaldaean and Assyrian Christians in Iraq, and Christians in Gaza, Morocco, Libya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Indonesia, and elsewhere, that Islamic persecution of Christian believers everywhere, unlike the early Roman vintage, is demonstrably both "bloodthirsty and fanatic."
For Christians in the United States, who at this time are seeing perhaps the first signs of government persecution in the form of the HHS Obamacare mandate and the IRS targeting of Christian organizations, or of open persecution of Christians by civil authorities in Muslim enclaves such as Dearbornistan Michigan, it is Fr. Schmemann’s discussion of “The Last Great Persecutions” which deserves our serious attention. The outbreak of renewed persecutions in the mid-third century caught many by surprise, accustomed as they were to a more widespread acceptance of the Christian faith. Many committed apostasy, and caused the Church to be mocked by the pagan Romans. How would we fare if we were suddenly thrust into a crucible similar to what our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt and elsewhere are enduring with such faith? Indeed, as can be seen by recent Muslim assaults of Catholic priests in France, where the Muslim population is reaching the all important 10% threshold, there are many Christian communities in Europe, America and Canada which will likely be confronted with the existential threat of open persecution in the not too distant future.
Excerpted from Fr. Alexander Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy:
Basis of Persecution by Rome.
The persecution of Christians has been variously treated by historians from early times. After the accounts of martyrdom had been embroidered by Christian piety into a shining legend, a later age of enlightenment to which Rome appeared as an ideal of justice and culture attempted to deny or minimize the fact of persecution. Whatever its destructive intention, this attitude has helped to separate genuine documents from the vast hagiographic literature, so that we are now in a better position to explain the persistent struggle against Christianity over three centuries by the Roman Empire, which was in fact basically neither bloodthirsty nor fanatic.
When Christianity appeared, the most varied religions were flourishing in the empire, and Juvenal’s satires mock the fascination of these many exotic cults for the Romans. At first the authorities took no notice at all of the Christians and did not perceive the radical distinction between them and the Jews. Judaism, though strange and unusual, was a legitimate religion, and the Church survived its first decades, as Tertullian has said, “under its roof.” Even in this period, however, we encounter hostility and frequently even hatred for Christians on the part of the multitude. The lack of temples, the night meetings and secret ceremonies, all inevitably aroused suspicion, and naturally the most monstrous rumors developed about orgies, magic, and ritual murders at Christian meetings. Although this created an atmosphere favorable for persecution, the Roman state was in general law-abiding and did not permit arbitrary outrages. The true cause of the conflict must therefore be sought in the essential nature of the Roman state.
Like all states of antiquity, Rome had its gods, its national-political religion. This was neither a system of beliefs nor a system of morals (the Roman citizen could and very often did believe in foreign gods). It was a ritual, worked out to the last detail, of sacrifices and prayers, a cult of primarily political and state significance. Rome had no other symbol to express and maintain its unity and to symbolize its faith in itself. Although in this troubled period very few believed in the symbol, to reject it meant disloyalty, being a rebel. Rome demanded only outward participation in the state cult as an expression of loyalty; all that was required of a citizen was to burn a few sticks of incense before the images of the national gods, call the emperor “Lord,” and celebrate the rites. Once he had fulfilled this, he was free to seek the eternal meaning of life wherever he wished.
For a man of the ancient world the validity of such a demand was self-evident. Religion (the word is of Roman origin and without synonym in Greek or Hebrew) was not a problem of personal choice but a family, tribal, and state matter. One’s personal faith or lack of it had nothing to do with religion, since religion itself had never been a problem of truth, but only an acknowledgment of the existing system, its legitimacy and justifiability.
The Christians refused to fulfill this self-evident, elementary civic duty. Their act was neither rebellion, condemnation of the state as such, nor even opposition to its particular defects or vices. Starting with St. Paul, Christians could boldly declare their loyalty to Rome, referring to their prayers for the emperor and the authorities. But they could not fulfill two requirements: they could not recognize the emperor as “Lord,” and they could not bow down to idols, even outwardly, without faith in them. “Lord” in the language of that time meant absolute master and ruler, but for Christians the whole significance of their faith was that the one true Lord, Jesus Christ, had come and ruled in the world: .” . . God hath made that same Jesus . . . both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). This meant that God had given Him all authority over the world, and that henceforth He was the only Master of human life. “One Lord!” We no longer feel the force and paradox of this early Christian exclamation that has come down to us, but it rang out then as a challenge to a world in which lordship had been claimed through the ages by every authority, every state, and every “collective.”
The indifference of Christians to the external world, their effort to free themselves from it, has been regarded as a strange way of combating the pagan demands of the empire. In actual fact, by their refusal to fulfill a requirement that was not taken seriously even by those who had imposed it, the whole measure of Christian responsibility in the world was revealed for all ages. By rejecting the formal requirement of the state, they thereby included the state within the perspective of the kingdom of Christ and — however passively — summoned it to submit to the Lord of the world.
Modern observers, even some Christians, regard this conflict as a struggle for freedom of conscience, for the right of a man to make religion his private affair. For the early Church its significance was much more profound. Christianity was not so much a new religion as an upheaval in world history, the appearance of the Lord to do battle with one who had usurped His authority.
Blood of Martyrs.
The beginning of the persecutions was illumined by fire in the Eternal City. On the night of July 16 in the year 64 a great part of Rome burned down, and popular rumor accused the emperor himself of arson. In order to distract attention from himself, Nero shifted the blame onto the Christians, showing that the existence of Christianity was known to all. Although Nero’s persecution was confined to Rome and its cause was arbitrary, it raised the question about Christians for the first time on the plane of politics and the state, where it was also to be examined in the future. During the rest of the century the frequent rebellions and disorders left Rome no time for the Christians. But the persecutions were gathering head: Church tradition places the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Rome in this period, perhaps under Nero, and of John the Evangelist in the East under Domitian (81-96).
