Pagan Rome and the Early Christians
Stephen Benko
Number of quotes: 70
Book ID: 169 Page: 1
Section: 2C
The embittered husband then denounced his former wife to the authorities on the charge of being a Christian. She was immediately arrested, but then granted a temporary release by the emperor so that she might put her affairs in order before reporting to the court to answer the accusation. The husband now denounced the woman’s instructor in the Christian faith, a man by the name of Ptolemaeus, who was also arrested, put in chains, and carried off to prison, where he endured a long period of harsh treatment. Finally the day of his trial arrived, and he was led before the judge, Urbicus. Urbicus asked only one question of Ptolemaeus: “Are you a Christian?” When he replied in the affirmative, Ptolemaeus was sentenced to death and, since death sentences in Rome were carried out immediately, led away to execution. A certain Lucius, having witnessed the proceeding, rose in indignation and cried out to the judge: “Why did you pass such a sentence? Was this man convicted of a crime? Is he an adulterer, a murderer, a robber? All he did was confess that he was a Christian!” To this Urbicus replied: “It seems that you are a Christian too!” “Yes,” said Lucius, “I am!” Urbicus promptly had him executed as well. A third Christian now came forward and received the same sentence. Justin, a philospher and later Christian martyr (ca. 100-ca. 165), heard about this incident and in protest wrote a letter to the emperor, which has survived under the name of The Second Apology of Justin Martyr.
Quote ID: 3604
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 2
Section: 4A
Christians received the death sentence simply because of their name.
Quote ID: 3605
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 2
Section: 2C
Justin himself, in his First Apology, addressed to Emperor Atoninus Pius, begged for nothing more than that specific charges be presented against the Christians and that only if the charges were substantiated should the persons involved be punished as they deserved. But, he argued, if no one could bring proof of criminal activities then their punishment simply for being Christian was a gross violation of reason and justice.
Quote ID: 3606
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 2
Section: 2C
Some twenty years later, Athenagoras, “The Athenian philosopher and Christian,” as he is identified in the title of his essay, wrote A Plea for the Christians, addressing it to Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus (ca. 177). Athenagoras started with the same complait:
Quote ID: 3607
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 3
Section: 4A
“Why is a mere name odious to you? Names are not deserving of hatred, it is the unjust act that calls for penalty and punishment.”
Quote ID: 3608
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 3
Section: 4A
Tertullian, the Carthagenian lawyer and Christian (160-220), also discussed the Romans’ treatment of the Christians.….
From his writings it is clear that twenty years after Athenagoras plea (and thirty years before Justin’s death) the situation had not changed at all.
Quote ID: 3609
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 3
Section: 2C
“No name of a crime stands against us, but only the crime of a name,” Tertullian cried in Ad nationes. “What crime, what offence, what fault is there in a name?” He went on to explain, as Justin had done before him, that since Chrestos means good, the name should not be punished.
Quote ID: 3610
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 4
Section: 4A
...This is the teacher of Asia, the father of Christians, and the overthrower of our gods, he who has been teaching many not to sacrifice, or to worship the gods.” It appears that the second-century Christian apologists oversimplified matters when they asserted that the people associated nothing bad with the Christian name. Polycarp’s case brings to surface the real accusation: He was an overthrower of the gods, and he encouraged many people not to sacrifice or to worship the gods. This, then, is the real reason why he was executed; the multitude assumed that by professing to being a Christian he had confessed to luring the people away from their ancient gods, thus upsetting the prevailing social order.
Quote ID: 3611
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 5
Section: 2C
Pliny’s letter to Trajan is an important source on early Christianity. Because of his legal training and experience in government, Trajan chose Pliny as governor of the province of Bithynia-and-Pontus, where he served from September 111 until his death in 113. The province was in state of disorder, and Trajan gave Pliny considerable freedom to do whatever was needed to restore law and order.…..
Pliny saved copies of his letters together with Trajan’s replies and later published them. The correspondences has survived, and it is one of these exchanges of letters, dated 111, that deals with the Christians.
Quote ID: 3612
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 5
Section: 2C
(the letters)It is a rule, Sir, which I inviolably observe, to refer to you in I all my doubts; for who is more capable of guiding my uncertainty or informing my ignorance? Having never been present at any trials of the Christians, I am unacquainted with the method and limits to be observed either in examining or punishing them. Whether any difference is to be made on account of age, or no distinction allowed between the youngest and the adult; whether repentance admits to a pardon, or if a man has been once a Christian it avails him nothing to recant; whether the mere profession Christianity, albeit without crimes, or only the crimes associated therewith are punishable – in all these points I am greatly doubtful.
In the meanwhile, the method I have observed towards those who have been denounced to me as Christians is this: I interrogated them whether they were Christians; if they confessed it, I repeated the question twice again, adding the threat of capital punishment; if they still persevered, I ordered them to be executed. For whatever the nature of their creed might be, I could at least feel no doubt that contumacy and inflexible obstinancy deserved chastisement. There were others also possessed with the same infatuation, but being citizens of Rome, I directed them to be carried thither.
These accusations spread (as is usually the case) from the mere fact of the matter being investigated and several forms of the mischief came to light. A placard was put up, without any signature, accusing a large number of persons by my name. Those who denied they were, or had ever been Christians, who repeated after me an invocation to the gods, and offered adoration, with wine and frankincense, to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for that purpose, together with those of the gods, and who finally cursed Christ-none of which acts, it is said, those who are really Christians can be forced into performing- these I thought it proper to discharge. Others who were named by that informer at first confessed themselves Christians, and then denied it; true, they had been of the persuasion but they had quitted it, some three years ago. They all worshipped your statute and the image of the gods and cursed Christ.
They affirmed, however, the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to commit any wicked deeds, fraud, theft, or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food – but food of an ordinary and innocent kind. Even the practice, however, they had abandoned after the publication of my edict, by which, according to your orders, I had forbidden political associations. I judged it so much the more necessary to extract the real truth, with the assistance of torture, from two female slaves, who were styled deaconess: but I could discover nothing more than depraved and excessive superstition.
I therefore adjourned the proceedings, and betook myself at once to your counsel. For the matter seemed to me well worth referring to you, - especially considering the numbers endangered. Persons of all ranks and ages, and of both sexes are, and will be, involved in the prosecution. For this contagious superstition is not confined to the cities only, but had spread through the villages and rural districts; it seems possible, however, to check and cure it. ’Tis certain at least that the temples, which had been almost deserted, began now to be frequented; and the sacred festivals, after a long intermission, are again revived; while there is a general demand for sacrificial animals, which for sometime past have met with but few purchasers. From hence it is easy to imagine what multitudes may be reclaimed from this error if a door be left open to repentance. [Pliny’s letter to Trajan, 10.96]
Quote ID: 3613
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 8
Section: 2C
He asked the accused whether the charge was true or not, just as a judge today asks the accused “How do you plead? Guilty or not guilty?” The difference, of course, lay in the question that Pliny asked: “Are you a Christian?” If the prisoner acknowledge that he was, Pliny repeated the question twice more, explaining the nature of the punishment that a guilty verdict would bring. Then, if the answer remained the same, he pronounced the death sentence, and the condemned was led away for immediate execution, unless he was a Roman citizen, in which case he was sent to Rome.”
Quote ID: 3614
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 9
Section: 2C
It appears from Tertullian, although he was unclear on this point, that Nero issued a law against the Christians, the so-called institutum Neronianum, the only law of Nero’s that was not abolished after his death. {12}
Quote ID: 3615
Time Periods: 123
Book ID: 169 Page: 9
Section: 2C
One clue is provided by a small incident related by the elder Pliny. The emperor Claudius once received a Roman knight for an audience, in the course of which it was noticed that the knight wore a Druidic talisman on his breast. For this he was immediately sentenced to death.{14} Druidism constituted the main rallying point for forces in Gaul that resisted Romanization of the province, so that sympathy with Druidism could be interpreted as anti-Romanism and as a crime against the state. It’s adherents were also known to perform human sacrifices, a practice abhorrent to Romans. Such were the negative connotations attached to the name “Druid” that without any further investigation the Romans presumed criminal behavior.Pastor John’s note: Just the name
Quote ID: 3616
Time Periods: 1
Book ID: 169 Page: 10
Section: 2C
Once exonerated, the former Christians furnished Pliny with a description of Christian practices that so aroused his suspicions that he ordered the torture of two female Christian slaves to uncover the whole truth. To his great relief, he found nothing more than a “depraved and excessive superstition.” But what had troubled him in the accounts of the former Christians, causing him to undertake further investigation?
First, the Christians came together “before daylight”, and that suggested some sort of conspiracy under cover of the darkness of night.
Quote ID: 3617
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 11
Section: 2C
The venerated Twelve Tables, the very foundation of Roman law, forbade nightly meetings, {20} and thus Pliny’s suspicions were understandably aroused. And Pliny was not alone in his apprehensions of this Christian custom.PJ Note: Find out where this note comes from.
Quote ID: 3618
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 11
Section: 2C
Minucius Felix (floruit 200-240), probably drawing on the anti-Christian rhetoric of Marcus Cornelius Fronto (ca. 100-166), criticized the Christians in his book Octavius as, among other things an “unlawful and desperate faction . . . which is leagued together by nightly meetings . . . a people skulking and shunning the light. . . .” Then he added the ominous sentence: “Certainly suspicion is applicable to secret and nocturnal rites!” {21} And as late as the early third century, Bishop Cyprian was accused of being a member of a “nefarious conspiracy.” Of course, as we shall presently see, the public associated secrecy and nightly meetings with harmful magic, which only added to Pliny’s problem.
Quote ID: 3619
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 169 Page: 11
Section: 2C
...but a brief look at Livy 39.8-19 shows that a close comparison was indeed feasible. According to Livy, the two consuls in the year 186 investigated secret conspiracies, among them Bacchanalia, which had been introduced to Etruria by a Greek acting as, in Livy’s words, a “priest of secret rites performed by night.” Like the contagion of pestilence,” the Bacchanalia spread to Rome, where devotees including people of high rank, engaged in illegal activities.
Quote ID: 3620
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 12
Section: 2C
The Senate passed an ordinance forbidding Bacchic assemblies throughout Italy, and in Rome guards were placed everywhere to see that no night meetings were held and that provisions were made against fire. After these precautionary measures, the consuls called a meeting of the people and addressed them from the Rostra of the Forum. A prayer was said, and one of the consuls explained that a false and foreign religion (praba et externa religio) was driving men to crime and lust. “Of what sort, do you think, are first, gatherings held by night, second, meetings of men and women in common?” The security of the state seemed, therefore, threatened by a foreign ritual.…...
Furthermore, other aspects of the Christians’ meetings disturbed Pliny. They sang a hymn (carmen) to Christ as to a god, they took an oath (sacramentum) not to commit major crimes, and they had a common meal – all potentially dangerous signs. A carmen was not necessarily a harmless raising of voices; it could also signify an “incantation,” the casting of a magical spell. It is in this latter sense that the word is used in the Twelve Tables.
…...
The word sacramentum could be equally ambiguous. It could simply mean the oath of allegiance of a soldier or, more sinisterly, the initiation into a mystery in which the candidate took an oath of secrecy and allegiance to the principals of the cult. And such a mystery -oath- was not necessarily innocent and harmless, as the case of the Bacchanalia had shown. {25} In the Catilinian conspiracy the participants had also taken an oath that they reinforced by murder and the communal eating of human flesh. {26}
PJ: Might use the first para. Copied it to “The Second Century”
Quote ID: 3621
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 13
Section: 2C
All indications are that for Trajan the name alone (nomen ipsum) constituted the crime. It appears that he tacitly assumed that Christianity automatically and inevitably led to wrongdoing, at least in the sense that refusal to worship Roman gods harmed the tranquility of the state.
Quote ID: 3622
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 15
Section: 2C
In the following passage Tacitus describes the fire in Rome in 66 during Nero’s reign.
So far, the precautions taken were suggested by human prudence: now means were sought for appeasing deity, and application was made to the Sibylline books; at the injunction at which public prayers were offered to Vulcan, Ceres, and Prosperine, while Juno was propitiated by the matrons, first in the Capitol, then at the nearest point of the sea-shore, where water was drawn for sprinkling the temple and image of the goddess. Ritual banquets and all-night vigils were celebrated by women in the married state. But neither human help, nor imperial munificence, nor all the modes of placating Heaven, could stifle scandal or dispel the belief that the fire had taken place by order. Therefore, to scotch the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. {28} Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of procurator Pontius Pilate, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue. First, then the confessed members of the sect were arrested; next, on their disclosures, vast numbers were convicted, not so much on the count of arson as for the hatred of the human race. And derision accompanied their end: they were covered with wild beast skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and when daylight failed were burned to serve as lamps by night. Nero had offered his gardens for the spectacle, and gave an exhibition in his circus, mixing with the crowd in the habit of a charioteer, or mounted on his car. Hence, in spite of a guilt which had earned the most exemplary punishment, there arose a sentiment of pity, due to the impression that they were being sacrificed, not for the welfare of the state but to the ferocity of a single man. [15.44] {29}
Quote ID: 3623
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 15
Section: 2C
Furthermore, Tacitus was in Rome in 95, when Emperor Domitian’s niece Domitilla and her husband, Favius Clemens, were “accused of atheism, for which offense a number of others also, who had been carried away into Jewish customs, were condemned, some to death, others to confiscation of property.” {30} Domitilla was exiled and Clemens was executed, although embracing Jewish customs was not a crime, since Judaism was a recognized religion. Thus it was possible that Judaism here really means Christianity . . .
Tacticus saw Christianity as a “superstition” of Jewish origin, and he disliked the Jews as a people. He characterized Jewish customs as “perverse and disgusting” and the Jews themselves as a people who are true only to each other, for “the rest of mankind they hate and view as enemies.” {32} He also charged the Christians with a “hatred of the human race.” It seems that he drew no distinction between Jews and Christians, . . .
But the burning of Rome happened more than fifty years before Tacitus wrote, when Jews and Christians had not yet completely parted company. Tacitus regarded Nero’s action as aimed against a particularly dangerous Jewish sect, and he fully approved of it.
Quote ID: 3624
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 18
Section: 2C
Suetonius briefly recorded Claudius’s edict of 49: “Since the Jews constantly made disturbance at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.” {41}
Quote ID: 3625
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 20
Section: 2C
In 64 Christians were still known as Jews, and the Roman authorities failed to distinguish peaceful Jews from rebellious Jews, and Jews from Christians. Both moderate and radical elements of the synagogue disliked the Christians, and they thus made easy scapegoats. As a matter of fact, Jewish hostility toward Christians was so well known that even Tertullian referred to the synagogues as the “fountains of persecution”. {48}…...
The only clear reference by Suetonius to the Christians is in the following passage:
During his reign many abuses were severely punished and put down, and no fewer new laws were made: a limit was set on expenditures: the public banquets were confined to a distribution of food; the sale of any kind of cooked viands in the taverns was forbidden, with the exception of pulse and vegetables, whereas before every sort of dainty was exposed for sale. Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. He put an end to the diversions of the chariot drivers, who from immunity of long standing claimed the right of ranging at large and amusing themselves by cheating and robbing the people. The pantomimic actors and their partisans were banished from the city. [Nero 16.2] {51}
Quote ID: 3626
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 21
Section: 2C
The three Roman historians whose writings we have investigated were all contemporaries, and all reflected the aristocratic, well-bred Roman’s judgment that Christianity was one of a multitude of degraded foreign cults - “atrocious and shameful things,” as Tacitus put it – that infested Rome.…....
All three historians had firmly ingrained antipathies that, brought together and attached to the name Christian, gave rise to the summary judgment that Christianity was a disruptive social phenomenon and a danger to the security of the state. Therefore, Christians deserved their punishment.
…....
As a new superstition, Christianity could not claim the sanction of antiquity.
Quote ID: 3627
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 22
Section: 2C
Even Tacitus, who had nothing but contempt for the “perverse and disgusting” customs of the Jews, reluctantly admitted that “Jewish worship is vindicated by its antiquity.” {58} Christianity, however, could not claim the approval of antiquity . . . .….
Furthermore, the Romans saw Christianity as a superstition rather than as a legitimate religion, such as their own state cult or others that had been authorized. {59}
….
Our three authors go further, however, in condemning Christianity. Judaism was “perverse, disgusting and barbarous,” but Christianity, besides having all of these defects in full measure, was also “depraved, excessive, foreign, and new,” and therefore much worse than Judaism.
Quote ID: 3628
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 23
Section: 2C
Unfortunately, because of its Eastern origin, the Romans may have associated Christianity with such behavior. Some of the liturgical practices of Christians notably glossolalia, confessions of sins, prophecies, sacraments, and the sexual aberrations of fringe groups, may have contributed to a distorted picture of this, “oriental superstition.” {62}
Quote ID: 3629
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 25
Section: 2C
Footnote 16 Cicero Catiline 1.1.7, E.T., C.D. Younge (London: H. G. Bohn, 1852). The following verses are particularly relevant: “Do you see that your conspiracy is already arrested and rendered powerless by the knowledge which everyone here possesses of it? What is there that you did last night, what the night before, where is it that you were, who was there that you summoned to meet you, what design was there which was adapted by you. . .” 3.6.3: “For what is there, O Catiline, that you can still expect, if night is not able to veil your nefarious meetings in darkness, and if private houses cannot conceal the voice of your conspiracy within their walls; if everything is seen and displayed?” 4.8.3
Quote ID: 3630
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 169 Page: 26
Section: 2C
Twelve Tables 8.26: “No person shall hold meetings by night in the city.”
Quote ID: 3631
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 169 Page: 26
Section: 2C
Footnote 27 The way Pliny mentioned Christians in the same breath with collegia makes it appear that he put Christians in the same category as private clubs, such as the firemen’s company mentioned by him in Ep. 10.33-34. These were legal according to the Twelve Tables, in the opinion of......….
etaipav vocant = Associates are persons who belong to the same collegium for which the Greeks use the term etaipa. These are granted by a law (of the Twelve Tables) the right to pass any binding rule they like for themselves, provided that they cause no violation of public law. . . .” E.H. Warmington, Remains of Old Latin, Loeb (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), 3:493. Ever since the Bacchanalian crisis, however, clubs were under suspicion. Julius Caesar forbade them, excepting only those of ancient origin (Suetonius Caesar 42), Augustus placed them under strict control and made them carry a license (Suetonius Augustus 32; dio 53.36). Illicit clubs could be prosecuted and their members regarded as taking part in a riot, for which the punishment was death (Digest 47.22.3 [Marcian]; 47.22.2, 48.4.1 [Ulpian]; Paulus Sentences 5.29) Characteristically, Trajan did not allow the firemen’s brigade to be formed – clubs could do more damage than fires. Tacitus Annals 14.17 also reports that after a riot between the inhabitants of Nuceria and Pompeii, all associations formed in Pompeii “in defiance of the laws” were dissolved.
Quote ID: 3632
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 27
Section: 4B
Ulpianus, On the Duty of Proconsuls, Bk. VIII.: “(1) Persons of low rank who designedly cause a fire in a town shall be thrown to wild beasts and those of superior station shall suffer death, or else be banished to some island.” E.T.: S.P. Scott, Corpus Juris Civilis. The Civil Law, vol. 5 (1932; reprint ed. New York: AMS Press, 1973).
Quote ID: 3633
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 29
Section: 4B
Footnoe 62 Plutarch (A.D. 50-120) eloquently expressed how an intellectual of the early second century viewed superstition in his essay De superstitione (Loeb, Moralia, 2:452-95): Plutarch thought that superstition was worse than atheism because it produces fear, for the superstitious man believes there are gods “but that they are the cause of pain and injury.”
Quote ID: 3634
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 33
Section: 2E2
The way of life that Peregrinus now adopted placed him within a group commonly known as “Cynics” after their founder, Diogenes of Sinope (400-324), who was nicknamed kvwv or “dog,” by his contemporaries {11} Diogenes taught that a man should fulfill his natural needs in the simplest possible way, because nothing that was natural was indecent. He argued that only convention made some natural things dishonorable, and so he taught his followers to avoid convention, to suppress their sense of shame, and to do everything that was natural in public. It is mainly for this reason that he was called a dog.…..
Cynic philosophers wandered around the Hellenistic world teaching, with only a cane in their hands and a knapsack on their backs. In the first and second centuries A.D., they became the main social critics of their day against the overweening ways of the emperors. {12}
Quote ID: 3635
Time Periods: 012
Book ID: 169 Page: 34
Section: 2E2
Peregrinus followed in the steps of his Cynic predecessors and sailed to Italy. As soon as he arrived in Rome, he began to criticize everybody and everything, in particular Emperor Antoninus Pius (137-165), who was one of the mildest and most beneficent rulers the empire had ever had.
Quote ID: 3636
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 35
Section: 2E2
By this time, a strange new obsession occupied Peregrinus. He was going to demonstrate in a dramatic, unique way how to have inner strength in the face of adversity and how to defy death. This would be his ultimate lesson to his followers and students, an example that they would never forget. At the Olympic games he announced that four years later at the conclusion of the next games he would burn himself to death.
Quote ID: 3637
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 36
Section: 2E2
The year of the Olympic games arrived, and as usual huge crowds came to watch the contests. This year (165), however, the prospect of the public suicide of Peregrinus added to the excitement.….
Peregrinus stepped forward to the edge of the flaming pit, put down his club, and took off his sack and coat. There he stood for a moment, a sixty-five-year old man clad only in a dirty undershirt – a pitiful sight, indeed. Casting incense on the fire he cried out: “Be gracious to me, gods of my father and my mother!” Then he jumped into the flames and disappeared. {25} Soon the odor of burning flesh began to fill the air.
Quote ID: 3638
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 37
Section: 2E2
In spite of the fact that the Christians had excommunicated Peregrinus, Tertullian mentioned him as an example to would-be martyrs. {27}
Quote ID: 3639
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 39
Section: 2E2
In Lucian’s opinion, Peregrinus had been no more sincere during the Christian phase of his life. He took advantage of the credulous nature of the Christians, whom Lucian characterized with the following words:The poor souls have convinced themselves that they all will be immortal and will live forever, on account of which they think lightly of death and most of then surrender to it voluntarily. Furthermore, their first lawgiver convinced them that they are all each others brothers once they deny the Greek gods, by which they break the laws and worship that crucified sophist and live according to his rules. They despise all thigs and consider them common property, accepting such doctrines by faith alone. So if a cheater who is able to make a profit from the situation comes to them, he quickly becomes rich, laughing at the simple people. {33}
Quote ID: 3640
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 40
Section: 2E2,2C
Again, if a man cares nothing for life or material possession, for him death holds no fear either. “Therefore,” Epictetus continued, “if madness can produce this attitude of mind toward the things which have just been mentioned, and also habit, as with the Galileans, cannot reason and demonstration teach a man that God has made all things in the universe . . .
Quote ID: 3642
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 40
Section: 2E2
The famous medical doctor Galen (ca. 129-199) had a similar opinion. He thought that the Jews and Christians were a simple people, below the level of philosophers. Since demonstrative arguments were too much for them, they based their faith on parables and miracles, and yet some Christians acted in the same way as philosophers, “for their contempt of death is patent to us every day . . . .” {36}
Quote ID: 3643
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 40
Section: 2E2
Tertullian reported that when Arrius Antonius harassed Christians in Asia, Christians from the whole province presented themselves before his judgment seat in one group. He ordered some to be led away to execution, and to the rest he said: “O miserable men, if you wish to die, you have precipices or halters.” {38}
Tertullian angrily rejected these pagan attacks and defended the virtue of the Christians’ contempt of death.
Tertullian pointed out that the pagans had their own heroes who had become famous and venerated by all because of their contempt of death.
…..
Nonetheless, if the pagans could do such things for human reasons, certainly the Christians could do them for God. {39}
…..
Origen defended the Christian attitude toward suffering and death in a similar manner against attacks by the Roman Celsus. Origen argued that when Christians exposed their bodies to torture, they helped to prevent the work of evil demons, and so their sacrifice was not in vain. He wrote: “Indeed we think it both reasonable in itself and well pleasing to God, to suffer pain for the sake of virtue, to undergo torture for the sake of piety, and even to suffer death for the sake of holiness. . . and we maintain that to overcome the love of life is to enjoy a great good.” {40}
Marcus Aurelius [161-180], the philosopher-emperor, has left us a brief but interesting note on Christians, which, if nothing else, at least shows how an emperor, and probably many aristocratic Romans, viewed the new religion and, in particular, the Christian attitude toward death. The note appears in Meditations, a collection of Stoic aphorisms that he composed while fighting Rome’s enemies on the Danube frontier.
What an admirable soul is that which is ready and willing if the time has come to be released from the body, whether that release means extinction, dispersal, or survival. This readiness must be the result of a specific decision; not as with the Christians, of obstinate opposition, but of a reasoned and dignified decision, and without dramatics if it is to convince anyone else. {41}
Quote ID: 3644
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 42
Section: 4A
We know that the Christian apologists Justin Martyr (ca. 114-165), Miltiades (dates unknown), Apollinaris (around 172), Melito (bishop of Sardis in Lydia, ca. 190), and Athenagoras (around 177) addressed some of their writings explaining Christianity to Marcus Aurelius, but whether the emperor actually read any of them is more than questionable.
Quote ID: 3645
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 46
Section: 4A
If Peregrinus indeed combined Christian principles and philosophy, he was not alone. During this same period, Justin Martyr in Rome preached Christianity in a philosopher’s garb.
Quote ID: 3646
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 46
Section: 4A
Tatian, a pupil of Justin’s, became a Christian extremist, and around 172 moved away from Rome and back to his native East where he found a sect, called the “Encratites,” or “Abstinents.” This sect embraced strict rules of self-discipline. . . .
Quote ID: 3647
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 46
Section: 2C
Their behavior is very similar to those blasphemous people in Palestine. They, too, manifest their impiety by the obvious signs that they do not recognize those who are above them, and they separated themselves from the Greeks and from everything good. They are incapable as far as they are concerned of contributing in any matter whatsoever toward any common good, but when it comes to undermining home life, bringing trouble and discord into families and claiming to be leaders of all things, they are the most skillful men. {60}
Quote ID: 3648
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 169 Page: 47
Section: 2D3B
The Christians’ withdrawal from many daily activities of pagan life (such as festivals, the theater, and the circus), as well as their refusal to assume certain political offices were held against them as it alienated them from society. If everybody acted the way the Christians did, the empire would fall apart, Celsus wrote. {64}
Quote ID: 3649
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 47
Section: 2E2
Interestingly enough, critics of Christianity like Celsus, used exactly the same phrase to depict the membership of the church. They argued that the Christian Church attracted converts from the untrained and uneducated mass. The church freely admitted this fact, and we have many references to it in early Christian literature. This element of escapism was fully developed in the anchorite movement, the voluntary withdrawal of Christian ascetics from society. {66} The roots of anchoritism and monasticism are manifold (escape for religious, political, or economic reasons was possible), but the actual event was always the same. A man disposed of his material belongings and left his village and his relatives as Peregrinus did. He then moved to the desert away from civilization and settled in the neighborhood of an older hermit to receive his training in self-denial, much in the manner of the Cynics.
Quote ID: 3650
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 48
Section: 2E2
Later, when Christianity emerged as the victor in the Roman world, the church welcomed the Cynics. By the end of the fourth century a bishop in Constantinople, Maximus, even confessed himself to be a Cynic philosopher, and he wore the mantle and staff of the Cynics in public. As pagan Cynicism declined, Christian monasticism increased, and by the sixth century Cynicism as a pagan philosophy had disappeared. Obviously, those who would have been attracted to the Cynic way of life found their place in monasticism.
Quote ID: 3651
Time Periods: 456
Book ID: 169 Page: 54
Section: 2E1
Minucius Felix cast his dialogue in the form of a personal reminiscence. Octavius comes to Rome for a visit, and he goes with Minucius and Caecilius to Ostia for a stroll along the seashore. Along the way they come across a statue of the god Serapis. Immediately Caecilius kisses his hand and places it on the statue, a widespread custom of the time. Although an enlightened pagan would never identify a statue with the god whom it depicted, he would respect the statue as a representation of that god and very likely would kiss it. Some statues were worn smooth by much kissing, just as one foot of the statue of St. Peter in Rome is worn smooth because of the caressing and kissing over many centuries by pious visitors and pilgrims.
Quote ID: 3652
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 169 Page: 55
Section: 2E2,2D3B,3A2A
From Minucius Felix Octavius. Caecilius speaking against Christians:Who, having gathered together from the lowest dregs the more unskilled, and women, credulous and, by the facility of their sex, yielding, establish a herd of a profane conspiracy, which is leagued together by nightly meetings, and solemn fasts, and unhuman meats – not by any sacred rite, but that which requires expiation – a people skulking and shunning the light, silent in public, but garrulous in corners. They despise the temples as dead-houses, they reject the gods, they laugh at sacred things; wretched, they pity, if they are allowed, the priests; half naked themselves, they despise honours and purple robes. Oh, wondrous folly and incredible audacity! They despise present torments, although they fear those which are uncertain and future; and while they fear to die after death, they do not fear to die or the present: so does a deceitful hope sooth their fear with the solace of a revival.
And now, as wickeder things advance more fruitfully, and abandoned manners creep on day by day, those abominable shrines of an impious assembly are maturing themselves throughout the whole world. Assuredly this confederacy ought to be rooted out and eradicated. They know one another by secret marks and insignia, and the love one another almost before the know one another. Everywhere also there is mingled among them a certain religion of lust, and they call one another promiscuously brothers and sisters.
Quote ID: 3653
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 56
Section: 2D3B,3A2A
. . .certainly suspicion is applicable to secret and nocturnal rites; and he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men, that they may worship what they deserve.
Quote ID: 3654
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 57
Section: 2D3B,3A2A
PJ Note: From Minucius Felix Octavius. Caecilius speaking against Christians:
They do not go to shows, public banquets, or sacred games; they do not eat meat or drink wine used in religious ritual; they do not participate in processions. It seems that they are afraid of the gods whose very existence they deny. They do not adorn their heads with flowers, do not use perfumes or ointments on their bodies, and do not even decorate the tombs with garlands.
Quote ID: 3655
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 58
Section: 4B
Caecilius treats all the beliefs and the practices that he imputes to the Christians as matters for them to decide freely for themselves, however foolish and depraved they may be. The almost unbelievable religious tolerance of the Romans is well demonstrated here.
Quote ID: 3656
Time Periods: 1
Book ID: 169 Page: 58
Section: 4B
The real objection against Christianity for the pagans was not that the Christians were montheists, or that they worshipped the head of the ass, or that they refused to use perfumes, but that they made doctrinal statements concerning divine matters.
Quote ID: 3657
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 59
Section: 4B
The Romans believed that when Christians claimed exclusive possession of divine knowledge, they were capable of anything. This attitude encouraged the Romans to give credence to the most outrageous rumors about Christians.
Quote ID: 3658
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 61
Section: 2A3,4B
The Senate prohibited human sacrifices in 97 B.C. {16}, and Emperor Hadrian later renewed this law for the whole empire, {17} yet references to such sacrifices are found still later.
Quote ID: 3659
Time Periods: 02
Book ID: 169 Page: xi
Section: 1B
There are no pagan references to Christianity in the first century of the empire and very few in the second.
Quote ID: 3603
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 169 Page: 113
Section: 2E6
Lactantius (c. 240-c 320) also blamed the Christian disruption of pagan ceremonies as the initial cause of the persecution under Diocletian, which began in 303. While Diocletian was in the East, he sacrificed animals and had their livers examined. In the midst of these sacrifices, some of his attendants put the sign of the cross on their foreheads.
At this the demons were cleared away, and the holy rites interrupted. The soothsayers trembled, unable to investigate the wanted marks on the entrails of the victims. They frequently repeated the sacrifices, as if the former had been unpropitious; but the victims, slain from time to time, afforded no tokens for divination. At length Tages, the chief of the soothsayers, either from guess or from his own observation, said, ‘There are profane persons here, who obstruct the rites . . . .’ At this Diocletian became angry and ordered all those in the palace to sacrifice. {34}
Quote ID: 3660
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 169 Page: 117
Section: 2D3B
The Didache, for example, advises people to treat prophets who make “ecstatic utterances” with respect. This work quickly adds, however, that not everybody who makes “ecstatic utterances is a prophet,” and it sets forth ways to recognize genuine prophets. {54} Celsus claimed that he had seen preachers who assumed the “motions and gestures of inspired persons” and at the end of their preaching “added strange, fanatical and quite unintelligible words, of which no rational person can find the meaning for so dark are they, as to have no meaning at all; but they give occasion to every fool or impostor to apply them to suit his own purposes.”
Quote ID: 3661
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 117
Section: 2D3B
It is, however, clear that Celsus did not speak about prophets in the Old Testament sense but about preachers of his own day; he even claimed that when he questioned some of these preachers, they admitted to him that their ambiguous words “really meant nothing.” Origen himself acknowledged that some sort of glossololia was still present in his own day, when he wrote: “the Holy Spirit gave signs of his presence at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, and after His ascension He gave still more; but since that time these signs have diminished, although there are still traces of His presence in a few who have had their souls purified by the Gospel, . . . .
Quote ID: 3662
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 118
Section: 2E6
In addition to the name of Jesus, Christians also used the sign of the cross in their exorcisms. Justin Martyr wrote about the power of the cross, and found symbols of it in the sail of a ship, the shape of the plough, mechanical tools, the human form, and even the Roman vexilla, (the banner). {63} Tertullian mentioned the crossing of oneself as an established custom among Christians: “At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign.” {64} Tertullian’s contemporary, Hippolytus of Rome wrote: “And when tempted always reverently seal thy forehead (with the sign of the cross). For this sign of the Passion is displayed and made manifest against the devil if thou makest it in faith, not in order that thou mayest be seen of man, but by thy knowledge putting it forward as a shield.” {65}
Quote ID: 3663
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 119
Section: 2E6
Lactantius wrote in a similar vein. Those who have marked on the highest part of their body the sign of the cross (“the sign of the true and divine blood”) will be safe, he asserted. {66} Lactantius also confirmed that the sign of the cross was widely thought to be a great terror to demons. “When adjured by Christ, they flee from the bodies, which they have beseiged.” Just as Christ, when he was living among men, cast out demons by his word, so now his followers “in the name of their Master, and by the sign of His passion, banish the same polluted spirits from men.”. . . .
In pagan sacrifices, if someone stands by with the mark of the cross on his forehead, the sacrifices are not favorable and the diviner can give no answer. {67} “But of what great weight this sign is, and what power it has, is evident, since all the host of demons is expelled and put to flight by this sign.”
Quote ID: 3664
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 169 Page: 124
Section: 2A1
Tertullian had much more to say. The Spirit of God, which hovered over the waters, continues to linger over the water of baptism, and it thus has a spiritual quality and the power to sanctify. “All waters, therefore, in virtue of the pristine privilege of their origin, do, after invocation of God, attain the sacramental power of sanctification.” {101}
Quote ID: 3665
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 142
Section: 2E2
. . . Galen criticized both Judaism and Christianity. There are four references to Christians in Galen’s writings.
For their contempt of death (and of its sequel) is patent to us every day, and likewise their restraint in cohabitation. For they include not only men but also women who refrain from cohabitating all through their lives; and they also number individuals who, in self-discipline and self-control in matters of food and drink, and in their keen pursuit of justice, have attained a pitch not inferior to that of genuine philosophers. {5}
Quote ID: 3666
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 143
Section: 4A
Indeed, many Christian intellectuals wished to present Christianity exactly as Galen understood it, namely as a philosophical school. These were the Christian apologists who attempted to explain Christianity to persons of Greco-Roman education and background by making use of the intellectual resources of the Greco-Roman world. {8}
Quote ID: 3667
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 144
Section: 4A
Justin was introduced to Christianity and accepted it as the true philosophy. Thus it was a quest for philosophical truth that led Justin to Christianity, and he understood Christianity to be a philosophical system comparable and superior to other contemporary philosophies. {10}….
Another apologist, Athenagoras, in his plea for fair treatment of Christians, written around 177, also urged that they be judged by the standards applied to any group of philosophers. {11} Yet, another, Melito, the bishop of Sardis, addressed an Apology to Marcus Aurelius in which he touched on essentially the same theme. Tracing the development of Christianity, he asserted: “Our philosophy formerly flourished among the barbarians; but having sprung up among the nations under thy rule, during the great reign of thy ancestor Augustus, it became to thine empire especially a blessing of auspicious omen. . . .” Therefore, he concluded, if the emperor wished to continue to rule successfully he must guard the Christian philosophy, “that philosophy which thy ancestors also honored along with the other religions.” {12}
. . . .
Galen did regard the church in this light, thus marking a major change in the pagan attitude toward Christianity. For Galen, Christians were neither dangerous conspirators nor abominable cannibals, but they were rather adherents of a philosophical school. As a result, Galen (although not the general public) accorded Christianity a certain among of respectability, and Christians became socially acceptable.
Quote ID: 3668
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 145
Section: 4A
Nevertheless, despite this criticism Galen was a sympathetic observer of Christianity. Although he criticized the Christians’ lack of philosophical training, he appreciated their moral virtues. He praised their contempt of death, their acceptance of physical deprivation, and their continual pursuit of justice. According to Galen, in spite of their shortcomings Christians acted like philosophers.
Quote ID: 3669
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 146
Section: 4A
Tertullian believed that only the original tenets of Christianity were true, and that innovations were heresies. {20} According to him, Christians should avoid philosophy, because it led nowhere, and should rely instead on faith. “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens, the Church with the Academy, the Christian with the Heretic.
Quote ID: 3670
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 147
Section: 2D3A,4A
So Tertullian fulminated against heretics. No doubt many of the Christians whom he castigated would be considered church members in good standing today, but Tertullian sensed that the church was seeking a peaceful coexistence with, and a place in, Greco-Roman society. For him this meant an abandonment of primitive Christian values. He began to look toward the faction in which the memory of early Christianity was most assiduously cultivated, namely Montanism. More and more in his writings Tertullian advocated and approved of Montantist principles, he extolled martyrdom as the highest and most glorious deed, he urged Christians to abstain from taking part in the secular life and instead to wait for “the fast approaching advent of our Lord,” the second coming. {22} By 207 he was openly a Montanist, repudiating military service and attacking the laxity of the church and the evolution of new practices. Tertullian was convinced that his fight was for the truth; indeed the word veritas appears time after time in his polemics against heretics and pagans, people who in his judgment did not possess the truth. But Tertullian’s veritas was also judged heresy by the church, and his stubborn refusal to adjust his faith to the demands of the times was a rather annoying anachronism.
During Tertullian’s lifetime Clement (died ca. 215) used and adopted Greek philosophy in the pursuit of theology, and when his successor, Origen (died ca. 253-4), took over the Catechetical School not even the best educated pagan could call Christian philosophy substandard.
COPIED
Quote ID: 3671
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 169 Page: 155
Section: 4B
(Celsus) He was appalled by the Christians’ lack of unity; the multitude of quarrelsome sects, which slandered each other, refused to make concessions to one another, and more often than not detested each other. {62} Together with the Jews, they were like “a cluster of bats or ants coming out of a nest, as frogs holding council around a marsh or worms assembling in some filthy corner, disagreeing with one another about which of them are the worse sinners.” {63}
Quote ID: 3672
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 169 Page: 158
Section: 4A
The end of the second century was a period of serious clashes between paganism and Christianity. It was during this period that pagan suspicions about Christians surfaced and found expression in savage attacks and sarcastic remarks. But at the same time, on a different plateau, a meeting of the minds began to occur. Justin Martyr and the Apologists, on the Christian side, made the first steps in this direction. Galen and Celsus, on the pagan side, accepted the challenge. Christianity may owe much to these two pagans because they helped to clarify many issues, and they prompted educated Christians to redefine their position and arguments.. . . .
But in Alexandria the cool and serene figure of Clement began to radiate a new light. Greek philosophy, he wrote, is a training for the soul to receive faith, and thus scholarly study for Christian teachers is not sinful but desirable.{78}
. . . .
But a new era for Christian theology had started, and Christians began to see themselves in a new light. {79}
Quote ID: 3673
Time Periods: 23
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