The Second-Century Apologists. Alvyn Pettersen

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СКАЧАТЬ fornication, and cannibalism. In theory, at least, Christ­ianity might be another such sect. Whatever the case, there were rumors, which, as Virgil’s Aeneid once reflected,10 could spread rapidly and could not so easily be extinguished.

Christ­ianity in the second century, as noted, was as yet unauthorized. It was a religio illicita. Despite that, Christ­ians generally were not pursued. In a letter of AD 112 to the emperor Trajan, Pliny, the emperor’s special imperial commissioner in Bithynia, recorded that, although he was a senator and lawyer and knew that Christ­ianity was illegal, he did not know why.11 He further remarked that, although Christ­ians could be obstinate and intransigent, they were no more so than, for example, the swindling town councilors of Nicea and Nicomedia.12 He then concluded that, with the emperor’s agreement, he would not pursue Christ­ians as he would criminals. If, however, they were publicly denounced and then refused both to recant and to worship the Roman gods, he would punish them.13 If not denounced, it would then seem, Pliny was minded to leave Christ­ians alone. Some twelve years later, in AD 124 or 125, Trajan’s successor, the emperor Hadrian (117–138), instructed Pliny both that people were not to seek out Christ­ians and that the general practice of not admitting charges that were presented unsigned was to apply also in the case of Christ­ians. He also mandated that a person, even when tried and then found guilty of having been a Christ­ian, was yet to be pardoned, provided that the individual found guilty then demonstrated by engaging in a public act of worship of the imperial gods that he now no longer was a Christ­ian. Further, Hadrian decreed that, if Christ­ians were to be accused, Christ­ians had to be accused in open court. Consequently, accusers were then required to bear the delay and any expenses of prosecution before a governor who generally attended a nearby assize perhaps once a year; and transparency and justice were seen to be promoted, any charges against an accused Christ­ian now having to be heard before their accusers. Hadrian then added a significant rider: if the accusation failed, the accused, in accordance with the law of calumnia, which was especially aimed at preventing unwarranted persecutions, was then permitted to petition that the accuser should suffer substantial penalties for initiating vexatious litigation. For while Hadrian did hold that a Christ­ian righty found guilty of doing anything contrary to the laws was to be punished in a way befitting the offense committed, he equally strongly maintained that anyone who levied accusations against Christ­ians “merely for the sake of libeling them” was to suffer “heavier penalties, in accordance with his heinous guilt.”14 In the 110s and 120s, there seems to have been, therefore, an imperial self-confidence that extended, in practice, to tolerating, rather than pursuing, such critical minorities as Christ­ians.

      This decision by the second-century Greco-Roman Empire not to pursue Christ­ians is further reflected in the fact that between c.130 and 180 Christ­ian apologists were able to write “open letters,” formally addressed to the emperors, seeking to sway especially literate opinion that it might be more understanding of, and tolerant towards Christ­ianity. Indeed, that Christ­ian were not generally hunted down is further reflected in such debates as that in Rome between the Marcionite Apelles and the catholic Rhodo in AD 190. Rhodo had challenged Apelles to expound his faith, which Apelles did. There was, it therefore seems, at least in Rome at that time no general need for a Christ­ian to hide his or her faith and religious attachment.

      That said, in the second century we do find the local and occasional hunting down of Christ­ians. Justin Martyr, for example, was denounced in 165 before the authorities in Rome by the Cynic Crescens, tried before the city prefect, Quintus Junius Rusticus, and, on refusing the demand to sacrifice, was condemned to death. This kind of pursuit of Christ­ians, however, seems to have been local and occasional, and generally was instigated by individuals and trade associations, and not by imperial representatives.

      In this generally tolerant era churches then sought to win converts, a practice generally followed neither by the synagogue nor by the cults of the empire. For the Jews mainly were racially exclusive and did not engage in proselytizing; and the cults did not see the need to convince a person of the reality of their own gods and the unreality of other people’s gods, no one being either able or willing to say that this cult was true and that not, and everyone wishing rather to establish the peaceful co-existence of all cults.

The majority of those who then converted to Christ­ianity were converts from a paganism that allowed a mass of gods, even in one individual’s life, to an exclusive religion that believed in one God alone. Conversion to Christ­ianity therefore required its converts to renounce all other gods and any practices associated with, or which might promote, the deities left behind. So Christ­ians, both neophytes and those of long standing, withdrew their children from schools. For the capricious and, if understood literally, often immoral behavior of, for example, the Homeric gods featured in the curricula of local schools; and cultic observances punctuated school timetables. Tertullian described aspects of school life in north Africa in c.200. The cost of offerings to Minerva was taken from the fees of new pupils. Sacrifices frequently were offered. Prize-givings, when local dignitaries were present, were marked by cultic observances. Holidays were taken on the festivals of various gods.15 By such inclusion of the cult in a school’s life, even when such inclusion was only informal, a school modelled cultic practices. Indeed, in modelling such practices, a school provided a context in which the cult might be “caught” by its pupils, an altogether more subtle manner of “indoctrination” than any effected through teaching about a cult and its customs.

      Christ­ians further withdrew from wider society by, for example, avoiding buying meat in the markets, given the meat’s provenance generally being a temple’s sacrificial practices. This they did, even though it might have financial consequences for their town’s economy. For their loyalty to the one God trumped their loyalty to their local town’s economy.

      Christ­ians also increasingly refused to enter certain trades, even demanding that converts to Christ­ianity who worked in any such “prohibited” trade should resign. If converts did not resign, they yet were to be very mindful that the Christ­ian faith was to be sincerely and honestly lived daily, whatever the cost to their professional lives. So Christ­ian converts who were painters, sculptors, and carvers were required not to undertake any commissions that might promote what to the Christ­ian was idolatry. A soldier, who had not resigned from the army, was to commit to not killing. A gladiator was not to kill, a very costly injunction for both the gladiator and his owner. Equally, Christ­ians were to choose not to enter the seemingly harmless trade associations or professional guilds; and those who were members of such associations and guilds, on becoming Christ­ians, were expected to resign their membership of such. For these associations and guilds often performed various acts that had religious associations; and, insofar as such associations and guilds might act as funeral benefit societies, they frequently ensured that, on a member’s death, cultic rites and rituals were enacted. The collateral cost for Christ­ians of either not joining or resigning from such associations and guilds therefore included, but was not limited to, Christ­ians separating themselves from their work-colleagues’s friendship and support and a foregoing any financial and funeral help which these organizations traditionally afforded their members.

      Further, Christ­ians were not to sacrifice to the gods, even though not doing so would displease both the cult’s priest and wider society. For the cultic priest, having paid for his office as priest, would have wished to make the most of his cult, encouraging people to make sacrifices. Wider society meanwhile, especially when threatened by natural calamity or hostile peoples, wished sacrifices to be offered by every member of society, both to appease any divine anger directed against it and, by its so honoring its gods, to become again the recipients of the gods’s gift of peace. Yet, even when not threatened by natural calamity or hostile peoples, wider society wished sacrifices to be offered by as many members of society as possible. For, to varying degrees, it recognized that the very practices involved in offering sacrifices contributed to the up-building of communities. These practices included the careful allocation of the sacrificial animal, some parts being offered to the gods and other parts being given to the people. The thigh bones, sacrum and tail, for example, were burned for the gods, who, it was believed, feasted on the smoke. The entrails, once examined for signs of divine approval, were СКАЧАТЬ