Christians: a threat to the roman empire

[Karel de Stoute]

I had a little discussion about this on the EB subforum and this is basicly my statement:
Roman state religion and the deification of the emperor were a form of ideology with the purpose of uniting the empire through a common pantheon and establishing the autority of the emperor as a God/King/pharaoh(they got the idea in the east) with a statue in every town and his head on every coin. Decius for example ordered the whole empire to make sacrifice to the gods of which he is one for this reason(officialy for the safety of the empire). Because most people were polytheistic in that time, they didn't have a problem to erect another shrine for the emperor or to make an extra sacrifice. But then you have your jews and christians. They refuse to acknowledge the existance of any other god than their own. This was a serious threat to the ideology wich kept the whole empire together. After Decius, Diocletianus banned the whole religion because he to favored the old roman gods. Apart from that, the first christians were also very fixated on the afterlife. Why serve the emperor in this life if the only thing that mattered were God and the next life? These problems were fixed by Theodosius by adopting christianty as the new statereligion and portraying himself as the most important servant of Christ. In the west, this idea was adopted at the same time by the other emperors(edict of thessalonica). However, in the West other factors made the collapse inevitable. But the barbarian kings who established their kingdoms on the remains of the empire and the pope who also became a major political factor adopted the idea of a christian emperor. I find this very ironic: first on of the reasons for decay, later the biggest heritage of the roman empire.

what your opinion on this subject?

[Brandy Blue]

Interesting and complicated question. I would say that the Christians posed little threat at first. They simply were not numerous enough to be significant, and besides they believed in obedience to the authorities (in almost all things) and that it was important to live a moral life (including hard work) to avoid bringing the gospel into disrepute. Possibly they were better subjects than most. Sure the Romans heard rumors about Christians practicing cannibalism etc. but the Romans were generally suspicious about new ideologies anyway.

Later Christians became numerous enough to undermine pagan Roman ideology, but as you pointed out the Empire simply co-opted Christian ideology for its own political ends. Threat neutralized.

The real problem came because the Empire added something to Christianity that came out of Roman Imperial paganism – the idea of heresy. If you don’t believe what you are told to believe (Caesar is a god), or at least go through the motions, you are a bad subject of Caesar and deserve to be killed. Ironically, it has been suggested that the practice of martyring Christians actually helped Christianity to spread. Later the official Imperial version of Christianity started martyring other Christians who they considered “heretics.” This contributed to the loss of Egypt to the Arabs in Byzantine times, and of course led to much later developments such as the Spanish inquisition, and may have contributed to the ideology behind the Wars of Religion in 16th and 17th century Europe.

Yes, very ironic and very sad. Its amazing what political leaders will do to a religion which says “blessed are the peace makers,” and “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

[Vladimir]

That's interesting. I've never heard that Christian views on heresy were a result of Roman imperial policy. Forgotten by history perhaps?

[Brandy Blue]

Well, I admit I overstated my case. After all, the writings of St Paul indicate that he considered certain groups to not be true Christians because they held beliefs he considered false. He didn't use the word heresy, but clearly he had the idea well before Christianity became the state religion.

However, all of the first seven ecumenical councils were called by order of the current emperor, except one which was called by the Emperess acting as regent. A major purpose of these councils was to define what true doctrine is and reject false doctrine. I cannot prove that emperors called these councils to try to get the empire united under a single theology, but it seems a reasonable assessment. Groups who lost out at these councils were sometimes persecuted by the state. Once again, I cannot prove what motivated the emperors, but logically a uniform theology (if it could exclude rival theologies) could solve the same purpose as an emperor cult, unity within the empire. AFAIK, this was the first experience that Christians had of using official pogroms against each other.

[OvidiusNasso]

I would say that is just false, and based entirely on a stereotype.

The Empreror in the Principate was not a God. Every "God Emperor" from the Principate happens to be a "Bad Emperor" you know the ones who recieved nothing but hatred from both the common people and governing class, ruled for a time by dominating the military, got assasinated, had their acts declared invalid, and had Damnatio Memoriae declared on them by decree of the Senate.

The Principate was based around the fiction that it was actually a reborn Republic with the Emperor being the first amongst equals. Also Decius was never considered a god by others, never declared himself a God, and was never declared one.

You also misunderstoof deification. Deification happened after death and was usually a reflection of how the Senate judged the Emperor. It was not taken very seriously as a religion, and it only meant the deceased Emperor would be revered on his birthday, and if one deified emperor shared a birthday with another deified emperor the more recent one was revered so for example Claudius stopped being revered because he shared a birthday with Pertinax.

It isn't that the Christians were a tiny minority (they were) it is that they weren't a threat to any part of the Principate ideology.

If the Christians threatened the ideology of the Dominate which did exalt Emperors as larger then life Aurelian woudl have moved against it, instead Diocletian did.

[Brandy Blue]

I don't see the relevance of your agrument. OK, it was normal procedure not to deify a living emperor, although some "bad" emperors wanted to be considered gods while alive. OK the emperor cult was not taken too seriously as a religion. Vespasian even joked about it on his death bed. However, the cult was taken seriously enough to kill people who didn't go through the motions of revering the emperor (dead or alive). Why? Because it was an issue of unity. Those who did not go along with it were obviously not loyal to Rome and (from the establishment's point of view) got what they deserved. Exceptions could be made, like the Jews. However, that was not because their loyalty was not in question. It was because they could cause too much trouble if the Romans bothered them too much. Obviously, the attitudes and policies of individual emperors varied. Some pagan emperors themselves were not much concerned with cracking down on the Christians and left governors to do it, if they could be bothered. Diocletian saw things differently. OK, Diocleian was not demanding that he personally receive worship, but that is not really relevant to my point. Christians were a threat, so he gave them the choice to either fall in with official religious policy or suffer.

Later Christian emperors followed a similar track, modified to take into account the changed political climate. Acceptable theology replaced the emperor cult, and persecution remained the means for enforcing it.

[OvidiusNasso]

I don't see the relevance of your agrument. OK, it was normal procedure not to deify a living emperor, although some "bad" emperors wanted to be considered gods while alive. OK the emperor cult was not taken too seriously as a religion. Vespasian even joked about it on his death bed. However, the cult was taken seriously enough to kill people who didn't go through the motions of revering the emperor (dead or alive). Why? Because it was an issue of unity. Those who did not go along with it were obviously not loyal to Rome and (from the establishment's point of view) got what they deserved. Exceptions could be made, like the Jews. However, that was not because their loyalty was not in question. It was because they could cause too much trouble if the Romans bothered them too much. Obviously, the attitudes and policies of individual emperors varied. Some pagan emperors themselves were not much concerned with cracking down on the Christians and left governors to do it, if they could be bothered. Diocletian saw things differently. OK, Diocleian was not demanding that he personally receive worship, but that is not really relevant to my point. Christians were a threat, so he gave them the choice to either fall in with official religious policy or suffer.

Later Christian emperors followed a similar track, modified to take into account the changed political climate. Acceptable theology replaced the emperor cult, and persecution remained the means for enforcing it.

I apologize for coming across disrespectful before, I was tired when I wrote that first post but this theory does have a lot of stereotype to it in the Roman Religions.

My point is that not being in the Cult of the Emperor did not present a threat to the ideology of the Principate, the emperor was not a "God Emperor" if he was alive, and finally whatever ideological reason to persecute Christians existed for Diocletian also existed under the tolerant Emperor Aurelian, and certainly existed in the first years of his reign. The only possible examples of Principate God Emperors available are Bad Emperors. The Romans didn't revere living emperors, a Caligula, Domitian or a Nero could try to become revered but trying to be revered while alive had a literal 100% chance of death during the Principate. The relevance is this shows that Pagans did not revere living people in any religious sense of the word, they found self declared godhood offensive.

Now on refusal to participate in the cult that threatened nothing. Decius' edict was for everyone to present one sacrifice to "their chosen gods" it didn't have to be the Cult of the Emperor, and Diocletian ordered sacrifices to the Olympian Gods (Source Goldsworthy, How Rome Fell). Note that even if the Christians obeyed Decius' edict they would not have helped the unity of the Empire. There is even evidence that Decius' edict wasn't aimed at Christians and Decius did move to try and alleviate the pain he was causing them before he died. Note that had Christianity involved animal sacrifice to God the Christians could have complied with the edict.

The idea of Christianity undermining religious unity is intriguing, but the evidence is sadly lacking. The Pagans themselves did not revere living emperors, and on dead Emperors there was never any attempt to force Christians to present sacrifices to them specifically.

Religiously speaking the Pagans were as disuinited when Constantine came to power as they were before the Empire began. It is true that the Cult of the Emperor had more to do with politics and loyalty to Rome than any sense of religion, but there were other ways to show loyalty than a sacrifice. Note the level of tolerance before Diocletians edict, the martyrdom stories range from peasant women to senior centurions to senators, there were great churches Diocletian demolished and the best of all is the fact that the Pagans knew exactly where the Christians were and when to find them, and many of the martyrs had enjoyed imperial favor under earlier emperos, one elderly Christian Patriarch had actually pleaded for an earlier emperor to evict a deacon who had offended his congregation.

I'm sorry but my points are

1. Not enough Romans took deification seriously and the living couldn't be deified, so when sacrifices were called they were usually towards any Gods even if the state would prefer a show of loyalty to piety

2. There was too much tolerance, out of the few examples of intolerant persecuting emperors one (Decius) wasn't purposely targeting Christians, and the Romans seem to have found the Christians way too easily in Diocletian's reign. Saint George is probably the best known openly Christian martyr who took only moments to find because everyone knew he was a Christian and where to look. Perhaps Diocletian suspected Christian loyalty, but if he did why did he wait for later in his reign to persecute the Church? Wouldn't it have been responsible to start from day one?

[Brandy Blue]

No offense taken. I was simply asking you to clarify something I did not understand. I always accept corrections of any mistakes I make in the monestary with gratitude, and ask for clarification if I do not understand why I was wrong. You are furthering my education.

[OvidiusNasso]

Well I don't think you got the point.

Exception was granted to the Christians most of the time and the evidence show the Pagans knew exactly where the Christians were, who they were, where to go to arrest the Christians. Every Martyrdom story includes the Romans already knowing ahead of time where the community is and which members of it are leaders. Note that Bishops who hid during the reign of Diocletian first had to bribe Centurions, bribing a centurion would not be needed if the Centurion didn't already know who to look for, roughly what he or she looked like and where to go.

The various martyrdoms from Perpetua to Saint George back me up on this.

Also my point is and I will use bold, italics and underline to make sure you get it this time nobody was ever compelled to do anything for the Cult of the Emperor.

Diocletian's persecution involved ordering people to sacrifice to the Olympian Dieties, Decius issued an order for everyone to sacrifice to their own Gods for the good of the Empire with exception granted to the Jews (who at the time no longer posed any type of political threat), Marcus Aurelius set a mob on Christians without any reason stated late into his reign (depriving the Christians of the choice they usually had), Nero killed Christians under the pretense that Christianity was an arsonist movement, and for the most part that does it for the persecuting Emperors unless you want to include the one who died in Persia and was skinned alive (who's son Galienus revoked the persecutions of).

The problem with your theory is Roman Emperors didn't act on it for the most part. Christians were usually tolerated, even the families of persecuting emperors generally abandoned the persecution for example Commodus and Galienus both tolerated Christians despite gaining power from fathers who didn't.

A sacrifice of any type would get a Christian off the hook under every emperor, but that was just because sacrifices proved someone wasn't a Christian.

Just for re-emphasis Saint George was openly a Christian under Aurelian and everyone knew he was a Christian, in the original story his men tried to persuade him to desert to avoid being killed but he refused and died for Christ when Diocletian's police got to him.

Your theory would go much better if persecution was the rule instead of the exception.

Your theory would go much better if persecution was the rule instead of the exception. If it was the rule Christians would not have been easy for any of the forces involved to find, Vigiles and Legionaries were not professional cops and underground activities would have evaded them, especially in light of how little they would have had in support searching and other activities. Also we have papyrus recording provincial governors influencing which bishop was elected and even emperors hearing cases involving Christian Hierarchies and who has right to hold congregations.

Your case would also be much better if you could show the persecution through sacrifice edicts specifically ordered sacrifice to the state Gods or to the Cult of the Emperor. As I already said twice Decius' edict ordered sacrifice to any God, and Diocletians ordered sacrifice to the Olympian Gods so both of the larger examples are the wrong sacrifice type. I could post the text of Decius' edict if you would like, it is very interesting and shows how religion in polythiest societies doesn't have to divide because of how readily it accepts any type of sacrifice. Of course sacrifice was something everyone of every level of Roman society without regard of gender or rank had a right to do, and something they could do easily and was regardless of which God or Goddess recieved the sacrifice roughly the same in one city as it was in another (as in stages, preparation of the meat, the feast on the sacrificed animal, some form of prayers accompany the slaughter etc);

[OvidiusNasso]

No offense taken. I was simply asking you to clarify something I did not understand. I always accept corrections of any mistakes I make in the monestary with gratitude, and ask for clarification if I do not understand why I was wrong. You are furthering my education.

As do I, I was afraid you might have taken offense at my very poorly worded first post.

[Brandy Blue]

OK. I recant my poorly informed theory. Good thing about the monestary is how often it corrects errors in our formal education.

[OvidiusNasso]

Thank you, I am glad you found my evidence persuasive and sorry again for sounding too blunt/patronizing on the first post.

[Fragony]

Most has been said, the cannabalism and incest was more gossip. It's more of a society thing, the Romans feared that the refusal of christians to recognise the old gods would bring harm on them, temples and shrines were very important for everydays life, Roman officials reacted to these concerns. They made an exception for the jews, but the jews weren't new, Romans were very traditionally minded so it isn't all that paradoxical

[G. Septimus]

Well I don't think you got the point.

Nero killed Christians under the pretense that Christianity was an arsonist movement, and for the most part that does it for the persecuting Emperors unless you want to include the one who died in Persia and was skinned alive (who's son Galienus revoked the persecutions of).


Nero was mad.
MAD I TELL YOU! MARRDD! :freak:
well that's what they say at least. for short, The Emperors were too paranoid upon facing the Christians (such as the Cristus riot in Rome, AD 47) though they are not a very large threat to the Empire itself.