Persecution and the martyrs
From Nero to the early fourth century Christians were at times arrested and killed for refusing to sacrifice to the gods and the emperor. Through Polycarp of Smyrna around 155, Perpetua and Felicity at Carthage in 203, and the persecutions under Decius in 250 and Diocletian from 303, the church remembered its martyrs as Christ's witnesses, and learned how to receive back those who fell.
For the name
Rome made room for the gods of many peoples. But sacrifice to the gods who were thought to keep the state safe, and before the emperor's image, was counted a duty, and Christians refused it. Their neighbours took them for people without gods and without loyalty to the emperor. How the apologists answered such charges is the Apologetics course's The early apologists.
Around 112 Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, wrote to the emperor Trajan. He reported that Christians sang hymns to Christ as to a god, said that he had executed those who persisted in confessing, and asked whether the name itself was to be punished, even without other crimes. Trajan replied that Christians were not to be sought out, but that if they were accused and would not recant, they were to be punished Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96–97. So in the second century persecution was not empire-wide; it broke out here and there, as neighbours accused and governors chose. Peter had written for such days:
But if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but glorify God that you bear that name.
1 Peter 4:16
The Greek word behind ‘martyr’, , means a witness: a martyr is one who bore witness to Christ with his life. To the church at Smyrna the risen Lord says, "Be faithful even unto death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Revelation 2:10), and Wesley notes of the city: "Christians at Smyrna; where, in the first ages, the blood of many martyrs was shed" Wesley.
Smyrna and Carthage
Around 155 Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was arrested: a very old man who, as Irenaeus records, had been taught by apostles Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.4. When the proconsul pressed him to revile Christ, he answered, "Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?" He was put to death at the stake. The church of Smyrna's letter telling of his death to other churches is counted the earliest surviving account of a martyrdom outside the New Testament. It says the church means to gather each year on the day of his martyrdom, which it calls his birthday The church of Smyrna, The Martyrdom of Polycarp; here is an early witness to the custom of keeping a martyr's death as the day of birth into heaven.
At Carthage in North Africa, in 203, Perpetua, a young mother with a baby at the breast, was arrested with Felicity, a slave, and others preparing for baptism. Perpetua's prison diary is among the earliest surviving writings by a Christian woman. When her father begged her to deny Christ, she pointed to a jug standing nearby: it could not be called by any other name than what it was, and "Neither can I call myself anything else than what I am, a Christian" The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity. The well-born young woman and the slave died together in the amphitheatre, and the Catholic Church still names them both in an ancient Eucharistic prayer of the Mass.
In the same city a few years earlier, Tertullian had told the persecutors, "The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed" Tertullian, Apology 50. The familiar ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church’ is a later smoothing of his words.
Decius and Diocletian
In 250 the emperor Decius ordered every inhabitant of the empire to sacrifice to the gods and obtain a certificate saying so: the first persecution across the whole empire. Many were tortured or killed, but many others, in fear, sacrificed, or paid for a certificate without sacrificing. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, went into hiding and cared for his church by letter, and was criticised for it. When the persecution ended he wrote, in 251, On the Lapsed, on how the church should receive back those who had fallen: the way of repentance was open, but not cheaply. Cyprian himself was beheaded in 258, in the persecution under Valerian.
The Great Persecution began under Diocletian in February 303. Eusebius, who lived through it, tells of churches pulled down, the Scriptures burned, and many tortured and killed Eusebius, Church History 8. Around 315 Lactantius told of it, and of the ends of the persecuting emperors, in On the Deaths of the Persecutors. In the East it lasted until about 313. Afterwards the North African church divided over how to treat clergy who had handed over the Scriptures, in the Donatist schism.
A church that remembers its martyrs
Jesus had said:
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
Matthew 5:10-11
Jerome observes that the Lord spoke of righteousness with care, since "many suffer persecution for their sins, and are not therefore righteous" Jerome. What made the martyrs martyrs was not suffering itself, but the one to whom they bore witness.
As Smyrna kept Polycarp's day, the church kept the days of its martyrs' deaths and built its places of worship over their graves. Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox still keep Polycarp's feast on 23 February. Believing that the martyrs are alive in Christ and pray for us, they ask for their prayers. Most Protestants do not ask the saints to pray for them, but remember the martyrs as examples of faith; Anglican and Lutheran calendars keep Polycarp's day too, and John Foxe's Acts and Monuments (the Book of Martyrs), gathered in sixteenth-century England from the early martyrs to those of his own day, was read by Protestants for centuries; the Catholic Church, for its part, honours as martyrs its own faithful who died for their faith in England in the same age. Korea's martyrs are met in The Korean Catholic Church: beginnings and persecution.
Persecution is not only in the past. In many countries today Christians are imprisoned or killed for their faith, a story taken up in The world church today. The martyrs took up no sword and kept the name, and John says they overcame "by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony" (Revelation 12:11).
Yet the church that was persecuted came in time to persecute others. So a church that honours its martyrs must remember its own sins with repentance, as it once kept the way of repentance open to those who fell. The next lesson, Worship and life in the early church, looks at how the Christians of these centuries gathered and lived.
Practice
- Practice 1 of 7
How did Trajan answer Pliny the Younger around 112?
- Practice 2 of 7
What does martus, the Greek word behind ‘martyr’, mean?
- Practice 3 of 7
According to the church of Smyrna's letter, how did Polycarp answer the proconsul?
- Practice 4 of 7
Which order of events is correct?
- Practice 5 of 7
What did Perpetua tell her father, according to her prison diary?
- Practice 6 of 7
After the persecution under Decius, what did Cyprian say about those who had fallen?
- Practice 7 of 7
What did Tertullian write in his Apology?
Reading to the end marks it read; tap to switch it.
Related topics
Source
- Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96 — c. AD 112. Reports to Trajan that Christians sing hymns 'to Christ as to a god', that he executed those who persisted in confessing, and asks whether the name itself is punishable. Trajan replies that Christians are not to be sought out, but punished if accused and unrepentant (10.97).
- Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies — c. 180. Defends the Creator and the incarnation against the Gnostics; Christ sums up and renews humanity (recapitulation). Book 5 looks for the reign of the righteous in a renewed creation. Read
- The church of Smyrna, The Martyrdom of Polycarp — c. 155–160. The church of Smyrna's letter on the arrest and death of its bishop Polycarp: told to revile Christ, he answers, 'Eighty and six years have I served him' (ch. 9); the church means to keep the day of his martyrdom each year (ch. 18).
- Perpetua and an anonymous editor, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity — 203. The martyrdom at Carthage of Perpetua, a young mother, and the slave Felicity, with Perpetua's own prison diary: before her father, who begs her to deny Christ, she says she cannot be called anything but what she is, a Christian.
- Tertullian, Apology 50 — c. 197. Defends the Christians before Rome's governors; the blood of Christians is seed (ch. 50).
- Cyprian, On the Lapsed 251 — 251. After the persecution under Decius: how the church should receive back those who sacrificed or bought certificates; the way of repentance open, but not cheaply.
- Eusebius, Church History 8 — c. 325. An eyewitness of the Great Persecution under Diocletian from 303: churches pulled down, the Scriptures burned, many tortured and killed.
- Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors — c. 315. On the Great Persecution from 303 and the ends of the persecuting emperors. Tells that Constantine was told in a dream before the battle of the Milvian Bridge to mark the heavenly sign on his soldiers' shields (44), and gives the text of the agreement made at Milan in 313, as Licinius published it, granting freedom of worship to Christians and to all (48).
- John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (the Book of Martyrs) 1563 — 1563. John Foxe's stories of the martyrs, from the early church to the Protestants burned under Mary I; known as the Book of Martyrs, it was enlarged in later editions and read by Protestants for centuries.
Lessons from the Bible, the church's creeds and the sources and witnesses of its history. They tell the church's story fairly, as each tradition remembers it, and do not hide the church's sins. Scripture quotations: BSB.