Roman Responses to Christianity
Subtitle: How new religions can spark odd responses and new traditions
Comicus: Have you heard of this new sect, the Christians? They are a laugh riot! First of all, they are so poor...
Swiftus: How poor are they?
Comicus: Thank you! They are so poor... that they only have *one* God! [drumbeat, everyone laughs]… But we Romans are rich. We've got a lot of gods. We've got a god for everything...
— History of the World: Part One
After the death of Yeshua ben Yosef (i.e., Jesus in English) until the Great Jewish Revolt (66-74 CE), Christians were considered to be another Jewish sect. However, Christians pushed against this during the Great Revolt, and Christians took it upon themselves to say that they were in no way a Jewish sect. This proved to be a double-edged sword that would both help the Christians and later push them up against a wall.
The Romans left the Christians alone during much of the Great Revolt. When the Great Revolt was over, which ended with the breaching of Masada’s walls in 74 CE, the Christians were not guaranteed the same protections under Roman law that the Jews had been given. This was due to the simple fact that Christianity was a new religious sect and was not as established as Judaism had been. The Romans truly thought of the Christians as a religious sect, an offshoot of Judaism.
In Pliny’s letter to the Roman emperor Trajan, we can see how the Romans viewed the Christians as a religious sect, an offshoot of Judaism. Pliny calls Christianity “a wicked and excessive superstition…[that] the infection of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but even to the villages and country areas.” In this same letter, we start to see Pliny’s indifference towards Christians within his jurisdiction, indicating he had bigger problems or concerns to deal with than some Jewish sect.
Pliny did not execute people who were accused of being Christians. He gave them ample opportunities to repent and give up Christianity, by cursing Christ, and paying tribute to the Roman gods as well as the emperor’s image. If the people accused of being Christians did this, he simply let them go. Those who did not, these were the ones Pliny called the insane, he gave them three chances to repent before having them executed.
By examining Pliny’s letter to Trajan, we can see that Pliny saw the Christian religion as a sort of heresy that needed to be stamped out, allowing for personal reform:
It seems possible to stop it and bring about reform. It is plain enough that temples, which had been almost deserted, have begun to be frequented again, that the sacred rights which had been neglected for a long time, are being resumed, and that from everywhere sacrificial victims are coming for which until now there were scarcely any purchasers. From this it can be easily supposed that a number of people can be reclaimed if repentance is afforded.
Looking at Trajan’s reply to Pliny’s letter, it seems that even the Roman emperor, Pliny’s direct superior, agrees with his methods of handling the Christians.
The behaviors of the Christians being persecuted can be seen in several tales of martyrdom. By examining Perpetua’s martyr tale, we can come to understand how Christians might have felt regarding their persecution and, ultimately, their fate after being executed or witnessing their faith. Vibia Perpetua, who was a Christian woman in Carthage, was imprisoned for her Christian beliefs.
Throughout “The Martyrdom of Saint Perpetua,” we can see that Vibia Perpetua was a very religious woman bent on keeping to her religion’s expectations. Though she was jailed for being a Christian, Perpetua, or at least what the narrative shows, kept to her beliefs. She prayed and even received dreams. One dream that is explained in detail is a dream about her sibling brother who died at the age of seven:
I saw Dinocrates coming forth from a dark place, where there were many other dark places, very hot and thirsty, his countenance pal and squalid; and the wound which he had when he died was in his face still. …I had prayed; and there was a great gulf between me and him, so that neither of us could approach the other. There was besides in the very place where Dinocrates was a font full of water, the rim of which was above the head of the child; and Dinocrates stood tiptoe to drink.
Perpetua explained how she prays for her little brother, who by this account seemed to be in some kind of hell. It also seems that the reasons she persisted in keeping to her religion is that her belief and ultimately her death would help release her brother from the hell in which she saw him.
By the tale’s end, Perpetua has another vision. In that vision, she sees the deacon, Pompnius, and what was to happen on the day of her execution. Perpetua saw that her execution in the amphitheater was a sort of test of faith. The fight in which she would part would not be against animals, as was the popular way the Romans used to kill Christians, but rather against the Devil. This seems to be the ultimate form of test for Perpetua and at least in this narrative, she took it on willingly.
We see that even Perpetua’s family was divided over the matter of her being a Christian. Perpetua’s father was not a Christian and tried several times to convince his daughter to renounce her faith so that she could live. Her father even went as far as bringing Perpetua’s infant son to her jail cell and to her during inspection to persuade her to give up her faith. Her brother held an opposite viewpoint of the father of the household. He saw that Perpetua was fulfilling an important Christian duty in not renouncing her faith so that she may live.
The Roman persecution of the Christians as a religious sect seems to fit within how Roman society acted throughout its history. Rome was incredibly conservative, like most ancient societies. Even the Jews were highly conservative and made several attempts to keep their religious and cultural values through either reforms or the creation of factions such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes. To the Romans, and even their Jewish counterparts in Judah, proper religious practice was a way of ensuring the security of the state. If people went against the old established traditions of these states, the Romans, like any ancient society, would have seen this as a grave threat to the security of the state. Ancient religion was based on pleasing, propitiating, the gods to get something in return.
By looking at the Roman treatment of the Christians, it seems that they were reasonable in their approach toward them. Christians were a new religious sect that went against the old established order. The Romans, at least in their eyes, saw it as something they needed to correct to ensure the security of the state. To a modern person, the Romans’ treatment of the Christians would seem intolerant and maybe even barbaric. However, the problem is we have to look at it as the Romans would have. They wanted to maintain order and tradition and keep the gods on their side. The only way they knew how to do this was by paying tribute to their established gods and the emperor, pushing aside all else. Roman persecution of Christians also comes out of what the Romans must have perceived as a sort of heresy. They believed they were doing the right thing. The Roman state and the safety of the emperor were at stake. To Christians, their persecutions seem to have been the ultimate test of faith, as seen in “The Martyrdom of Saint Perpetua.” Whereas, family members would have wanted their Christian relatives to give up their religion, as seen in Perpetua’s tale, or Christians may have had family members who supported their religious convictions.
For those building fantasy worlds, this offers a great deal of fodder for the complexities of new religions and their places within established religious and political orders. Religion is rarely simple, and it is likely to carry a lot of nuance, baggage, and weirdness, much like the early years of Christianity did. These were fundamental years, bringing forth new traditions, new ideas, and, ultimately, a foundation for one of the world’s living religions.
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