Early Christians Under Roman Rule
SATAN is the god and princely ruler of this world and the mass of mankind are in bondage to his oppressive organization. Christ’s kingdom, on the other hand, is not of this world. His disciples are no part of it, though they remain in it as ambassadors of Jehovah’s new world. (2 Cor. 4:4; John 15:19; 18:36; Jas. 4:4) As true Christians they have a special calling, are given a divine commission, and have God’s activating holy spirit upon them to accomplish a work of making disciples of people of all the nations. (Matt. 28:19, NW) Early Christians were faithful to this commission, though it made them unpopular, objects of hatred, targets of persecution.
There were only 120 in this little band of Christians at first. But in less than two months, at Pentecost, 3,000 more were added. Then the number jumped to 5,000. The work increased, the field of activity expanded to take in more territory, and in spite of violent opposition from the orthodox Jews God’s witnesses “went every where preaching the word”. (Acts 1:15; 2:41; 4:4; 8:4) The apostles and others traveled from port to port, and overland they used the famous system of Roman military highways.1 In the principal cities they established congregations, and it was from such centers that the Kingdom message was carried into the rural areas. In addition to what Pliny, Clemens Romanus and Justin Martyr have written, Origen expressly says “that many [Christians] had made it their business to go through not only their towns, but also the villages and farms”.2
At first the early Christians wrote letters; but what letters! “If they could write such letters as these,” Dr. Goodspeed remarks, “what kind of sermons do you suppose they preached? No wonder the gospel so quickly permeated the Greek world!”3 The apostles wrote for the common people and hence in the popular koiné Greek, not the classical, and their letters were circulated far and wide. (Col. 4:16; 1 Thess. 5:27) Being book-conscious, the early Christians not only collected and published the letters of Paul, Peter, John, James and Jude, but also published the history of the apostles by Luke, and the “Four Gospels” in codex form, a method of bookbinding made popular by Christians. (2 Tim. 4:13) The literary style of the gospel accounts is so high that “no type of religious literature has equalled it in attractiveness and power”.3 As time went on that early unincorporated Bible society of Christians became busy translating the Bible into other languages—Syriac, Coptic, Latin, etc.3
IMPACT ON PAGAN WORLD
As young Christianity in its vigor and strength spread over the Roman empire it ran up against many strange religious theories, philosophies and customs. It also collided head-on with the ideologies of Roman officialdom. To the demon worshiping pagans who reverenced a host of different gods it seemed very strange indeed that these people called Christians believed there was only one true and living God whose name alone is Jehovah.4 In pagan eyes it seemed odd that these servants of God had no stately temples. “For almost three centuries, we must remember, Christians had no church buildings. They met in such private houses as had rooms large enough to accommodate their meetings.”3, 2
Moreover, Christians had no famous statues or shrines. “The use of images,” Neander affirms, “was originally quite foreign to the Christian worship and Churches, and it remained so during this whole period. The intermixture of art and religion, and the use of images for the latter, appeared to the first Christians a heathenish practice.”2 Christians had no imposing formalism or paid priesthood.5 “In the apostolic church preaching and teaching were not confined to a particular class, but every convert could proclaim the gospel to unbelievers, and every Christian who had the gift could pray and teach and exhort in the congregation.”6
Christians proclaimed Christ their savior instead of the emperor. Even their Bible teachings regarding such things as marriage, cleanness in all things, honesty and justice, peaceable conduct one toward another, patient endurance of violent persecution, as well as the practice of love, mercy and forgiveness1—all of these things were viewed by unbelieving pagans as “turning the world upside down”.
Tertullian tells how the pagans ate human blood—sometimes to seal a treaty, sometimes as a sign of initiation, sometimes as a cure for epilepsy. But not so Christians! Says Tertullian: “Let your error blush before the Christians, for we do not include even animals’ blood in our natural diet. We abstain on that account from things strangled or that die of themselves, that we may not in any way be polluted by blood, even if it is buried in the meat. Finally, when you are testing Christians, you offer them sausages full of blood; you are thoroughly well aware, of course, that among them it is forbidden; but you want to make them transgress.”7
“The early Christians, who tried to keep themselves from idolatry, were regarded as very antisocial persons. They never appeared at public feasts and entertainments. They would not join in the amusements of the circus or the amphitheater.”8,9,10 And why not? Cyprian, who lived back there, gives other reasons in addition to the matter of public idolatry: “A combat of gladiators is in preparation, in order to gratify the thirst of cruel eyes with blood. A man is put to death for the pleasure of men, murder becomes a profession, and crime not only practised, but even taught.”2
Roman agencies lied against the Christians, to incite both the people and the government against them.2 Outbursts of mob violence often occurred and terrible injuries and even death were suffered by faithful Christians.8
SERVE GOD OR STATE, WHICH?
It was the same old issue: whom would God’s servants worship and obey? One cannot serve two masters, Christ declared. True Christians never compromise on this issue. (Matt. 6:24; Acts 4:19, 20) Even as they refused to “heil Hitler” in modern times, so also nineteen centuries ago they refused to salute, bow down to or burn incense to Caesar’s image.8 “Rome had become gradually full of people espousing foreign cults, who on demand would swear allegiance to the divine spirit of the emperor. The Christians, however, strong in their faith, would take no such oath of loyalty. And because they did not swear allegiance to what we would to-day consider as analogous to the FLAG, they were considered politically dangerous.”11
Those men of God knew that the “divine right of kings” is only a myth, that the flag or emblem of the state was no symbol of salvation and hence they could not pledge allegiance to it. Nevertheless, they were loyal and obedient to the state in all matters not pertaining to worship.12 Christ forbade them to be rebellious against the state. “Pay back Caesar’s things to Caesar, but God’s things to God,” he commanded them, and that is what they did. (Mark 12:17, NW) Says Justin Martyr: “Taxes and customs we pay the most scrupulously of all men, to those who are appointed by you, as we were taught by him. (Matt. 22:21) Hence we worship only God alone, while at the same time we serve you willingly in all other respects.”2 On this same matter Tertullian declared: “The image of Caesar, which is on the coins, is to be given to Caesar, and the image of God which is in man, is to be given to God; therefore, thou must give the money, indeed, to Caesar, but thyself to God; for what will remain to God, if all belongs to Caesar?”2
“The early Christians were ready to die for their faith. They refused to worship the gods of the pagan Romans. Since they believed in peace, they would not serve in Rome’s imperial armies.”13 To the Romans those “who objected to military service seemed useless to the state”,9 but that did not change God’s viewpoint of the matter, and, after all, that is what counted.
Those Christians did not object to or interfere with Caesar’s drafting pagans for his army. Indeed, he had a perfect right to do so, for they were part of this old world. But when Caesar asked God’s ministers, who were of Jehovah’s kingdom and no part of the Devil’s world, to fight old world battles, that was an entirely different matter. So the specious argument of those like Celsus (a Latin writer of the second century) is but empty words. “Does not the emperor justly punish you?” asked Celsus, “For if all did as you do, the emperor would be left to himself, no one would defend him, the wildest barbarians would obtain the power over all the world, and there would not remain a single trace of true wisdom, nor even of your religion, among mankind; for fancy not that your Almighty God would come down from heaven to fight for us.”2,12
PERSECUTION FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ SAKE
“If they have persecuted me,” warned Jesus, “they will also persecute you . . . all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake.” (Matt. 5:10, 11; Luke 21:12; John 15:20, 21) And so it was. “It appears conclusively, both from the letter of Pliny and the rescript of Trajan, that the Christians could be punished for the nomen alone, or the mere profession of Christianity, apart from the specification or proof of definite crimes.”1 Everywhere they were spoken against.—Acts 28:22.
Christians in those early days were attacked by literary scholars such as Lucian, Celsus, Porphyrius, Hierocles, and, as already mentioned, they were often mobbed and beaten by the misdirected populace.14 But in many other instances the ruling elements were responsible. Christian meetings were broken up; their Bibles were burned; their privileges as Roman citizens were taken away; they were thrown into prison; and sometimes they were burned at the stake or stretched on the rack or thrown into an arena to be torn to pieces by wild animals. “Every refinement of torture was practiced. Paganism, fighting for its existence, left no means untried to root out a sect both despised and feared.”8
Some historians15 have debated over why God’s people were singled out and persecuted beyond measure, but when one sees the issue it is quite simple to understand. A letter addressed to Diognetus, who lived in the early part of the second century, says: “The Christians are not separated from other men, either in their earthly abode, nor by language, nor customs; they never inhabit separate towns, they use no peculiar speech, no singular mode of life.—They dwell in the towns of Greeks, or of Barbarians, just as chance has assigned their abode and inasmuch as they follow the customs of the country with regard to raiment, food, and other such matters, they show a temper and conduct which is wonderful and remarkable to all men. They obey the existing laws, nay, they triumph over the laws by their own conduct.”2
So the persecution was not because Christians were queer fanatics. They were just common, ordinary people when it came to everyday life. (1 Cor. 1:26-29) But even this fact drew ridicule from Celsus, who “makes it a matter of mockery, that labourers, shoemakers, farmers, the most uninformed and clownish of men, should be zealous preachers of the Gospel”.2
Rome really had no better subjects, for Christians paid more genuine respect to the government and law and order than any others, even though they were classified as undesirable citizens.16 In proof, Tertullian called in the magistrates to testify that among those daily guilty of murder, seduction, stealing, etc., the criminals were pagans, not Christians. True, the jails were full of Christians, but the only accusation against them was that of being Christians.17 All the facts proved that Jehovah’s faithful servants under the rule of Rome were “a set of men of the most harmless, inoffensive character, who never harboured in their minds a wish or thought inimical to the welfare of the state”.18
Strange, is it not, that such good people would be hated and persecuted without pity? Here is the reason, Tertullian explains: “They pay no vain, nor false, nor foolish honors to the Emperor” and they refuse to indulge in the wanton festivals of the pagans.5 The Romans were tolerant of everyone that would bow down and worship the totalitarian state and its man-made god, the deified emperor.18 Even the Jews got along fairly well by compromising the issue.1 “But the conduct of the Christians,” Mosheim tells us, “was directly the reverse of this: for, laying aside every sort of fear, they strenuously endeavoured to make the Romans renounce their vain and silly superstitions, and were continually urging the citizens to give up and abolish those sacred rites.”18 “Their gospel was not an esoteric, secret mystery, but something to be proclaimed upon the housetops, and they made it their business to carry into effect the old slogan of the prophets, ‘Publish good tidings.’”3
LIST OF AUTHORITIES HEREIN CITED
1. Christianity and the Roman Government, by E. G. Hardy, 1925 reprint of 1894 edition, pp. 122, 130, 95, 18, 19.
2. The History of the Christian Religion and Church During the Three First Centuries, by Augustus Neander, translated from the German by Henry John Rose, second edition, 1848, pp. 46, 182, 183, 162, 52, 159, 160, 52, 53, 40, 41.
3. Christianity Goes to Press, by Edgar J. Goodspeed, pp. 11, 36, 76, 14, 75.
4. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon, The Modern Library edition, vol. 1, Chap. 16, pp. 450, 451.
5. A Source Book of Roman History, by Dana C. Munro, 1904, p. 170.
6. History of the Christian Church, by Philip Schaff, vol. 2, p. 124.
7. Tertullian’s Apologeticus, translated by T. R. Glover, IX, 9-15.
8. Early European Civilization, by Hutton Webster, 1933, pp. 132, 233, 333, 334.
9. A History of Rome, by George Willis Botsford, 1901, p. 263.
10. The History of Medieval Europe, by Lynn Thorndike, 1917, p. 64.
11. The Book of Culture, by Ethel Rose Peyser, 1934, p. 549.
12. A Short History of Rome, by Guglielmo Ferrero and Corrado Barbagallo, 1919, pp. 280, 382.
13. From the Old World to the New, by Eugene A. Colligan and Maxwell F. Littwin, 1932, p. 88.
14. Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, by McClintock & Strong, 1871, vol. 2, p. 271.
15. The Ancient World, by Willis Mason West, 1913, pp. 538, 539.
16. History of Europe, by James H. Breasted, 1920, p. 272.
17. History of the Christian Church, by Henry C. Sheldon, 1894, vol. 1, p. 180.
18. Historical Commentaries on the State of Christianity, by John Laurence von Mosheim, translated from the German by Robert S. Vidal and edited by James Murdock, 1853, vol. 1, pp. 129, 130.