Through Struggle: Christian Growth In The Midst of Persecution

          During the time of the Roman Empire, the Roman government sought to eradicate the spreading movement of Christianity.  America’s relative religious freedom and the space of history separate American Christianity from the barbarous persecutions of anti-Christian Rome. This separation can cause a lack of appreciation towards the persecutions Christians experienced in Rome.  The study of church history and the circumstances that brought the church to its current point can inspire gratitude for Christianity’s rich heritage.  Rome was the first, and arguably one of the worst, oppressors of Christians.  Maltreatment began under Nero in 64 AD and continued under emperors such as Domitian, Trajan, Maximinus, and Decius. The last and worst Roman concentration against Christians began in 303 AD under Diocletian.  Diocletian’s reign was polar opposites with his successor Constantine’s, whose toleration and even favor of Christianity gave the church a much needed respite from persecution. During this time of peace under Constantine the church experienced growth and prosperity which laid the foundation for the modern church. God used the reign of Constantine to establish the Christian church throughout the world despite Diocletian’s best attempts to destroy Christianity (Sell “Study 9:  The Church in Persecution—The Roman Persecutions”).

Born in 245, Diocletian grew up in an Empire focused on military strength and economic conquest. When he was old enough, Diocletian joined the Roman military quickly climbed in authority and prestige, and eventually became commander of the imperial guard. After the murders of Emperor Numerian and successor Carinus, Rome  began searching for a new ruler. Diocletian’s military prowess gave him political acclaim that led him to the  throne in 284 (Mindeman 206). For the next several years, Diocletian remained active in military fronts and defended Roman borders against invasions in the East from Syria and what is now modern-day Iran (Knox, “Emperor Diocletian”).

            Diocletian’s rule changed the structure of Roman government. Rome had previously been run by one emperor who controlled the whole government and possessed total power. In 294 Diocletian divided the empire into halves—East and West—controlled by four rulers—two Augusti (emperors) and two Caesars who acted as the emperor’s helpers and successors (Mindeman 206).  This new government became known as the Tetrarchy (Grant 17).  Maximian was Diocletian’s associate Augustus in the West and he appointed Constantius I Chlorus as Caesar (who was the father of Constantine the Great). Galerius served Diocletian as Casesar (18). For most of the Tetrarchy’s reign, Christians experienced peace and even appeared in the lower realms of the government. Others spent their time building churches, preaching, and bringing in new believers (Sell “Study 9:  The Church in Persecution—The Roman Persecutions”).

            Starting in 303, the Christian church experienced what is arguably the most horrific and intensive persecution that it endured (Rusten 112).  Scholars have debated the numerous causes that led to the start of Diocletian’s persecution, but there are two worth noting.  First, the Roman government relied on divination and pagan rituals as part of their military conquest.  The Romans believed that sacrifices made to their gods would win them military and political favor.  During the sacrificial ceremony, the haruspices (pagan diviners) examined the entrails of the dead animal.  Depending on the condition of and the marks on the entrails, the diviners either affirmed the emperor’s military strategy or advised against it.  Christians present in the imperial government opposed this practice in 299 by making signs of the cross in the imperial house in an effort to keep the Roman gods (demons) away.  When demons no longer worked through the haruspices, Diocletian and Caesar Galerius knew the blame fell on the shoulders of the Christians.  Secondly, Christians once again were blamed for fires that broke out in Nicomedia—Diocletian’s capital (Grant 127).  This blame is reminiscent of the first Christian persecution by Nero in 64 AD (Judge 816). 

            These factors, and Diocletian’s desire for religious unity, sparked five imperial edicts that outlawed and opposed Christianity. The first of Diocletian’s edicts, passed on February 23^rd, 303, ordered all Scripture and Christian churches to be destroyed and all Christian’s property confiscated.  Passed a day later, the second edict denied legal resources and privileges of governmental office to all Christians.  A third edict ordered the arrest of all Christian clergy.  Since Roman prisons became overpopulated, a fourth edict granted release from incarceration to Christians who performed sacrifices to the pagan gods.  Lastly in early 304, the last edict demanded pagan sacrifice from Christians throughout the entire Roman Empire.  The Great Persecution, as it became known later in history, had officially begun (Rusten 113).

            Serious illness forced Diocletian to abdicate his throne to Galerius. After convincing Maximian to join him, the two emperors both stepped down from office in 305 (Knox, “Emperor Diocletian”). Galerius, now emperor alongside Constantius I Chlorus, became responsible for the majority of the persecution that Diocletian started. (Mindeman 206).  After a power struggle amongst Constantine (Constantius I’s son), Maxentius (Maximian’s son), and a third man named Severus, Constantine and Maxentius rose to the position of Caesar (Hicks 264).  In the West, Galerius did everything in his power to destroy the Christian movement but to no avail. In the West, Constantius, who did not support the persecution and gave Christians peace instead, crippled Galerius’ efforts and divided the mission of the Empire (Rusten 113).   

Multiple stories arose out of this time that act as examples of what Galerius’ persecution was like. Early church father Eusebius collected these stories and compiled them in his book The History of the Martyrs in Palestine.  One of these stories tells of Romanus, a deacon in Caesarea, who faced death in 303 or 304 towards the beginning of the persecution.  Romanus was sentenced to be burned after refusing to make a sacrifice to the Roman gods, but Diocletian ordered that the saint’s tongue be cut out instead.  Even after his tongue was gone, Romanus continued to preach the gospel to his Roman persecutors (Eusebius Loc. 231-43).  His death came swiftly afterwards by what Eusebius referred to as “the strangling instrument” (Loc. 245).  Another story involved Timotheus in 305 (Loc. 249 ) who suffered violence at the hands of his own neighbors before being sent to the governor of Palestine (Loc. 255-62).  Timotheus was bound in fetters and whipped before he slowly burned to death after he refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods (Loc. 262-265).  Two more people, Agapius and Theckla, suffered tortured and were offered to the mercy of wild beasts (Loc. 269-270).  Perhaps the greatest story out of Eusebius’ book was of 19-year old Epiphanius (Loc. 306).  In 306, Epiphanius physically restrained Urbanus, a governmental official, from making sacrifices to the gods.  His actions warranted the worst tortures imaginable including being beaten, kicked, bridled, stretched, whipped until his innards were visible, disfigured beyond recognition, having his feet wrapped in cotton and oil and set on fire to the point that his flesh “dropped like melted wax” (Loc. 354), and finally being thrown into the sea to drown.  All this time,  Epiphanius stood firm in the faith and never denied his savior (Loc. 328-368).  Indeed, sobering brutality prevailed during the Great Persecution of Diocletian and Galerius.

            Despite Rome’s best attempts to destroy Christianity and introduce a state-wide pagan religion, Christianity persevered.  Until he died in 306 (Grant 228), Constantius I Chlorus favored Christians and saved them from persecution in places like Gaul, Britain, and Spain—an action that surely effected his son’s reign (Schaff “History of the Christian Church Vol II, Chapter 2, Sec. 24”).  When Galerius became ill and entered the last stages of his life, he realized that the persecution wasn’t having the desired effect.  The church wasn’t destroyed it was rather strengthened and encouraged by those who willingly died in devotion to God.  Galerius redacted Diocletian’s edicts and passed an edict of limited toleration in 311, which gave back to Christians the right to worship freely (Rusten 113).  The emperor even went as far as to ask the Christians to “pray to their god” for the emperors and Rome itself as an empire (Schaff “History of the Christian Church Vol II, Chapter 2, Sec. 25”).  Galerius’ death in 311 brought about the reign of Constantine (Hicks 264).

            Constantine the Great, emperor of Rome, has become one of the most important and influential political figures in Christian history.  His climb to the top of the Roman government is slightly hard to follow.  After the death of his father in 306, Constantine became Caesar under Galerius.  Maxentius became Galerius’ fellow Augustus, but Maximian took back the throne in 307.  Through a series of events involving his son, Maximian was kicked out of the seat of Augustus in 308 at the conference of Carnuntum, which also proclaimed another man, Licinius, as the new emperor in his place.  Maximian died in 310.  After Galerius’ death in 311, the seat of Augustus alongside Licinius rightfully belonged to Constantine (Grant 228).  However, Maxentius wished to take the throne that Constantine had rightfully earned and led troops against Constantine at the Tiber River in the Battle of Milvian (sometimes spelled Mulvian) Bridge in 311.  Legend has it that the night before the battle commenced God told Constantine that victory would be his if he carried the cross into battle.  During the battle the next day, Constantine’s troops, bearing the symbol of the cross, pushed Maxentius’ army back against the Tiber River and into a retreat.  In the ensuing chaos across the narrow Milvian Bridge, Maxentius fell into the river and drowned.  Constantine had successfully defended his title as Augustus (Galli 307).

            Constantine’s rule signaled the end of the Roman persecution and ushered in a completely different era of peace and prosperity for Christianity.  Like his father, Constantine was also tolerant of Christianity and let the Christians live and worship as they pleased.  Relief spread throughout the church when Constantine and his co-Augustus Licinius both left Christianity alone.  Shortly after his ascension to the throne, Constantine fully expanded Galerius edict of limited toleration into an edict of full toleration.  Constantine met with Licinius in Milan inn March 313, and passed the Edict of Milan, which gave “full toleration to the Christian faith ordering that all places of worship taken from the Christians should be restored without delay or charge, that any loss they had suffered should be made good and that Christian ministers should be released from all burdensome municipal offices” (Sell “Study 9:  The Church in Persecution—The Roman Persecutions”).  The Edict of Milan gave Christianity complete freedom throughout the entirety of Rome and acted as a testament to the resilience of the church through trial and persecution.  Unfortunately for the eastern half of the empire, Licinius rebelled against Constantine and began persecuting Christians once again. In 323 Constantine went to war against Licinius at Adrianople and Chrysopolis, effectively taking away his throne (Hicks 172).  With Licinius gone, Constantine did away with Diocletian’s Tetrarchy and became the sole Augustus of Rome.  Constantine moved the seat of government to Byzantium in the East (Galli 308).  The era of persecution ended and the Christian Roman Empire under Constantine began (Schaff “History of the Christian Church Vol II, Chapter 2, Sec. 25”).

            As with anything, Constantine’s staunchly Christian rule over Rome wasn’t perfect.  Though Christianity was preferred by Constantine, pagan practices still existed in the empire.  Not until 324 AD were pagan symbols and sayings taken off Roman coins (Hicks 173).  A large downside to Constantine’s reign was the rise of apostasy within the church. Because Constantine controlled the church politically many saw the church as a stepping stone into politics, and the church was diluted by people who were “politically ambitious, religiously disinterested, and still half-rooted in paganism. This threatened to produce not only shallowness and permeation by pagan superstitions but also the secularization and misuse of religion for political purposes” (Shelley 96).

Two specific negative movements began to appear in Roman churches: Donatism and Arianism. Donatists held to the view that those who had caved under the pressure of persecution during Diocletian’s reign and handed over Scriptures to be burned or offered sacrifices to Roman gods were false Christians that needed to be cast out of the church. Donatists believed that the real church consisted of those who bore the scars of persecution on their bodies and remained true to Christ. Because of their beliefs, Donatism claimed that the legitimacy of church rituals like communion relied on the morality of the person leading them, ultimately denying the power of the church and of God (Rusten 316). It wasn't until the Council of Ardes in 314, which excommunicated Donatus and his followers that the church began to formulate a strategy on handling these false church ideals (318).

            The church later faced Arianism, which denied the divinity of Jesus as being both fully God and fully man (Galli 336). Constantine’s political reign began to wed itself to religious affairs, and in order to combat beliefs like Arianism he called the Council of Nicea in 325—which deemed Arianism as heretical (Hicks 173). The Council of Nicea not only condemned Arianism, it set the standard for important future church councils like Chalcedon, Constantinople, and Carthage.

            Constantine’s reign brought about the finalizing of the New Testament canon.  Because of Diocletian’s persecutions, churches had to quickly decide which books in the New Testament and the New Testament Apocrypha were worth dying for.  While the finalization of the New Testament didn’t happen until the third council of Carthage in 397 AD—roughly 65 years after Constantine’s reign came to an end—the process began when Eusebius, under orders from Constantine, distributed fifty copies of the New Testament around the empire.  With the Scriptures being circulated around the empire once again, churches had to consistently agree on only one version of the New Testament (Duffield 14).

As the Bible circulated freely throughout the empire, various religious communities and organizations, namely monasticism, took shape.  After being baptized into Christianity in 313, an Egyptian named Pachomius began to live as a monk.  By 320, Pachomius began establishing monasteries (Rusten 318) and successfully established eleven monasteries before he died.  Pachomius is seen as the father of monasticism (319).

            As can be seen, Diocletian led one of the most horrific Christian persecutions in history, but God used Constantine to propel the church into a time of peace, restoration, expansion, and fortification.  Diocletian was the last emperor to heavily persecute Christianity, and Constantine was the first emperor to fully embrace the Christian church.  Constantine had, arguably, the largest impact on the church of any political leader. His reign, while not perfect, would influence many leaders after him. Under Constantine’s rule, the church and the Roman Empire left physical trials behind them and entered into a new time period of political upheaval and confusion with the marriage of the church and state.  It’s this relationship that the Roman Catholic Church finds itself in today, and one that began a mere 20 years after Diocletian’s persecution ended.  Opposites indeed.                                

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