"Pagan Criticism of Christianity during the First Two centuries A.D.,"
in ANRW (Berlin, 1980), 23.2: 1055-1118.
Benko, Stephen
Pagan Rome and the Early Christians
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984)
Bowersock, G. W.
Martyrdom and Rome
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
Brox, Norbert
Zeuge und Märtyrer
(Munich: Kösel, 1961)
Fox, Robin Lane
Pagans and Christians
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1986), 419-492.
Frend, W.H.C.
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church. A study in Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965) (= Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1967)
Frend, W.H.C.
Religion Popular and Unpopular in the Early Christian Centuries
(London, 1976)
Freudenberger, Rudolf
Das Verhalten der römischen Behörden gegen die Christen im 2. Jahrhundert
(Munich, 1967)
Guyot, Peter, and Richard Klein
Das Frühe Christentum bis zum Ende der Verfolgungen. Band I: Die Christen im heidnischen Staat ("Texte zur Forschung," 60; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1993); Band II: Die Christen in der heidnischen Gesellschaft ("Texte zur Forschung" 62; 1994).
Keresztes, P.
"The Imperial Roman Government and the Christian Church. I. From Nero to the Severi. II. From Gallienus to the Great Persecution," ANRW II (Berlin, 1980), 23.2: 247-315, 375-386.
Klein, Richard
Das frühe Christentum im römischen Statt
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1971)
MacMullen, Ramsay
Enemies of the Roman Order: Treason, Unrest, and Alienation in the Empire
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1966)
MacMullen, Ramsay
Roman Social Relations: 50 B.C. to A.D. 384
(New Haven, CT: Yale, 1974)
Musurillo, H.
The Acts of Christian Martyrs
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1972)
Schaff, Philip
History of the Christian Church. Vol. II, Ante-Nicene Christianity, A.D. 100-325
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1959), pp. 31-84 and passim.
Sordi, Marta
The Christians and the Roman Empire
(University of Oklahoma Press, 1986)
Various Subjects
Barnes, Timothy
"Legislation against the Christians" Journal of Religious Studies, 58 (1968), 32-50.
"The Constantine Settlement,"
in H. Attridge and G. Hata, eds., Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism
(Leiden/New York: Brill, 1992), 635-657.
Barnard, L.W.
"Clement of Rome and the Persecution of Domitian," NTS 10 (19xx), 251-260. "Domitian was suspicious of people rather than of their beliefs.... Domition was not a wholesale 'persecutor' of the Church... rather he singled out individual Christians who were prominent members of the Church of Rome."
Bisbee, Gary
Pre-Decian Acts of Martyrs and Commentarii
(HDR 22: Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988)
Cardman, Francine
"Acts of Women Martyrs,"
Anglican Theological Review 70 (1988), 144-150.
Colwell, E.C.
"Popular Reaction against Christianity in the Roman Empire,"
in Enviornmental Factors in Christian History, FS Shirley Jackson Case,
ed. J.T. McNeill, et. al. (Chicago, 1939), 53-71.
Croix, G.E.M. de Ste.
"Why were the Early Christians Persecuted?" Past and Present 26 (November, 1963), 6-38.
Frankfurter, David
"The Cult of Martyrs in Egypt before Constantine," Vig.Chr. 48 (1994), 25-47.
Frend, W.H.C.
"The Persecutions: some Links between Judaism and the Early Church," Journal of Ecclesiastical History IX (1958), 141-158.
Fuchs, H.
"Tacitus über die Christen," VC 4 (1950), 65-93.
Geffcken, J.
"Die Acta Apollonii," Nachrichten der kgl. Gesellschaft von Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (1904), 262-284. Regards Acta as a pious fraud.
Grant, Robert M.
Eusebius as Church Historian, ch. X, Persecution and Martyrdom
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1980)
Holl, Karl
"Die Vorstellung vom Märtyrer und die Märtyrakte in der geschichtichen Entwicklung,"
Gesammelte Aufsätze, ii, 71ff.
Horbury, W. and McNeil, B., eds.
Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)
Janssen, L. F.
"'Superstitio' and the Persecution of the Christians," VigChr 33 (1979), 131-159.
Granting (as shown by Mommsen) that "persecution of the Christians is to be considered as part of a general policy with regard to the worship of Roman and non-Roman, i.e., unauthorized gods... the surprising fact remains that for all their carefulness and scrupulosity in dealing with crimnals the Romans were guided by sheer religious emotion as soon as they were confronted with Christianity and its religious doctrine; it still remains perplexing... to read how people accused of Christianity were dispatched after a brief and uniformly worded test of their un-Roman faith. The mere declaration Christianus sum made them liable to the death penalty." (133f) Janssen attempts to show that the reason for this treatment of Christians was that the Roman authorities regarded Christianity as a superstitio - and therefore as "irreconcilable with or even hostile to the res publica Romana." In contrast to the pietas of the Roman citizen, as the direct expression Roman religio, the unshakable belief in the aid of Roman gods in resisting the force of barbarian invasion, superstitio "only sought for the rescue of the individual, who tried to break away from the community or the nomen Romanum so as to ensure for himself and his kindred an improper salvation." (142)
Directly related to Roman religio was the concept of Rome as humanum genus - representing humankind as such, in contrast to barbarians, and therefore "well qualified to hold supremacy over all nations of the world..." (144f). And this was connected with the idea of humanitas - the political, legal, moral, and social orders of Roman culture.(146f) Any religious movement that threatened Roman religio and humanitas was regarded as superstitio. (146-150). "Religio played a major part in the official task of the Roman magistrate; whereas supertitio was to be combated as an enemy of the Roman state." (150). "Superstitio, as opposed to religio, was not only inconsistent with religio, as was Ireligio with supertitio; they were mutually exclusive; the one completely denied the existence of the other and each could not but regard the other as a deadly enemy. (152) "The Christian creed was real superstitio; it promised eternal bliss and the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven to its adherents...; the rulers of the earth would perish by fire and sword..." (153).
Leave aside the question of where this "Christian creed" ("the essence of Christian doctrine") is found, or whether there was any such thing in the second century (or even the third), apart from Pliny's famous letter to Tatian, Janssen provides no evidence at all that Christianity was actually perceived by any Roman authorities as a superstitio or that Christians were even persecuted for this reason. And the only evidence he cites for why Christians must have been perceived in such a way is the appearance of Jesus before Pilate in John 19! Nor does he explain why, if such "national cults of the non-Roman population" as Serapis and Apis, Isis, and the national dieties of the Gauls, Germans, Jews (!), Parthians, etc., fell in the same category (152), they were not similarly persecuted - especially given "the dreadful prophecies and horrific speculations" propagated by the Jews (155f). All Janssen offers is pure speculation.
Karpp, H.
"Die Zahl der schillitanischen Martyrer," VC 15 (Sept. 1961), 165-172.
Klawaiter, Frederick
"The Role of Martyrdom and Persecution is Developing the Priestly Authority of Women in Early Christianity. A Case Study of Montanism," Second Century 49 (1980), 251-261.
Krodel, Gerhard
"Persecution and Toleration of Christianity until Hadrian,"
in S. Benka and J.J. O'Rourke, eds., The Catacombs and the Colosseum (Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 1971), 255-267.
Lefkowitz, Mary
"Motivations for St. Perpetua's Martyrdom," JAAR 44 (1976), 417-421.
Perler, O.
"Das vierte Makkabäerbuch, Ignatius von Antiochen und die ältesten Märtyrberichts," Riv. di arch. christ. xxv (1949), 47-72. Dependence of early Christian conception of Martyrdom on IV Maccabees
Potter, D.
"Martyrdom and Spectacle,"
in Theatre and Society in the Classical World, ed. R. Schodel (Ann Arbor, 1993), 53-88.
Rader, Rosemary
"The Martyrdom of Perpetua,"
in P. Wilson-Kastner, ed., A Lost Tradition. Women Writers in the Early Church
(Wahington, DC: University Press, 1981), pp. ??
Shaw, Brent
"The Passion of Perpetua," Past and Present 139 (1993), 3-45.
Sherwin-White, A.N.
The Letters of Pliny. A Historical and Social Commentary
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1966)
Sherwin-White
"The Early Persecutions and Roman Law,"
in Idem, The Letters of Pliny (1966), Appendix V, pp. 772-787.
Sherwin-White, A.N.
"The Early Persecutions and Roman Law Again," JTS 3 (1952), 199-213.
Walsh, J.J.
"On Christian Aethism,"
VigChr 45 (1991), 196-211. The charge of aethism was not common until the second half of the second century.
