G.E.M. de Ste. Croix. Notes and Comments
Most of this article (pp. 6-24) is devoted to dismissing most of the traditional answers to this question. Only at the end does Croix present his own answers (pp. 24-31).
Nero
"We know of no persecution by the Roman government until 64 [Nero], and there was no general persecution until that of Decius. Between 64 and 250 there were only isolated, local persecutions... Even the general persecution of Decius lasted little more than a year, and the second general persecution, that of Valerian in 257-9, lasted three years." (6f).
"We cannot be certain when the government began to take action; but, like many other people, I believe it was the persecution by Nero in Rome which followed the great fire in 64." (7)
| "The Christians were picked on as scapegoats, then, because they were already believed by the populace to be capable of horrid crimes, flagitia: that is worth noticing... And once the first batch of Nero's Christian victims had been condemned, whether on a charge of incendiarism or for a wider 'complex of guilt,' there would be nothing to prevent the magistrate conducting the trials (probably the Praefactus Urbi) from condemning the rest on the charge familiar to us in the second century, of simply 'being a Christian' - a status which now necessarily involved, by definition, membership of an anti-social and potentially crimnal conspiracy." (8) |
Maybe. But this speculation goes somewhat beyond what Tacitus tells us -- and assumes, of course, that what "Tacitus" relates is authentic and reliable.
The Legal Problem -
The nature of the charges against the Christians:
| "Here I am going to be dogmatic and say that from at least 112 onwards (perhaps, as we have seen, from 64) the normal charge against Christians was simply 'being Christians': they are punished, that is to say, 'for the Name,' the nomen Christianum. This is quite certain, from what the Christian apologists say in the second and early third centuries, from several accounts of martyrdoms, and from the technical language used by Pliny and Trajan..." (9) |
This is certainly what Pliny says and what Trajan at least implies. If true, however, there must be more to it: the accusation of being a Christian must have some criminal implication.
St. Croix denies that emperor worship was an important factor:
| "One often hears it said that Christians were martyred 'for refusing to worship the emperor.' In fact, emperor-worship is a factor of almost no independent importance in the persecution of Christians. It is true that among our records of martyrdoms emperor-worship does crop up occasionally; but far more often it is a matter of sacrificing to the gods - as a rule, not even specifically to "the gods of the Romans'. And when the cult act involved does concern the emperor, it is usually with an oath by his Genius... or a sacrifice to the gods on his behalf." (10) |
This distinction seems a bit fine.
The judicial process -
| "The procedure against Christians was in every case that used for the vast majority of criminal trials under the Principate: cognito extra ordinem (or extraordinaria)... Capital crimes under this process in the provinces took place before the provincial governor and no one else. In Rome, the only trials of Christians about which we have good evidence were before the Praefectus Urbi or a Praefectus Praetorio..." |
St. Croix observes that, while "Roman law was surely the most impressive intellectual achievement in Roman civilization," this applies primarily to private law, a good deal of which concerned property rights, and that "large areas of Roman criminal and public law, however, were by contrast very unsatisfactory, and one of the worst of these blemishes was precisely cognito extra ordinem... In making use of cognito extra ordinem the magistrate concerned had a very wide discretion - even more so of course, in criminal trials than in civil actions, just because of the relative vagueness of criminal law. This discretion extended not only to fixing penalties, but even deciding which cases the magistrate would recognize as crimnal and which he would refuse to even consider." (11)
| "In a sense, the power to conduct a criminal cognito was part of the power of coercitio inherent in imperium; but it is quite wrong to conceive the Christians as being punished by pure coercitio in the narrower sense, summarily and without the exercise of proper iurisdicto: coersitio in that sense, exercised (as the lawyers put it) de plano, in an informal manner, was limited to minor offences. I cannot help feeling that some of those who have persisted in speaking of the proceedings against the Christians as 'police measures' have not fully realized that the trials in question were in no way summary proceedings by pure coersitio but proper legal trials, involving the exercise of iurisdictio in the fullest sense." (12) |
The problem, however, is that the Martyr Acts and Christian apologists portray the trials exactly as "police measures" and "summary proceedings," i.e., as taking place " summarily and without the exercise of proper iurisdicto." As a legal historian, all St. Croix can say is that such things could not happen and therefore must have differed from what is portrayed in these sources.
But there were ambiguities of the process.
| "A governor exercising cognito extraordinaria in a criminal case was bound (for all practical purposes) only by those imperial constitutiones and mandata which were relevant in his particular area and were still in force. Unfortunately, official publication of imperial constitutiones seems to have been an extremely inefficient and haphazard process, and a conscientious governor might often find himself in great perplexity as to what the law was (e.g., Pliney)" (13) |
Ste Croix regards it as improbable that there was ever a "general law" specifically proscribing Christianity, "a notion which, as far as I am aware, no specialist in Roman public law and administration has ever been willing to entertain, popular as it has been among ecclesiastical historians." (14)
With regard to process, Ste. Croix observes:
| "It is important to remember that the standard procedure in punishing Christians was 'accusatory' and not 'inquistorial.': a governor would not normally take action until a formal denunciation (delatio nominis) was issued by a delator, a man who was prepared not merely to inform but actually to conduct the prosecution in person, and to take the risk of being himself arraigned on a charge of calumnia, malicious persecution, if he failed to make out a sufficient case.""(15) |
Ste Croix observes, however, that "this principle, however, could be and sometimes was disregarded," and the example he gives is the at Lyons and Vienne in 177, "when the governor did order a search to be made for Christians..."
Ste Croix's further discussion makes clear that the procedures portrayed in this account of these martyrdoms were so exceptional - even a Roman citizen was condemned to the beasts - that it takes on the appearance of Christian fiction. But the same is true for many of the Christian Martyr Acts.
Attitude of the emperor -
|
"Christian propaganda from at least the middle of the second century onwards tried to make out that it was only the 'bad emperors' who persecuted, and that the 'good emperors' protected the Christians; but there is no truth in this at all.. In reality, persecution went on automatically, if sporadically, whoever the emperor might be; and until the third century at any rate it is better not to think of presecutions primarily in terms of emperors. It was the provincial governor in each case who played the more significant role.""(15)
"If the state of local feeling was such that no one particularly wanted to take upon himself the onus of prosecuting Christians, very few governors would have any desire to instigate a persecution. If on the other hand, public opinion was inflamed against Christians.., then delators would not be lacking, and Christians would be put on trial; and few governors would have any motive for resisting strong local feeling demonstrated in this permissible way, especially if some of the more influential men in the area were leading the agitation, as they often would be." (15f) |
This is an interesting scenario. But we have absolutly no accounts of Christian martyrdoms that make any reference at all to the presence of delators. Nor do we have any evidence at all that those leading the agitation were often "influential men in the area." Moreover this tends to conflict with what Ste. Croix said previously about judicial process, and comes close to being a kind of "police measure" that Ste. Croix rejects, since even local magistrates were subject to precedents and guidelines set forth by the emperor.
| "[T]he principle that in the exercise of criminal jurisdiction the governor should act according to the circumstances existing in his particular province was well recognized. (But what did this mean?) Probably the main reason why some martyrdoms-perhaps many martyrdoms-took place was that they were thought to be necessary if the province were to be kept pacata atque quieta. Most governors were doubtless only too willing to take action against men who were strongly disapproved of by 'all right-thinking people'." (16) |
This seems plausible, until one considers the only evidence he can produce, namely, the crucifixion of Jesus under Pilate. The fact is that the Christian apologists and the Christian Martyr Acts intentionally portrayed their own experience as parallel to that of Jesus-who, of course, was innocent, and crucified only because the people demanded it. At this point Ste. Croix falls into the trap.
"At any rate, Christians might [!] also be suspect, as mali homines [bad persons], in the eyes of some governors, because they worshipped a man who had admittedly been crucified by a governor of Judea, as a political criminal, who thought himself as 'king of the Jews'. Their loyalty to the state, whatever they might say, could well appear doubtful, if only because they refused even to swear an oath by the emperor's Genius." (16). (Croix cites Eusebius, Pass. Poly, S>S Martyrs, etc.)
This is almost entirely speculation.
Interestingly, Croix concludes this section with the observation:
| "In any event, the factors I have just been mentioning would have had less and less weight as time went on, and it became clear that Christians had no political objectives whatever and few particularly anti-social habits." (17) |
So what time period does this apply to? And what were the reasons thereafter for persecuting Christians?
Ste. Croix now gives his own answer to the question (24ff):
According to Croix, the reason the mass of pagans often demanded and initiated persecution had to do with the "exclusiveness" of the Christians:
| "It was not so much the positive beliefs and practices of the Christians which aroused pagan hostility, but above all the negative element in their religion: their total refusal to whorhip any god but their own. The monotheistic exclusiveness of the Christians was believed to alienate the goodwill of the gods, to endanger what the Romans called the pax drorum (the right harmonious between gods and men), and to be responsible for disasters which overtook the community. I shall call this exclusiveness." (24) |
In Croix's article, this explanation seems to come from nowhere. It is totally unprepared for in what precedes-except fot the fact that, all other possibilities having been dismissed, this is the only explanation left.
| "The Christians asserted openly eiother that the pagan gods did not exist at all or that they were malevolent demons. Not only did they themselves refuse to take part in pagan religious rites: they would not even recognize that others ought to do so... As a result... the mass of pagans were naturally aprehensive that the gods would vent their wrath at this dishonour not upon the Christians alone but upon the whole community; and when disasters did occure, they were only too likely to fasten the blame on the Christians." (25) |
This largely repeats the previous argument. But it should be observed that we have no evidence from pagan sources blaming Christians for disasters. Pliny, for example, makes no mention of this, nor does Trajan, nor does the rescript of Hadrian.
Croix appeals to Tertulian (also Cyprian, Origen, Eusebius):
| "[The pagans] suppose that the Christians are the cause of every public disaster, every misfortune that happens to the people. If the Tiber overflows or the Nile doesn't, if there is a drought or an earthquake, a famine or pestilence, at once the cry goes up, 'The Christians to the lion'." (26f. cf. nn. 136, 137) |
Thus, Ste. Croix concludes:
| "The essential point I want to make is that this superstitious feeling on the parrt of pagans was due above all to the Christians' 'atheism,' their refusal to acknowledge the gods and give them their due by paying them cult." (27) |
With regard to the government, St. Croix's argument is finally very similar:
|
"I do not believe that there is a single solution to our problem. I believe that different members of the governing class may have been actuated by different motives... But for my own part I believe that the main motives of the government, in the long run, were essentially religious in character, according to the ancient conception of religion... Some of the governing class, in the third century at any rate (and I believe from the first), were undoubtedly inspired by the same motives I have described as characteristic of their subjects..." (27)
"I would concede that even in the third century, and to a far greater extent in the second, especially the early second, there may have been a significant number of members of the governing class who did not share the superstitious horror felt for the Christians by the masses. But even such people, I believe, were impelled to persecute-perhaps as vigorously as their less emancipated brethern-by motives I think we are justified in calling religious, in that their aim also was always primarily to break down the Christian refusal to worship the pagan gods, even if the basis from which they proceeded was different." (28) |
As evidence for this, St. Croix points out that, with a few exceptions, "the positive side of Christianity is never officially attacked: persecution did not extend to any aspect of the Christian religion other than its refusal to acknowledge other gods. No attempt was even made, even in the general persecutions, to prohibit Christians from worshipping their own gods in private..." (28).
Which was it -- their refusal to "acknowledge" other gods, or their refusal to "worship" other gods? Was everyone expected to worship all the gods? Did everyone even "acknowledge" all the gods? Which gods are in view here?
St. Croix has a very difficult time explaining why Gnostic sects were not persecuted (pp. 28f). And he finally concludes, without a shred of evidence, that "the reason can only be that the Gnostics did not think it necessary to be exclusive, like the orthodox, and refuse to pay outward respect to the pagan gods when the necessity arose... It appears, then, that although the tenets of the Gnostics must have appeared to the Roman governing class to be very similar to the orthodox, the Gnostics escaped persecution precisely because they consented to take part in pagan religious ceremonies on demand, when the orthodox refused to do so." (28f)
This is entirely speculation. It is simply what must have been the case if Ste. Croix's thesis is correct
Sherwin-White
("Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?-An Admendment," PP 27 (1964), 23-27)
Responding to de Ste. Croix, Sherwin-White observes
|
"Few will disagree that the central objection was then to the 'godlessness' of the Christians-their refusal to recognize a citizen's duty towards the gods of the` local communities, and, in some circumstances, of Rome...
"The belief that 'godlessness' was the core of the matter depends entirely upon the evidence of the later period, which is drawn not from Roman or official sources, but from Christian 'apologoes' and the early martyr-acts, composed from a Christian viewpoint... But for the earliest period we have the testimony of three highly placed Roman administrators, the consulars Pliny and Tacitus... and the equestrian Suetonius... Their accounts were written within a short span of time, in the last years of Trajan and the early years of Hadrian, approximate;y between A.D. 110 and at the latest 125. In all three the only ground indicated for the proscription of the cult is its association with crimes and immoralities-flagitia, scelera, maleficia." (23) |
In Sherwin-White's view, one must distinguish between the earliest period, when Christians were persecuted because of their supposed crimes, and the later period, beginning around the beginning of the third century, when, as de Ste. Croix observes, the issue had to do with the godlessness of Christians.
|
"Ste. Croix's account makes no serious allowance for change and development in the attitude of the government to the Christians, as it learned more about them in the very long period over 180 years which the intermittent lesser persecutions covered." (24) |
According to Sherwin White, in the early Principate, in every known case, actions were taken against foreign cults "because of the criminal behaviour of its followers."
|
"Though the notion that a Roman citizen ought only to worship his own civic gods was never entirely forgotten, it plays a very minor role in the treatment of foreign cults in the first century A.D. The evidence of the three officials, Pliny, Tacitus and Suetonius, confirms that in its dealings with the Christians, the Roman government-and the individual governors-behaved exactly as it did towards other 'superstitions.' How else could they behave when the Christian cult first came to their attention?" (24)
"The crucial question would be -- when did the central government perceive that the extensiveness of the Christian following required that their exclusive godlessness was in itself not to be tolerated, apart from other associated offences?" (24) |
One important question then would be -- when did it become meaningful to speak of the Christian following as being so "extensive" as to threaten the Roman authorities in some way? And in what way?
|
"Lucian [on the other hand] is quite unaware of any charges of immoral behaviour against Christians, and regards their sole offence as lying in their 'godlessness'... Between the time of Pliny and that of Lucian and the and the earlier Christian sources the line of development is clear. Stress on flagitia has been replaced by stress on 'godlessness.'" (25)
"The point for the general history of the persecutions is that Christian defiance [contumacia] eventually drew attention to the hard core of the Christian attitude, their godlessness,' which was the basis of their defiance." (26) |
In what did this "defiance" (contumacia) consist?
If the expectation that a Roman citizen ought only to worship his own civic gods played only "a very minor role in the treatment of foreign cults in the first century," why did this issue arise for the Christians in particular?
Ste. Croix
("Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?-A Rejoinder," PP 27 [1964], 29-33)
Ste. Croix then replies, by arguing that Sherwin-White confuses "defiance" of authority (contumacia) with "obstinacy" (obstinatio), a charge often made against Christians (28). According to St. Croix, Pliny executed Christians "for the 'Name,' for 'being Christians'... Their 'obstinacy' was one of the undesirable manifestations of the Christian superstitio." (29)
| "There is not the least suggestion in Pliny's letter of in Trajan's reply that on this occasion the 'flagitia' were actually the ground of persecution, although Pliny was prepared to regard the persecution for 'flagitia' as a theoretical possibility (§ 2 of his letter). Pliny executed the aonfessors for the 'Name', without any evidence of 'flagitia'." (30) |
St. Croix again makes the point he made before, namely, that "there is in fact no evidence that Christians were ever executed because they were guilty of 'disobedience.' (29). They may have acted obstinately when ordered by the magistrate to sacrifice to the gods, but that is not what brought them before the magistrate to begin with, and that is not why they were executed-or at least not the primary reason.