An Essay in Rhetorica Christiana
Mark D. Nispel, PhD
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In 313 CE the Roman Emperor Constantine along with his imperial colleague issued the Edict of Milan and established the legal basis for the toleration of Christianity within the Roman Empire, both East and West. This event served as a critical component of what can be called the “Rise of Christendom”. “Christendom” here means “the portion of the world in which Christianity is the dominant religion”. As such this word ‘Christendom’ includes within it an aspect of demographics, that is, being a dominant religion among a population, and also, an aspect of geography, a region or combination of regions where this religion is dominant among the population. Taken together these two aspects indicate ‘Christendom’ must relate to the governing system of the people and the region involved. A religion can not become dominant in a geographic region without attracting the attention of governing authorities. There must be either implicit or explicit toleration. The Edict of Milan was a new statement of explicit tolerance for Christianity by the political establishment of the Roman empire. It ended state sanctioned repression and persecution of Christians. As has been said before: “Christ founded Christianity, but Constantine founded Christendom.” And the history of the west was changed forever. But what did the Christian interactions with established society look like before 313 CE?
The first Jewish disciples of Jesus grew up familiar with the religious practices associated with the temple in Jerusalem, with the Law and Prophets read in the synagogues, and with the common Jewish confession of the Shema, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” (Dt. 6:4). These were combined with distinctively Christian elements. These elements derived from interactions of individuals with Jesus and his teaching and with those that immediately followed. Distinctively Christian doctrines, confessions, and worship were active among the believers in the earliest period. For example, the confessions of Jesus as “Lord” and the “Son of God” and “the Christ” reflected the convictions of Jesus as having died and risen, now sitting at the right hand of God the Father. Baptism, the Eucharist, and the singing of hymns as worship to the risen Jesus, among others, were also new and distinctively Christian.
Many of these distinctive Christian elements were considered unwelcome religious innovations by traditional Jews. Jewish first century society, especially in Judea, was familiar with and lived with many religious divisions. Josephus and the New Testament speak of at least three primary sects, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes (Acts 5:17; 15:5; 26:5; War 2:119–166; Ant. 13:171–173; 18:11–22). There was additional fractioning along the lines of the “hellenistic Jews”, who were Greek speaking and probably had experience with living outside of Judea and the “Hebrews” who were probably residents of Judea or the immediately surrounding areas and usually spoke Aramaic (Acts 6:1). In addition, there were politically active groups primarily interested in casting off the heavy weight of Roman political and military oversight. In spite of all these divisions, Jewish society was fundamentally highly conservative, being proud of and centered upon the traditions of Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, or stated another way, upon the Torah and the Temple. Anything that ran contrary to this foundation of the Jewish faith was typically met with a negative response from the religious authorities and the people.
Among all this religious diversity of opinion it was natural for Jewish society initially to identify the new Christian movement as yet another Jewish “sect” (Acts 24:5; 24:14; 28:22). This was not necessarily a pejorative term. But at the same time this sect was an innovation which generally predisposed the people to be suspicious about it and to disfavor it even as they tried to learn more about it. But when it was seen that the Jewish Christians continued to honor the temple rites and make use of Moses and prophets it was tolerated to a degree among the Jewish population but with varied opinions, thousands joining the new movement in Jerusalem alone (Acts 21:17-26), but many others rejecting and opposing it. The acceptance of the Christian faith by several thousand people made it impossible to completely ignore this new sect. And so it continued to be a matter of discussion and debate. And periodically the authorities made efforts to suppress it verbally or even with force.
One way suppression could be attempted was through public discrediting of the movement. As an example, early on, even before Saul’s conversion, it seems the believers in Judea referred to themselves collectively as “the Way” (Acts 18:26; Acts 9:2; 19:9; 19:23; 22:4; 24:14; 24:22) likely as a reflection of prophetical texts important to the new believers, many derived from Jesus’ own teaching. The term ‘church’, which appears only twice in the gospels, also rapidly became a common term used to speak of the believers collectively, both at the scope of the local assembly as well as the believers distributed world wide. To speak of individuals within the church some generic form of “believers” or “saints” appear to have been commonly used in pre-Pauline Jerusalem as well as by Paul. But there is no indication that in the earliest days after Pentecost these saints and believers referred to themselves individually or collectively as “Christians”. So it is not certain but is a probable suggestion that the term “Christian” itself was a slur created by Jewish opponents in Syria to discredit the new sect (Acts 11:26; 26:28). To name a group, especially a religious group, after a particular individual, was an attempt at derision. However, the name was eventually adopted, re-interpreted, and self-applied by the believers to themselves during the course of the first century.
Blasphemy Against the One
Beyond such “name calling” derision, the primary moral charge used by Jewish authorities against the new faith was the accusation of blasphemy. Jesus himself is accused of such by the Jewish authorities in the Gospel texts of Mt. 26:65, Mark14:64, and John 10:33. This charge was also part of the sentencing of Jesus to crucifixion largely in relation to the claim by Jesus of being the Son of God. The accusation of blasphemy was also made toward individual Christians in the years following. Not infrequently this is tied to a Christian confession of Jesus Christ as the risen Son of God sitting at the right hand of the Father. This was at once a confession of the belief both that Jesus rose from the dead and that he is enthroned as Lord of all things fulfilling his claim to be the Son of God as well as specific Old Testament prophetic passages (Ps. 110:1; 8:6; 45:6). This was a step too far for many Jews.
In Acts 7 Stephen claims to see “the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:54-59) and was accused of being a blasphemer and was stoned to death. Some 10 to 15 years later, Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, had James, the son of Zebedee, beheaded for being a Christian. And some 20 years later yet, James the brother of Jesus, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, was martyred by Jewish authorities upon his public confession that Jesus “is sitting in heaven on the right hand of the great power, and he will come on the clouds of heaven.”
In spite of these condemnations and even violent suppressive efforts by Jewish political and religious authorities, the Christian faith spread quickly to the great cities of the empire far and wide via the convenient means of travel and transport provided by the grand network of Roman roads and the to and fro voyages of Mediterranean ships. This combined with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE by the Romans placed the sect of Christians largely beyond the influence of Jewish authorities and even the scope of Judaism and the synagogue itself as more and more Gentiles gathered into the church. However, as the Christian population grew in the cities, the stage was set for the next phase of societal conflict which would be with Roman civic authorities and the wider pagan population of society and its conservative religious practices.
A Suspicious Superstition
Roman religion in the late Republic was made up of a bewildering mixture of ideas and practices not all of which are pertinent here. But overall there was the core idea that there were many gods and could be many different religious practices but not all practices were equal. In the public sphere some were integrated into the governance of the state via recognition and regulation by the law. This core of legal and regulated religion formed as it were the ‘state religion’ or the religious practices required of a citizen. “Proper, respectful religio brought social harmony and prosperity.” Further, “religious law centered on the ritualized system of honors and sacrifice that brought divine blessings.” To be pious was to follow the state’s religious law which was to perform the necessary duties, sacrifices, prayers etc. To neglect the necessary or lawful was to be “impious”.
Roman religion also involved the private sphere (the household). Private household ceremonies having to do with ones family and the spirits of ones ancestors were very common and traditional. These practices were a private duty for the benefit of one’s own family. And in this setting the pater familias was effectively the priest for his family, the representative or embodiment of the genius of the family ancestors.
It was also a common conviction, at least by the powerful political class, that a Roman citizen was not to fear the gods. It was inappropriate to respond to them with excessive emotion, fear, or dread. Excessive emotion could lead to a religious fervor, a doing of more than was ‘necessary.’ This type of behavior was suspicious and dangerous and was viewed with concern for societal destabilization. Such practices were referred to with the pejorative, superstitio (superstition). The introduction of anything new or unfamiliar was viewed with such suspicion as it was not ordered or controlled by law and tradition. Roman religion was to be practical, duty filled, and lawful not emotional and unpredictably individualistic.
In spite of this religious conservatism, Julius Caesar and those who followed as emperors introduced an important innovation into Roman politics at the end of the period of the Republic. Caesar was a successful general in the Roman army, attaining the status of divus, or one having become divine, based upon his accomplishments in battle but also in part upon his own promotion of the Julian family claim to divine heritage. Ultimately this claim to divine status was certified by the senate via official deification in 42 BCE after his death. A temple in the Roman Forum was raised by Augustus to the honor of Caesar the divine in the decade afterwards. These events established a pattern and it was too good and too useful as a political device to let go. The idea and practice of posthumous deification of the emperor became a such a commonplace that the emperor Vespasian, some 110 years after Caesar’s death, is reported by Suetonius at the end of his life to have quipped “O dear, I fear I am becoming a god.”
Closely related to this new practice of imperial deification, Augustus also established a formal imperial cultus or worship. This required acknowledgment of the divine genius of the emperor, that is, his divine family spirit or life force, through offering of incense or sacrificium and oaths of loyalty. Ruler worship, while common in the east, was not a traditional religious or political practice for Romans and thus not easily accepted. So Augustus established and required these cultic actions in the provinces while exempting the citizens of Italy. Temples and altars were erected in many cities and official priests served these altars. It became an important act of acquiescence or acknowledgement of the emperor’s authority and of loyalty to him, and by extension to Rome. It was a type of imposition of the Roman state religion on top of whatever local provincial religions might exist. This was a method of asserting political control via required religion. Refusal to participate was a form of disrespect to the emperor, a form of rebellion against the Roman state and the lawful cultus of pagan gods with which it was intertwined. Local provincial authorities were often only too happy to acquiesce in order to keep good relations with Rome and its superior military power. Herod the Great, for example, established three such temples to honor Augustus, one in in Caesarea, one in Samaria-Sabaste, and one in Paneon, in an attempt to promote friendly relations with Rome. All of the context above set the stage for several centuries of ongoing conflict between the monotheistic confessions and practices of the Jewish and Christian faiths with the Roman state.
Jewish authorities had generally developed an uneasy but mostly functional relationship with Rome ever since the latter established control of the region during the late Republic around 63 BCE. But Rome had been familiar with the Jews even before this. There was already a native Jewish population that had established itself in Rome and populated the ‘Jewish quarter’ in the city, similar to what we find in Alexandria in Egypt.
There was regular interaction between Rome and Jewish leaders as there was between Rome and all their provinces. Romans authors even occasionally expressed appreciation for the antiquity of their religion especially in regard to the ancient nature of the writings of Moses who could be compared favorably with Homer in terms of antiquity. On this basis as well as some successful political maneuvering by their elites, the Jews were successful in gaining some legal concessions from Rome permitting them to follow their own religious customs. These concessions and the periodic conflicts were part of the ongoing uneasy and uneven struggle for status in the empire by the Jews and by extension the first Christian Jews.
However, these concessions and the mostly functional relationship coexisted with the fact that the Romans generally viewed the Jews and their religion with suspicion. The Romans considered the Jewish monotheistic religion a superstitio, as not conforming to Roman traditional state religion. In fact, some of the very declarations of Rome quoted by Josephus as positive examples of Rome granting the Jews some religious freedoms explicitly state that Rome was granting such concessions “on account of the superstition they (the Jews) are under”.
In regard to the imperial cult specifically, some of the emperors in the first century went considerably farther than Augustus and caused conflict with the Jews. For example, Caligula, around 40 CE, as an extension of the imperial cult commanded an image of himself to be erected in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, with force of the military if necessary. This was a step too far for the majority of Jews being viewed as a desecration of the Temple. The risk of Jewish popular resistance and uprising in response to this order was apparent immediately to Jewish leaders in Judea and Alexandria who interceded. Only after their pleading did Caligula relent and avoid a military clash. In spite of this reprieve, ongoing clashes with Rome would ultimately lead to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE.
Meanwhile as Christians emerged from within the Jewish community in the first century, they inherited and actively confessed Jewish monotheism against the paganism of surrounding culture. And so they were on a similar path to conflict with Roman society and religion, being viewed as a troublesome new sect within an already bothersome and strange minority religion. This made them a target too for the traditional disparaging notion of being a superstitio. And on occasions when things went farther Christians too endured conflict with Roman authorities.
Circa 50 CE, only a little more than 15 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, the Jews were noted by Suetonius to have been expelled from Rome by the emperor Claudius for constantly making disturbances in the city with “Christ being the instigator”. Generally this statement from Suetonius is interpreted as describing ongoing early conflicts between Jews and Christian Jews within the city which resulted in disturbances to the wider city population. Acts 18:2 mentions this expulsion reporting that Paul met Aquila and his wife Priscilla in Corinth, who had recently came there “because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome”.
Only 15 years later the first documented violent persecution of the Christians who resided in Rome was based upon this Christian reputation for causing trouble. In 64 CE, a major fire broke out in the city of Rome and burned a significant portion of the city over the course of several days. Part of the city’s population believed the emperor Nero had ordered the fire to be started. It was rumored that he did this because he wanted to clear space within the city in order to rebuild parts of it in the way he wanted them to be, to his personal benefit. He already had a well known reputation for cruelty and murder especially in the name of political power. So the idea was only modestly shocking. Due to this suspicion among the people, Nero, according to Tacitus, went out of his way to establish his blamelessness by resorting to traditional religion. He propitiated the gods by sacrifice and prayer. He had the Sibylline books consulted. But his public relations problem persisted. So Nero needed a culprit.
The fire had broken out in an area near the Jewish quarter of the city. The Jews were too many to be blamed in total. So, he blamed a smaller troublesome sect within the Jewish community. In reporting this event, Tacitus states that Christian beliefs were a “deadly superstition” which had started in Judea with Christ and had later spread to Rome. In relation to the fire, Nero had a number of these Jewish Christians arrested, convicted, and executed.
Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination.
Suetonius too writing in circa 120 CE records this punishment of Christians by Nero calling Christians “a class of men given to a new and injurious superstition” Pliny the Younger, writing in the early second century, wrote some 60 years later regarding the conditions of his own time as he experienced them in the province of Bithynia in Asia Minor. And he too states that Christian beliefs are a “depraved and excessive superstition.” So it is safe to conclude from these examples that by the early second century it had become a widely held opinion and verbal commonplace in Roman society, or at least among the conservative powerful elites, to refer to the Christian faith as a dangerous and deadly superstition.
Pliny also provides us with more information about the state of Christians within society around 112 CE. He offers a direct glimpse into the clash between Christians, now largely Gentile and independent from the Jewish community, and the imperial cult. In a letter to Emperor Trajan, he reported that in Asia Minor the Christian faith had spread from the cities even into the villages and countryside and that the old pagan temples were “almost deserted.” In response to his findings, Pliny arrested and put on trial many who were accused of being Christians. He asked those accused if they were Christians, and if they denied being so, demanded them to prove it by having them offer incense and wine to the pagan gods and by paying homage to an image of the emperor and finally by cursing Christ. Those who would not do so were imprisoned. Pliny reported that he had found success by this method and saw activity returning to the pagan temples and an increase in business for those who sold provisions for making sacrifices there.
Away With the Atheists (Atheist / ἄθεος)
In addition to the Roman and Greek notion of superstitio the Greeks had a notion which was nearly the opposite of it, namely, “atheist” (ἄθεος), literally one without god. The term had no literal equivalent in classical Latin. The Greek word in its most strict sense meant someone who denied the gods “to be” at all. One who denied all gods was an “absolute atheist”. In his essay De superstitione, Plutarch explicitly contrasts the notions of “atheism” with “superstition” as being on opposite ends of a religious spectrum. The former is “unbelief in the divine” which is “to not acknowledge the gods (to exist)” which in turn leads to not respecting the gods. This is the sense of the word “atheist” as we commonly use it in English today.
But in a modified sense, the Greeks could also use the term “atheist” to describe a person who allows that some gods of some type may exist but at the same time deny that the traditional gods of the temples and rites of daily life actually exist or that they should be revered as gods. Socrates, for example, was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens by teaching them “not to acknowledge the gods which the state acknowledges” even though he granted that some gods may exist. Such an atheist was one who denies the traditional lawful gods of common civic life. In this secondary sense, “atheist” or “godless” was close in usage to the Latin “impius.”
Josephus reports that the Jews were reproached “as atheists” by some Greek opponents most certainly due to their monotheistic rejection of the traditional pagan gods. So in all likelihood the early Jewish Christians were also subjected to this accusation at the very least in common with their Jewish neighbors. Beyond this precedent, the vigorous Christian monotheistic rejection of idols would have made it likely that even as more and more Gentiles joined the church and it became completely distinct from the Jewish religion this accusation of “atheism” would have easily been adapted and applied to the Christians as well.
So, for example, Paul echoing the Jewish Shema and a Christian bi-partite creedal pattern states:
We know that an idol is nothing in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.
Such language that an idol is “nothing” and “there is no God but one” is echoed in other places such as Gal. 4:8 where Paul states “you were slaves to those which by nature are not gods.” And in Ephesus it is reported that the locals complained about their economic interests being hurt by Paul’s preaching in that he had “persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made by hands are not gods at all.” This language explicitly stating idols are “not gods” or “are nothing” and the confession that “there is no God but one” is exactly the language one would expect could generate a response which consisted of the accusation of being an “atheist”, or “god denier”. However, we do not have any explicit examples of Christians being called “atheists” in the first century and when they were it is likely that often the pagans making that accusation did not distinguish clearly between Jew and Christian.
However, one hundred years or so after Paul in the middle of the second century Justin Martyr defends Christians against the charge of being “atheist”, indicating that this had become common enough to justify a defense. “Hence we are called atheists. And we confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of this sort (i.e. the pagan gods) are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God.” In the mid third century, another hundred years later, Origen quotes Celsus the contemporary pagan philosopher as saying that Christians were comparable to barbarians such as Scythians because they had no gods either.
Interestingly, this response to Christian teaching generated a rhetorical counter response, a turn of phrase as it were. Already in the first century Paul demonstrated that the adjective ἄθεος (atheist, without God) wielded against the Christians could be turned about and used as a retort from a monotheistic point of view. This is what Justin Martyr described as “with respect to the most true God.” Paul states that Gentile Christians before their conversions were “without God” (Eph 2:12). Paul is not suggesting that these believers used to be Epicureans who denied that all gods exist. But he was instead changing the subject reference of “God” within the word “without God” from the pagan “gods” to “the one true God” of Christian confession. That is, before they believed in Jesus they were without God or apart from God or atheist even while claiming many gods who, from the Christian point of view, are nothing.
Similarly, in the second century the Martyrdom of Polycarp presents the trial scene of the venerable old Christian Polycarp by Roman authorities and a pagan crowd in Smyrna, not far from Ephesus. The crowd is portrayed as having cried out their displeasure with the local Christians in general and Polycarp specifically with the cry: “Away with the atheists” after which Polycarp was brought before the proconsul. In agreement with the description given by Pliny 30 or 40 years earlier of such proceedings, the proconsul advised Polycarp to swear allegiance and offer incense to the genius of the emperor, declare Caesar is Lord, curse Christ, and he would be freed. At this point Polycarp stated “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?” The proconsul advised Polycarp to repent and to denounce the Christians along with the crowd and join in the rejection of the atheists. Instead, Polycarp
looked upon the whole multitude of lawless Gentiles that were in the stadium, and waved his hand to them; and groaning and looking up to heaven he said, ‘Away with the atheists.’
He then confessed again to being a Christian and he was martyred by fire.
Conclusion
This scene from the Martyrdom of Polycarp would periodically replay within the empire, granted with variation, for the next 150 years until the end of pre-Christiandom. It would lead to controversy within the church in the third century over how to treat those who acceded to the demands of the mob and to the threats of violence from Roman authorities. It would also lead to a remembering and honoring within the church of men and women who resisted and remained faithful to their confession to the end as a martyr of the Christian faith. But throughout that period the primary rhetorical arguments against the Christians faith would remain largely the same and provide important means of social pressure against the Christians to conform to the tradition and consensus of pagan society. But the tide was turning and the rhetorical response to the charge of atheism pointed to the day some time in the future when Christians would no longer be the religious minority and Christendom would emerge.