When You Run Out of Christians Throw the Poets to the Lions
If
you’ve ever
seen
a cat
with a bird
in between its
teeth
you know
some things
are worthy
of your affection
even if
love is sometimes
a lie
people
tell themselves
when
getting high
off their
own emotions
a
soft hand
on the curve
of your
nightmares
St.Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatios Antiokheias was a disciple of Yohanan ben Zavdi (St. John the Apostle, who was the only disciple to die of natural causes, since the others were all martyred, except Judas, who committed suicide after betraying Jesus). One tradition claimed that Ignatios was one of the children whom Jesus had taken in his arms and blessed. He was named bishop of Antioch at the behest of the the city's first bishop, Shemayon Keppa (St. Peter), who then became the first pope. He was the first to use the phrase "catholic church" (katholikos, meaning "universal," "complete," "whole"). On his way to Roma to face trial during the reign of Imperator Caesar Nerva Traianus Divi Nervae filius Augustus (Trajan) he wrote a number of important letters to various churches in Asia Minor; in an epistle to the Romans he wrote, "From Syria even to Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea, by night and by day, being bound amidst ten leopards, even a company of soldiers, who only grow worse when they are kindly treated." The "Martyrium Ignatii," a spurious "eyewitness" account of his confrontation with Trajan at Antioch, his arrest , and his martyrdom was attributed to his companions Philo of Cilicia (deacon at Tarsus) and Rheus Agathopus. According to Eusebios tes Kaisareías in the 4th century, he was martyred in 108, and his contemporary Eusebios Sophronius Hieronymus ("St. Jerome") was the first to claim he had been thrown to the lions. Slightly later, Ioannes "Chrysostomos" (Chrysostom; John the Golden-Mouthed) was the first to allude to the Amphitheatrum Flavium (the "Colosseum") as the place of his martyrdom. Part of the inaugural games of the Colisseum in 80 had, indeed, consisted of the "damnatio ad bestias" ("condemnation to beasts"), a form of execution dating to the 2nd century BCE. However, the accounts of wholesale Christian martyrdom by this method were not contemporaneous to the events themselves; they derived primarily from Eusebios and Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius, an advisor to the first Christian Roman emperor Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus (Constantine I) and a tutor to his son; the two writers tasked themselves with charting the history of Christian suffering.
ReplyDeleteBut in fact the punishment of Christians in the first three centuries CE was largely haphazard and not directed by imperial policy. Lactanius named Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ("Nero") as the first persecutor of Christians; according to 2nd-century historian Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus, Nero accused the Christians of the arson that destroyed much of Roma in 64, had them covered in wild beast skins and torn to death by dogs, but not because of their religious beliefs. In the first and early second centuries Roman citizens who were Christians and did not partake in official religious rites, including the apostle Paul, were executed by beheading; later in the 2nd century this relatively merciful punishment became reserved for the highest-ranking citizens, and other criminals were crucified, burned to death, or attacked by beasts. Early in the 2nd century Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus ("Pliny the Younger"), governor of Bithynia in modern Turkey, reported to Trajan that his constituents had been denouncing local Christians to him, but the emperor instructed that "They must not be searched for, but if they are denounced and found guilty they must be punished…" He also stipulated that if Christians who agreed to sacrifice to the Roman gods would be pardoned. This was the official policy until 250, though local officials, and mobs, sometimes punished them without imperial consent.
ReplyDeleteIn the wake of the Goths' invasion of Moesia and Thrace, Caesar Gaius Messius Quintus Traianus Decius Augustus ("Decius") decreed in January 250 that all the inhabitants of the empire were required to sacrifice publicly to the gods "for the safety of the empire" by a certain day. The Christians were not singled out for persecution, and to appease them they were permitted to make a sacrifice on behalf of the emperor rather than to him, since living emperors were not divine. However, a number of Christians, including pope Fabianus (who had previously had amicable relations with the imperial government and had allegedly baptized emperor Marcus Iulius Philippus Augustus) rejected the compromise and were executed; there were, however, pogroms in Carthage and Alexandria, where Christians were scapegoated for the outbreak of a serious plague, but they were usually exiled or condemned to hard labor in the mines. Publius Licinius Valerianus Augustus renewed the edict in 253, for the first time specifically targetting Christians as un-Roman and prescribed death for them, but his son Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus Augustus ("Gallienus") repealed them in 260 and proclaimed freedom of worship for all. Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus Augustus ("Diocletian") was prodded into pursuing an anti-Christian persecution by his junior co-emperor Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus Augustus ("Galerius"), who had blamed the burning of the imperial palace on Christians (an act he himself had possbly been responsible for). In 303 they issued a series of edicts ordering the destruction of churches, the seizure of ecclesiastical property, and the burning of Christian texts, though they also amnestied imprisoned clergy if they performed a sacrifice. Some Christians were tortured and burned to death, others were mutilated and sentenced to the copper mines in Egypt, but the severity of enforcement was up to the provincial governors in charge; even Lactantius admitted that some governors did not enforce the decrees. And the third emperor, Marcus Flavius Valerius Constantius Herculius Augustus (Constantius I, the father of Constantine) refused to execute any Christians. In 311 Galerius issued a general edict of tolerance and, six days before his death by gangrene shortly afterwards, he even requested that Christians pray for him. The persecution in the eastern provinces, however, continued until 313, when Constantine and his co-emperor Gaius Valerius Licinianus Licinius Augustus ("Licinius") ordered its end and instructed the return of confiscated property; this so-called Edict of Milan (Edictum Mediolanense) was actually a letter from Licinius alone, issued in Nicomedia, which officially gave Christianity a legal status, but Christianity did not become the official religion of the empire until 380, under Flavius Theodosius Augustus (Theodosius I).
ReplyDeleteA soft hand on the curve of your nightmares...
ReplyDelete