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Christian ‘Atheism’ and the Peace of the Roman Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

William R. Schoedel
William R. Schoedel
Affiliation:
Professor of religious studies in the University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois.
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Extract

Sometime between a.d. 176 and a.d. 180 Athenagoras, a Christian, an amateur philosopher and possibly an Athenian, wrote a Plea addressed to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. This document is marked by a carefully controlled apologetic aim unmarred by crude efforts to convert and is remarkable for the positive attitude it shows toward the Roman emperors and the administration of justice throughout their realm. Athenagoras' apology was lost sight of in antiquity, in all likelihood, because it contributed so little to theology; precisely for the same reason it is valuable to us in our assessment of the political and social awareness of a segment of Christians shortly before the empire plunged into the troubles of the third century. Athenagoras was obviously well trained in rhetoric; he had dabbled in philosophy; and he clearly felt himself culturally superior to the “common men, artisans, and old women” whom he praises for their simple, if unreasoned, display of Christian virtue (11.4). He is representative of a growing elite in Christian circles which was seeking to explain the new religion to the Graeco-Roman world.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , September 1973 , pp. 309 - 319
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1973

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References

This essay is a revised and expanded version of a paper read at the joint meeting of the Medieval Association of the Pacific with the Medieval Academy of America at Los Angeles, California, April 13, 1972.

1. The date of the Plea is determined by the corulership of M. Aurelius and Commodus. Their corule began in a.d. 176 and was dissolved by the death of M. Aurelius in a.d. 180. It is the not too trustworthy superscription that identifies Athenagoras as an Athenian, a philosopher and a Christian.

2. The careful apologetic aim of the text is stressed by Pellegrino, Michele, Studi su l'antica apologetica (Rome, 1947), pp. 46–85Google Scholar. See also my outline of the Plea in Athenagoras: Legatio and De Ressurectione (Oxford, 1972), pp. xxiii–xxv.Google Scholar

3. 1.2; 2.1–3. (The numbering of sections within the chapters is that of Ubaldi and has been followed in my edition of Athenagoras noted above.)

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5. Athenagoras himself (6.2) indicates that he is dependent on the superficial handbooks (doxographies) of the day.

6. That the apologetic activity of Christians was making an impact at about this time is indicated by the emergence of a “pagan reaction” at the intellectual level (Fronto, Crescens, Celsus, Galen). Beaujeu, Jean, La religion romaine à l'apogée de l'empire, Vol. 1: La politique religieuse des antoins, 96–192 (Paris, 1955), pp. 357–358.Google Scholar

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38. “Omnes populi qui legibus et moribus reguntur…”

39. Schulz, , Roman Legal Science, pp. 73–74, 137.Google Scholar

40. On the Roman cognitio see Sherwin-White, A. N., Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford, 1963), pp. 1–23.Google Scholar

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53. Livy 39.18: “If any considered that this form of worship was a necessary obligation and that he could not dispense with it without incurring the guilt of irreligion, he was to make a declaration before the city praetor and the praetor was to consult the senate. If the senate gave permission, not less than one hundred senators being present, he might observe those rites on condition that not more than five persons took part in the service, that they had no common fund, and that there was no priest or conductor of the ceremonies.”

54. Altheim, , Roman Religion, pp. 34–45, 243–266, 286–317Google Scholar. Compare Nilsson, M. P., Geschichte der griechischen Religion (München, 1950), 2: 301.Google Scholar

55. Beaujeu, , La religion romaine, pp. 69–80.Google Scholar

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57. Origen, , Contra Celsum 8. 69.Google Scholar

58. Eusebius, H. E. 9. 7. 3–14.Google Scholar

59. Tacitus, , Ann. 3. 60–63.Google Scholar

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61. Ibid., p. 976.

62. In Praise of Rome 102.

63. Geschichte, 2:303–304, 326.

64. Geschichte, 2:299; for some modifications in detail see Beaujeu, , La religion romaine, pp. 221–223, 225.Google Scholar

65. Apol. 5.7; compare Beaujeu, , La religion romaine pp. 113, 217, 236, 275.Google Scholar

66. Beaujeu, , La religion romaine, pp. 111–278.Google Scholar

67. Ibid., p. 277, speaks of “un idéal de culture” in the case of Hadrian.

68. Ibid., pp. 226–227, 258–259. “The pluralism of Hadrian ceased to encourage regional particularism when the latter seemed to exclude Helleniec influences…” (p. 268).

69. Ibid., pp. 298–311.

70. Inscription: “To the emperors M. Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus, conquerors of Armenia and Sarmatia, and, above all, philosophers.”

71. 13.2; 16.1,3; 3.2.

72. M. Aurelius 4. 31; 5. 27; 6. 16.

73. Beaujeu, , La religion romaine, pp. 358–367.Google Scholar

74. Ammianus Marcellinus 25.17.

75. Beaujeu, , La religion romaine, pp. 340–341, 349–353.Google Scholar

76. Ibid., pp. 367–368.

77. Spengel, Leonard, Rhetores Graeci (Leipzig, 1836), 3: 368–377.Google Scholar

78. Compare Oliver, , The Ruling Power, p. 879.Google Scholar

79. Menander divides the account of the king's achievements between the four virtues and suggests that the peculiar mark of kingship is courage in war (372.27–31). But he finds the king even “more admirable” for his achievements in peace (375.10–12); a similar attitude of admiration for the king's achievements in peace is reflected in Athenagoras (1.2). In Menander, it is clear that the peace of the “cities” depends on Rome's strength of arms (377.15–19). It may be significant that Athenagoras alone among the second century apologists sees fit to address the emperors as “conquerors” of foreign peoples (see note 70).

80. Athenagoras: 1. 2. Menander: 375. 8.

81. Athenagoras: 1. 2, Menander: 375. 10. Compare Aristides, Aelius, In Praise of Rome 66; 98.Google Scholar

82. Athenagoras: 16. 2. Menander: 375. 9–10.

83. Athenagoras: 2.1–3. Menander: 375.13–28. Athenagoras uses the term “equality before the law’ to describe the benefits brought by the king. The term ”equality” is not found in Menander's directions for praising the king; but it is implicit in the remarks about justice noted above (see also 416.9.10); moreover, the term does occur in closely related materials in Aristides, Aelius, In Praise of Rome 38–39Google Scholar and was otherwise commonplace.

84. Athenagoras: 1. 2. Menander: 377.11–14.

85. 2.1; 2.3; 2.6.

86. 371.29–30.

87. 371.23–29.

88. 6.2.

89. 371.29–372.1. Athenagoras' form of the comment is traditional as is shown by the almost equivalent remarks concerning Basil by Gregory of Nazianzus in his famous encomium (Or. 43.23).

90. 37.2. “Who ought more justly to receive what they request than men like ourselves, who pray for your reign that the succession to the kingdom may proceed from father to son, as is most just, and that your reign may grow and increase as all men become subject to you?”

91. 377.19–30. “What prayers, then, ought the cities to make to the Greater One [God] rather than always on behalf of the king? What better to ask of the gods than for the king to be preserved? For rains in season and produce of the sea and productivity of fruits bring us good fortune because of the king's justice. Wherefore we the cities, peoples, races and tribes in exchange crown him, sing hymns to him, paint pictures of him; the cities are full of images, some of painted boards, others with more precious material. Then you will say a prayer requesting God that his kingdom should continue for a very long time, that it be given in succession to his children, and that it be handed on to his family.” Aelus Aristides' oration In Praise of Rome concludes with a similar prayer (109).

92. 1.3.

93. Menander 368.17–20.

94. Once he even compares the kingdom of God with that of the emperors (18.2). That may be nothing more than servile flattery (Geffcken, , Zwei griechische Apologeten, p. 197Google Scholar); but it is also reminiscent of pagan imperial theologies in which the reign of the emperor and that of Zeus are regarded as corollaries (Beaujeu, , La religion romaine, pp. 69–80)Google Scholar. Menander also speaks of the heavenly origin of the king (370.21–26; see also 422.16–19 where Athenagoras' term anothen occurs in a closely related context).