Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T16:54:56.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Christian Apologists and “the Fall of the Angels”: An Attack on Roman Imperial Power?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Elaine Pagels
Elaine Pagels
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Justin, a philosopher converted to Christianity, addresses these words to the Roman senate as he protests a recent case of arbitrary arrest and execution of Christians. Although outraged by the verdict, he cannot fault the judge, Urbicus, praetorian prefect of Rome, and personal friend of the imperial family. Justin knows that Urbicus only followed orders in pronouncing the mandatory death sentence against those convicted of atheism as evinced by their refusal to worship the gods or to sacrifice to the divine genius of the emperor. Instead Justin invokes the story of Genesis 6—the story of the fall of the angels—to indict the whole system of imperial power, and to attack the divine pantheon that supports it as a false government, a form of demonic tyranny.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 78 , Issue 3-4 , October 1985 , pp. 301 - 325
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 On the relationship between these, see Hammond, Mason, The Antonine Monarchy (Rome: American Academy, 1959) 211Google Scholar; Fergus Millar, “The Imperial Cult and the Persecutions,” and Bowersock, G. W., “Greek Intellectuals and the Imperial Cult in the Second Century A. D.,” both in Willem, den Boer, ed., Le Culte des Souverains dans l'empire romain (Geneva: Vandoevres, 1973) 147–75 and 179–211.Google Scholar

2 For an excellent and illuminating discussion of Justin and the other apologists, see Wey, Heinrich, Die Funktionen der bösen Geisten bei den griechischen Apologeten des zweiten Jahrhunderts nach Christus (Wintermur: Keller, 1957) 3–32 (on Justin).Google Scholar

3 Brown, Peter, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978) 75.Google Scholar

4 Among recent studies see esp. Beaujeu, Jean, La religion romaine à l'apogée de l'empire (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1955).Google Scholar

5 Cf. Tertullian Apol. 4.

6 For discussion, see n. 8.

7 See, e.g., MacMullen, Ramsay, Enemies of the Roman Order (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Idem, “The Roman Concept of the Robber-Pretender,” Revue internationale des droits de l'antiquité 3 (1983) 221–26.Google Scholar

9 See also 1 Apol. 5; Musurillo, Herbert A., The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs: Acta Alexandrinorum (Oxford: Clarendon, 1954) 237Google Scholar: “The death of Socrates, especially as idealized by Plato, was a powerful influence in the development of death as a heroic ideal.”

10 Beaujeu, Religion, 73.

11 Ibid., 202.

12 Ibid., 325.

13 Ibid., 327.

14 MacMullen, Enemies of the Roman Order, 19, 36.

15 For discussion, see Beaujeu, Religion, 242–46.

16 Clement of Alexandria Prot. logos 2, 33; Tatian Or. Graec. 8, 16–17.

17 Suetonius, The Caesars, Tiberius, 44.

18 For a fine discussion, see Champlin, Edward, Fronto and Antonine Rome (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980) 106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Birley, Anthony, Marcus Aurelius (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966) 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Acts of the Martyr Justin and His Companions, B, 2, in Herbert, Musurillo, ed., The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) 48.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., 52.

22 Brunt, P. A., “Marcus Aurelius and the Christians,” in Carl, Deroux, ed., Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History (Brussels: Latomus, 1979–1983) 1. 516.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., 516–17.

24 Price, S. R. F., Rituals and Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) passim.Google Scholar

25 Price's critique (ibid.) could well be applied to the much-debated—and equally anachronistic—question of whether Paul in Romans 13:5 refers to human or divine authorities. I believe he has both in mind simultaneously, since he sees them as wholly interconnected. For a review of the discussion, and a recent, typically one-sided analysis, see Carr, Wesley, Angels and Principalities: The Background, Meaning, and Development of the Pauline Phrase HAI ARCHAI KAI HAI EXOUSIAI (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Hammond, Antonine Monarchy, 211. Hammond goes on to comment, “This anomaly is significant not so much of a deliberate change in policy as of the increasing hostility of the populace which forced the government to act … and to the feeling … which became so prominent in the third century, namely, that all men of good will should rally to the authorized cults to secure the favor of the gods who had watched over Rome's rise, but who had, through men's neglect, been led to turn their eyes away from her misfortune.”

27 See Frend's, W. H. C. masterful treatment of this practice and the whole subject of persecution, in Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (New York: New York University Press, 1967) 5.Google Scholar

28 Tatian Or. Graec. 16.

29 A. D. Nock, “Religious Developments from the Close of the Republic to the Death of Nero,” CAH 489 n. 2; cited by Bowersock, “Greek Intellectuals,” 189.

30 See, e.g., Lutz, Cora E., Musonius Rufus: The Roman Socrates (YCS 10; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947) 1–147Google Scholar; Veyne, P., “La famille et l'amour sous le Haut-Empire romain,” Annales 33 (1978) 35–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 de Ste. Croix, G. E. M., The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981) 368.Google Scholar

32 Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 3. Emphasis mine.

33 Hammond notes in The Antonine Monarchy, 211.

34 Lewis, Naphtali, Life in Egypt Under Roman Rule (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983) 207.Google Scholar

35 De Ste. Croix, Class Struggle, 435.

36 Ibid., 439.

37 See, e.g., Tertullian Apol. 10; Minucius Felix Oct. 29.

38 De Ste. Croix, Class Struggle, 368.