The Persecutions: some Links between Judaism and the Early Church1

W. H. C. Frend

doi:10.1017/S0022046900066239

The Persecutions: some Links between Judaism and the Early Church1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

W. H. C. Frend

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W. H. C. Frend: Affiliation:
University Lecturer in Divinity and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

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Each generation of historiographers has had its own interpretation of the persecutions. In their hour of triumph in the years following the Council of Nicaea, Christians in both halves of the Roman Empire looked back to these events as the heroic age of the Christian faith. The sufferings of the Church were linked to the sufferings of the children of Israel and this time, too, anti-Christ and his abettors, the pagan emperors, their officials and the mobs had been worsted. Like the Egyptians they had perished miserably. But, as so often happens, victory dissolved the common bonds which united the victors. In the next centuries the relations between Church and State in the East and West were to follow different paths. In the East the ‘martyrdom in intention’ of the monastic life tended to replace the martyrdom in deed in opposition to the emperor. In the West, the martyr tradition was to underline that same opposition. Tertullian, Hilary, Ambrose, Gregory VII, Boniface VIII embody a single trend of ideas extending over a thousand years.

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Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , October 1958 , pp. 141 - 158

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900066239 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1958

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^{page 141 note 2} Paulus Orosius, Historia adversum Paganos, C.S.E.L., v, vii. 27. Cf. Liber Genealogus (Chronica Minora, i. 196, ed. Mommsen). Seven persecutions before the coming of Antichrist—a Donatist view.

^{page 141 note 3} The phrase is taken from the seventh-century novel, Barlaam and Joasaph (ed. Woodward and Mattingley, xii. §103). Monasticism arose ‘from men's desire to become martyrs in will that they might not miss the glory of them that were made perfect by blood’.

^{page 141 note 4} See the brilliant summary by White, A. N. Sherwin, ‘The Early Persecutions and Roman Law again’, J.T.S., N.S. III (1952), 199–213.Google Scholar

^{page 141 note 5} Grégoire, Henri, ‘Les Persécutions dans l'Empire romain’, in Mém. de l'Académie royale de Belgique, Cl. des Lettres, xlvi, fasc. i, 1951.Google Scholar

^{page 141 note 6} Moreau, J., La Persécution du Christianisme dans l'Empire romain, Mythes et Religions, Paris 1956.Google Scholar

^{page 142 note 1} H. Grégoire, op. cit., 18.

^{page 142 note 2} Casey, R. P., ‘Gnosis, Gnosticism and the New Testament’ in The Background of the New Testament and Eschatology, ed. W. H. Davies and D. Daube, 1956Google Scholar, 56.

^{page 142 note 3} The literature on this subject is very extensive. Here one would direct attention to Gavin, F., The Jewish Antecedents of the Christian Sacraments, S.P.C.K., 1928Google Scholar; Dugmore, C. W., The Influence of the Synagogue upon the Divine Office, Oxford 1944Google Scholar; Jalland, T. G., The Origin and Evolution of the Christian Ministry, London 1948Google Scholar, iv, and the paper by Loeschke, Gerh., Jüdisches und Heidnisches im Christlichen Kult, Bonn 1906.Google Scholar

^{page 142 note 4} Ep. ad Diognetum (ed. Kirsopp Lake), iv. 6.

^{page 142 note 5} F. L. Cross in a paper read to the Cambridge Theological Society on 28 February 1957, and summarised in the Cambridge University Reporter lxxxvii. No. 45, 1957, p. 1468.Google Scholar

^{page 143 note 1} Finkelstein, L., Akiba: Scholar, Saint and Martyr, New York 1936Google Scholar, 261. The question was a burning one, and Akiba's view was upheld by a majority vote only at the synod of Lydda in 135. Talmud Babli, Sanhedrin, ii. 74a (ed. Epstein, , London 1935Google Scholar, 502).

^{page 143 note 2} For a trace of this view, perhaps taken direct from Tacitus, see Sulpicius Severus, Chronicon (ed. Halm, C.S.E.L., i) ii. 30. 7.

^{page 143 note 3} Spartian, Vita Severi, 17. 1.

^{page 143 note 4} Celsus in Origen, Contra Celsum (ed. Koetschau, tr. H. Chadwick), ii. 1 and ii. 4.

^{page 143 note 5} Galen, De Differentiis Pulsuum 3, cited from Waltzer, G., Galen on Jews and Christians, Oxford 1949Google Scholar, 37 ff. Cf. Origen, Contra Celsum, iv. 23.

^{page 143 note 6} For emphasis on the political aspects of Antiochus's measures, see Bickermann, E., Der Gott der Makkabäer, Berlin 1937Google Scholar, and a corrective by Dancy, J., 1 Maccabees: a Commentary, Oxford 1954.Google Scholar

^{page 144 note 1} Note for instance, Pesaḥim, 53b (ed. Epstein, , London 1935Google Scholar, 261), citing the example of the Three Holy Children. For Christian suffering for the Name, Hermas, Vis., iii. 1. 9 and Simil., ix. 28.

^{page 144 note 2} IV Mace, iv. 26 (ed. Hadas, 167–168).

^{page 144 note 3} Philo, In Flaccum (ed. Colson), xi. 96.

^{page 144 note 4} Lactantius, Div. Inst. (ed. Brandt, C.S.E.L., xxvii. i), v. 11. 15.

^{page 144 note 5} Tertullian, Apol., ii. 13.

^{page 144 note 6} The expression κρίσιν εἰσενηνεγμένος Ἰουδαισμοῦ, is strong, suggesting a legal charge, but what the χρόνοις τῆς μιξίας were, which provided the pretext, is uncertain.

^{page 144 note 7} Information from R. G. Goodchild, Director of Antiquities in the Kingdom of Libya. The inscription recording the event is being published by Miss J. M. Reynolds.

^{page 145 note 1} Particularly, Antiquities, xviii. 8 and Wars, ii. 10, recording the incidents at Ptolemais and Tiberias in A.D. 40.

^{page 145 note 2} Josephus, Contra Apionem (ed. Niese, tr. Whiston), i. 8. 42.

^{page 145 note 3} Josephus's term: Contra Apionem, ii. 16. 165.

^{page 145 note 4} Fischel, H. A., ‘Prophet and Martyr’, Jewish Quarterly Review, XXXVII (1946/1947), 265Google Scholar ff. and 363 ff.

^{page 145 note 5} The view expressed by Tacitus, Histories, v. 5. 2. The Jewish convert ‘exuere patriam, parentes, liberos, fratres vilia habere’. For the Christian's similar attitude, Tertullian, Ad Nationes, ii. 1 (C.S.E.L., xx. 94 lines 8–12) and Passio Perpetuae (ed. Knopf), 3.

^{page 145 note 6} See, for instance, III Mace, vii. 10–23 (Hadas, 81).

^{page 145 note 7} The situation is described in Philo, In Flaccum, iv. 18-xvii. 145 and Josephus, Antiquities, xiv. 10 ff., xvi. 2. 3, Wars, ii. 18. 1–2 and 7; 20. 2 and vii. 3. 3.

^{page 145 note 8} The theme of Esther and III Maccabees.

^{page 146 note 1} Josephus, Wars, vii. 3. 3.

^{page 146 note 2} For the catalogue of accusations and reproaches showered on the Jews found in classical authors, Juster, J., Les Juifs dans l'Empire romain, Paris 1914Google Scholar, 45. n. 1.

^{page 146 note 3} Josephus, Antiquities, xiv. 8. 3, and xiv. 10.

^{page 146 note 4} On Rome's relations with the Jews, Hardy, E. G., Christianity and the Roman Government, 1925Google Scholar ed., ii, and G. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity, i. 163 f.

^{page 146 note 5} Valerius Maximus, i. 3. 2.

^{page 146 note 6} Josephus, Antiquities, xviii. 3. 5.

^{page 146 note 7} Tacitus, Annals, xiii. 32.

^{page 146 note 8} Josephus, Antiquities, xviii. 3. 4

^{page 147 note 1} Suetonius, Claudius, 25. 4.

^{page 147 note 2} Ed. Musurillo, H. A., The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs, Oxford 1954Google Scholar. The Acta Appiani may relate to events as late as A.D. Igo, while the Acta Hermaisci must be Trajanic or later. (Musurillo, 211 and 168).

^{page 147 note 3} See Bell, H. I., Jews and Christians in Egypt, Oxford 1924Google Scholar, 25.

^{page 147 note 4} Ibid.

^{page 147 note 5} For the importance of these measures in understanding the attitude of the authorities towards the Christians, see Last, H., ‘The Study of the “Persecutions” ’, J.R.S., XXVII (1937) 80–92Google Scholar and art. ‘Christenverfolgung’, Reallexicon für Antike u. Christentum, ii. 1159 f. and 1208 f.

^{page 147 note 6} It is not until Arnobius (Adv. Gentes, i. 29) writing at the end of the third century, that the term is used in Latin in the pagan-Christian controversy.

^{page 148 note 1} Dio Cassius (ed. Melber), lii. 36, 3 (in the mouth of Maecenas): μήτ᾽ οὖν θέῳ τιν μήτε γόητι συγχωρήσῃς εἶναι

^{page 148 note 2} See for instance Josephus, Contra Apionem, ii. 38. Drachmann, A. B., Atheism in Pagan Antiquity, Gyldendal, 1922.Google Scholar

^{page 148 note 3} Cf. Apuleius, Metamorphoses, ix. 14, and art. Pfaff, P.W., ‘Sacrilegium’.

^{page 148 note 4} H. A. Fischel, op. cit., 383 ff.

^{page 148 note 5} IV Mace, xii. 16, but in the Alexandrine MS. only (Hadas 208), ή διαμαρτυρία occurs, however, at IV Macc, xvi. 16 with the implied meaning of'bearing witness by death’ on behalf of the law.

^{page 148 note 6} Wisd., vii. 25 and ix. 9.

^{page 148 note 7} See G. F. Moore, Judaism, ii. 312.

^{page 148 note 8} Eusebius, H.E., v. 2. 3, τῷ πιστῷ κα ληθινῷ μάρτυρι, citing Rev. i. 5 and iii. 14.

^{page 149 note 1} See K. Holl, ‘Die Vorstellung vom Märtyrer und die Märtyrakte in der geschichtlichen Entwicklung’, Gesammelte Aufsätze, ii. 71 ff.

^{page 149 note 2} Lightfoot, R. H., History and Interpretation in the Gospels, 1934Google Scholar, 176. Also Riddle, D. W., The Martyrs, Chicago 1931Google Scholar, ch. viii with reference to St. Mark's Gospel.

^{page 149 note 3} On this question, see Best, G., One Body in Christ, London 1955Google Scholar, 130–136.

^{page 149 note 4} Ignatius, Ad Romanes, ii and iv. Cf. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., v. 28. 4.

^{page 149 note 5} Eusebius, H.E., v. 1. 10.

^{page 149 note 6} Ignatius, Ad Smyrn., iv. 2 and Ad Trall., ix. 1.

^{page 149 note 7} Tertullian, Scorpiace, passim. Cf. art. by the writer ‘The Gnostic Sects and the Roman Empire’, J.E.H., v. 1 (1954) 25–37.Google Scholar

^{page 150 note 1} Passio Perpetuae, iii. 3: ‘Mihi Spiritus dictavit: Non aliud petendum ab aqua, nisi sufferentiam carnis’.

^{page 150 note 2} Acts, vii. 55; Acta Carpi (ed. Knopf), 13. 3 and 39.

^{page 150 note 3} Passio Perpetuae, 4: ‘et ego quae me sciebam fabulari cum Domino’. Mart. Polyc., (ed. Knopf), 1. 2 and 2. 2.

^{page 150 note 4} Mart. Polyc. (ed. Knopf), 5.

^{page 150 note 5} Passio Perpetuae, 17; Eusebius, H.E., vi. 42. 5; Mart. Polyc, 19. 2. Cf. Wisd., v. 1 and v. 5. For further references Holl, op. cit., 72–73.

^{page 150 note 6} Eusebius, H.E., v. 2. 5; cf. Tertullian, De Pudicitia (C.S.E.L., xx), 21.

^{page 150 note 7} Mart. Polyc, 2. 3.

^{page 150 note 8} Eusebius, H.E., v. 1. 23 (the deacon, Sanctus).

^{page 150 note 9} Acta Salumini, 6: ‘Peccatis, infelices, adversus Deum facitis.’ (P.L., viii. 707).

^{page 150 note 10} Acta Carpi, 42; Mart. Polyc, 4. Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, 5. Cf. Apol., 50. 3 and De Spect., 1.

^{page 150 note 11} Josephus, Wars, i. 33. 3.

^{page 151 note 1} Origen, Contra Celsum, iii. 8. H. Grégoire, Les Persécutions, 12.

^{page 151 note 2} Quentin, H., ‘La liste des martyrs de Lyon de l'An 177’, Analecta Bollandiana, XXXIX (1921), 113–138.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 151 note 3} Perler, O., ‘Das vierte Makkabäerbuch, Ignatius von Antiochen und die ältesten Märtyrerberichte’, Riv. di arch, crist. XXV (1949), 47–72.Google Scholar

^{page 151 note 4} Surkau, H., Martyrien in jüdischer und frühchristlicher Zeit, Göttingen 1938.Google Scholar

^{page 151 note 5} Charles, R. H., The Ascension of Isaiah, London 1900Google Scholar, xliv and Assumption of Moses, London 1897Google Scholar, lxii.

^{page 151 note 6} O. Perler, loc. cit., 64: ‘Wir sind an einer Wurzel der altchristlichen Martyrerbegeisterung und Martyrerliteratur’.

^{page 151 note 7} Delehaye, H., ‘Martyr et Confesseur’, Analecta Bollandiana, XXXIX (1921), 36–64 at pp. 45–46Google Scholar: ‘Et pour le dire en passant, nous ne reconnaissons nullement l'influence des idées juives, par l'interédiaire du livre ii des Macchabées et de certaines légendes des prophètes, sur les Actes historiques des martyrs’.

^{page 151 note 8} Campenhausen, H. von, Die Idee des Martyriums in der alten Kirche, Göttingen 1936Google Scholar, 1: ‘Die Idee des Martyriums und die Vorstellung des Märtyrers sind christlichen Ursprungs.’

^{page 152 note 1} Monceaux, P., ‘Les colonies juives dans l'Afrique romaine’, Rev. des Etudes juives (1902Google Scholar), 1 ff.

^{page 152 note 2} Eusebius, H.E., iv. 26. 10.

^{page 152 note 3} See Grégoire, op. cit., 20.

^{page 152 note 4} Eusebius, H.E., v. 1. 1.

^{page 152 note 5} Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., iii. 3. 2.

^{page 152 note 6} Eusebius, H.E., iv. 7. 1.

^{page 152 note 7} The last great anti-Christian outbreak was that which took place in Alexandria in A.D. 248. Eusebius, Ibid., vi. 41. 1 ff.

^{page 152 note 8} Mommsen's phrase, in his famous ‘Der Religionsfrevel nach römischen Recht’, Historische Zeitschrift, IXXV (1890), 389–429 at p. 407Google Scholar. See also, his letter in Expositor (1893Google Scholar)1 1–7, under the title of ‘Christianity in the Roman Empire’.

^{page 152 note 8} Harnack, A., ‘Der Vorwurf des Atheismus’, Texte u. Untersuchungen, XII. 4 (1903Google Scholar), and Mommsen, art. cit., 393. For the unpopularity of proselytes, Tacitus, Histories, v. 5, Juvenal, Sat., xiv. 96 ff., Origen, Contra Celsum, v. 41

^{page 153 note 1} Cf. Tacitus, Histories, v. 5. 2. The Jews were characterised as ‘apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu, sed adversus omnes alios, hostile odium’.

^{page 153 note 2} See H. Last, ‘Christenverfolgung’, 1208–1228, and ‘The Study of the Persecutions’, 88 ff.

^{page 153 note 3} A. N. Sherwin-White, ‘The Early Persecutions and Roman Law’, 211.

^{page 153 note 4} Tacitus, Annales, xv. 44: ‘ingens multitudo’. Livy, xxxix. 13: ‘multitudinem ingentem, alterum iam populum esse’.

^{page 153 note 5} Suetonius, Vita Neronis, 16. Cf. also Pliny's views.

^{page 153 note 6} Tacitus, though he did not believe that the Christians actually fired Rome,, thought them guilty of something. They were ‘sontes et novissima exempla meritos’. See, H. Fuchs's scholarly discussion of the problems arising from Tacitus, Ann., xv. 44,. in ‘Tacitus über die Christen’, Vigiliae Christianae (1950Google Scholar), 65–93. Also H. Last, art. cit., 1211.

^{page 153 note 7} Cf. Rev., ii. 13 (martyrdom of Antipas).

^{page 153 note 8} As suggested by A. N. Sherwin-White, art. cit., 209.

^{page 153 note 9} Tacitus, Histories, v. 5: ‘Hi ritus quoque modo inducti, antiquitate defenduntur.’ Also, Contra Celsum, vol. 25

^{page 154 note 1} On this subject, J. Juster, Les Juifs dans l'Empire romain, i. 232 ff. and Piana, G. La, ‘Foreign Groups in Rome during the first centuries of the Empire’, Harvard Theol. Review, XX (1927), 183–403CrossRef Google Scholar at 387 ff.

^{page 154 note 2} Dio Cassius, 67. 15; cf. Merrill, E. T., Essays in early Church History, 1924Google Scholar, vi.

^{page 154 note 3} Digest, xlviii. 8. 11. 1 (Modestinus), and Paulus, Sententiae, v. 22. 3 for the specific prohibition on pain of exile for Roman citizens. Th. Mommsen, ‘Der Religionsfrevel’, 409.

^{page 154 note 4} Spartian, Vita Severi, 17. 1.

^{page 154 note 5} Ammianus Marcellinus (ed. Rolfe), xxii. 5. 5. Rabbis in the third century A.D. continued to boast that ‘Jews are like wild beasts to the heathen and like doves before God’. Juster, op. cit., 220, n. 8; cf. Cullmann, O., The State in the New Testament (Eng. tr. 1957Google Scholar), ii.

^{page 154 note 6} Josephus, Wars, vii. 10. 1.

^{page 155 note 1} H. A. Fischel, art. cit., 366.

^{page 155 note 2} L. Finkelstein, Akiba, 272 ff.

^{page 155 note 3} Mechilta, Jethro Bahodesh, vi (Winter u. Wünsche, 213). See L. Finkelstein, Akiba, 270.

^{page 155 note 4} Including, of course, the building of a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus on the site of the Temple of Jerusalem, an act not far removed from Antiochus's ‘abomination of desolation’.

^{page 155 note 5} This is my interpretation of Origen, Contra Celsum, 1. 1 and 2, ‘societies which are public are allowed by the laws, but secret societies are illegal … The doctrine was originally barbarian, obviously meaning (Origen comments) Judaism with which Christianity is connected’. Lucian's description of Peregrinus in his Christian days as a προϕήτης κα θιασάρχης κα ξυναγωγεὺς (De Morte Peregrini, 11) suggests a ‘Judaistic collegium’.

^{page 155 note 6} For instance, Origen, Contra Celsum, iii. 55 and Min. Felix, Octavius 8.

^{page 155 note 7} See the present writer's ‘The Gnostic Sects and the Roman Empire’, 31 ff. For the attribution of Flagitia to Gnostics by orthodox Christians, Justin 1 Apol., 26. 7 and Clement, Stromata, iii. 10. 1.

^{page 155 note 8} Josephus, Wars, vii. 10. 1 and ii. 8. 10.

^{page 156 note 1} Pliny, Ep., x. 96.

^{page 156 note 2} Th. Mommsen, art. cit., 395.

^{page 156 note 3} Justin, Dialogue, xvii. I.

^{page 156 note 4} Eusebius, H.E., iv. 15. 19. See also Ibid., v. 1. 9 (martyrdoms at Lyons in 177).

^{page 156 note 5} Athenagoras, Supplicatio, 3.

^{page 156 note 6} Lucian (ed. Harmon), Alexander, 25 and 38.

^{page 156 note 7} See Harnack, A., ‘Das Decret des Antoninus Pius’, Texte und Untersuchungen, XIII. 4, 1895.Google Scholar

^{page 156 note 8} Eusebius, H.E., v. 1.9.

^{page 156 note 9} Tertullian, Ad Nationes, i. 1–3.

^{page 156 note 10} Tertullian, Apol., ii. 3: ‘confessio nominis, non examinatio criminis’.

^{page 156 note 11} See, in particular, Eusebius, H.E., v. 18. 9, and Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, 3–5.

^{page 156 note 12} Ibid., 1 ff.

^{page 156 note 13} For a contrary view, Simon, M., Verus Israel, Paris 1948Google Scholar, 144 f. and Parkes, J., The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue, London 1934Google Scholar, 125 ff.

^{page 157 note 1} See Canfield, L. H., ‘The Early Persecution of the Christians’, Columbia University Studies in History, IV (1913) 44Google Scholar ff.

^{page 157 note 2} Justin, Dialogue, xvi. 4.

^{page 157 note 3} Eusebius, H.E., v. 16. 12.

^{page 157 note 4} Justin, Dialogue, xvii. 1; Origen, Contra Celsum, vi. 27 and Comment, in Deuteron. xxxi. 21.

^{page 157 note 5} Mart. Polycarpi, 13 and 17.

^{page 157 note 6} Tertullian, Scorpiace, 10 and Adv. Nationes, i. 14.

^{page 157 note 7} For this claim, Origen, Contra Celsum, viii. 73.

^{page 157 note 8} As they in fact did at Lyons in A.D. 177; Eusebius, H.E., v. 1. 14.

^{page 158 note 1} On the ‘conditioning’ of Christians for martyrdom, see Riddle, The Martyrs, iii.

^{page 158 note 2} Augustine, Contra Litteras Petiliani, ii. 92. 202 (P.L., xliii. 322–323.

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