Many people know that the first three centuries of the life of the Christian Church are called "the period of persecution." Only in 313 A.D. did Emperor Constantine the Great issue the so-called Edict of Milan on religious freedom in the Roman Empire. In essence, this meant that Christianity was allowed to come out of the underground.

After all, before that, the authorities denied Christians the right to exist. From the first to the fourth centuries, thousands of Christ's followers were executed. It is enough for one to look at the church calendar: every day the memory of some martyrs who suffered in that particular era is commemorated. 

Emperor Trajan. Glyptothek and State Museum of Ancient Art, Munich

What were the first Christians condemned for? How did the official Roman government justify their destruction? Could it be justified? The authorities of the Roman Empire and even the emperor himself may well answer these questions. History has conveyed their opinion to us.

At the beginning of the second century, the vice-regent (in today's terminology, the governor) in one of the provinces of the huge Roman state was a man named Gaius Pliny Caecilius Secundus (61 - 114). Having started his career as a lawyer, he quickly rose to high positions and held a number of senior government positions. Perhaps his name would have been erased from the annals of history if the collection of his letters had not reached us. These letters contain valuable material on the economic and political life of the Roman Empire at the turn of the 1st-2nd centuries, they present a whole gallery of portraits of his contemporaries. One of the letters is of particular interest to us.

K. D. Flavitsky. Christian martyrs at the Colosseum. 1862

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For two years (111 - 113), being governor of the province of Bithynia and Pontus (the southern coast of the Black Sea, the territory of modern Turkey), Pliny dealt with Christian communities there. First, he acts and deals with Christians on his own. But the scale of the new phenomenon makes him turn to Emperor Trajan. Moreover, Trajan was not only Pliny's boss, but also a good friend. Pliny writes a letter to Caesar and asks for advice. By the way, his message is unique in that it is the only surviving detailed testimony from a non-Christian source of that time about the life of the first Christians and the attitude of the official Roman authorities towards them.

Pliny to Emperor Trajan

I have the official right, sir, to report to you everything in which I have any doubts. For who better than you can guide my indecision or instruct me in my ignorance?

I have never participated in investigations on Christians; therefore I do not know what and to what extent they are subject to punishment or investigation. I hesitated a lot whether it was necessary to make any age distinctions, or do even the youngest not differ in any way from adults, whether leniency is given to those who repent, or whether one who has ever been a Christian should not be allowed to descend; Is membership in a sect itself punished, even if there is no crime, or only crimes associated with the name of [Christian]?

So far, I have acted as follows in relation to persons who have been reported to me as Christians. I asked them: are they Christians? I interrogated those who confessed a second and third time, threatening them with execution; I ordered them to be led to execution. For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of what they confessed, in any case, obstinacy and unyielding stubbornness should be punished. There were other adherents of such madness, whom I, since they were Roman citizens, noted for sending to the City of Rome (Roman citizenship was a great privilege of the subjects of the empire. The governor of the province, who was Pliny, could not subject persons who had Roman citizenship to corporal punishment, nor to the death penalty. For this they were sent to the capital to be tried by the emperor himself).

Soon, when, as is usually the case, crime began to grow by inertia, various groups got involved in it. I was presented with an anonymous denunciation containing many names. Those of them who denied that they belonged to the Christians, and called upon the gods in my presence, performed incense and libation of wine to your image, which I ordered to deliver along with the images of the gods for this purpose, and, in addition, slandered Christ, - and, they say, genuine Christians cannot be compelled to do this - I found it necessary to let them go.

Others, indicated by the informer, declared themselves Christians, but soon denied: they supposedly were Christians, but stopped being so - some three years ago, some even more years ago, some even twenty years. These, too, all paid homage to your statue and images of the gods and cursed Christ.

And they argued that the essence of their guilt or delusion was that they had the custom on a certain day to gather at dawn and read, alternating among themselves, a hymn to Christ as God, and that they swear an oath not for any crime, but for in order not to commit theft, robbery, adultery, not to deceive trust, not to refuse, upon demand, to return what was handed over for preservation. After this (that is, the morning service - Ed.), They usually dispersed and gathered again to eat, however ordinary and innocent, but they allegedly stopped doing this after my decree, by which I, according to your order, forbade heteries (professional and religious unions of free citizens - Ed.).

Moreover, I found it necessary to interrogate under torture two slaves, who were said to have served [them], [to find out] what the truth was. I found nothing but low, crude superstition. So I postponed my investigation and took your advice.

The case seemed to me worthy of consultation mainly in view of the number of suspects; for the accusation is and will be brought against many more persons of all ages and classes of both sexes. And the infection of this superstition covered not only cities, but also villages and fields; it can be delayed and corrected. It has been established that the already almost empty temples (pagan - Ed.) began to be visited again; solemn sacrifices, which had not been performed for a long time, are resumed and fodder for sacrificial animals is sold, for which until now it was very rare to find a buyer. From this it is easy to figure out how many people can still be corrected if the opportunity is given to repent. "

(Pliny the Younger. Letters, Book X, Letter No. 97. Quoted from Jesus Christ in Historical Documents, pp. 157-159).

The emperor's reply to this letter has reached us. It is interesting that such written answers then had the force of state laws. Until this moment, there were no official orders of the Roman government regarding Christians. So it was the emperor Trajan who, in his answer to Pliny, for a long time determined the attitude towards Christianity on the part of the official Roman authorities. (VV Bolotov. Collection of church historical works. Vol. 3, p. 79, 494).

Emperor Trajan to Pliny

You acted, my Secundus, as you should, when analyzing the cases of those that were reported to you as Christians (the emperor confirmed that persecution was needed - Ed.). Indeed, it is impossible to establish anything generalizing that would have a definite form. You don't need to look for them; if they report to you and they are caught, they should be punished; however, whoever begins to deny that he is a Christian and proves it by deed, that is, by prayer to our gods, no matter what suspicion weighed on him in the past, he receives forgiveness because of repentance. Denunciations filed without a signature should not take place in any criminal case. This is a very bad example and not in the spirit of our century.

(Ibid, p. 159)

According to the correspondence, Pliny and Trajan understood each other very well, but the modern man still struggles to grasp the causes of the persecution. Were the Christians tried and executed simply because a man claimed to be Christian and did not refuse to be called a Christian again?

This is the conclusion that emerges from Pliny’s letter and Trajan’s reply. Only once did the governor mention that they might have been involved in some kind of crime. But even under torture, people suspected of Christianity could not confess anything, except that on a certain day of the week they gather, pray to Christ, and continue to tell the tale of the Sacrament (Pliny wrote about that Christians at their meetings take «ordinary and innocent food».

Pliny didn’t bring this to Trajan’s attention by accident. In the 1st century, among the common people, there was a belief that Christians organized so-called «fiesta evenings». This expression is related to one of the darkest ancient Greek myths about King Fiesta, to whom his brother Atreius served the meat of his own children as a treat. So Atreius avenged Fiesta for seducing Atreius' wife and using her to steal from his brother’s herd a wheat-fed sheep whose owner was to gain imperial power. This was, apparently, the pagan representation of the main Sacrament of the Church, the Eucharist, the communion of the faithful of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. There were rumors that Christians feed on some kind of blood, and so consequently, they stabbed babies. If Christians speak of bread, then in the popular view this meant only one thing - before stabbing a baby, they put flour on it. However, both the common people and the Roman authorities already by the beginning of the second century realized the absurdity of such representations about what was happening at Christian services (V.V. Bogs. Collection of Church-Historical works, pp. 79, 494). So this is about religion and faith.

Nothing criminal, from our point of view, seems to be happening. Why did Rome dislike Christianity so much, and why is a government official so concerned about the spread of this doctrine that he appeals to the emperor himself? The latter, in turn, does not send Pliny to the «commission on religious issues under the Government of the Roman Empire», but takes an active part in solving, from our point of view, a purely religious problem.

The fact is that in the two millennia since Pliny and Trajan, the concept of religion has changed radically. And this change is due precisely to Christianity. What’s the change? The modern man is convinced that faith is first and foremost a matter of conscience. The current laws dedicated to religion are called the laws on «freedom of conscience». A man, according to his religious beliefs, can at least be a Satanist. And no one has the right to forbid him to worship his idol. The authorities could only prosecute him if he committed certain acts prohibited by the Criminal Code.

In the 1st century, the view of religion was different. By religion the Romans understood not internal belief, which is of course disputed, but the fact of external, ceremonial worship of gods (V.V. Bogs. Collection of Church-historical works. T.3, p. 37). The Roman Empire united a great number of nations and tribes. Each people believed that it had its own heavenly patrons. The Roman government did the following: it included in its pantheon the local gods of all subjugated peoples. But, in turn, it demanded the same loyalty to the gods of Rome. Actually, no one except Jews (about the attitude of Israelis to Roman religious policy «Foma» wrote in the February 2004 issue) opposed it. And not because everyone was afraid of Rome. It’s just that for a pagan mind, it was the norm.

Roman Forum. View of the remains of the Temple of Vespasian (left) and the portico of the Temple of Saturn (right)

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Above the gods of all conquered peoples present in the Roman pantheon, the cult of the Roman emperor was superimposed. He, too, was revered as god. 

For the pagans, it was, again, quite natural - for them a good god was a strong god capable of influencing the earthly destinies of people. If the gods of a people were unable to protect them from the Roman Caesar, then this Caesar has real divine power and one should simply recognize this power as divine by the law of force.

And suddenly, above all this cult of divine earthly authority the words of Christ sound: «Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's» and «My Kingdom is not of this world». For modern man, this is obvious, but for people of the 1st century, such phrases had a revolutionary sound. Following them, Christians refused to consider gods of any kind, thus not allowing «insulting» gods of all peoples of the Roman Empire. But the worst was that they refused to worship the emperor. In this regard, Christians appeared to be true state, political criminals.

Only calling Caesar 'lord' was, in the view of the Romans, a crime on the part of Christians. Because the full title of the Roman emperor was «Our Lord and Our God» (V.V. Bogs. Collection of church-historical works. T.3, pp. 40-41).

Although the Church from the moment of its birth has always followed the words of the Apostle Paul: "Every soul must be obedient to the supreme authority; for there is no authority not from God, the existing authority from God is established. Therefore, the resisting authority resists God’s establishment...» (Rome 13:1-2). But the Church has never inferred from this that, at the behest of authority, one can renounce Christ.

Trajan’s column in Rome. Trajan’s column was originally crowned with a golden Roman eagle, and after the Emperor’s death a statue was erected on it. In 1588, by order of Pope Sixtus the Fifth, a statue of the Apostle Peter was erected on the column, crowning the column to this day.

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The martyrs were neither anarchists nor haters of the state. In this sense, the judicial records of the Roman courts (Christians were never executed without trial) are illustrative. Here’s an excerpt from one of these protocols. One of the Christian bishops is on trial. The judge addresses him with the question: «As a loyal Roman subject living under Roman laws, you must, of course, love your sovereign?». The bishop replies: «Who loves the Roman Emperor more than the Christians, who pray day and night for the welfare of Caesar, the troops and the entire Roman Empire?». «I praise you for such conviction," said the judge, "but to make your loyalty to the emperor even clearer, offer a sacrifice to him». The Bishop refused to worship the statue of the Caesar and was executed (V. V. V. Bogs. Collection of Works of Ecclesiastical and Historical Works, pp. 40-41)

The paradox was that most Roman citizens did not consider the emperors gods at all. Moreover, many Romans, especially the noble and educated, were simply atheists. But the question was not one of freedom of conscience, but of the need to fulfill a State duty.

It was said that Roman subjects had to appear in the temple at a certain time and pray to the gods recognized by the authorities, and to make sacrifices in front of the statues of these gods and the statues of Caesar.

It is clear from Pliny’s letter that some Christians simply feared imminent execution and claimed that they were no longer Christians. By the way, when the persecutions ended, thousands of such people tried to repent and return to the Church, because in their heart they still remained believers. How the Church treated such people is a completely different subject.

However, most Christians of the "period of persecution" refused to share their faith with the civic responsibilities of deifying the state, even though the Romans were ready to recognize Christ and receive from Christians the hypocritical formula that "God is in their souls." Look at how Trajan is bringing down Pliny, because he wants, in addition to sacrifice to the gods, those who want to repent must curse Christ. However, Trajan writes that just sacrifice is enough. The Christians did not agree to this either. Contrary to popular belief, they were executed not at all for their faith in Christ, but because they refused to give divine honor to anyone other than Christ. History has shown who was right. Thanks to the Roman trials of Christians, thanks to the testimony of martyrs - (the Russian word for martyr in Greek corresponds to the word martуs - witness), humanity has realized and still understands religion precisely as a matter of conscience and the inner order of man. Moreover, the political structure of the state in which he lives can be anything. 

Source: https://foma.ru/kak-rozhdalas-svoboda-sovesti.html [2] (Russian)