written by Lisa Lyon
The city of Rome holds two claims to fame: it was once the heart of the ancient world, and it is now the heart of Roman Catholicism. The foundations of these two powers lie in direct opposition to one another, so somewhere along the way Rome had to have had a change of heart. The Roman Empire held the state supreme, and derived their confidence from the many gods they served. Christianity claims only one God, who stands high above the state and reigns over all. Rome’s change of heart began, not during the reign of Constantine or because of the efforts of any other man, but when God incarnate came to earth and changed the Roman Empire with his very own life and death. The first century Anno Domini saw some of the worst persecution in all of history, but the religious culture of the Roman Empire and the introduction of Christianity to the city of Rome clashed so perfectly that gospel took flight and spread throughout the world.
Religion defined Roman antiquity even since its birth. Mars, the god of war, was reputed to have fathered the twins, Romulus and Remus, one of whom would later give the city his name (How Did Rome). Great legends like Virgil’s Aeneid, written in 19 B.C., recount the founding of Rome as the journey of one man at the mercy of the gods (Daniel C. Stevenson). Aeneas plays the virtuous Roman, loyal to his country and to his gods; and yet, even the brave Aeneas runs into trouble. Worshipping the gods of Rome did not demand a moral lifestyle, but rather meticulous attention to rituals and sacrifices. The goal that Aeneas and his countrymen aimed for when worshipping the pantheon was “to gain the blessing of the gods and thereby gain prosperity for themselves, their families and communities” (PBS, Roman). However, as was the case of Aeneas who diligently made every effort to earn favor with the gods, even the strictest observers of ritual law were not guaranteed blessing. Romans gods had tempers, picked fights, and were often depicted as less rational than the heroes they tormented.
The complete pantheon of roman gods is nearly innumerable, but 12 were generally accepted to be of highest importance. Of these, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, stand as what is known as the Capitoline Triad in a temple in their honor on Capitoline Hill (Pollard). Jupiter, known as Zeus by the Greeks, was the king of all gods and protector of the state. Juno, or Hera to the Greeks, was wife of Jupiter and protector of women. Minerva, the Roman equivalent of the Greek Athena, was worshipped as the goddess of craft and wisdom, and was the daughter of Jupiter (PBS, Roman). Eventually, the Roman emperors themselves claimed to be of divine origin, and commanded the same veneration and worship as the gods. This emperor worship began at approximately the same time that Christianity arrived in Rome.
Rome’s first introduction to Christianity remains a bit of a mystery, because Paul’s journey to Rome is the first recorded missionary effort to the area (Donfried 127). Paul addressed “all God’s beloved in Rome who are called to be saints” 20 to 30 years after the death of Christ (Romans 1:7a). From his salutation to fellow believers, it can be inferred that the gospel had made it to Rome and had at least enough of a following to warrant a letter from the missionary apostle. The simple fact that Rome was the political, economical, and cultural center of the world at the time guaranteed that the message of the life and death of Jesus made it the capital city. It is estimated that there were less than 50,000 Jews living in Rome during the first century AD, but Claudius expelled the Jews from the city in 49 AD, so the numbers leave a margin for error (PBS, Peter). As is typical of when the gospel first touches a city, there was a mixture of both Jewish and Gentile converts, so the expulsion of the Jews in 49 AD compelled some of the Jewish Christians to “go into all the world and preach the gospel”(Mark 16:15). Two such believers were the apostle Paul’s dear friends, Pricilla and Aquila. Acts 18:2 relates that when Paul went to Corinth, “he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leaver Rome.” The New Testament makes multiple mentions of the couple as missionaries and great encouragers in several other books.
Despite the efforts of believers like Priscilla and Aquila, Rome was not receptive to the gospel message. Those who did listen were likely of the lower class, judging by the epitaphs of lower class pagans and lower class Jews (Donfried 129). In the early years, Christians were accused of cannibalism when partaking of the sacrament, superstition, lechery, etc. (Manzullo). However, as time wore on, Rome began to see Christianity as more than a strange cult, but a serious threat to its very existence. Rome worried about the Christians for two simple reasons. First, the Christians claimed that there was only one true God and that He was above all else. This idea of monotheism was not completely foreign to the solidly pantheistic Romans; the Mithraic cult had been in existence for some time along with several other, less noted religions (Daemen). The foreign aspect of Christian monotheism lay in the idea of exclusivity. During the first century, AD, Rome lived under the Pax Deorum, which called for peace amongst the gods (Manzullo). To claim that all other gods were false was to declare war on the pursuit of peace. Not only did Christians claim that their God was the only way, truth, and life, but they also asserted that he held their highest allegiance, even above the state. This reeked of treachery to the Romans, because even though they worshipped the gods, their first religion was loyalty to the state and to the empire.
The second reason that the Romans automatically distrusted the Christians also dealt with matters of state, but in a more cultural rather than theological sense. When Jesus lived and taught, he often referred to the “kingdom”, both in heaven and here on earth. In this modern age, the kingdom of heaven is generally accepted to be a more spiritual term than a physical one. However, in Greek, Jesus’ word foe“kingdom”, Βασιλεία, is the same word Romans used to refer to the empire (Carr 2). To talk of a kingdom other than Roman Empire would have been nothing short of treason in the eyes of the Roman leadership. At that point in time, Rome could not understand the concept of two great powers peacefully coexisting; to the Romans, there could only be one power, and it was the power of Rome (Carr 3). The phrasing in the Lord’s Prayer of the line, “Thy kingdom come”, was especially terrifying, because if one kingdom were to come, the other would surely have to go (Carr 3). The mere mention of the word would automatically provoke comparison between the two kingdoms, and if the Unknown God chose to answer this prayer, then the peace Rome had worked so hard to preserve would crumble.
These “threats” to the empire were not taken seriously until the infamous fire in 64 AD. The fire sparked the first serious episode of Roman persecution of Christians, a flame that would not die out for more than 200 years. When Rome suffered what is simply referred as “The Great Fire of Rome”, the city was devastated; only four of the 14 regions of the city escaped the blaze (Neromania). Soon rumors began to fly that the hated Emperor Nero had started the fire himself and watched it burn from high above, blissfully playing his fiddle (PBS, Secrets). In order to turn the anger of the mob away from himself, Nero blamed the Christians for burning the city. In his Annals of Imperial Rome, Tacitus relates the horrors of the Christian persecution that followed Nero’s accusations,
“Therefore to scotch the rumor…[that the fire had been of his own doing]…Nero substituted as culprits and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians…First then, the confessed members of the sect were arrested; next, on their disclosures, vast numbers were convicted, not so much the count for arson but on hatred of the human race. And derision accompanied their end: they were covered with wild beasts’ skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed, they were burned to serves as lamps by night” (Novak, ed.)
After Nero’s death, persecution of believers did not cease. To avow higher authority to Something or Someone other than the state, and therefore the emperor, was considered blasphemous in the eyes of the Romans. When Emperors eventually began to claim divinity, they instated compulsory sacrifices as a sign of deference to the “god” (All About History). If someone refused to make the appropriate sacrifices, his belligerence gave the Roman leadership license to make his life miserable, or simply to end it if they chose.
One such martyr was Procopius, whose story has been preserved by the historian Eusebius. When asked to sacrifice to the gods, he stood firm in his conviction that there was only one God and that he could serve no other. Upon further questioning, he quoted the poet Homer in his impassioned response, “The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler, one king” (Schaff, ed.). Procopius became the voice of many hundreds and perhaps even thousands of Christians whose words were taken away before they had a chance to speak.
Although the centuries between the reign of Nero and Constantine saw some of the hardest years of persecution for the new Christians, the time illustrated the promise of Genesis 50:20 perfectly; “You intended it to harm me, but God intended it for good. To accomplish what is now down, the saving of many lives.” There was no place like the Roman Empire for sharing good news because of the unparalleled quality of its roads, the common language, the Pax Romana, etc. But the spread of the gospel depended on much more than the successes of the Roman Empire; God’s greatest works often come to earth in the form of the greatest tragedies. The temperamental, violent, and base nature of the roman gods contrasted perfectly with the holy, merciful, and just nature of the one true God.
Instead of feeling like Aeneas, constantly tossed aside by whichever god they unwittingly angered, the Romans were watching the relationship of patience and mercy that Christians seemed to share with each other, with the Romans, and with their God. The automatic parallel between the kingdom of heaven and the empire on earth got Christians into trouble, but it also caught the attention of the surrounding people. All over Rome, Christians were dying for their convictions in horrendous ways. But these martyrs became famous in death. Tertullian, one of the earliest western theologians, caught the seeming impossibility of new life from death in his Apologeticum 50; “The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed” (Robertson). What appeared to be disastrous, in the end proved perfect. Once again, God’s plan worked itself out to bring more fruit that any human could have ever conceived. The blood of Christians was the seed that brought about this fruit. As Christians today who are looking for fruit in a different time and place, we must ask ourselves; what is our seed?
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