Roman Civilization

CMS 206 /History 206

• Romans originally perceived Christians as sect of Jews. Orginally, this was probably a correct perception. Jews, in fact, began to go to great lengths to demonstrate to Romans that Christians were not Jews. Both Christians and Jews were "atheistic" to Romans because of their insistance on monotheism - in rejecting all but one god, they were rejecting the very nature of greco-roman religious belief.
  
  
• Mystery cults enjoyed great popularity for a variety of reasons. Most, and the Christians certainly, practiced democratic recruitment. Mystery cults offered an implicit critique of governing power hierarchies (by offering an alternative to and transcendence of it). The sheer variety of religious worship in traditional state religion, moreover, was somewhat bewildering. Monotheistic cults seemed to offer a clear cut solution to the problem of E. R. Dodds described as that of "pagan and christian in an age of anxiety." Mystery cult membership, moreover, offered a new kind of society. For example, many cults (and other social groups) in Rome had burial societies, but Christians and jews insisted on their own exclusive cemeteries. Interestingly enough, Christians and Jews were only cults that practiced charity towards members - relief of poor, widows, visiting in prison, etc. The Acts of Apostles suggest earliest christians practiced a kind of communism within a community defined by belief. In contrast to Roman state religion, many cults had strict behavioral codes that governed life beyond times of cult worship and thus provided organizing and identifying principals for group [e.g., vows of chastity; e.g., they will know we are christians by our love]. There is also evidence that many cults (including Christians and Jews) in the early Roman empire included ritual tatooing as a part of cult initiation.
  
  
• The study of early christianity poses a number of problems to historians of Roman empire. First, the Christians won and remain a dominent belief system in modern world. Roman historians have to read through the shaping of the Christian historical tradition by Christians - triumphalism, retrospective imposition of order (what do we do with all the varieties of Christianity; cf Gnostics, letters of St. Paul); Second, very little documentation of pagan critique of Christianity survives - Christians weren't to keen on copying them - so we have less evidence to recreate Roman response to Christian critique of Roman culture. Third, we take for granted Christian doctrinal principals that Romans found idiotic - e.g. life after death was an idea generally mocked in the ancient world - now it seems self evident to us that this would be an attractive theology. This was not obvious to many non-Christian Romans. Fourth, we Romanize early Christian church when in fact it was originally [probably first two centuries] a phenomenon of eastern part of empire. Paul, for example, writes to Christians in Rome in Greek - not because they were of Greek origin, but because Greek was the lingua franca of Roman empire and anyone from the eastern part of empire would know it, (not true of Latin for several centuries into common era]. In fact, many early Christians completely rejected a concept that Romans found self-evident: that Rome was the center of the world, the caput mundi. For them, Rome was the "whore of Babylon." One way to measure the "domesticization" of the christian cult in Rome is the gradual adoption of Latin over Greek as the language of Christian writers.

• Additionally, the metaphorical language of early Christian writers makes it difficult to assess the historical experience of early Christians. For example, early Christians insisted upon their "poverty." We know that, theChristian cult, was extremely attractive to individuals who were not members of the Roman elite and that Christians prosyletized among the poor, dispossessed and enslaved. However, we also know that by the second century of the common era, it was not uncommon for families of the senatorial and military elite to include Christians. St. Perpetua, for example, clearly came from a well to do provincial family. Christians, however, insisted upon their "poverty" in part because a) it was a rejection of the social values of the Roman elite; and b) the alleged poverty of christians prompted scorn from members of the Roman elite. Thus the "poverty" of Christians aquired a great symbolic value to Christians and helped them define themselves as a community, regardless of the economic status of individual members. In fact, throughout the subsequent history of the Christian church, the ideal of "poverty" was to be a source of great divisiveness. Some, like St. Francis, took the ideal as a literal goal. Others, in particular the bishops, took it as a metaphor.
  
  
• It is equally difficult to assess the role of women in the Christian church. Romans routinely viewed cult religious activity by women as superstition, and as a potential threat to Romanitas. Just as the Romans during the Second Punic War feared that senatorial wives would "infect" their sons with the tainted creed of Bacchus, so too, Romans of the first three centuries of Christian history feared the "infection" of Christianity and worried obsessively that Christian charletan priests would easily sway the inherently excitable minds of their wives and daughters. Accordingly, the sources tend to exaggerate the role of women. On the other hand, the Christian cult in its first several centuries clearly offered women far great official roles, activities and informal social authority than they had ever experienced within Roman state religion (Jewish women outside of the Palestine enjoyed similar autonomy and authority). Christian women could become "deacons," who taught female initiates the doctrines of the early church and organized and administered regimes of support for Christian poor. Christian women could earn enormous social and religious prestige as martyrs and even prophets. There is some evidence that Christian women could become priests and bishops. What makes this evidence difficult to assess is the fact that once the "church" became established, its rules repudiated the scope of autonomy and authority the early Christian cults had granted women. In fact, such autonomy and authority was, for the Church fathers, evidence of heresy, much the same way it had been evidence of "infection" for the pagan Senators who preceeded them several centuries before.
  
  
• Another difficult aspect of early christian history for the Roman historian is the evaluation of persecutions. We know that emperors on occasion instituted policies of suppression and persecution - Nero and Diocletion among the most famous (and the first and last to do so). We also know that the individuals who suffered in these persecutions, such as Perpetua and Agatha, suffered horribly. However, the evidence suggests that the routine policy of the Roman elite and imperial bureacracy was not persecution for the first two centuries of Christianity. In fact, to characterize the Roman response to Christianity far overstates the matter. By and large, members of the Roman elite ignored Christianity. If notice of Christianity was forced upon them, they tolerated it if they could. Because early Christian communities varied so greatly throughout the empire, moreover, it would have been impossible for Rome to craft a uniform policy on Christians. Pliny the Younger's effort to accomodate Christians, was, in fact, far more typical. [Admittedly, his efforts consisted of "change your mind or I'll kill you - but he gave alleged Christians numerous opportunities to change their minds.] Because the Roman state religion lacked an orthodox theology and a cohesive organizational structure, it was the norm for Romans to tolerate an extraordinary range of religious beliefs and practices. From the Roman point of view, the ideal was to find a way to get Christians to be good Romans. It was an impossible goal because part of being a good Roman involved participation in the imperial emperor cult and in the general Roman community of sacrifice to the "pagan" gods.
  
  
• In fact, there is a considerable body of evidence that suggests that the leadership of the early Christian communities understood martyrdom as a means of rallying the community and gaining popular support outside the community. There is nothing particularly edifyng, however strongly you are committed to a pagan belief system, in watching someone be publicly tortured. Some accounts of Christian persecution and martyrdom suggests that Christians themselves forced the Roman state to take notice of their status as Christians. Because the imperial emperor cult was integral to Romanitas under the principate, it was inherently oppressive to those who identified as Christians. Even where Emperors and governors took a most liberal view on emperor cult, however, (forget the emperor, just join the community in a sacrifice), Christianity and traditional Roman religious beliefs could not be anything but opposed. Thus, from their point of view, the Roman state was always oppressing the Christians. In practice, a Roman governor could be very tolerant and quite lax in scrutinizing attendance at provincial ceremonies in honor of a deified emperor. This laissez-faire policy, however, might be irrelevant to a committed Christian. We have accounts of Christians who virtually assaulted Roman governors with their assertions of Christian identity. Governors, after a certain point ,had to respond to these Christians who were essentially confessing themselves to be traitors (people who would not sacrifice to the emperor). Moreover, Christian identity could become a contested local political issue in a variety of ways. One might, for example, charge that an enemy was a christian, not because he was particuarly concerned with religious matters, but because the charge would serve him politically in an election or lawsuit. The charge itself might ignite a larger local controversy than the originator could have anticipated or controlled.
  
  
• Reading accounts of the early Christian martyrs, moreover, might lead one to conclude that communities of Christians were in constant conflict with an oppressive Roman regime. In fact, by and large, most christian communities lived at peace with their pagan neighbors for decades on end. There are letters from some early Christians complaining of the very fact and accusing their brethern of "selling out." It was not until the middle of the third century, C.E., that we find an effort from Rome to create a uniform policy on Christians. The Emperor Decius, for example, required all inhabitants of the Empire to offer a sacrifice to the gods (note, not himself) and to declare that they had always sacrificed to the gods. Local magistrates were ordered to give certificates to citizens who performed the sacrifice and passed the test.
  
  
• The development of a Roman "anti-Christian" policy [and the term "policy" here also overstates the fact - not all emperors between Decius and Diocletian attempted to suppress Christianity] can be attributed to a number of factors. First, it indicates the success Christians had in establishing themselves as a viable community with a distinct social and religious identity, and one with values completely in contradiction with traditional Roman religious thinking. Second, by the third century, C.E., the early Christians had begun to develop very strong internal systems of organization. Major cities had bishops and hierarchies of religious authority. Bishops from cities met in councils to determine heterdox belief and practice and condmened 'heretical' christians more vigorously than Romans condemned Christians in general. Romans percieved the strength of the Christian hierarchy and the rigor of its own internal control as a threat as real as the (far less structured) authority of Bacchic priests two centuries before. The persecutions of later emperors was aimed at the hierarchy of the early Christian church far more than it was at ordinary Christian congregant. In fact, the Emperor Decius was quoted as saying he feared the election of a new bishop of Rome more than he feared a rival claimant to his throne.
  
  
• Third, the Roman empire itself, throughout the third century, suffered an almost constant series of social, political, military and economic crises. On the one hand, third century emperors could 'scapegoat' Christians for Roman societal ills as easily as Nero had at the beginning of the Christian era. However, the persecuting emperors were also legitimately concerned with the status of traditional Roman religious practices. It was precisely in times of crisis that Romans were supposed to propitiate the gods. Christians not merely refused to do it, but arguably set an example, even for non-Christians, of ignoring the gods. The emperors (who all held the post of pontifex maximus) in times of crisis, could not afford to permit the populace to abandon traditional beliefs and practices that had been integral to the very notion of Romanitas and had helped Romans sustain their shared identity even as the times tested it.
  
  
• By the fourth century of the common era, the political, military and social organization of the Roman empire had changed radically. Three striking transformations occured. First, Rome itself seized to be the capital of the empire. Emperors were far more likely to be found in Trier (Germany) or Milan, dealing with the threat of non-Roman tribal peoples on the empires' borders than within the city of Rome. Constantine (306-337) officially moved the capital of the empire to a city he built in Asia Minor and after that event, Emperors rarely even visited Rome. The Emperor Constantine (306-337) officially moved the capital of the empire to a city he built in Asia Minor and after that event, emperors rarely even visited Rome. Second, Rome divided its empire into eastern and western halves (each with its own Emperor) towards the end of the third century. The move was a tactical military response to external threats posed to the empire by foreign enemies. Occasionally, one man was able to impose his will on the entire span of the Roman empire as Augustus had. But for all practical purposes, the Roman empire itself had become two distinct political communities. Third, Emperors began to grant their favors to Christians.
  
  
• From the pagan point of view, the end began with Constantine. Constantine grew up in the court of Diocletian (the last persecuting emperor) in the eastern part of the Roman empire. His father played a very prominent role in the western part of the empire. Constantine was a candidate to rule over either part of the empire but passed over in the machinations of court politics. He then joined his father, who was living in France. The two led a successful military campaign in Britain in 306 C.E., at the end of which, Constantine's soldiers proclaimed him emperor. For the next six years, both halves of the Roman empire were embroiled in a confusing (there were now two emperors, so twice as many ways to conspire and betray) civil war. In 312, Constantine defeated opposing forces outside the city of Rome at the battle of the Milvian Bridge. According to Eusebius (who knew Constantine), shortly before the battle, the emperor had a dream or vision in which the Christian god showed a cross to him and said "In this sign, conquer!" The previous eastern emperor, Galerius, had officially ended Christian persecutions (now Romans simply asked Christians to pray to their god that the empire would flourish). Upon his victory in the west, Constantine officially embraced a pro-Christian policy. He defeated the eastern emperor in 324 C.E.. and converted to Christianity on his death bed.
  
  
• Constantine's Edict of Milan (313 C.E.) announced a policy of toleration and restored property seized from Christians during the persecutions of previous emperors. Constantine himself donated vast sums of money for the building of Christian churches. The Emperor's involvement in the Christian community included more than mere patronage (as significant as his patronage was). First, Constantine played an active role in deciding theological disputes (which now seemed to flourish within the Christian community). These decisions continued what for Romans seemed the natural intermingling of religious and political authority. Second, Constantine issued edicts banning superstitio. These edicts seemed to have been directed mostly against Jews, and not the traditional pagan cults. Constantine, in fact, remained pontifex maximus, continued to consult haruspices and appointed new priests to Roman priesthoods.
  
  
• Not all the emperors after Constantine were Christian. One, Julian (361-3), was, in fact, famously pagan and took upon himself the effort to suppress Christianity and restore traditional pagan religion. Subsequent Emperors were Christian, and by Gratian (382 CE), the Emperor (and state fisc) ceased to provide financial support to traditional priesthoods. By 391 CE, the Emperor Theodosius forbade all pagan sacrifice and closed all pagan temples. Involvement in pagan (or traditional) Roman religion became an act of resistance to the Emperor and many from the old Roman senatorial elite embraced paganism precisely in the way Romans had embraced Christianity 300 years before as a way of claiming an identity in opposition to that imposed by the dominant social and political hierarchy. The 'resistance' of the Roman pagans, however, was doomed to failure.