When Christians Face Persecution

Theological Perspectives from the New Testament

Chee-Chiew Lee

• Publisher: Apollos
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781789742695
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Estudios bíblicos

What does the bible say about persecution of Christians?Many New Testament studies focus on persevering in faith to the end and responding even to perpetrators of persecution with love and forgiveness. Yet while there are unifying principles, the New Testament is filled with a range of experiences of and reflections on Christian persecution - texts that it is crucial to engage with in order to fully appreciate the bewildering array of experience and strongly held viewpoints amongst believers today.In When Christians Face Persecution, Chee-Chiew Lee explores the New Testament authors' theological understanding of persecution. She offers a thorough look at the biblical foundations, covering their responses to early Christian persecution, their evaluation of these responses, and how they encourage or persuade their recipients to persevere in their faith.Lee also brings these writings together to offer an integrated theology of facing persecution, reflecting on how the understanding of early Christian writers can be applied to the persecution of Christians today.When Christians Face Persecution is a valuable study that will enrich your knowledge of biblical teaching on persecution, and its continued relevance in the twenty-first century. It offers engaging theological synthesis as well as contextual reflection, and it invites you to a deeper understanding of the breadth of theological perspectives contained with the New Testament.

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Why it all began: exploring the reasons

In the Greco-Roman world, people could worship many different gods. Why then were the early Christians persecuted for worshipping Jesus? This chapter will first describe the historical background of the first century, specifically how the social, religious and political aspects of people’s world view were tightly intertwined. With this historical background in mind, I will then discuss who persecuted the early Christians, so as to appreciate why they were persecuted, from both the insiders’ and outsiders’ perspective. From there, I will then describe a theology of why Christians face persecution according to the New Testament authors.

Historical background

During the Greco-Roman period, Jews commonly referred to other non-Jews as ‘the Gentiles’ (ta ethnē; cf. Ezra 6:21 lxx; Rom. 3:29). Both Jews and Christians were the minority, living among other people who practised polytheistic worship. In accord with the scholarly convention, I will refer to these ‘other people’ as ‘pagans’. Since Jewish monotheism stands in stark contrast to pagan polytheism in the Greco-Roman world, I will broadly classify the first-century religious world view as ‘Greco-Roman’ and ‘Jewish’ when I discuss the historical setting from which Christianity arose, particularly those elements in both these world views that lead to their conflict with Christians.

Greco-Roman religious world view

In the Greco-Roman world, polytheism was the norm. Different people groups in various cities and regions had their patron gods (e.g. Artemis was the patron goddess of Ephesus; cf. Acts 19:27–35). In antiquity, religion was pragmatic, rather than faith-based. Therefore, it was common for people to worship many gods for various purposes. For example, Asclepius for their health and Aphrodite for fertility and love.1 Performing rituals was key in religious practices.2 As such, worship practices are referred to as ‘cult’, which Rothaus defines as ‘activity directed toward or in relationship to a deity or deities by an identifiable and self-recognizing group of individuals in a form identifiable to both participants and non-participating observers’.3

Among the many pagan cults, the imperial cult – worship of the Roman emperor – is of special relevance to our study. Therefore, I will first examine the pagan cult in general and then the imperial cult in detail.

Pagan cult

In antiquity, the patron–client relationship extends to the gods as patrons and people as clients.4 People sought the favour of the gods for the former’s general well-being and prosperity, from their personal life, such as good health and a successful business, to their collective well-being, such as a good harvest or a successful military campaign. Thus, religion permeated all aspects of life, both private and public: household, economic, political, military, administration, and so on. As religion was pragmatic, people could include additional gods in their pantheon without having to renounce other gods.5

People believed their well-being was a favour obtained from the gods. As clients receiving such benefactions, they were obliged to reciprocate by performing rituals and offering sacrifices to the gods, as a form of expressing their gratitude and giving honour to the gods. Conversely, people believed disasters (e.g. poor business, famine, earthquake) were the result of the gods’ displeasure or anger, usually attributing such disasters to wrongly performed or neglected rituals.6

As the Roman Empire conquered more territories, the Roman senate usually allowed conquered people to continue with their local cults.7 Nonetheless, as Keener notes, Romans in the early republic believed their gods would punish them for admitting new deities (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae 3.35.2) and would instruct their citizens to worship only Roman gods using only Roman cultic practices (Livy, History of Rome 4.30.9–11). However, this exclusiveness became unpractical when the empire expanded.8 Eventually, the Romans admitted certain foreign cults into their religious system. According to Orlin, this phenomenon is closely associated with their political decisions to ‘incorporate new territories and new peoples within the body politic of the Roman people’.9 Proper religious practice was essential to the Romans, who attributed their success in territorial expansion to their ability to maintain ‘peace among the gods’ (pax deorum).10

For the Romans, ‘religious people’ (religiosi) were those ‘who have chosen to fulfil or pass over religious observances in accordance with the custom of the state and who do not involve themselves with alien cults (superstitiones)’.11 In contrast to ‘true religion’ (religio), superstitio was used to refer to non-traditional religious practices that had been ‘carried to extremes’, ‘without understanding’ or might even be ‘base or evil’.12 As summarized by Martin, ‘superstitio could be used to cover all sorts of religious practices, including suspicious divination, foreign rituals, and magic, that were perceived as maleficent and threatening to Roman society and the state’.13

Furthermore, Gradel notes that religio refers to reverence for those with higher authority, frequently used for gods, but can also include people.14 Therefore, people offered worship as a form of highest honour due to the power and status of their object of worship, rather than for ontological reasons.15 This form of worship was common, and can be traced to the pre-classical period (prior to the fifth century bc) among the Greeks, who would give ‘equal divine honours’ (isotheoi timai) to both rulers and gods.16 Since people regarded the Roman emperor as the most powerful ruler, they accorded divine honours to him. Furthermore, people in antiquity also believed gods could come to them in human form (cf. Acts 12:11; 14:11; 28:6). Thus, it is no surprise that they would also regard rulers as vicegerents of the gods or even as gods.17 With this concept in mind, I continue our discussion on imperial cult below.

Imperial cult

In line with honouring the gods by performing rituals (e.g. offering prayers and sacrifices) to them, the general populace and local authorities also did the same to honour the Roman emperor and to show their loyalty to him. The rationale was the same: the Roman Empire brought peace and prosperity, albeit after bloody military conquests. Thus, the Roman emperor was the patron and benefactor of the people; and more so for the local authorities, who received direct benefits from the emperor such as their offices, honour and financial benefits.18 As clients, people were expected to reciprocate with honour, loyalty and service, as well as to seek continued benefactions from the emperor, using traditional and customary means.19 Conversely, the emperor, as a patron who received (divine) honour from clients, was obliged to reciprocate with further benefactions by ruling well.20 In a culture framed by the patron–client relationship and steeped in honour and shame, failure to reciprocate using traditional and customary means was regarded as ingratitude and shameful.21 Therefore, imperial cults served as a form of power negotiation for both the emperor and his subjects.22

Both Hillard and Winter have noted three types of cultic activities associated with this reciprocation between the Roman emperor and his subjects, and thus propose that this phenomenon be termed collectively as ‘imperial cults’, rather than ‘the imperial cult’.23 In order to seek continued blessings on the empire for peace and prosperity, first, the people prayed to and made sacrifices to the gods for the safety and well-being of the emperor. Second, they performed these rituals directly to the emperor because they also regarded him as a divine being. Third, the emperor was regarded as the ‘high priest’ (Latin: pontifex maximus; Greek: ho archiereus) between the gods and the empire and also performed these rituals to the gods for the peace and prosperity of the empire (which included the well-being of the people).24

Imperial cults were practised at multiple levels: state, municipal and private.25 Even though the Romans usually restricted their worship only to emperors who were deceased, non-Romans (especially in the eastern part of the empire) also worshipped living emperors. There is archaeological evidence that the worship of living emperors was a common practice among the populace throughout the empire.26

It is important to note that imperial cults were more a movement from the people than a directive from Rome.27 The motives behind the populace and the local authorities were not identical. At the risk of oversimplification, perhaps a positive motivation would be to seek the common well-being of the people and a negative motivation would be to avoid the social pressure of shame. For some local authorities, rendering of divine honours to the emperor was also a means to ingratiate themselves with the Roman rulers.28 In addition, failure to show loyalty to the empire in acceptable ways was to run the risk of being accused of treason, which had dire consequences should this invite Roman suppression.

Christians among other persecuted groups: a bigger picture

Although the Roman senate, on behalf of the state, eventually admitted new (foreign or local) deities as part of their official religion, not every foreign deity made it into their pantheon, depending on the nature of the religion.29 For the Romans, the performance of correct rituals was important, because incorrectly performed or inappropriate forms of rituals might anger the gods and could cause disasters to come upon the state.30 Therefore, the Romans were strict in observing the ‘customs of the ancestors’ (mos maiorum) and forbade any introduction of new or foreign cults or rites in public or private without official approval (see Cicero, De legibus 2.8, 12, 37).31

Among those religions that were rejected were, for example, the Volsinian goddess Nortia, the Egyptian goddess Isis and the Bacchanalian cult; the latter two were not only rejected but outlawed and suppressed.32 While the Bacchanalian cult had been outlawed due to sexual immorality and crimes associated with it (Livy, History of Rome 39.13.13), the Isis cult had been rejected for political reasons.33

It is worthwhile to note that Christians were not the only group of religious people rejected and suppressed by the Roman Empire.34 While the suppression of the Bacchanalian cult may be seen as just and thus should not be regarded as persecution, the actions against the adherents of the cult of Isis (e.g. expulsion from Rome) may be regarded as unfair treatment from the perspective of the adherents and thus regarded as pers...