First Century Christian versus Twenty-First Century Catholic

My main interest in history is Ancient Rome, especially Imperial Rome. One of the most infamous aspects of this time period was the Ten persecutions that were carried out against the Christians of the Empire. Contrary to popular belief, the persecutions were not carried out due to an intense Roman hatred of strange religions. It was the result of the complicated relationship between religion and politics in the Roman state.

The Romans had gods for everything. The Romans initially had an animist religion that had more in common with the Native Americans than with the Greek gods of Olympus. They saw spirits everywhere, in the wind, the water, the forest; under the thresholds and over the doorposts. They worshipped the spirits of their ancestors and each household had its own set of gods, particular to that family alone. When the Romans conquered the Aegean peninsula in the 3rd century before Christ, they adopted many aspects of the Greek culture they found there. They identified the Olympian gods: Zeus, Poseidon, Hermes and Aphrodite with the most powerful of their own. They took on the identities and mythological back stories of their Greek counterparts. For the first time, the Roman state religion became organized, with temples and sacrifices and priests. A good Roman citizen was faithful to these “Gods of Rome”.

As the Romans conquered land after land, and country after country, they tried to adapt the customs of these nations to their own. They started with the gods. The Romans would tell the conquered tribe’s war god was the same as Mars, the Roman god of war. The Romans were very good at assimilating the religious practices of other nations into their own. The city of Rome became filled with temples to foreign gods. Romans worshipped gods like Isis, Serapis and Mithras alongside Jupiter, Mars and Minerva.

In 42 B.C., the Roman Senate, under pressure from the Second Triumvirate, deified Julius Caesar, starting the cult of divis Iulius. This allowed Caesar Octavian, who would later take the name Caesar Augustus, to refer to himself as divi filius “the son of a god.” (Divis being different from deus, in that divis referred to a demigod, or lesser god, usually a half-human or human elevated to godhood, while deus referred to an all powerful god such as Jupiter or Apollo.) Once Augustus officially took power as Emperor in 27 B.C. he was referred to as The Divine Emperor. This practice continued among all of Augustus’ successors within the Julio-Claudian line. Although, officially, a Roman emperor was not deified until after he had died, the emperor was treated as a divinity while still alive. Prayers were offered to him, statues and temples were erected in his honor. It is unlikely that the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius actually believed that they were gods. They used the cult of the divine emperor to cement control over a superstitious empire but they all had temples erected to them in their lifetimes (Augustus in Pergamum, Tiberius in Smyrna, and Claudius in Colchester, Britain). And one can be certain that the insane emperors Caligula and Nero fancied themselves as gods. (Caligula married his sister because that’s what Jupiter did.)

In the second chapter of the book of Revelation, John says to the church at Pergamum, “I know you live where Satan’s throne is.” He is referring to the cult of the divine emperor which was headquartered in Pergamum at the temple of Augustus. (Long since dead and deified.) At the time of writing, John was exiled to the Aegean island of Patmos by Domitian, since they could not figure out how to kill him in Rome. (Boiling oil didn’t work.) The entire book of Revelation is an apocalyptic masterpiece in the vein of the visions of Daniel. John is writing against pagan Rome primarily against the divine emperor cult. He uses thinly veiled language to describe Domitian as the “great Beast who rules the world.” He is described as having blasphemous names: while he was still alive Domitian had the titles Dominus et Deus (Lord and God) applied to him and had coins struck with that motto. He is described as having a mortal wound which was healed, arguing that he was the symbolic (or perhaps not so symbolic) return of Nero who had killed Peter and Paul. (Perhaps the Witnesses of Chapter 11?) He is described as having seven heads and ten horns to correspond to the Roman emperors who numbered ten not including Domitian at the time with only seven having any real import. Finally, John even names the Beast applying to him the infamous number 666 which can be applied to either Nero, Domitian or even Caligula depending on how one works the gematria.

The imperial cult itself is identified in the seventeenth chapter of Revelation as a scarlet woman named Babylon who rides the (seven headed, ten horned, blasphemous name covered) Beast, sits on seven hills and drinks the blood of the Christian martyrs. An angel says, “The kings of the earth have had intercourse with her and the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk on the wine of her harlotry. (17:2) She is identified as a harlot because it was common Roman practice to spread the imperial cult throughout the provinces of the Empire through specially ordained priests they set up as imperial agents. This was the main method of instilling loyalty among the subjects of the Empire, essentially whoring itself out to willing subjects.

The Caesar cult was the big problem facing Christians in the Roman empire and the main reason behind the persecutions in the first place. While it is true that Nero needed someone to blame after his pyromania consumed a third of Rome, he was able to scapegoat the Christians because they were already mistrusted by most. They meet in secret in dank underground tombs, were told to love their brothers and sisters, and eat the body and blood of the crucified Jew who they worshipped. Many Romans were willing to accept the different rituals- there was plenty of weird stuff going on in the various temples of the “eastern gods” that had made their way to Rome. What sealed the deal for the Christians was their refusal to worship the divine Caesar.

To most Romans, it didn’t matter what god you worshipped and what you did in your worship of said god. Most Romans didn’t worship every single god but picked certain ones as their “patron” and prayed to others as needed. Romans joined cults dedicated to one particular god and this was the god they worshipped. To the Romans, the new Christians were just such a cult. But every Roman, no matter what god he worshipped was required to render divine homage to the emperor in order to be a good Roman. Most Romans did not see a problem with worshipping the emperor-it was a civic duty. And very little was required for it. The ceremony required the citizen to drop a few grains of incense into a censer in front of an image of the emperor. Occasionally, this was followed by a salutation such as Salve Divis Caesar “Hail, the Divine Caesar.” That was it. All someone had to do was drop the incense than go on to worshipping whatever god he wanted. It didn’t even matter if he actually believed the Emperor was divine.

The Roman’s violent reactions to certain religions are the exceptions that prove the rule. They destroyed the power of the Druids in Britain by burning their sacred tree groves and killing as many Druids as they could find in the Black Year of 61 A.D. Nine years later in 70 A.D. they razed the Jewish Temple so that “a stone was not left atop another.” Like the Christians, these religions had defied the imperial cult by insisting that their god(s) were superior to those of Rome and that they would not bow to the emperor. The Romans could not understand why the Christians did not simply perform the duty required of them and than continue to worship Christ.

It became a question of separating one’s religion and personal morals from one’s political positions. This is the first example of a Christian who is pressured to abandon the principles of his faith for political expediency. One could easily separate his political views from his religious views. In public one could offer the incense to Caesar, and in private go to Mass in the catacombs and worship Christ. For him, the grain of incense meant nothing, we was just being a good Roman citizen. Why would a first century Roman Christian not say, “Well, I’m personally opposed to the worship of Caesar, but it’s not my place my own beliefs on Jesus of Nazareth on anyone else?” It’s not just because they thought that Jesus was en route for the second coming. They believed with an incredible faith that astounded even their tormentors and guards. Granted, Nero was so insane he would have probably killed them anyway but history shows that this was not the case with many of the persecutions. Hadrian told the prefect of Spain not to hunt out Christians but only to prosecute them when they refused to offer the incense. Marcus Aurelius only began his persecution when his co-emperor, Lucius Verus, convinced him that Christians not worshipping the emperor were the cause of the problems that the Empire was facing at the time. Aurelius was a Stoic and most likely did not even believe in his own divinity.

Now, in the 21st century, Christians, especially Catholics, so easily separate their religious views from their political ones. They support abortion or at least support politicians who support it. Catholic politicians like Nancy Reid, John Kerry, Kathleen Sebelius and Edward Kennedy offer their incense to Caesar and than state that they are devout Catholics who follow their faith very much. Right. It’s not like the first Christians had to sacrifice a baby to Jupiter in order to keep their heads attached to their shoulders. All the had to do was burn a tiny grain of incense before any image of the emperor. For not doing it they faced decapitation, being fed to lions, crucifixion or (my personal favorite) being tied to a stake, covered with oil and set on fire to illuminate Nero’s garden parties. We have not been called to give our lives for our religious beliefs (yet). All a person who stands up for the rights of the unborn is possible loss of an election (if a politician) and being lumped in with “those fanatical pro-lifers.” God forbid if it ever did come to a persecution, Catholics right and left would be renouncing Christ before they even showed them the implements of torture.

Christians, especially Catholics, need to look at the example of these early Christians. For the first three centuries of the Church, the only ones who were honored as saints were the Martyrs because their deaths were such a powerful witness to the truth of the Gospel of Christ. Martyrs during the later persecutions looked to the first Christians, men like Peter and Paul, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna to inspire them to hold true to the Truth and the Faith. We should follow their example and pray to the martyrs (Lord knows there’s a lot of them) for moral courage in this age of less severe martyrdom but martyrdom nonetheless.