Europe in the Middle Ages

by Ierne L. Plunket

In a brutal age, when the world was largely ruled by physical force, Christianity made a special appeal to women and to the higher type of men who hated violence. One argument in its favour amongst the observant was the life led by the early Christians—their gentleness, their meekness, and their constancy. It is one thing to suffer an insult through cowardice, quite another to bear it patiently and yet be brave enough to face torture and death rather than surrender convictions. Christian martyrs taught the world that their faith had nothing in it mean or spiritless.

Perhaps it may seem strange that men and women whose conduct was so quiet and inoffensive should meet with persecution at all. Christ had told His disciples to ‘render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’, and the strength of Christianity lay not in rebellion to the civil government but in submission. This is true, yet the Christian who paid his taxes and took care to avoid breaking the laws of his province would find it hard all the same to live at peace with pagan fellow citizens. Like the Jew he could not pretend to worship gods whom he considered idols: he could not offer incense at the altars of Juppiter and Augustus: he could not go to a pagan feast and pour out a libation of wine to some deity, nor hang laurel branches sacred to the nymph Daphne over his door on occasions of public rejoicing.

Such neglect of ordinary customs made him an object of suspicion and dislike amongst neighbours who did not share his faith. A hint was given here and there by mischief makers, and confirmed with nods and whisperings, that his quietness was only a cloak for evil practices in secret; and this grew into a rumour throughout the Empire that the murder of newborn babies was part of the Christian rites.

Had the Christians proved more pliant the imperial government might have cleared their name from such imputations and given them protection, but it also distrusted their refusal to share in public worship. Lax themselves, the emperors were ready to permit the god of the Jews or Christians a place amongst their own deities; and they could not understand the attitude of mind that objected to a like toleration of Juppiter or Juno. The commandment ‘Thou shalt have none other gods but me’ found no place in their faith, and they therefore accused the Christians and Jews of want of patriotism, and used them as scapegoats for the popular fury when occasion required.

In the reign of Nero a tremendous fire broke out in Rome that reduced more than half the city to ruins. The Emperor, who was already unpopular because of his cruelty and extravagance, fearing that he would be held responsible for the calamity, declared hastily that he had evidence that the fire was planned by Christians; and so the first serious persecution of the new faith began.

Persecution of the Christians

Here is part of an account given by Tacitus, whose history of the German tribes we have already noticed:

‘He, Nero, inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men who under the vulgar appellation of Christians were already branded with deserved infamy.... They died in torments, and their torments were embittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for this melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse race and honoured with the presence of the Emperor.’

Tacitus was himself a pagan and hostile to the Christians, yet he admits that this cruelty aroused sympathy. Nevertheless the persecutions continued under different emperors, some of them, unlike Nero, wise rulers and good men.