Persecution in the Church by Jewish and Roman Leaders

The Meaning of Persecution

For Christians in the early Church, persecution was a kind of blessing or exaltation: it was “the highest form of renunciation”—i.e., the brightest and biggest way an early Christian could renounce the world, all its pomps, and choose Christ with body and soul even in the face of torture and death.[footnoteRef:1] Christ was viewed as the ultimate example of how to suffer persecution, and early Christians embraced the idea of being able to follow in the footsteps of Our Lord. [1: Herbert Workman, Persecution in the Early Church (Washorn Media, 2018), 3.]

The persecutions, which really began with Christ, were unjustified and based on illegal actions just as they were with Christ—i.e., an illegal change of venue, illegal retrial, illegal private examinations, and so on.[footnoteRef:2] Sts. Peter and Paul also faced strange trials and changes of venue (requested by St. Paul, for instance). Thus, there was an interplay between law and persecution, but in the most case for the early Christians in the beginning it was the push of the Jewish leaders to see the early Christians punished. St. Paul had done the work of the persecutors prior to his conversion, and after his conversion there was more push by the Jewish leaders to involve the Roman authorities in the matter, as they did with the persecution of Jesus. [2: Herbert Workman, Persecution in the Early Church (Washorn Media, 2018), 10.]

In time, the Roman authorities began to see Christians as “political agitators or anarchists of the most dangerous form.”[footnoteRef:3] Christianity was not part of the State organism of the Roman Empire—it was a distinct organization—and this is what bothered the Roman State. Thus, the early Christians were not so much persecuted for the religious beliefs by the Roman authorities as for the belief that they represented a political change to Roman authority. They were persecuted by Jewish leaders, however, on the basis of religious belief. That is the distinction between the two persecutions—one Roman and one Jewish. [3: Herbert Workman, Persecution in the Early Church (Washorn Media, 2018), 71.]

The martyrs’ remains were also often mistreated by persecutors, as in the case of their ashes being scattered in the Rhone.[footnoteRef:4] Most Christians, therefore, did not openly display their faith on burial markers—but some did, as seen on the tomb at Milan, which can be read as a warning to potential persecutors of Christian corpses—it read: “May the wrath of God and of His Christ fall on him who dares to disturb the peace of our sleep.”[footnoteRef:5] Christians of the early Church had to be very careful because as the Roman authorities become less and less pleased with them, their ability to gather in secret and safety became less and less assured. They were not permitted to have burial places or gathering places. They met in the catacombs, but there are stories of Christians being found there and walled up—buried alive—by Roman authorities in some cases.[footnoteRef:6] [4: Herbert Workman, Persecution in the Early Church (Washorn Media, 2018), 263.] [5: Herbert Workman, Persecution in the Early Church (Washorn Media, 2018), 264.] [6: Herbert Workman, Persecution in the Early Church (Washorn Media, 2018), 265.]