Persecution, Apology and the Reflection on Religious Freedom and Religious Coercion in Early...

Mar Marcos

Persecution, Apology and the Reflectionon Religious Freedom and ReligiousCoercion in Early Christianity

Abstract: As it had been the current situation throughout the history of theancient Mediterranean world, a plurality of religious groups and traditions coe-xisted under the Roman Empire, without any theoretical discourse over religiousfreedom having ever been formulated. Religious cohabitation changed dramati-cally with the spread of Christianity. As a monotheistic, exclusivist religion with auniversalistic scope, Christianity was incompatible with the traditional religiouspractices of the Greco-Roman world as well as with the religious demands of theRoman state. Persecutions originated a great deal of apologetic literature, inwhich Christians defended themselves from pagan criticism, claimed legitimacyand, as an argument for that, reflected on the idea of religious freedom, which atthe turn of the second century Tertullian considered as one of the natural rights ofthe individual. Following closely the arguments of Tertullian and his rhetoricaltechniques, Latin apologists developed a more elaborated discourse on the illegi-timacy of religious coercion and about the advantages of persuasion, a set ofideas assumed in the so-called Edict of Milan and in other “edicts of tolerance” atthe end of the Tetrarchy. This paper studies the formation and early developmentof the Christian discourse on tolerance in its apologetic and polemic setting,and its impact on the rhetoric used in legal documents to justify the end of thepersecutions.

Zusammenfassung: Unter der Herrschaft des Römischen Reiches lebten religiöseGruppen und verschiedene Traditionen neben- und miteinander, ohne dass eintheoretischer Diskurs über Religionsfreiheit geführt werden musste: ReligiösePluralität gehört zur Normalität der antiken Mittelmeerwelt. Die religiöse Nach-barschaft verändert sich dramatisch mit der Ausbreitung des Christentums. Dieneue Religion als eine monotheistische und exklusivistische Religion mit univer-salem Anspruch vertrug sich nicht mit den traditionellen Praktiken der grie-chisch-römischen Welt und stand im Konflikt mit den religiösen Erfordernissendes Römischen Staates. Die Verfolgungen verlangten umfassend apologetischeTexte zur Verteidigung gegen die pagane Kritik. Sie forderten für ihre Legitimitätdie allgemeine Religionsfreiheit. Tertullian verlangt sie um 200 n. Chr. als natür-liches Recht jedes Individuums. In seiner Argumentationslinie entwickelten dielateinischen Apologeten das Argument weiter gegen religiösen Zwang und fürdie Überzeugung. Das sog. Mailänder Edikt (i. J. 313) Konstantins und andere

DOI 10.1515/zfr-2012-0003 ZfR 2012; 20(1): 35–69

Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCSAngemeldet | 212.87.45.97

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Toleranzedikte am Ende der Tetrarchie stehen in dieser Linie des Diskurses. Dervorliegende Aufsatz untersucht die Entstehung und frühe Entwicklung deschristlichen Diskurses über Toleranz und seinen apologetischen und polemi-schen Kontext sowie seine Auswirkung auf die Rhetorik der Gesetzestexte, diedas Ende der Verfolgungen begründen.

Mar Marcos: Professor of Ancient History, Departamento de Ciencias Históricas,Edificio Interfacultativo, Universidad de Cantabria, 39005 – Santander (Spain),Email: [email protected]

Introduction*0

La religion romaine possède l’avantage d’appartenir aux religions dites mortes. Elle offreainsi un cadre commode pour analyser des concepts religieux sans craindre d’offusquer lessensibilités religieuses. Autrement dit, toutes les questions peuvent être posées à propos dela religion et des dieux des Romains, plus froidement en tout cas que dans le cadre desreligions “vivants”. Mais cela n’implique pas que l’on puisse poser toutes les questions, carcertaines n’ont pas forcément un sens.1

Reflecting on the ideas of religious freedom and religious coercion is not aninvention of modernity. But, though a very old historic and historiographicalproblem, the interplay of religions has become a privileged subject matter inrecent scholarship, and in public opinion. When it had been assumed that, inmodern societies, religious sentiments would be naturally relegated to theprivate domain and that conflicts originated by religious hatred would be aremembrance of the past in an increasingly secularized world, religion hasreturned to the public sphere and to the global political agenda, with suchstrength that an old debate has come to the foreground: that of recognition andacceptance of religious beliefs and practices that are different from those whichone professes – if one does profess any –, respect for the religious systems thatuphold those beliefs and that sometimes one rejects, and the debate on thepossibility of real tolerance in multi-religious societies.2

* This article has been written with the financial support of the Ministerio de Economía yCompetitividad of the Spanish Government (Research Project HAR2009-12679-CO2-02).1 Sheid 2003: 13.2 I will not survey the extensive bibliography on this topic. An illuminating discussion on thepossibility of a real, and not only a mere “aesthetic” tolerance in the liberal, Western societies,

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A widespread idea amongst ordinary people as well as in scholarly literatureis that monotheism generates radicalism, intolerance and violence, while poly-theism favours peace and coexistence. There is some truth in this since mono-theism often becomes exclusivist and thus, implies the rejection of alternativepaths to reaching divinity.3 But themonotheism-intolerance-violence correlation isnot a direct one.4 Antiquity reveals much on this topic. Polytheist societies likethe Greco-Roman were at times intolerant and exerted violence towards indivi-duals or religious groups. Democratic Athens condemned Socrates to death for,among other reasons, introducing new gods into the city,5 and the Roman state,which was very “open and inclusive” in religious matters,6 persecuted some cultswhich did not fit its idea of piety, as was the case of the Christians, formallyaccused of atheism and misanthropy.7 Sometimes, like in the famous episode ofthe suppression of the Bacchanalia in 186 BC, on which we shall come back later,they were non-religious accusations, such as immorality, social disorder or politi-cal suspicion that justified exclusion.8 Since in antiquity as today, expressions ofreligious intolerance go beyond the boundaries of the religious experience, andmotives for religious fanaticism and violence do not necessarily have to be ge-nuinely religious ones. But I shall not deal here with the difficult problem ofsociological intolerance. The aim of this essay is more limited: to reflect on the

can be found in Seligman 2003. On the relationship of religion and modernity, and the role ofreligions in the public sphere at the close of the twentieth century, see Casanova 1994.3 Not all the monotheisms are exclusivist. Hinduism, for instance, is inclusivist as well as waspagan monotheism in Late Antiquity. Islam also has traditionally been a tolerant religion. Seethe clarifying remarks by Filoramo 2004: 178ff. Pagan monotheism in Rome has become amajor theme in recent scholarship. See Athanassiadi/Frede 1999; Barnes 2001; Cerruti 2006;and recently Mitchell/Van Nuffelen 2010 a, 2010b.4 A direct relationship amongst monotheism, intolerance and violence has been formulated byAssmann 1977, whose thesis have generated a great deal of criticism, see Söding 2003. Areformulation of his more polemical ideas in Assmann 2003, 2008 and 2010 (see review byC. Auffarth in this issue). A recent discussion in Markschies 2010.5 Socrates became the archetype of martyrdom. His unjust death, victim of Athenianintolerance, was recalled very often by the apologists during the persecutions: see Baslez2007: 23–35. On the processes for impiety in Athens, Rudhardt 1960; Sandvoss 1968; Garland1996; Pirenne-Delforge 1999: 148–149.6 Garnsey 1984: 1.7 The limits of Roman religious tolerance have become a much debated topic in recenthistoriography, from the seminal studies by North 1979; Scheid 1981; Garnsey 1984; CraccoRuggini 1987; and Sordi 1991, to the more recent reappraisals by Streeter 2006; FernándezUbiña/Marcos 2007; Marcos/Teja 2008; Ames 2008; Sfameni Gasparro 2008; Kahlos 2009;Arena 2011.8 Pailler 1988; Takács 2000; Ames 2008.

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ideas of religious freedom, persuasion and coercion in Rome and on the buildingof a Christian discourse of tolerance during the first three centuries AD when avariety of religious traditions (polytheistic cults, Judaism and Christianity) coexis-ted, and before the turning point of the so-called “revolution of Constantine”,which placed Christianity in the start position to make an irreversible change inthe Mediterranean religious landscape.

No religion in antiquity, which did not find itself threatened, developedanything resembling a dialogue on religious freedom. Not even Jewish apologistselaborated such a demand, in spite of the difficulties that the Jews endured underRoman dominance. In the Jewish ambit we read only something similar to ademand for tolerance in Flavius Josephus, writing at the end of the first centuryAD, in a fictitious address given by Nicolaus of Damascus before Agrippa repre-senting the interests of the Jews in 14 BC.9 Nicolaus advises that it is convenient torecognize the right of each nation (ethnos) to maintain its ancestral customs ifpeace and the prosperity of the Roman Empire are to be guaranteed. This prospe-rity is the reward that divinity grants to those who “allow it to be honoured”. Thisidea that political prosperity and, in general, the welfare of individuals and statesdepends on the will of the gods (thus, their tribute must be duly paid) is commonto all ancient societies, where atheism was not tolerated: some exceptionalindividuals, philosophers in particular, may criticise the gods or not believe inthem,10 but all citizens, atheists included, had to meet the religious demands ofthe city or the state, which were normally quite few. Faith was not a requirementin order to carry out an act of worship, and the relationship of the individual tothe gods was not a central issue in civic religion. Ritualism, however, did notexclude spiritual involvement or theological reflection, but speculation about thegods was performed mainly outside the religious sphere, in the philosophicalambit.11 Sacrifices were aimed at the welfare of the state and rites were sufficientfor gaining the goodwill of the gods. Not the Greek polis, nor the Roman state, northe priests of polytheism, investigated the religious sentiment of men; what is

9 Jewish Antiquities 16.2.3–5. See Haaland 2002. In other passages of his works FlaviusJosephus represents the Jews as a plural and tolerant people, defending the legitimacy ofmaking a free religious choice and the illegitimacy of coercion: Autobiography, 112–113, JewishAntiquities, 16.174–178; 19.279. For Josephus ambiguous opinion towards other religions,Eberhardt 2002. These statements have to be understood in the apologetic context of Josephus’works, written after the war of 66–70 AD and aimed at presenting to the Romans an acceptableimage of Judaism, adapted to the Hellenistic-roman cultural patrons: Pesce 2000. Neusner2008: 193 concludes that “there is no theological foundation for tolerance in classicalJudaism”.10 See the recent survey by Bremmer 2007, with further references.11 On “beliefs and ritual” in Roman religion, see Linder/Scheid 1993; Durand/Scheid 1994.

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more, deep religiousness and great zeal for religion was considered superstitio,not religio.12

Returning to Nicolaus of Damascus’s speech. Nicolaus demanded from theRomans freedom for the Jews to continue practising their religion. The freedomhe requests is limited in that it is not a declaration of universal rights, but it is tobe applied only to the Jews and in no way considers freedom of choice for theindividual. Nicolaus declares religious liberty for the Jewish people as a nation,but would not accept that a Jew should abandon the religion of his people. If hedid so, he would no longer be considered a Jew.

The religious practises of the ancient world, particularly of the Greco-Romanworld, regarding civic life, did not allow for a real individual religious choice.One could be more devout to one god than to another, adhere to one cult oranother or have one’s own ideas about divinity, but this did not imply abando-ning the community’s religious system nor the loss of religious affiliation atta-ched to one’s very citizenship. In ancient Mediterranean, different religioustraditions co-existed; however, a theoretical principle that recognised a pluralityof beliefs and cults was never made explicit nor was a discussion on the notionof tolerance ever carried out.13 It was assumed that each nation or each polishad its own traditions, among which were their religious cults, while the coexis-tence of beliefs and the existence of diverse religious views were assumed as amatter of fact, not seen as a problem.14 This does not mean that within theinclusive framework of ancient, polytheistic systems, where mutual acceptanceprevailed, religious choice was not the occasional cause of conflict.

Christianity involved a deep transformation in the religious identity of theindividual and in the religious map of the ancient world. It was not an ethnicreligion – although the argument of ethnicity was from early times used inapologetic contexts –, but decidedly universal. Becoming a Christian demanded

12 For the various and changing meanings of superstitio, a concept adopted by the Christiansto refer to paganism, which they did not recognize as religio: Calderone 1972; Grodzyski 1974;Sachot 1991; Marcos 2004; Kahlos 2007.13 I avoid here the discussion on the legitimacy of using the terms “tolerance” and“intolerance” to refer to antiquity. We all are aware that these are modern, unsuitable conceptsto be applied directly to the ancient world, and at the same time we all use them. I think that,with the due caution, they are useful to explain historical-religious problems of the Greco-Roman world, and I agree with Sfameni Gasparro when she writes: “it is possible, adopting thenecessary ductility and correct comparative methodology, to use the defining categories inquestion to analyse these phenomena, in order to evaluate their historical significance,motivations and effects on the process of conservation, mutation and also disappearance of thevarious religious traditions present in that (the ancient) world” (Sfameni Gasparro 2008: 11).14 North 1992; Sfameni Gasparro 2008.




a reflexive personal commitment beyond belonging to a nation or a polis, as wellas the total adhesion of the initiate, who had to renounce any other form ofreligious activity and, if he wanted to be a good Christian, to adopt a newlifestyle. The Christian God is highly demanding. He sees into the hearts of men,and judges, and for Him, all-out religiousness is but little: “God’s eyes are deep.Men stare at the face, God at the heart. The Lord will cut off from His field allthose who are not His”.15 A sincere commitment, this is the first requirement tobe in the “field”. Christian exclusivist monotheism, made it incompatible withany other religious system.16 Christianity demanded a conversion,17 which im-plied the abandonment of a community that shared one religious identity inorder to enter in another with a new identity and boundaries.18 This was not just“another” religion in the varied religious panorama of the Roman Empire, but analternative to the traditional cults. It is in the context of the expansion ofChristianity in the Mediterranean, and as a consequence of pagan criticism andpersecution, that the Christians developed a reflection on their self-identity andon the relationship among the different religious systems.

1 Persecution and the Apology for Tolerance

In the Greco-Roman world, outside the ambit of philosophy, there was not anestablished tradition of discussing religious beliefs. Christians, in contrast, whowere proselytizers, soon accustomed to discourse on their identity and achieveconversions by explaining their religion publicly and debating about it. Critiquesof Christianity, both at a popular level and by intellectuals,19 and above all thepersecutions,20 stimulated the practice of the Apology, giving rise to a type ofliterature aimed at defending Christianity against its opponents, whether these

15 Tert. Prescription against Heretics 3.7.16 Stroumsa 1993, 1999.17 Nock 1933, reflecting on psychological aspects of the conversion experience, opened a newviewpoint in the way of understanding the relationship between Christianity and other religioustraditions around it.18 Filoramo 2005.19 For critiques of Christianity in the first three centuries: Labriolle 1934; Benko 1980; Wilken1984; Hargis 1999; Levieils 2007.20 A critical bibliography of persecutions in Baslez 2007, who approaches the problem from anoriginal viewpoint, in the framework of the relationships between religion, law and freedom inthe Greco-Roman world.

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be real or imagined ones.21 In the strict sense, apology, which arose as a “genre”in the second century in Greek, is a discourse addressed at Roman authoritiesrequesting a fair legal treatment for Christians, but varied forms of texts areusually included within the apologetic range – apologetic texts, that is, thosedefending against an attack, polemic texts and, in general, works of self-justifi-cation. Apology, in this broad sense, takes various literary forms (petitions,speeches, dialogues, letters) aimed at both external and internal audiences.22

Christian apology is the type of literature in which reflections can be developedon the relationships between the different religions. Therefore, apologetics is avery useful field to understand how the “market-place of religions”23 worked inthe first centuries of the Empire, before Christianity came to be considered areligio licita in the time of Constantine and consequently the peremptory needfor self-justification and defence disappeared.24

The apologists use rhetoric extensively and share a series of topics, which inessence, are the following: 1) a refutation of the accusation of atheism, whichthey suffered from a very early time as they had abandoned the customs of theirancestors; 2) the defence of the antiquity of Christianity and its character ofreligio, based on the argument of “racial” legitimacy; 3) the consideration ofChristianity as a philosophy, the only true one; 4) the defence of the irreproa-chable morality of Christians against accusations of sexual offences, such asincest and infanticide; 5) the civic nature of Christians, excellent citizens of theEmpire; and 6) the justification of the divinity of Jesus and the answer to other

21 On the apologetic genre, if the literature aimed at defence/attack can be called a “genre”,given its variety of forms: Grant 1988; Edwards/Goodman/Price 1999; and the remarks byBarnes 2001; Cameron 2002: 221; Klostergaard 2009. The recent emphasis on religiouspluralism and religious debate in the Roman Empire has stimulated the reflection on the notionand functions of apologetics: Pouderon/Doré 1998; Fiedrowicz 2000; Wlosok/Paschoud 2005;Ulrich/Jacobsen/Kahlos 2009.22 Alexander 1999: 16ff., distinguishes five types of apologetic texts according to the audienceto whom they are aimed: 1) internal apology, as a polemic within the Church; 2) internalapology, as self-definition and/or legitimating literature; 3) “sectarian” apology, as defenceagainst Judaism; 4) apology against the Hellenes, as a form of propaganda; and 5) “political”apology, as self-defence against the political accusations from Roman authorities.23 The metaphor of the “market-place of religions”, usually attributed to John North, definesthe religious situation in the Mediterranean in the first centuries of the Empire. However, North1992:179 takes it from the sociologist Peter L. Berger, The Social Reality of Religion, London1969, who uses it to analyse the process of secularization in the modern world, and findsweaknesses in it when applying it to the reality of the ancient world.24 Rizzi 1993. Although conventionally apologetics ended with Constantine, Christianscontinued writing “apologies” during the fourth and fifth centuries in an effort to separatethemselves from the pagans and the Jews, see Cameron 2002.




theological problems, such as the resurrection, which had been severely critici-sed by pagan intellectuals.25 Apologetic literature, in this attempt at justification,contributed notably to the definition of Christianity as a group, marking thetheological, ethic and cultural boundaries separating it from the religious tradi-tions around it, i. e. Greco-Roman paganism, which the apologists ridiculed forthe banality of its myths and the falseness of its gods, and Judaism, a religionappreciated for its antiquity and monotheism, but considered illegitimate for notrecognising Jesus Christ, and whose legacy Christianity now assumed.

In their labour of self-justification, the apologists tried to present Christianityas a respectable religion, apt for both the illiterate and intellectuals, offeringarguments that justified its social and political acceptance. It tried to achievethat Christianity would at least be tolerated and that the persecutions wouldcease. The religious freedom of the individual and the illegitimacy of coerciondid not form, however, the central arguments to support the legality of Christia-nity in apologetic literature, the central point being the refutation of the accusa-tion of atheism.26 In fact there is no explicit formulation of those principlesamong the Greek apologists, and only a few Latin apologies, following Tertul-lian, develop the topic. Yet it were the Greeks, beginning with Aelius Aristides,who put forward the basic arguments allowing Tertullian, and later Lactantiusand Arnobius, to progress in the articulation of the principle of religious free-dom. These arguments, recurrent among the apologists, are as follows:

1.1 Diversity of national religions

Not all people worship the same gods, which are different from one provinceand city to another. Within the Roman Empire there is a variety of traditions,customs and laws, and also of cults, and nobody is punished because of that.Even the aberrant religion of the Egyptians, who have made animals divine, is

25 The text which best shows this accumulation of topics is the Contra Celsus of Origen, in themiddle of the third century, in eight books. Origen, unlike other apologists, responds to theaccusations expressed in another book, the Alethes Logos (“On the True Doctrine”) by Celsus,which is now lost, the first in which a pagan systematically criticized Christianity. Origen’s replyis equally systematic and constitutes a compendium of answers to the accusations: Frede 1999.The Contra Celsus is an outstanding work in the apologetic genre in that “it reflects the passagefrom the Roman to the Christian understanding of religion”, Stroumsa 1998 a: 81.26 From a very early time, Christianity was considered a superstitio (Tacitus Annals 14.44:exitiabilis superstitio, Suetone, Nero 16: superstitio noua et malefica, Pliny Ep. 10.96, 97:superstitio praua, inmodica, see Hamman 1975), what justified persecution, Janssen 1979.

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respected. Not all subjects worship all gods, and no one is considered irreligiousor atheist for that reason. The emperors and laws of Rome tolerate this situationand no one is prevented from practicing their religion. Athenagoras, who wasabove all preoccupied by the question of the legal status of Christians, startedhis Embassy for the Christians, addressed to Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, bydeveloping this argument:

In your Empire, greatest of sovereigns, different nations have different customs and laws;and no one is hindered by law or fear of punishment from following his ancestral usages,however ridiculous these may be. A citizen of Ilium calls Hector a god, and pays divinehonours to Helen, taking her for Adrasteia. The Lacedæmonian venerates Agamemnon asZeus, and Phylonoë the daughter of Tyndarus; and the man of Tenedos worships Tennes.The Athenian sacrifices to Erechtheus as Poseidon. The Athenians also perform religiousrites and celebrate mysteries in honour of Agraulus and Pandrosus, women who weredeemed guilty of impiety for opening the box. In short, among every nation and people(kata ethne kai demous), men offer whatever sacrifices and celebrate whatever mysteriesthey please. The Egyptians reckon among their gods even cats, and crocodiles, andserpents, and asps, and dogs. And to all these both you and the laws give permission(epitrepete) so to act, deeming, on the one hand, that to believe in no god at all is impiousand wicked (asebes kai anosios), and on the other, that it is necessary for each man toworship the gods he prefers, in order that through fear of the deity, men may be kept fromwrong-doing. But why – for do not, like the multitude, be led astray by hearsay – why is amere name odious to you? Names are not deserving of hatred: it is the unjust act that callsfor penalty and punishment. And accordingly, with admiration of your mildness andgentleness, and your peaceful and benevolent disposition towards every man, individualslive in the possession of equal rights; and the cities, according to their rank, share in equalhonour; and the whole Empire, under your intelligent sway, enjoys profound peace. Butfor us who are called Christians you have not in like manner cared; but although wecommit no wrong – nay, as will appear in the sequel of this discourse, are of all men mostpiously and righteously disposed towards the Deity and towards your government –youallow us to be harassed, plundered, and persecuted, the multitude making war upon us forour name alone.27

27 Athenagoras Embassy 1 (trans. Pratten, in Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. 2). For adiscussion of the date (176–180 AD) and setting of the Embassy (an address to the Emperor inperson) see Barnard 1967. Barnes 1975: 111–114, claims that it was presented to the emperorsduring a visit they made to Athens in the year 175–176. If this is so, the embassy did not havemuch success, as the bloody persecutions of Lyon took place the following year. But theEmbassy could have well been a fictitious speech: see Buck 1996. The variety of religions isalso the argument used by Dionysus of Alexandria, who was persecuted under Valerian, in aspeech in defence of the exiled Christians: “Not all men worship all gods; but each one certainwhom he regards as such. We therefore both worship and adore the one God and Maker of allthings, who also committed the Empire to the Augusti, most highly favoured of God, Valerianand Gallienus; and Him we unceasingly pray for their Empire, that it may remain unshaken”(Eusebius Church History 7.11.8, trans. Oulton, Loeb vol. 2, 1932, p. 265). We find the same




On the basis of the traditional respect for religious diversity and the right of eachpeople to worship their own gods, in their request for tolerance some apologistsafford the argument of ethnicity, which has been originally developed to persua-de critics of the legitimacy of Christianity.28 Christian religion should be respec-ted because Christians form a distinct people, a tertium genus (a “third race”)after the Greeks and the Jews, whose membership, constituted out of peoplefrom the other “nations”, characterise by its worship, the God-fearing race.29

From outside, Christians were also seen contemptuously as a natio. The paganCaecilius, opponent of the Christian Octavius in the dialogue of Minucius Felix,calls the Christians latebrosa et lucifuga natio30 (“a secret tribe that shuns thelight”) and Tertullian defends Christianity from this accusation energetically inApology and To the Heathens.31 In the treatise entitled Scorpiace (“Antidote forthe Scorpion’s Sting”), Tertullian recalls the cry of the pagans in the circus usquequo genus tertium?32 (“Until when – must we bear – the third race?”). Christia-nity, unlike Judaism, was a religion with universalizing claims and without anycommon ethnic roots. Hence it is exclusively the religious affinity which configu-res the Christians into a genus, in the same way that the religious componentmade it possible to group Greeks and Romans together in a primum genus, asthey shared the same conception of divinity, recognised each other’s gods andworshipped them in similar ways. The Jews, with their exclusivist monotheism,formed an alterum genus.

But the rhetoric argument of ethnicity, flexible and ambiguous as it was,could turn into a dangerous one. To present themselves as foreign to Greco-

reasoning two centuries earlier in Jewish apologetic: Philo On the Embassy to Gaius 240:“Perhaps in our embassy we may find some argument or other to persuade him, either bybringing before him all the considerations respecting the honour of God, or the preservation ofour indestructible and unalterable laws, or by urging upon him that we ought not to besubjected to a worse fate than all the nations even in the very most remote extremities of theearth, who have been allowed to preserve their national customs; with reference to which hisgrandfather and great-grandfather came to a righteous decision when they confirmed and setthe seal to our customs with all care” (trans. Yonge).28 Full references in Harnack 1908: 266–278. The relevance of the “race” argument in earlyChristian self-definition, and how modern notions of race have biased the reading of the earlyChristian idea of peoplehood, has become a major theme in recent scholarship. See Buell2002, 2005; Johnson 2004, 2006; Lieu 1995; Olster 1995.29 For Aristides Apology 2, the Christians formed the quartum genus, after the barbarians,Greeks and Jews. For Tatian Oratio ad Graecos 1, in his polemic against Hellenism, Christiansare barbarians and Christianity a “barbarian philosophy”.30 Minucius Felix Octavius 8.4.31 Apology 8.5; To the Heathens 1.8, 1.20.4.32 Scorpiace 10.10.

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Roman culture provided the Christians’ opponents with arguments to accusethem of misanthropy and disloyalty to the Empire.33 Although they do not ceaseinsisting that the Christians form a separate group, the apologists tend to stressthe universal character of their religion, which welcomes people of all races.Justin declares in the exordium of his First Apology, addressed to the emperorAntoninus Pius, that he is writing “in favour of men of all races (ton ek pantosgenous anthropon) unjustly hated and harassed”,34 and returns to this pointseveral times throughout the text.35 The best defence of the universal and civiccharacter of Christianity, at the same time as expressing its detachment from theworld, is found in the Epistle to Diognetus, an anonymous apologetic text datedto the end of the second century, addressed to the heathen Diognetus, whowondered, among other things, why Christians showed such contempt for theworld. Christians – the author of the Epistle argues – are not different from othermen because of their country, nor their language, nor their customs; they do nothave their own cities, nor use a particular language, nor lead a life marked byany singularity; they live in both Greek and barbarian cities, respecting localcustoms in their dress, in their food and in the rest of their everyday conduct;they get married like the others, have children, etc., but they are foreigners intheir land, citizens of heaven.36 Tertullian directly rejects the title of tertiumgenus as if it were a popular invention of the Christians’ enemies, who in thisway tried to portray them as monsters:

We are indeed said to be the third race of men (plane, tertium genus dicimur). What, a dog-faced race? Or broadly shadow-footed? Or some subterranean Antipodes? If you attach anymeaning to these names, pray tell us what are the first and the second race, that so we mayknow something of this “third” (Si qua istic apud uos saltem ratio est, edatis uelim primumet secundum genus, ut ita de tertio constet.) …37 It is ridiculous folly which makes you saywe are the latest race, and then specifically call us the third. But it is in respect of ourreligion not of our nation, that we are supposed to be the third (Sed de superstitione tertiumgenus deputamur, non de natione); the series being the Romans, the Jews, and the Chris-tians after them. Where, then, are the Greeks? or if they are reckoned amongst the Romansin regard to their superstition (since it was from Greece that Rome borrowed even her

33 The accusation of misanthropy is already present in Tacitus Annals 14.44. Tertullian repeatsthe consideration of Christians as “public enemies” in Apology 35.1 (publici hospes), 37.8(hostes maluistis uocare generis humani Christianos), 38.1 (factio inlicita). Also Minucius Felixalludes to the consideration of Christianity as factio and coniuratio, Octavius 8.3 (hominesdeploratae, inlicitae ac desperatae factionis; plebs profanae coniurationis).34 First Apology 1.35 First Apology 25, 53.36 Ep. to Diognetus 5.37 To the Heathens 1.8.1.




gods), where at least are the Egyptians, since these have, so far as I know, a mysteriousreligion peculiar to themselves? Now, if they who belong to the third race are so monstrous,what must they be supposed to be who preceded them in the first and the second place?38

To counteract the accusations of misanthropy and disloyalty to the Empire, theapologists insist on the civic responsibility of the Christians, their devotiontowards the emperors and the benefits of Christianity for Rome: Christians arepeaceful and excellent citizens, they pay their taxes and respect social order.They are, in truth, the best citizens because they worship the true God.39 ForTertullian, the citizens’ loyalty to the Empire and their full integration in it arethe reasons why the emperors should guarantee the Christians religious freedom,on an equal footing with the rest of the subjects.40 Thus he laments, like so manyother apologists, that the Christians are persecuted solely because of their name,without investigating their crimes or submitting them to a trial, like any othercitizen:

In fact, we alone are prevented having a religion of our own. We give offence to theRomans, we are excluded from the rights and privileges of Romans, because we do notworship the gods of Rome.41

For Tertullian, religious freedom is a right linked to Roman citizenship.

1.2 Christianity as a Philosophical School

The second argument of the apologists in claiming freedom is the considerationof Christianity as a philosophical school. As in the case of philosophy, theChristians have taken their name from the founder of their sect.42 Philosophersdisagree amongst themselves about many things and they do not agree on thetruth about the gods.43 Far from it, the different schools profess contrary doc-

38 To the Heathens 1.8.11–13. Cf. 1.20.4; Apology 8.5.39 The attitude of the apologists to the Empire is far from being homogeneous. Minucius Felixand Arnobius, for example, are very negative, while others, as Tertullian and Lactantius, arepositive. See Birley 2005.40 For Tertullian’s attitude towards the state, stressing the loyalty of the Christians and theircharacter of impeccable citizens, see Fredouille 1984.41 Apology 24.9. Cf. To the Heathens 1.2–3; Scorpiace 10.42 Tert. To the Heathens 1.4.43 Hermias Diasyrmos 3.5.

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trines about divinity,44 because to speculate about God is not consideredatheism.45 Some philosophers insult the pagan gods and teach atheism and noone forbids them to profess these doctrines. Only those who have defended truthhave been persecuted. The favourite example of the apologists is Socrates, whothey take as a forerunner of the Christians. Christians, who profess the truephilosophy, should be treated as philosophers, and be conferred the traditionalparrhesia (“freedom of speech”) allowed to them.46 Tertullian takes up thistraditional apologetic argument and redrafts it in terms of freedom of choice:

And yet you openly allow your philosophers the right of attaching themselves to anyschool (libertas transgrediendi a uobis in sectam), and bearing its founder’s name as theirown; and nobody stirs up any hatred against them, although both in public and in privatethey bark out their bitterest eloquence against your customs, rites, ceremonies, andmanner of life, with so much contempt for the laws, and so little respect for persons, thatthey even flaunt their licentious words against the emperors themselves with impunity.47

On this basis, Tertullian demands for the Christians the same treatment given tophilosophers “as regards freedom and immunity of doctrine”.48

1.3 Tolerance and Philanthropy

The third and final argument in favour of religious freedom is of a political-philosophical kind: tolerance is reasonable and just whereas persecution isirrational and tyrannical. When they address emperors, the apologists treat themas philosophers. Athenagoras calls Marcus Aurelius and Commodus “philanthro-pist, kind and gentle emperors (megistoi kai philanthropotatoi kai philomathesta-toi basileuoi) and appeals to their equanimity and their “love of knowledge andtruth” (philomatheioi kai philaletheioi).49 Justin asks Antoninus Pius not to becarried away by violence and tyranny (me bia mede tyrannidi), but by piety andphilosophy (all’ eusebeia kai philosophia).50 To forbid Christianity, argues Ter-tullian, is not philanthropic, but a sign of violence and unjust tyranny.51 The

44 Just. First Apology 4.9.45 Athen. Embassy 5.46 Athen. Embassy 2.47 To the Heathens 1.4.4. The same argument in Just. First Apology 4.9.48 Apology 46. 3.49 Athen. Embassy 2.50 First Apology 3. 2.51 Apology 4.




emperors should seek peace and not discord, above all if the people beingpersecuted do not harm anyone with their religion. Not in vain apologists insiston the pious and peaceful nature of the Christians, on their love for theirenemies, their strict morality and their loyalty to the Empire. The aim of apologe-tic is precisely to convince rulers and intellectuals that Christians and theirbeliefs are not a threat for the state. Tertullian sums up these ideas brilliantly byformulating for the first time a request for tolerance in an acceptance near to themodern meaning of the term. At the end of the Apology, after having refutedextensively the accusations aimed at Christians, he makes an allegation to theemperors for them to cease the violence of the persecutions. Even if Christianitywere a stupid religion and its doctrines mistaken, he says, it harms no one:

(…) at any rate, if they are false and foolish, they hurt nobody. For they are just (in thatcase) like many other things on which you inflict no penalties. Foolish and fabulous things,I mean, which, as quite innocuous, are never charged as crimes or punished. But in a thingof the kind, if this be so indeed, we should be adjudged to ridicule, not to swords, andflames, and crosses, and wild beasts, in which iniquitous cruelty not only the blindedpopulace exults and insults over us, but in which some of you too glory, not scrupling togain the popular favour by your injustice. As though all you can do to us did not dependupon our pleasure.52

A century later, during the persecution of Diocletian, Arnobius of Sicca, closelyfollowing Tertullian here, returns to the idea of the injustice and inhumanity ofthe persecutions: cruelty (crudelitas), barbarism (inhumanitas), contempt (fasti-dium), arrogance (supercilium) all lead Romans not only to offend Christ but topersecute him in a savage war.53 Arnobius pleads for tolerance:

Are His words displeasing, and are you offended when you hear them? Count them asbut a soothsayer’s empty tales. Does He speak very stupidly, and promise foolish gifts?Laugh with scorn as wise men, and leave Him in His folly to be tossed about among Hiserrors.54

A request that, as we shall see below, can be understood in the context of thedebate which broke out between Christian and pagan intellectuals in the yearsof the Great persecution.

52 Apology 49.2–4.53 Arnob. Against the Pagans 1.65.5.54 Arnob. Against the Pagans 1.65.6. For the date of the work in the time of Diocletian, see theconvincing arguments in Simmons 1995.

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2 A New Apologetic Argument: Tertullian onlibertas religionis

In an apologetic text addressed to Scapula, proconsul of Africa in the year 212and a persecutor of Christians, Tertullian complains about the injustice ofpersecution and writes:

(However), it is a fundamental human right, and a privilege of nature (humani iuris etnaturalis potestatis), that each person may worship whatever he wishes: one man’s religionneither harms nor benefits another man. It is assuredly not for religion to compel religion,to which free-will and not force should lead us. Sacrifices are demanded only of thosewilling to perform them.55

The very same argument had been stated in the Apology (a. 197):

Let one man worship God, another Jupiter; let this man raise suppliant hands to heaven,that man to the altar of Fides (…) Look to it, whether this may also form part of theaccusation of irreligion – to do away with freedom of religion (libertas religionis), to forbida man choice of deity (optio diuinitatis), so that I may not worship whom I would not. Noone, not even a man, will wish to receive reluctant worship.56

Tertullian is the first author in Antiquity to demand freedom of religion, conside-ring it to be an individual’s right. We do not know what Tertullian’s sources werefor his arguments in favour of freedom of religion and on the inefficacy ofcoercion. Tertullian states that the premise of liberty was a condition for areligious act to be valid – and some modern scholars also assume it57 – but thepremises of freedom and willingness for a religious act to be valid were foreign tothe mentality and praxis of Roman religion and, as far as I know, such require-ments are not mentioned anywhere else. The participation in public religion, towhich Tertullian refers, was considered a civic act and as such it was expectedthat every citizen, when appropriate, should fulfil that commitment with the stateor with his city. Peter Garnsey suggests that Tertullian might have taken the ideafrom Flavius Josephus, who, in reference to the Roman emperors, remarks thatthey do not willingly accept the honours that they are given by force.58 Tertullian’shint on the “irreligiousness” of intolerance can also be found in Nicolaus’ speech

55 To Scapula 2.2.56 Apology 24.5–6.57 E. g. Pesce 2000.58 Against Apion 2.73. Garnsey 1984: 16, who also suggests that “the breeding ground of thisidea is perhaps the tension, which receives its first exposure in St Paul’s writings, between the




before Agrippa: “as if it were not as great an instance of impiety profanely todissolve the religious solemnities of any others, as to be negligent in the observa-tion of their own towards their gods”.59 Perhaps Tertullian had in mind theepigraphic formula libens animo.60 On other occasions he recurs to the argumentof willingness, appealing to the freedom of conscience: “Therefore, when we areinvited to make a sacrifice, we oppose out of loyalty to our conscience, becausewe know for sure to whom these homages are paid, offered to false images anddivinized human beings”.61 And to the individual’s freedom of choice: “It seemstotally unfair that some free men were forced to make a sacrifice against their will,when at the same time it is publicly declared that cult is voluntary”.62 As we shallsee, during the persecution of Diocletian, other Latin apologists exploited thesearguments extensively with the aim to discredit the use of violence against theChristians and to plea for an end to the persecutions.

The origins of the explicit formulation of the principle of libertas religionisdo indeed seem to lie with Tertullian. Even more original is the fact that theindividual’s freedom of conscience is taken into consideration. Libertas is, in theAncient world, a political idea, a concept that is closely linked to that of citizen-ship: to be free means to be a member of the civic body. The Romans understoodlibertas as an acquired civic right, and not as an innate right of man.63 InAntiquity, “the rights of individuals were unknown or barely so. The individualwas controlled by the State in his private life. As a citizen, he could makedecisions about peace and war, he had the capacity to judge and controladministration; as a subject, he merely had to make his behaviour conform tothe standard imposed by the State. The citizen is sovereign in public matters,and slave in private ones”.64 It is, nevertheless, true that the Roman stategenerally tended not to interfere in the religious life of an individual, especiallyin the private domain. On the other hand, in matters of religion, the notion offreedom of conscience was not altogether unheard of in Rome.65 We do not have

authority of individual conscience and the wisdom of the Christian community”. Stroumsa1998b does not investigate the question of the sources.59 Jewish Antiquities 16.2.3.60 Animo libenti is the expression he uses in To Scapula 2.2; libens animus in Apology 28.61 Apology 27.1.62 Apology 28.63 Wirszubski 1950: 3–7; Brunt 1988. On the absence of the recognition of human rights in theRoman Empire, Gaudemet 1987. Though other meanings of libertas, dealing with the privatesphere of the individual, can be found at the end of the Republica, Arena 2011 b.64 Momigliano 1996: 122.65 The respect for human freedomwas a principle of Cynic philosophy, which was laterdeveloped in amore articulate form by the Stoics: Momigliano 1996: 131–144; Bouffartigue 2007.

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very much information on this, but we do know that the concept of pax deorummeant that the suppression of a divine cult, and the fact that individuals wereconsequently forbidden to pray to the god of their choice, became a delicatematter for the State.66 The famous episode of the Bacchanalia in 186 AD resultedin the prohibition of the cult of Bacchus in Rome and Italy, although that wasmore for reasons of moral and political order than strictly religious motives.67

The cult was considered illegal but, afraid of “harming the right of the deity tobe worshipped” (diuini iuris aliquid immixtum uiolemus), the senate declared that“if anyone felt the need to perform that cult” (si quis tale sacrum solemne etneccesarium duceret), they would be allowed to do so under certain conditions:in groups of fewer than five people and with the permission of the praetor.Although the senate may have been acting cynically in this case – the wholeprocess was aimed at making any form of Bacchic cult impossible whilst main-taining the appearance that anyone could carry it out if they asked for permis-sion –, the fact is that it may be adduced that it was each person’s right toworship the god of their choice.

For Tertullian, as we have seen above, religious freedom was one of therights that the laws of Rome guaranteed for its citizens. In this respect, hisconception of libertas religionis is in consonance with the political conception ofRoman libertas. I believe that this is the essential element to understand theformulation of the idea of libertas religionis in Tertullian: the source lies in theconception of Roman political libertas, more than in Jewish or Christian thought.The Roman religious mentality therefore made a reasoning such as Tertullian’spossible. Yet, such a categorical statement on the individual’s religious libertycan only be understood within the framework of the spread of Christianity andthe conflict with the Roman authorities. Tertullian and other apologists wouldnever have developed the argument of religious freedom, in which that oftolerance is implicit, had it not been for the fact that the Christians werepersecuted. Christians were convinced that they were in possession of the truth,a unique truth, and that any other religious option was a falsehood. In fact, thegods of traditional religions were considered false – the falsehood of paganismbeing a central argument in apologetic literature. It is true, as Guy Stroumsaobserves, that, despite the arguments in favour of the religious freedom ofindividuals, the idea of tolerance was not fully internalised and not even theChristians who openly advocated it allowed it to be exercised within Christiani-

66 On the importance of the concept of pax deorum to explain both religious freedom andintolerance and persecution in Rome, Sordi 1991: 4–8.67 Livy 39.8–19.




ty.68 Tertullian, who wrote a great deal of polemic literature against pagans, Jewsand heretics, is a good example of these contradictions. In The prescriptionagainst heretics, a monographic treatise dedicated to denouncing the malignaction of heresies and their enormous power, Tertullian, who uses the termhaereticus for the first time in Latin, defines a heretic as a person who has madean “arbitrary choice” and insists that Christians are not allowed to introduce orchoose anything new following their own free will (Nobis uero nihil ex nostroarbitrio inducere licet (…) nec eligere quod aliquis arbitrio suo induxerit).69

Despite these contradictions, which deserve a fuller historical analysis bothin its theoretical and in its practical expression, the fact remains that it was theapologists of the second and third centuries who were the first to reflect on theidea of religious freedom at a very precise historical time, when the variety ofreligious options and the contacts between different groups – pagans, Jews andChristians – enabled a debate and, although it was only in appearance, thepossibility of a certain understanding.70

3 Apologetics, Religious Freedom and the Law

As well as the demand for freedom, based on the final argument that neitherChristians nor their beliefs are harmful for the state, the persecutions producedthe first reflection on religious coercion and persuasion. Although the idea isimplicit in many apologists, it was during the Great Persecution when it wasformulated in a more articulate way in reply to the attacks on Christianity fromthe pagan intelligentsia, outstandingly represented by the neo-platonic philoso-pher Porphyry, who was the author of at least two treatises against the Christians(Against the Christians and Philosophy from the Oracles),71 and by Hierocles,author of an anti-Christian work titled Philalethes (“Lover of Truth”) and a man

68 Stroumsa 1998 c: 174.69 Prescription against Heretics 6.1; 6.3.70 In reality, these debates, even in the case of open and philosophical interlocutors, such asJustinus in his Dialogue with the Jew Trypho, or Minucius Felix in his Octavius, are rhetoricalexercises in which, whatever the arguments are, the Christian side is invariably the winner:Fernández Ubiña 2004.71 Porphyry died about 305. Only fragments of his works, cited by his opponents, survive, ed.by Harnack 1916. Although Porphyry has been extensively studied, many uncertainties stillremain about the date and the historical setting of his writings. See Barnes 1973, 1994, 2001:155–159; Goulet 2004; Riedweg 2005 with further references.

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with great political influence who is considered an instigator of the persecu-tion.72

After half a century of tranquillity for the Christians,73 the persecution in theyears 303–311 reopened the debate on tolerance.74 Porphyry wonders whether theChristians, who had distanced themselves from the ancestral gods, choosingimpiety and atheism, should be considered worthy of “tolerance” (syngnome,equivalent to patientia in Latin) or, instead, they should be “justly” (endikos)punished for having abandoned their ancestors’ religion.75 Lactantius, a Christianrhetorician at the court of Nicomedia and a direct witness of the persecution,replies to the attacks coming from an unknown pagan philosopher, and fromHierocles in Book 5 of his Divine Institutions.76 Lactantius conceived this work asthe definitive defence of Christianity, improving all existing works both in contentand in style, as well as a theological summa for the instruction of Christians.77 Inhis defence of religious freedom, Lactantius directly depends on Tertullian, anddoes not afford new arguments.78 The most original aspect of his thought is hisinsistence on the value of dialogue in place of violence. In Book 5 of the Institutio-nes he presents an allegation against the use of force in religious matters and in

72 Lactantius Divine Institutions 5.2.12–17. Eusebius’s authorship of the Against Hierocles hasbeen denied by Hägg 1992, who attributes it to another Eusebius, probably a sophist writing inPontus. Hägg’s proposal is followed by Barnes 2001: 151–152.73 Eus. Church History 8.1 refers to the years between the peace of the emperor Gallienus (ca.260) and the outbreak of the Great Persecution in 303, as a time of glory and freedom, in whichthe numbers of Christians increased greatly, they obtained posts in the administration, andChurch leaders were respected by the rulers. For Eusebius, the Christians were at fault for thepersecution in the time of the Tetrarchy, as during this period of peace and expansion theybegan to make war among themselves.74 See Barnes 1976; Frend 1987; DePalma Digeser 1998, 2000.75 Porph. Fragment from Philosophy from the Oracles (Harnack, 1), quoted by Eus. EvangelicalPreparation 1.2.76 Divine Institutions 5.3–17. DePalma Digeser 1998, following Wilken 1979, identifies thephilosopher alluded to by Lactantius with Porphyry, who would have taken part in the imperialmeeting in which the persecution was decided (Lactantius On the Deaths of the Persecutors 11).The identification of Porphyry as Lactantius’ unnamed philosopher is uncertain, and has beenrecently rejected by Barnes 2001: 158–159; Wlosok 2005: 20–28; Riedweg 2005: 155–160; Heck2005: 209 n. 15.77 Edwards 1999; DePalma Digeser 2000; Heck 2005.78 In Epitome 49.1, Lactantius repeats Tertullian’s reasoning on religious libertas and optiodivinitatis: Atquin religio sola est, in qua libertas domicilium collocavit. Res est enim praeterceteras voluntaria nec imponi cuiquam necessitas potest, ut colat quod non vult (“But it isreligion alone in which freedom has placed its dwelling. For it is a matter which is voluntaryabove all others, nor can necessity be imposed upon any, so as to worship that which he doesnot wish to worship”).




favour of persuasion that is unique in ancient literature.79 Lactantius’s argu-ments, which are highly rhetorical, are in summary as follows: nothing is morevoluntary than religion; the worship of a divinity cannot be imposed, and neithercan anyone be prevented fromworshipping whom they wish; the order to sacrificeis tyrannical; for a sacrifice to be effective it should be made voluntarily andspontaneously, as the Romans themselves demand;80 neither dialogue nor goodreasons are used to attract Christians, but violence and tortures, yet nothing isachieved by force, on the contrary, the more they are persecuted, the more theirnumbers increase; if the Roman authorities want to stop Christianity from expan-ding further they should use good words and counsel. Lactantius invites priestsfrom the Roman religion and all those with religious responsibilities to a publicdebate on the worship of the gods, the fundaments, the essence, the history andthe benefits of Roman religion. The Christians, he argues, are prepared to listen ifthey are taught. The followers of Roman cults should imitate them and give theirreasons, discussing with Christians face to face. Christians do not hold anyoneagainst their will, they are exterminated without mercy and, nevertheless, main-tain their peaceful attitude.

But Lactantius’s collection of arguments is, once again, a product of thecircumstances and responds to a purely rhetorical and apologetic strategy. Infact, in the same work and in the same chapters in which he expounds on theseideas, he shows that by no means had they been internalised. Not only does heunfurl great verbal violence against pagans, whom he calls “slaves of demons”,“evil”, “ignorant” and “morally depraved” beings, but he also displays extremeintolerance in strictly religious terms: there is but one truth, Christianity, whilethe traditional gods are false and their cult is not religio. The following words areillustrative of the ambiguity of the Christian discourse on tolerance and paci-fism:

79 Divine Institutions 5.13, 5.19.80 Lactantius Divine Institutions 5.20 quotes Cicero, On Laws 2.8.19: “Cicero, in his treatise OnLaws, on recalling that ʻthe faithful should approach sacrifices with purityʼ, adds: ʻthey shouldshow piety and reject wealth. Whoever should act in any other way will have God as an avengerʼ(Ad diuos adeunto caste, pietatem adhibento, opes amouento. Qui secus faxit, deus ipse uindexerit)”. Using this sentence, Lactantius states that an enforced sacrifice does not benefit eitherthe sacrificer or the gods. But he forces and misinterprets the meaning of Cicero’s sentence.Referring to the pious ceremonies of the ancestor and state ceremonies, Cicero is dealing herewith rites, correct worship of the gods, temples, etc., and remarks: Separatim nemo habessitdeos neue nouos neue aduenas nisi publice adscitos (“May nobody have private gods, newones, nor foreign ones, unless they have been recognized by the state”). Nothing could befurther from the freedom of worship pleaded for by Lactantius.

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But we, on the contrary, do not require that any one should be compelled, whether he iswilling or unwilling, to worship our God, who is the God of all men; nor are we angry ifany one does not worship Him. For we trust in the majesty of Him who has power to avengecontempt shown towards Himself, as also He has power to avenge the calamities andinjuries inflicted on His servants. And therefore, when we suffer such impious things, wedo not resist even in word; but we remit vengeance to God.81

A thought which brings to mind that of Tertullian:

It is well that there is a God of all, whose we all are, whether we will or no. But with youliberty is given to worship any god but the true God, as though He were not rather the Godall should worship, to whom all belong.82

Internalised or not, the reasoning on religious freedom and the disadvantages ofcoercion had its effects and the legal documents decreeing the end of thepersecutions clearly show its influence.83 The fact that the apologists’ argumentsin favour of tolerance were not extracted mainly from Christianity, but from theGreco-Roman paideia and the Roman political praxis made them acceptable byrulers who, assuming the failure of the persecutions, wanted to present themsel-ves as mild, benevolent and tolerant sovereigns. The earliest of these toleranceedicts to be preserved, the so called “Edict” of Galerius, issued in Nicomedia on30th April 311,84 put an end to the persecutions and granted the Christians thelegal right to exist and to reconstruct their churches.85 The text begins with astatement of the reasons inducing the legislator to declare Christianity a religiolicita. Having taken into account the welfare and interests of the state, that is, so

81 Divine Institutions 5.21.82 Apology 24.10.83 For the context of the legal documents commented on here, of which some aspects are stillunclear: Barnes 1982: 22ff.; Marcone 1993; DePalma Digeser 2006.84 Before Galerius’s tolerance edict, Maxentius had decreed the freedom of Christians in theterritory under his control, i. e. Rome, Italy and north Africa (Eus. Church History 8.14.1), butthis document has not been preserved. According to Eusebius, Maxentius pretended to be aChristian to please and flatter the Romans. There is no reason, however, to think thatMaxentius converted to Christianity. Political motives caused him to put an end to thepersecutions, so that he could present himself as more “favourable” (dexios) and far “gentler”(praos) than his predecessors. See Decker 1968.85 The Latin text of the edict, in the name of Galerius, Constantine and Licinius, as well as thedetails of its publication, are given by Lactantius On the Deaths of the Persecutors 33.11–35.1. Itwas sent by letter to the rest of the Empire. The version in Eus. Church History 8.17.3–10 is atranslation of one of these letters. The edict announced that it would be accompanied by aletter, which either was not written or has not been preserved, giving instructions to the judgesabout how they should act, probably in reference to returning the properties confiscated fromthe Church.




that the Christians might return to the religion of their fathers and the goodintentions behind ordering the persecutions, as the Christians, possessed bygreat obstinacy and foolishness, had abandoned the religious customs of theirancestors, and had acted according to their own free will and desires.86 After theedicts had been issued, establishing their return to traditional beliefs, some gavein to the threats, and many to the tortures. However, as many persevered, andneither worshipped the Roman gods nor their own God, by virtue of the greatimperial benevolent clemency and the inclination of the emperors towardspardon, they had esteemed it appropriate to extend their indulgentia to theChristians also, so that they could exist freely and reconstruct their places ofworship, as long as they did not cause any disturbance to public order.87 In faircorrespondence with the imperial indulgentia, the Christians should pray to theirGod for the health of the emperors, the Roman state and their own, in order thatthe state might remain unharmed throughout its territory and the Christians safein their homes.88 Therefore, the emperors had decreed the freedom of theChristians for strictly political reasons. The freedom of worship is another sign ofthe imperial virtues of clementia and indulgentia, the opposite of tyranny andviolence.

Galerius died a few days after issuing this edict. Caesar Maximinus Daia thenmoved from the Eastern diocese to take over Asia Minor. It became his responsi-bility to promulgate Galerius’s decree of freedom, but he did this reluctantly.89

According to Eusebius of Cesarea, he simply gave oral instructions to thepraetorian prefect, Sabinus, to the effect that the persecutions should ease off,and that he should transmit these instructions by letter to the provincial gover-

86 Galerius acknowledges the distinct character of Christianity: “they framed laws forthemselves according to their own purpose, as each desired, and observed these laws, andthus held various gatherings in various places” (in Eus. Church History 8.17.7).87 Imperial indulgence is also what Gallienus evoked half-a-century earlier to give peace to theChristians: “The Emperor Cæsar Publius Licinius Gallienus, Pius, Felix, Augustus, to Dionysius,Pinnas, Demetrius, and the other bishops. I have ordered the bounty of my gift (dorea) to bedeclared through all the world, that they may depart from the places of religious worship. Andfor this purpose you may use this copy of my rescript, that no one may molest you. And thiswhich you are now enabled lawfully to do, has already for a long time been conceded by me.Therefore Aurelius Cyrenius, who is the chief administrator of affairs, will observe thisordinance which I have given” (Eus. Church History 7.13).88 Lact. On the Deaths of the Persecutors 34.89 In fact, his name does not appear in the heading of the law, together with those of Galerius,Constantine and Licinius, Eus. Church History 8.17.3–5 (Lactantius does not transcribe theinscriptio), most likely due to his dammantio memoriae after his defeat by Licinius in 313. ForMaximinus Daia’s policy towards Christians, see Grant 1975; Mitchell 1988.

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nors, who in turn should inform the local officials.90 A copy of the letter bySabinus has been preserved, translated from Latin to Greek in Eusebius.91 Hismessage is much briefer and more general than Galerius’s Edict. He begins bygiving the reasons, which are the same as those in the Edict: for some time theemperors, guided by the best intentions, have tried to orientate the minds of theChristians by the persecution, so that they might return to the holy and straightway of life and worship the immortal gods, but the Christians have proved to beobstinate, and despite the justice of that order, neither it nor the punishment hasfrightened them.92 In view of this situation, it has been decreed that Christiansshould not be disturbed or punished if they were found taking part in thereligion of their own nation (ethne), as it has been seen with the passing of timethat it has not been possible to persuade (peithein) them to abandon theirobstinacy.93 Although the text does not mention the freedom of religion (norrebuilding the churches), present in Galerius’s Edict, the reasons and the lang-uage of Maximinus’s chancellery recalls those of the apologists. Eusebius goeson to say that the Christians who were held in prison through this law regainedtheir physical freedom (eleutheria) and the freedom of religious expression(parrhesia).94 According to Eusebius, Maximinus, whom he calls the tyrant of theEast, “impious (dyssebestatos) like none other” and “the greatest enemy of God’sreligion in the universe”,95 then decreed that Christians were not allowed to meetin the cemeteries.96 Some cities, perhaps, as Eusebius states, encouraged by theemperor, sent embassies requesting that the Christians be expelled from them.97

Eusebius reproduces, in a Greek translation, the copy of the rescript dated to 6April 312 which, in reply to a request of this type, Maximinus sent to Tyre.98 Theemperor thanks the cities for their love and commitment to the gods when theyask for the expulsion of the Christians, allowing them to return in that way tothe ritual sacrifices of the traditional gods.

90 Church History 9.1.1.91 Church History 9.1.2–6. For this and other documents by Maximinus Daia related with thepersecutions: Mitchell 1988.92 Eus. Church History 9.1.3–5.93 Eus. Church History 9.1.5.94 Eus. Church History 9.1.9–10. Cf. Lact. On the Deaths of the Persecutors 13.1: thepersecution edict of 23 February 303 had deprived the Christians “of freedom and of speech”(libertatem denique ac uocem non haberent).95 Eus. Church History 9.1.1.96 Eus. Church History 9.2,1. Presumably to avoid them to celebrate the feasts of the martyrs.97 Epigraphic copies have been found of the imperial decree authorizing the expulsion:Mitchell 1988.98 Eus. Church History 9.7.3–14.




In the West, where the persecutions had ended, Constantine defeated Ma-xentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in October 312. After the battle,according to Eusebius, Constantine together with Licinius issued a “most perfectlaw” (lex perfectissima) openly in favour of the Christians, which the two Augustisent to Maximinus Daia with the news of the victory over Maxentius.99 Then, atthe end of 312, Maximinus sent a letter to the praetorian prefect, Sabinus, inwhich he repealed the previous persecutory measures.100 The document is extra-ordinarily interesting. Maximinus presents the new anti-persecutory policy ashis own initiative and bases it on the advantages of persuasion compared withviolence as a way to make Christians return to the traditional cults. The tone iscompletely different from the rescript of Tyre cited above. Among his reasons infavour of freedom for the Christians, Maximinus appeals to the ethnic nature ofChristianity (to ethnei ton Christianon), assimilating them to the Jews. Althoughhe still considered Christianity a “superstition” (deisidaimonia),101 he orderedthat “each person should decide according to their own personal preference (tenboulesein echein)” and that the Christians should recognize the cult of the gods“if they wanted” (ei boulointo). Maximinus explains how, when he was called tothe East by Diocletian (as Caesar of Galerius in 305), as soon as he arrived hegave orders to all the provincial governors, that from that time on they shouldcease treating the inhabitants of the province harshly and that they should againattempt to call the Christians to the worship of the gods, using “flattery andexhortation” (kolakeia kai protropais). He now asks Sabinus the prefect to followthe same policy with the provincials, that they should try to maintain such as“custom” (ethos) and they should behave with “patience and restraint” (anecsi-kakos kai symmetros). Maximinus states that in Nicomedia he had received

99 This lex perfectissima has been identified with the so-called Edict of Milan, whose text isreproduced by Lact. On the Deaths of the Persecutors 48.2–8 and Eus. Church History 9.5.1–4.According to Mitchell 1988: 114, who studies the tolerance edicts of 311–312 in detail, this isdifferent from the agreements on religious matters that were reached later in Milan, in February313, between Constantine and Licinius. For Christensen 1984, an edict proposed by Constantinein favour of the Christians was ratified in Milan. This was later published by Licinius in the Eastwith some additions and small modifications (the text re-written by Licinius is the onetranscribed by Lactantius and Eusebius). Constantine, before the meeting at Milan, would havesent this openly pro-Christian edict to Licinius and Maximinus in the form of an imperial letter(Christensen 1984: 165). Eusebius has confused this letter with the later agreements known asthe Edict of Milan: Teja 1982. See below n. 110.100 Eus. Church History 9.9 a.4–9.101 In Greek, equivalent to the Latin superstitio. Eusebius, who is the only source citingliterally the text of the letter from Maximinus Daia to Sabinus, has translated it from the Latinoriginal.

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numerous complaints from citizens who did not want Christians living in theircities. He wishes, following the policy of his predecessors, to maintain friendlyrelations with those who worship the traditional gods and for that reason he asksthe prefect that, by persuasion, he makes the Christians acknowledge the wor-ship of the gods. Maximinus insists that the people who wish to acknowledgethe traditional cult should be protected, at the same time as he suggests thatthose who want to follow their own cult could be allowed to go free.102

In spring 313, after meeting Constantine in Milan, Licinius returned to theEast and commenced his offensive against Maximinus. While he prepared forwar, Maximinus was very cruel to his subjects, especially the Christians.103 In anattempt to win Licinius’s liking, Maximinus issued a final order (diatagma) “toeliminate in the future any suspicion and ambiguity causing fear (to the Chris-tians)”. This order, which Maximinus considers a “gift” (dorea) to his citizens,confirms their right to “approach in the way that each one wishes or likes, thereligion they have chosen to follow habitually”; it also concedes the right tobuild churches and establishes the return of the properties confiscated from theChristians.104 The order, which expresses complete freedom to follow one orother religion, is in reality the publication of the agreements in religious mattersmade in Milan in February 313 by Constantine and Licinius. Maximinus, howe-ver, presents this decision as a personal question, a sign of his concern for thewelfare of the state and the provincials105 and a display of his “piety andprovidence” (eusebeia kai pronoia).106 It is clear that religious freedom, forMaximinus as for Galerius earlier, is not a natural right of the individual, but agesture of benevolence from the rulers; that is, a gift.

Maximinus appears as extremely hypocritical in these matters as for years,even after Galerius’s Tolerance Edict, he continued with the persecution in theEast, and the tone of his rescripts to the cities requesting punishment for theChristians is proof of it.107 But the significant point here is that Maximinusadvocates religious freedom, tolerance and the use of persuasion instead ofcoercion in the same terms as those used by the Christian apologists in his time,particularly Lactantius, who was writing precisely in those years. Maximinus, as

102 The legislator uses the optative: exousia kataleipois.103 Lact. On the Deaths of the Persecutors 37.3–42; Eus. Church History 9.10.1–2.104 Eus. Church History 9.10.10–11.105 Eus. Church History 9.10.7.106 Eus. Church History 9.10.11.107 Eusebius alludes to his hypocrisy in another similar edict, published shortly before hisdeath: Church History 9.10.12, 9.9.13, 9.9 a.10. Also Lact. On the Deaths of the Persecutors 37.1says that Maximinus was not sincere.




Galerius had done before, insists on the justice of the persecutions in the face ofthe accusations of injustice and tyranny made about the emperors in apologetictreatises. The purpose of the persecutions, according to the imperial version,had not been coercion in itself, but the desire to make those who had desertedtheir own immortal gods return to their worship, through correction and exemp-lary punishment.108 The imperial decision to put an end to the persecution,however, was not guided by the conviction that religious freedom was a naturalright of the individual, but out of political interest and for pure propaganda.Maximinus pretended to act as a good ruler, claiming that he was trying to solvea situation of conflict in the provinces under his control in a humanitarian andcivilized way. He tried to act as a good emperor, that is, by attending to thedemands of the followers of the traditional cult,109 but without exercising toomuch violence on the Christians, who were also citizens under his government.In reality, if Maximinus wished to be on good political terms with his collea-gues, above all with Licinius, he had no other option than to promulgate theagreement on matters of religious tolerance that Licinius and Constantine hadreached after the victory over Maxentius and the later agreements in Milan inFebruary 313.

On 13 June, from Nicomedia, Licinius issued his own “edict” on religiousfreedom, in which he also publicized the agreements made in Milan.110 Euse-bius’s version, a Greek translation of the text sent to Cesarea of Palestine,preserves the preamble, which is highly illustrative of how the imperial chancel-lery had assimilated the language and Christian concept of religious freedom:

Perceiving long ago that religious liberty (eleutheria tes threskeias) ought not to be denied,but that it ought to be granted to the judgment (dianoia) and desire (boulesis) of eachindividual to perform his religious duties according to his own choice (kata ten autou

108 Cf. Eus. Church History 9.9 a.1; Lact. On the Deaths of the Persecutors 31.1–3.109 Perhaps instigated by him, as Eusebius says. Mitchell 1988: 118 states that Maximinusorganised the requests from the cities through the governors, who were in a good position toinfluence public opinion. Being or not instigated by Maximinus, the cities were certain that hewould welcome their petition.110 Lact. On the Deaths of the Persecutors 48.2–12; Eus. Church History 9.5.4–11. I do notshare the opinion of Sordi 1983: 149, found explicitly or implicitly in much of the literatureabout Constantine, that the concept of religious freedom is “totalmente ed esclusivamente diCostantino, condizione da lui posta al collega pagano (Licinio)”. Today, it is usually agreed thatthe “edict” of Milan did not exist as such, and the text transmitted by Eusebius and Lactantiusis the letter (Lactantius calls it litterae) with which Licinius promulgated the Milan agreementson religious matters in the East (Maximinus Daia had already done this a short time before).The so-called edict of Milan is in reality a text based on the Edict of Galerius in 311 and otherdocuments, like the letter from the praetorian prefect Sabinus (Eus. Church History 9.1.3–6).

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proairesin ekaston), we had given orders that every man, Christians as well as others,should preserve the faith of his own sect and religion.111

For this and other causes described below (i. e. the restrictions on their freedom towhich the Christians had been submitted), Constantine and Licinius decided toconcede, for public benefit and use, freedom of religion both to Christians and toall in general, in order that the deity would continue granting its benevolence tothe emperors. All restrictions on religious freedomwere abolished and the right ofall (Christians and the others) to make religious choices as they wished wasreiterated. Finally, it was established that the properties confiscated during thepersecutions should be returned to the Christians as individuals and to theChurch as an institution, noting those who should now pay them compensationfrom the state. The version of the “edict” offered by Lactantius, a copy of the textpublished by Licinius in Nicomedia, is substantially similar to that of Eusebius.112

The religious freedom granted by the “edict” of Milan is fundamentallybased on the Roman concept of pax deorum, on the right of the deity to beworshipped freely and on the convenience for emperors and subjects that itshould be done so. In this respect it is very similar to the Edict of Galerius.However, some aspects of the concept of religious freedom are not present in theother tolerance laws that have been preserved. In the first place, it takes intoconsideration the right of individuals to make a personal religious choice, anidea that was foreign to Roman mentality, as was made clear in the Edict ofGalerius, which reproaches the Christians for having arbitrarily chosen a diffe-rent religious option from that of their ancestors. In the second place, the “edict”of Milan explicitly acknowledges the freedom and the right (exousia)113 of all,Christians and non-Christians, to make a religious choice and to put it in practicewithout restrictions. The emperors respond to the Christians’ petition of religiousfreedom in the same terms as apologists had asked for it.

4 Epilogue

The Christians, a persecuted minority, needed tolerance, and the discourse ofreligious freedom is a product of that circumstance. It was a discourse construc-

111 Eus. Church History 10.5.2. The preamble is absent from Lactantius’s version.112 For a comparative study of both: Christensen 1984.113 Eus. Church History 10.5.5.




ted not with specifically Christian arguments, but from the principles that ruledGreco-Roman religion and above all the Romans’ religious mentality and thepolitical praxis of the Empire in religious matters. In fact, it were the Latinapologists and not the Greeks who formulated the idea explicitly. This discourseproduced its effects and the legal documents decreeing the end of the persecu-tions show it. The analysis of the arguments given in the different decrees tojustify the end of the persecutions is able to prove this.

The new status of Christianity after the end of the persecutions changed thediscourse of the Christian intellectuals, who stopped advocating freedom andbegan to appreciate the advantages of coercion. Clearly, not all the authorsspeak in the same terms and many of them are moderate. Many very varied textsare available for the post-Constantinian period, and it would not be correct tomake a generalized opinion. But a tendency towards a harder and more radicalattitude can be noted, and it is the same for the three kinds of enemies ofChristianity, pagans, Jews and heretics, and especially hard towards the lattergroup. Hence, in the last decades of the fourth century, when stricter laws werein force against non-Catholics and religious violence became a relatively com-mon phenomenon, it was the pagans and heretics who pleaded for tolerancewith arguments that were in part similar to those of Tertullian and Lactantius.Even more moderate thinkers, such as Augustine of Hippo, who had advocateddialogue and persuasion as instruments of conversion for many years, finallysuccumbed to the usefulness of coercion. In one of his letters Augustine acknow-ledges the effectiveness of the imperial laws to end with the dissidents, with theaim of correcting them and saving them.114 For Augustine, coercion is an act oflove, that love of which Jesus preached with regards to one’s enemies. As Freudpointed out, it is paradoxically this love, which makes Christianity reach out toembrace everyone in order that they may be saved, which generates intole-rance.115 In the final decades of the fourth century, as Christianity became theonly religion authorized by the Empire, pagan intellectuals took up the discourseof tolerance, equally under the pressure of an adverse situation, after the statehad abandoned its links with the traditional cults and with the threat of verysevere laws against those who continued to follow it.116

114 Ep. 93. For Augustine’s change of attitude with regards to the legitimacy of coercion as aninstrument of conversion: Brown 1964; Vanderspoel 1990; Russell 1999; Gaddis 2005: 131–150.115 Stroumsa 1993: 377–380.116 The increasing Christian intolerance towards paganism in the post-Constantinian periodgenerated a response from pagan intellectuals, who pleaded for freedom to continue followingtraditional religion. However, this reply of paganism to Christian intolerance, which has beenthe subject of numerous studies, lies beyond the scope of the present essay. See: Momigliano

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What was it that changed the Christian discourse of tolerance? Certainly, theprivileged situation of power after Constantine explains the change in attitude.Yet power is not the origin of Christian intolerance. Guy Stroumsa, one of themost lucid scholars of this historical-religious problem, has shown that thereexists a double standard in Christianity; on one hand, there is the “eirenic”tendency, peaceful and calm, and on the other, the “eristic” tendency, violentand combative.117 As long as Christianity was still a marginal sect, the formerprevailed – the eirenic, which has much to do with the utopia of an eschatologi-cal community. However, the other tendency, the eristic, manifests itself in itscontempt for polytheism and, above all, in its inflexibility regarding internaldissidence. It is in this combat against the “insiders” where Christianity hasshowed its potential for intolerance since early times.

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