By Bart D. Ehrman, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Earliest Christians in the Roman world were widely persecuted. The first stories of the ill treatment against the Christians are in the New Testament book of Acts. The text provides us with the oldest account of the history of earliest Christianity, including its missionary activities, growth, and opposition from those who rejected its message.
Christian Records of Jewish Opposition
Although some of the facts might be exaggerated, the book of Acts does offer reasonable accounts of Jewish opposition. In the account, when the followers of Jesus publicly proclaimed that Jesus is the Messiah, Jewish leaders in Jerusalem attacked the view as outrageous and tried to silence the Christian preachers.
The martyrdom of Stephen is not mentioned in any source outside of Christian sources. But his death does play an important role in the narrative of Acts, as well as in its companion volume Luke, the Gospel. Because both books want to emphasize that the Jews are the enemy.
In the first volume, the Gospel narrative of Jesus, it is the Jews rather than the Romans who are responsible for the death of Jesus. Jesus is put on trial before Pilate, the Roman governor, and the Jewish leaders call out for his crucifixion.
This became standard polemic among Christians already in the period of the New Testament. Polemic against Jews. Jews rejected the claims of Christians about Jesus, and as a result, Christians rejected Jews.
By the end of the 2nd century, we have Christian texts claiming that since Christ was God, and since Jews were responsible for his death, the Jews murdered God. Certainly, no one was claiming that in the 1st century, in the time of Luke and Acts.
Paul’s Letters on the Persecution
Paul’s letters explicitly state the persecution that the early Christians faced. Paul, after he became a Christian preacher, suffered severe corporal punishment from Jewish leaders.
In the book of Second Corinthians, Paul indicates that on five occasions during his missionary activities, he received 40 lashes minus one.
But the basic idea behind these narratives seems solid. When Christians came to be known, they were seen as anti-social and opposed to Roman religious customs and ways, and to that extent, they were undesirable elements of society, and they were treated accordingly.
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New Testament Book of 1 Peter
In addition to Acts and the letters of Paul, one other place to learn about the persecution of Christians in the 1st century is the New Testament book of 1 Peter. Although the book is short, it does give a good deal of information about Christians suffering persecution for their faith.
The word suffer occurs more in this brief book of five chapters than in the 52 chapters of the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts put together, which are also highly concerned about suffering.
Who Wrote Book of 1 Peter?
The book of 1 Peter claims to be written by Jesus’s closest disciple, Peter, but scholars have long adduced serious reasons for doubting the same. It appears to have been written by someone else claiming the Apostle’s name, sometime near the end of the 1st century.
This author regularly speaks of the Christians suffering trials and persecutions, urging them to be strong and telling them to rejoice in their sufferings. The author states if the followers of Jesus suffer as Christ did, they will be glorified much like him. And so, the path to glory is through suffering, and so you should be happy when people persecute you.
Vague Records of Suffering
The author never specifies exactly how these people are suffering, but it appears to be fairly severe. He calls it a “fiery ordeal”. There’s nothing in the text itself to indicate that this was some kind of official persecution ordered by the Roman state.
On the contrary, the author of 1 Peter intimates that the suffering that the Christians are experiencing in the communities is coming at the hands of former friends and neighbors of the Christians. They don’t like or appreciate the fact that the Christians have abandoned their pagan ways and have adopted this new faith.
So the author here puts his own spin on it to say back that as a Gentile you engaged in all sorts of acts of dissipation. Now your community is angry with you because you don’t continue to do so. And so that’s the reason for the persecution. These people don’t like the Christians becoming antisocial in their views because they’ve removed themselves from pagan celebrations.
So, Why the Resentment?
Christians who joined the church community removed themselves from pagan cults and practices. That, in many cases, would have involved not attending city festivals and celebrations in honor of the pagan gods. Instead, they met in secret to celebrate their own mysterious rights. Their families, friends, and neighbors didn’t understand, and they resented it.
It is comprehensible that this would lead to verbal abuse and rejection. It’s not completely clear how it might lead to physical abuse, but as recorded in Paul and the book of Acts, it obviously sometimes did so. It may be simply that fights broke out and that people were getting beat up.
Other Texts Noting the Atrocities
Other writings suggest that the physical abuse went to the extreme. It is seen in Acts that Stephen was allegedly stoned to death. In Second Corinthians, Paul himself says that there was one time he was stoned with rocks.
The book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, indicates that there were many, many Christian martyrs already by the end of the 1st century. There are references to Christians being literally martyred; executed for being Christian in three chapters of Revelation, Revelation 6, and 18, and 20.
Fact or Fiction?
This author really believed there was a serious number of martyrs in his day. However, one recent scholar of early Christianity, Candida Moss, has written an entire book arguing that the idea that there were sizeable numbers of Christian martyrs is simply a myth.
It’s not a myth that there was some opposition, of course, and that sometimes that opposition could turn violent. Even if there were not thousands of executions, there were certainly some already in the 1st century.
And then in the 2nd century, some Christians did pay the ultimate price for their faith. Often the persecutions were for social reasons, even if these were rooted in Christian religious views.
Common Questions about Historical Texts on Early Christian Persecution
The records of early Christian persecution can be found in most of the Christian texts including the book of Acts, Paul’s Letters, and the Book of 1 Peter.
The book of 1 Peter claims to be written by Jesus‘s closest disciple Peter, but scholars have long adduced serious reasons for doubting the same. It appears to have been written by someone else claiming the Apostle’s name, sometime near the end of the 1st century.
The Christian texts believed there was serious persecution of the early Christians. It’s not a myth that there was some opposition, of course, and sometimes the opposition turned violent. Even if there were not thousands of executions, there were certainly some already in the 1st century.
