the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Persecution
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or 1. Introduction.-‘For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you’ (Matthew 5:12). ‘If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you’ (John 15:20). Jesus Christ traced the red trail of the martyr’s blood throughout the history of Israel, which He sums up in the words-‘from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zachariah’ (Genesis 4:8, 2 Chronicles 24:20-21, Luke 11:51). He Himself was in the succession of martyrs, for the trail is deeply marked in connexion with His life. But the trail does not cease at the tragedy of the Cross. It is obvious that our Lord often warned His disciples in regard to the attitude of Jerusalem and Rome to those who would remain faithful to Him and His teaching. He could see the blood-stained track in connexion with the history of the Church. We must consider our subject in the light of this three-fold reference, so that we may see to what degree, and in what sense, the term ‘persecution’ is applicable to the attitude of the nation through its rulers (1) to her religious teachers, (2) to Christ, and (3) to His followers. When we deal with Jesus Christ and His followers we shall find Jerusalem allying herself with Rome in her effort to crush the New Teacher and His teaching, and finally Rome taking matters into her own hands, and devoting her whole energy to the extermination of what one of her historians described as a pestilent superstition._
If we define ‘persecution’ provisionally as the infliction of suffering, whether it be temporary discomfort or death, upon individuals for holding or advocating religious views, and adopting or propagating religious practices, which are obnoxious to the community, or to those in authority, we shall have a definition sufficiently broad and comprehensive to cover the cases in connexion with which the term has been used. It may not be necessary for the persecuted persons to be active in the propagation of their tenets, although the strong conviction, which has generally inspired men to endure persecution rather than abandon their views, produces the missionary spirit. Those who inflict punishment on religious offenders may not admit the charge of persecution, as, according to them, the whole life of the individual is subject to the control of the State, and any and every activity comes under the law of the land. In the strict sense of the term, the infliction of suffering on account of religious opinions is persecution, if the adoption of such views on the part of individuals is not incompatible with loyalty to the throne or the secular power, and with the due discharge of their duties as citizens of the realm. From the point of view of the State, such punishment deserves to be described as persecution if the secular authorities admit the contention that there is a sphere within which the secular authority has no jurisdiction, and if nevertheless it punish those who use their freedom within this sphere. But the advocates of punishment in the case of religious recusancy deny the existence of such a sphere in the life of the individual, and therefore they do not plead guilty to the charge of persecution. In short, the whole problem is concerned with the assertion on the part of the individual, and the denial on the part of the State, that there is a sphere within which the subject is free, and must be permitted to follow the promptings of his conscience. When we consider, in its historical aspects, the relationship between the individual and the State, and when we trace the struggle on the part of the former to secure that measure of freedom which individuality presupposes, it becomes clear that there is a region which the individual claims as his own peculiar territory. For the annexation of this territory, and afterwards for the defence of it, Hebrew prophet and Christian martyr have laid down their lives, and the struggle has been continued throughout the centuries in many lands. It is being increasingly recognized that the individual has demonstrated the justice of his claim to the sole possession of this territory. Within this limited sphere he is free. To change the figure, whilst the individual admits the right of the State to enter the Outer Court and even the Holy Place, there is a Holy of Holies which is reserved for himself. There he deals not with the State, or with his fellow-citizens, but with God. As we follow the struggle for religious freedom, whether the struggle be with the secular authority or with a Church which has taken the place of the State, and exercises its functions, it is plain that the conflict is waged around this territory-the freedom of the religious man. Whether they are Hebrew prophets or Christian martyrs-Albigenses, Pilgrim Fathers, or Huguenots-the struggle is at bottom of the same nature, and for the same ideal. It will not be denied that various motives have been operative, both in the case of those who persecute, and of those who submit to persecution; for it is seldom that human motives are unmixed. Nevertheless the passion for religious freedom has been a genuine and powerful factor in all the truculent conflicts between the State or the Church on the one hand, and individuals or communities on the other who have refused to conform. It may be said that no other motive would have been potent enough to create that ‘sheer obstinacy’ of which Marcus Aurelius had occasion to complain in the case of the Christians of his time. But kings have been loath to acknowledge the right of subjects to decide for themselves how they are to worship, or what they are to believe. States have persecuted because they have refused to recognize the existence of a sphere in which men are free, and men have endured persecution because they have grasped, more or less clearly, the truth that freedom belongs to the very essence of the religious attitude, and determines its moral worth. They have endured great affliction, and taken joyfully the spoiling of their possessions, seeing they had themselves for a better possession. This better spiritual possession was conditioned by their retaining their religious freedom (Hebrews 10:32; Hebrews 10:34).
2. Persecution in the OT.-In Matthew 5:12 Jesus Christ warns His disciples of the troublous times which await them at the hands of the representatives of Judaism, and reminds them that their experience will be a repetition of the bitter experience of the nation’s religious teachers whom God had raised up from time to time, and whose writings indicate their growing insight into the nature of God and religion. To Jerusalem our Lord gave the hard but not unjust name of ‘prophet-killer’ (Matthew 23:35, Luke 13:34). Stephen re-echced his Master’s interpretation of the nation’s attitude when he asked ‘which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute?’ (Acts 7:52). Jesus charged His contemporaries with raising sepulchres to the prophets whom their ancestors had put to death (Luke 11:47). He did not mean that they erected expiatory monuments to the nation’s martyrs. The sepulchres they built indicated their approval of the misdeeds of their forefathers. In the parable of the Vineyard He gave a similar account of the nation’s attitude to her God-sent teachers (Mark 12:3 ff.).
But it is obvious that the prophets were not simply men who suffered for their religious opinions. They were aggressive religious and social reformers. In their teaching they came into collision with the existing order of things in social life and religious custom. In the period which succeeded the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan the people adopted the gods and the religious observances of the original inhabitants of the land. The prophets of this early age advocated the sole worship of Jahweh. Moses impressed upon Israel the two-fold truth-Jahweh is Israel’s God, and Israel is Jahweh’s people. The burden of early prophecy was ‘Israel for Jahweh’ and ‘Jahweh for Israel.’ They were patriots rather than religious teachers. Patriotism and religion were identical. They opposed the popular tendency to worship the gods, and imitate the religion, of Canaan, as it indicated disloyalty to Jahweh. They were not fully aware of any profound difference between Jahweh and other gods, except that Jahweh was the God of Israel, and, as such, interested in the welfare of Israel and entitled to their undivided homage.
When we come to Elijah, we find ourselves on the confines of a new age. Henceforth the prophets denounced the existing order of things-religious and social. They ethicized theology and religion, and in their capacity as religious teachers they became inevitably social reformers, for the whole basis and structure of society were religious. The message they delivered became increasingly unpalatable, especially to those who were responsible for the existing State. The true prophets parted company with the false prophets because they would not ‘fall in’ and preach what was popular. In the time of Elijah the antagonism between the prophet and the throne-or between religious conviction and the secular authority-issues in open conflict. Elijah is more than a passive resister; he carries the conflict into the enemy’s territory, and fights the throne with its own weapons. We have seen that Elijah, like his predecessors, advocated the sole worship of Jahweh. Ahab had married the daughter of the king of Tyre, and proceeded to strengthen the alliance between Israel and Tyre by introducing the worship of Melkarth, the presiding deity of Tyre. The example of the throne was a potent influence in the life of Israel. It was easy to persuade the people that the alliance with Tyre was not complete unless the Tyrian Baal shared with Jahweh the homage of Israel. The people were halting between two opinions. They were not conscious of any inconsistency or duplicity. If gods could help, the more gods they worshipped the better. There was safety in numbers. Elijah stemmed the tide and a strong party refused to follow the example of the throne. The conflict between Elijah and Ahab was not simply whether one god or another should be worshipped-Jahweh of Israel or Melkarth of Tyre. It was a clashing of two incompatible theologies. It is probable that Ahab would have recommended the worship of both deities. The tendency of the age was in the direction of religious syncretism. But from Elijah’s standpoint it was a matter of impossibility to practise this religious dualism. We can trace in Elijah’s attitude the germ of that exclusiveness which is inevitable when the terms ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ or ‘true’ and ‘false’ are introduced into religion. The line of cleavage is sharply drawn in the story of the prophet’s life. Right is exclusive; truth is intolerant. It was absolutely necessary that the stand should be made and the protest raised. To Elijah ‘Baal and Yahweh represented, so to speak, a contrast of principles, of profound and ultimate practical convictions; both could not be right, nor could they exist side by side. For him there existed no plurality of Divine Powers, operating with equal authority in different spheres, but everywhere One Holy and Mighty Being, who revealed Himself, not in the life of nature, but in those laws by which alone human society is held together, in the ethical demands of the spirit’ (J. Wellhausen, Isr. und jüd. Gesch.3, Berlin, 1897, p. 74, quoted in Century Bible, ‘1 and 2 Kings,’ Edinburgh, n.d., p. 222). We must not be surprised or disappointed that Elijah believed in the use of force. Centuries must pass before the idea is fully understood that religion is voluntary, and that ccercion is alien to its very nature. Elijah delighted in violent measures. He was at home in an environment of earthquake, storm, and fire. He met the king on his own ground, and prosecuted the struggle with his own weapons. Moral suasion would have made no appeal to the mind of the age, and it was only poetic justice that the prophet was able to turn the tables on his adversaries. It is not always easy to decide whether Elijah or Ahab is the persecutor, for both believed in violence as the only means to the end which they had in view. But we find in the story of the life and work of Elijah a religious conviction that is daring enough to stand up to the secular authority and defy its directions. Ahab’s policy may seem to suggest breadth of mind, whilst Elijah’s attitude betokens theological narrowness; but in this case the narrow way was the way of life, whilst the broad way was also the way of death.
But Elijah came into still closer grips with Ahab. He denounced the throne on moral grounds. He spoke in the name of Jahweh, and therefore in the name of righteousness. The prophet’s predecessors identified the cult of Jahweh with patriotism. Elijah identified the worship of Jahweh with social morality. This was the new note which prophecy struck, and it occurs as a refrain in the teaching of all his successors. Elijah had the courage to denounce Ahab for his treatment of Naboth, and the prophet did so, not as a statesman or economist, but as a theologian. The religion of Jahweh issues in social righteousness. Ahab might worship Baal and steal his subject’s private property. As a worshipper of Jahweh he could only ‘do justly.’ Jahweh’s will was everlasting right. The problem raised by the king’s seizure of Naboth’s estate was not social or economical, but religious, for it fell within the scope of the religion of Jahweh. Ahab’s conduct was not larceny, but sacrilege. It was not the violation of a social law as such that roused the anger of the prophet, but his defiance of the will of God. For Jahweh requires of His worshippers that they do justly (Micah 6:8). When the prophet condemned the king’s effort to legitimize the worship of the Tyrian Baal, or his unsocial conduct, he spoke in the name of God, and in the interest of religion. He was prepared to employ force himself, as he was ready to endure persecution rather than cease from condemning what he believed to be wrong or false, i.e. contrary to the Divine will, or from advocating what he believed to be right and true. We shall search in vain for a parallel fact in the whole Semitic world. In other lands the prophets were obliging courtiers and fell in with the royal wishes. We should traverse the Semitic world in vain for an attitude like that of Micaiah-ben-Imlah-‘what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak’ (1 Kings 22:14)-when the king had given peremptory orders that he should fall in with his fellow-prophets. The latter received their reward in royal bounties, but Micaiah’s message secured for him the bread-and-water diet of the jail (1 Kings 22:27).
Elijah was the Wycliffe of Hebrew prophetism; the principles which emerge in connexion with the story of his life were clearly grasped by Amos and his successors, and fearlessly applied to the criticism of the religious and social situation of Israel and Judah. The prophets loved their nation and their country. There never were truer patriots than Hosea and Jeremiah. But they were not patriots of the common type. They would not preach smooth things. That was the privilege of the court-prophets whose message was inspired from the throne. The false prophet was concerned with the question ‘What does the king want?’ The true prophet was concerned with the question ‘What does Jahweh your God require?’ The latter was sure of his ground and of the Divine approval as the former was of his reward and of the royal favour. The prophets thus came into collision with current theology, for they declared that Jahweh was not simply the God of Israel, but the God of righteousness, and they came up against popular religion, for they identified religion with the practice of social justice. Their patriotism was sincere and unmistakable, but they placed social righteousness above the mere continuity or safety of the realm or the mere practice of ceremonial religion. Their theology played havoc with the current belief that Jahweh was simply the God of Israel, as well as with the prevalent view that religion was ritual. If Jahweh was a moral governor, and if, further, the national life was totally at variance with the requirements of ethical religion, the expected ‘day of Jahweh’ would be darkness and not light-disaster, not deliverance (Amos 5:18). The power that worked for righteousness in national and international affairs would wreck any society which ignored or violated the fundamental principle of moral government, for the will of Jahweh must prevail. Their theology made the prophets preachers of judgment and destruction. The doom which they announced might be staved off by national repentance and reform, but Jeremiah, who had witnessed a religious reformation carried out by the throne, was forced to the conclusion that repentance of the true kind was beyond the reach of Judah. The nation’s illness was incurable (Jeremiah 30:12-15). It was inevitable that the prophet should come into collision with the State. The prophet would not be cajoled, threatened, or silenced; his consciousness of the urgency of his message was such that silence, or even any modification of the truth as he perceived it, would be moral treachery. The prophet is necessarily insistent, uncompromising, intolerant, exclusive. To him the line of demarcation between the true and false-the right and wrong-is clear, and it must be recognized and enforced. The retort of the nation’s official leaders to this fearless exposition of the demands of true religion was persecution.
3. Persecution of the Jews by the Seleucid kings.-It is universally admitted that the Exile introduced a new epoch in the history of the Jew. But it is easy to exaggerate the nature of the cleavage. There are no absolute beginnings in the history of nations. The student has no difficulty in discovering ample evidence of continuity in social organization and religious praxis. Nevertheless the post-Exilic period was a new age in the history of the nation. The religious leaders of the new age believed that the Exile was the judgment announced by their pre-Exilic predecessors. The nation had completed her period of servitude and made ample compensation for all her sins. Her iniquity was pardoned (Isaiah 40:2). According to the teaching of the prophets the Israel of God would be a nation which organized its whole life-social and religious-in accordance with the Divine will. Such a people would constitute a kingdom of God. It was the belief of the post-Exilic community that its national life was organized on the lines laid down in the Book of the Law. Judah had become once more the people of Jahweh; in possession of a Bible which embodied the will of God, and controlled her whole life, she stood over against the Gentile world, with its idols and superstitions. God was known and worshipped only in Judah. Pure religion was the sole possession of the Jew.
The rest of the world was without God and without religion, for the gods of the nations were idols, and their religions were superstitions. The post-Exilic Jew was conscious of his superiority among the nations of the Semitic world, and his tendency was to stand aloof in contemptuous isolation. In post-Exilic literature we can trace the universalism of Deutero-Isaiah and the particularism of Ezekiel and Ezra. The Jew owed no less to the universalism of the former than to the particularism of the latter his sense of superiority to the rest of the world. In both Judah occupied a central and unique position. According to Deutero-Isaiah it was the mission of Israel to convert the nations of the world and make the religion of Judah the religion of the nations. According to Ezekiel the Jew would come to his inheritance through the annihilation of the heathen. The one believed in the incorporation, and the other in the destruction, of the nations. The Jew found a solid foundation for his religious exclusivism in Deutero-Isaiah as well as in Ezekiel. To the former Jahweh alone was God, and Israel was His servant and His missionary to the ends of the earth. No God but Jahweh-no religion but the religion of Judah: a people that held that view dwelt alone in the ancient world with its easy-going polytheism and its indolent syncretism.
The result was that every conqueror found in Judah an attitude which he discovered nowhere else throughout the Semitic world, and he could no more understand the significance of it than the Roman Emperor at a later date could understand the attitude of the Christian believer. Other nations were prepared to fall in with the wishes of the conqueror. They were willing conformists, but Judah was an implacable nonconformist. ‘You are the only people,’ said Agrippa, in his effort to dissuade the Jews from rebelling against Rome, ‘who think it a disgrace to be servants of those to whom all the world hath submitted.’ Judah would not submit, and the reasons for her recusancy were not so much political as religious. Judah’s nationalism was rooted in her religion. The cause of Judah was the cause of Jahweh. The Kingdom of God was identified with the kingdom of Judah. It is interesting to note that the nation’s religious teachers in the past arraigned Israel on the ground of her eagerness to imitate neighbouring nations by adopting their gods and religious customs. It was during the exile in Babylon that the Jew thoroughly mastered the prophetic doctrine of the uniqueness of Jahweh and of His religion. Conscious of the nature of the possession which he had in his religion, he cultivated national self-confidence and self-reliance, which ultimately degenerated into national pride and exclusiveness. In exile the Jew learnt how to resist the pressure of a hostile environment, and the lesson stood him in good stead throughout the post-Exilic period, for the position of Judah in the Semitic world was precisely the position of the exiles in Babylon. The Book of Daniel, which purports to describe the situation of the Jew in exile, could not be otherwise than a powerful appeal to Judah in the 2nd cent. b.c. to imitate the heroes of the Exile and remain loyal to her ancestral faith and religion. But a nation like this was a disturbing element and a standing menace to the unity of the Empire to which it belonged. Most nations are conquered when their army is defeated, their territory annexed, and their independence taken from them. Nation after nation in the Semitic world succumbed to the domination of the Macedonian conqueror. But neither Assyria nor Babylon, nor Persia, nor Macedon nor Rome conquered Judah, for a nation is conquered only when her soul is subjugated. Judah retained her unconquerable soul. Antiochus Epiphanes, the most powerful representative of the Seleucid dynasty, made an effort to complete the subjugation of Judah by conquering her soul, but in his campaign he came across a stronghold in the nation’s conscience-or her religious self-consciousness-which defied all his assaults. The invader possessed no arms to carry the campaign to a successful issue. Antiochus was an extremely able ruler. It was his programme to unify his Empire by universalizing Hellenism. Greek civilization was to be the tie that would bind together the different parts of his heterogeneous Empire. It was a magnificent scheme, well conceived and vigorously carried out, and the Emperor met with little or no opposition until he reached Judah. He did not persecute on religious grounds. The Emperor had no deep-rooted objection to the religion of Judah-except its exclusiveness. He approached the problem as a ruler, and his policy was the unification of his Empire by exterminating national religions. But Judah’s resistance was religious and not political. Mattathias of Modin raised the standard of revolt, and the rising, in its initial stages, was inspired by loyalty to the ancestral religion. It ultimately resolved itself into an attempt to secure the political independence of Judah, for the simple reason that full religious liberty is a precarious possession without political independence. But it was the desecration of the Temple, and the attempt to force loyal Jews to sacrifice to heathen deities that roused the are of the nation, and moved the Maccabaean family to defend the national religion. It is extremely probable that many Psalms date from this period, and the fierce nature of the struggle carried on by the Maccabees in defence of their ‘nation, religion, and laws’ is reflected in those passionate hymns which still throb with the intense feeling which the conflict roused in the breasts of the Ḥasidim, or ‘loyalists,’ who supported Judas Maccabaeus in his campaign.
In regard to persecution on the part of the Church of Rome, Lecky writes: ‘If men believe with an intense and realising faith that their own view of a disputed question is true beyond all possibility of mistake … these men will, sooner or later, persecute to the full extent of their power.’_ This ‘intense faith,’ which accounts for the will to persecute on the part of the Church, also explains the willingness on the part of religious persons to be persecuted rather than abandon their faith. Antiochus Epiphanes was not actuated by any such intense faith in Greek culture. He was concerned solely with his dream of a homogeneous Empire, but Judaism was inspired by this ‘intense faith,’ with the result that the Jew, as afterwards the Christian believer, constituted a problem to the rulers of the ancient world. Seleucid rulers found in Judaism, as Roman procurators and proconsuls found in Christianity, an obstinacy which baffled all their efforts to secure universal uniformity. It was not an inheritance in the case of the Christian Church from the Jewish synagogue, but the outcome of the ‘intense faith’ which inspired Jew and Christian to endure torture, not accepting deliverance (Hebrews 11:35).
4. Persecution of Jesus by the Jews.-Irenaeus called Jesus Christ the ‘Master of Martyrdom.’ The martyrs followed in His footsteps. In each martyr Origen saw the Lord Himself condemned. The true imitatio Christi was martyrdom. John calls Jesus Christ ‘the faithful witness’ (Revelation 1:5), and Paul adds that He ‘witnessed the good confession’ (1 Timothy 6:13). Our Lord warned His disciples that the persecution which He endured would also be their lot (John 15:18). It becomes, therefore, necessary to examine the opposition which culminated in the tragedy of the Cross, and the reasons which actuated Jerusalem and Rome in their combined resolve to compass His death. According to the Gospels, Jesus Christ was conscious of a growing premonition as to the issue of the conflict between Himself on the one hand and the Pharisees and Sadducees on the other, the representatives of the democracy and the aristocracy of Judaea . The Pharisees were the nationalist party, and carried on the traditions of the Ḥasidim, or ‘loyalists,’ who supported Judas Maccabaeus in his struggle for religious liberty in the 2nd cent., whilst the Sadducees were the priestly caste, and were willing to put up with Roman domination as long as they were left in undisturbed possession of priestly prerogatives, and especially of the revenues of the Temple. Jesus Christ could not miss their growing hostility to Him and His teaching, and the ominous closing of the ranks on the part of these prominent parties which otherwise had very little in common. The Pharisees were profoundly religious. Their religion consisted in rigid observance of the ‘Law,’ and of the ‘traditions of the fathers.’ To the religious zeal of the Puritan they added intense patriotism. But their religion was soulless formalism. They were not lacking in religious self-confidence. The Pharisaic Paul contended that in the light of the Pharisaic ideal he was blameless (Philippians 3). They made a fetish of the Law. It had come from God, and contained a complete and final system of religious praxis. They were rigorously and exclusively Jewish in their outlook. There was nothing good outside Judaism. They were immovably opposed to anything and everything foreign. Among them the Messianic hope flourished. From their midst emanated the apocalyptic literature of the nation, with its dream of a glorious triumph for Judah. The dream of a world-wide kingdom troubled the long sleep of Jewish oppression, and occasionally the sleep was disturbed by a violent effort to realize the national ambition and shake off the yoke which weighed like an incubus upon the nation’s soul. But the Pharisees did not fall in with the policy of the ‘zealots’ or ‘Cananaeans’ or the followers of Judas of Galilee (Acts 5:37). They shared the zealots’ hatred of everything alien or non-Jewish, but they recognized the futility of rebellion. They were too well aware of the irresistible might of Rome. It was their mission to keep the national life Jewish, and religion ‘pure and undefiled,’ and God would appear on their behalf in the fullness of time and bring in the ‘Messianic age.’ It is evident that the Pharisees were keenly interested in Jesus Christ and in the claim which was being made that He was the Messiah. They would welcome any reliable evidence that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, and that the hope of the nation was nearing fulfilment. The Pharisees generally mingled with the crowd which followed Jesus, and they were not always present as captious critics. Their astonishment that Jesus ate with ‘publicans and sinners’ proves that they expected different conduct from one who was going to realize the Messianic ideal, and bring in the Messianic age (Mark 2:15). They were on the same quest when they asked for a sign-some unmistakable evidence that He was the Divinely-appointed Saviour of the nation. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and displays the Pharisee’s interest in Jesus Christ and His claim to be the Messiah (John 3). But it was soon obvious to the Pharisees that Jesus could not be the Messiah whom they expected. He displayed no respect for the Pharisaic ideal, in either its political or its religious aspects. He contradicted the Messianic expectation as it was held among the Pharisees-viz. a great national hero who could and would bring in the Messianic age as it was understood by them. He also opposed Pharisaism as a religious system. He undermined their whole philosophy of religion. He was especially severe on their emphasis on trivial rules, and their neglect of the weightier matters of the law (Matthew 23:23). It was evident to the Pharisees that, if this teaching prevailed, the national hope was doomed, for the teaching of Jesus implied that the outstanding institutions of Judaism were not essential. They could all be scrapped as obsolete and useless. Towards the end of His life Jesus Christ makes no effort to conceal His contempt for Pharisaism. He condemns the Pharisee on religious, not on political, grounds. It was as obvious to the Pharisee as to Jesus that their respective teaching was mutually antagonistic. There was no hope for Pharisaic religion if the teaching of Jesus prevailed. Paul discovered in his own way at a later stage that Pharisaism and Christianity were incompatible.
It was only towards the end of His life that the Sadducees became prominent in controversy with Jesus. They possessed neither the piety nor the patriotism of the Pharisees. They were interested in the continuance of the Temple and its worship, as the Pharisees were concerned with the continuance of the Synagogue and its service. They were interested in religion only in so far as it involved the continued existence of the Temple where they found their living. They were immovably conservative, for they were anxious that the existing order of things should remain undisturbed. They were supreme in the Sanhedrin, and they were favourable to Rome as long as they were secure in the enjoyment of the Temple revenue. As friends of Rome, they were naturally afraid of the growing popularity of Jesus. They knew the Jewish temperament, and they knew the disposition of Rome. They were anxious that the religious and political situation should remain undisturbed, that they might continue to enjoy the privileges which Roman rule extended to them. After the raising of Lazarus and the impression which it made upon the people, the high priests and Pharisees were thrown into consternation, for they feared that the disturbance would attract the notice of the Roman representative, who would take away their place and their nation (John 11:48). Jesus’ clearing of the Temple roused the anger of the Sadducees, for it interfered with vested interests. It was this act that moved them to compass His death (Mark 11:15; Mark 11:18). The only restraint was their fear of the people.
The charge of blasphemy was often on the lips of His Pharisaic adversaries, and from the Jewish point of view the indictment was perfectly intelligible. To the Pharisees, who rejected the Messianic claims of Jesus, His utterances and His deeds were often blasphemous (Mark 2:7, John 5:16; John 5:18), just as to His disciples who acknowledged Him to be the Messiah the attitude of the Jews was equally blasphemous (Mark 15:29, Acts 13:45; Acts 18:6; Acts 19:37). Any disparaging speech in reference to Jahweh was blasphemy, or any act which was disparaging to His dignity, e.g. Sennacherib’s sneer that Jahweh was no better than the numerous gods of the nations which the Assyrian army had conquered (2 Kings 19:16). The worship of Jahweh with the rites of the Baalim was blasphemy, for it degraded Jahweh to the level of Baal (Ezekiel 20:27). Any irreverent allusion to any institution connected with Jahweh came under the same condemnation, e.g. Jesus’ alleged reference to the Temple (Mark 14:58, Acts 6:13). His violation of the sacredness of the Sabbath was of the same nature (Numbers 15:32, John 10:33; John 10:36). When Jesus arrogated to Himself the right to forgive sins, He encroached upon the prerogatives of Deity, and He was guilty of blasphemy (Mark 2:7, Matthew 9:3). John adds that His assumption of Divinity was provocative of violent opposition. The high priest, at the trial of Jesus, put to Him the question, ‘Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed,’ or ‘the Son of God?’ (Mark 14:61, Matthew 26:63). It was a definite challenge whether He was the Messiah or not. The answer was equally clear and emphatic, and the charge of blasphemy was at once raised. The alternatives were clear-Jesus was the Messiah, or else He was a blasphemer, and as such worthy of death (Leviticus 24:16). This was the technical charge against Jesus, but it is obvious that His whole teaching was antagonistic to and subversive of the religious formalism and narrow nationalism of the Pharisee no less than the scepticism and worldliness of the Sadducee. But the Sanhedrin could not inflict capital punishment without the confirmation of the Roman governor. It was therefore necessary to put in an indictment of a different character in order to make sure of the verdict. The prosecutors held that according to Jewish law (Leviticus 24:16) Jesus was guilty of death, for He made Himself ‘Son of God’ (John 19:7). It would not be difficult to make out that His claims to be the ‘Messiah’ or ‘King of the Jews’ constituted not only blasphemy but high treason, and the Roman Emperor was exceedingly sensitive on the question of laesa majestas or high treason. The main object of the prosecution was to bring home the charge of high treason as the only indictment that would move Pilate to confirm the verdict of the Sanhedrin. Luke sums up the three points in the indictment. (1) Perverting the nation. This was a charge of seditious agitation. His adversaries knew what they were about when they suggested that He was trying to work up a revolt in Palestine. (2) Forbidding the payment of tribute to Caesar. Jesus Christ had recently discriminated between duty to God and obligations to Caesar, and His words suggested the existence of a sphere to which the authority of Caesar did not extend. (3) Making Himself to be Messiah, king. The Jewish leaders raised the cry of blasphemy over the claim. It was the political aspect of the claim which they emphasized before Pilate. The insinuation of the mob, that Pilate would not uphold the authority of Caesar if he released Jesus, stung the Roman governor to the quick and materially helped to get his confirmation of the findings of the Sanhedrin. It is obvious that, as far as Pilate was concerned, everything depended upon the significance of the Messianic claim made by Jesus, and accepted by His accusers for their own purpose, at His trial. In their desperate efforts to secure an adverse verdict the Jews were prepared to trample underfoot the national expectation of a Messiah-‘We have no king but Caesar.’ They knew what charge would carry weight before the proconsul. It is obvious that Pilate was moved by the charge. The Jewish world at the time was full of unrest, and insurrections were not uncommon. The Jews repeated the charge, in their opposition to Paul at Thessalonica. They knew that would get a hearing from the representative of Caesar (Acts 17:7). It is obvious that the Jews were actuated in their opposition to Jesus Christ by motives which were partly nationalistic and partly religious, whilst Pilate, the Imperial representative, was concerned mainly with the political aspects of the situation.
5. Persecution of the Christians by the Jews.-We have already referred to the fact that Jesus Christ prepared His disciples for persecution. He seemed to have a clear premonition as to the issue of His own life. He was equally certain that fidelity to His teaching would evoke the deep and implacable hostility of Judaism and of the Roman Empire. Their contention that the Crucified Jesus was the Messiah and a Saviour for all nations would offend Jewish nationalism, and the ethical ideal of the gospel would evoke the scorn and the hatred of the Graeco-Roman world. Jerusalem and Rome would work together in opposition to His disciples, as they had done in opposition to Him, and for the same reasons. The unexpected manner in which references to persecution as the inevitable lot of His faithful followers occur in His speeches proves that it was ever on His mind. He met every situation that arose in the history of the early Church. Fidelity to Him and His teaching would be supremely difficult, but it would not miss its reward. He pronounced a beatitude on those who would suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake-i.e. upon those who would bring upon their own heads the hostility of the world on account of their adherence to His teaching. Their endurance of persecution for this reason entitled them to membership in the Kingdom of God. Through their endurance of the hostility of the world without flinching or denying their faith, they would win their souls, and thereby prove their claim to be citizens of the kingdom of heaven (Luke 21:19). The vivid and constant sense of their belonging to another kingdom-real and abiding-would alone enable them to endure the hatred of the world; no other motive would be sufficiently strong. Persecution was the crucible which tested the faith of the disciple-its genuineness and its strength. Persecution would be the form in which the antagonism of the world-Jewish and pagan-would manifest itself. It would be a tribute to the reality of their faith. The believers would be sheep in the midst of wolves. But theirs was a life which wolves could not harm. ‘Let not the lambs fear the wolves when they are dead’ are words which are ascribed to Christ in an ancient homily (J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, pt. i., London, 1890, vol. ii. p. 219). Sanhedrins and synagogues-the political and religious institutions-of Judah would be arrayed against the disciples. They would be dragged before kings like Herod Agrippa (Acts 26) or Emperors like Nero (2 Timothy 4:6) and Roman governors like Felix and Festus (Acts 24:24; Acts 25:6). Peter reminds his readers that they must be careful that persecution is due to their Christian faith and Christian conduct (1 Peter 4:16). Among the rewards of fidelity to Jesus Christ are ‘houses … with persecutions’ (Mark 10:30). We are not surprised when we read of the persecutions that many lapsed from the faith-the good seed was choked (Matthew 13:21). But the true believer will face all the trials and sufferings of life (Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 4:12, 2 Corinthians 4:9; 2 Corinthians 12:10).
Jesus’ forecast of the future was fulfilled to the letter, and His disciples had not long to wait. The representatives of Rome did not appear on the scene for some time; the opposition came from the Jews. The earliest Christians were Jews, and the earliest form of apostolic Christianity was essentially Jewish. Its early exponents were only dimly aware of the full content of the claim which they made when they contended that Jesus was the Christ. It required many minds to bring out the full meaning of the teaching of the Master. The author of ‘Acts’ rendered a service in this connexion which comes next only to the Gospels and Paul’s Epistles. It is clear that the burden of the apostolic preaching was the fulfilment of the Messianic hope in Jesus. Jesus is the Christ. The disciples never abandoned their belief that Jesus was the Messiah-viz. the Messiah of Jewish belief. ‘We hoped that it was he which should redeem Israel’ are the pathetic words in which two disciples express their poignant disappointment (Luke 24:21). ‘Dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ is the question put to Jesus Christ after His resurrection (Acts 1:6). The Crucifixion laid their Jewish hope in ruins. The Resurrection, however, brought about a renewal of their faith, but it had changed its content. The apostolic gospel was simply the claim that Jesus, who had been crucified and buried, but who had risen and ascended to heaven, was the Messiah. It is noteworthy that the Sadducees, and not the Pharisees, began the opposition to Peter and his fellow disciples. It was the claim that ‘Jesus was the Messiah’ that evoked their antagonism. As the movement seemed to spread at an alarming rate, the Sadducees feared a popular rising. They were satisfied with things as they were, and they were exceedingly anxious not to give any offence to Rome. They opposed the apostolic preaching, as they had opposed the claim of Jesus to be the Messiah, for they knew how similar movements had ended. The Pharisees took no part, at first, in the opposition to the new movement. This seeming indifference is quite intelligible. We have already pointed out that the Pharisees were greatly interested in Jesus and in the claim which was made by His followers that He was the Messiah. They were equally interested in the apostolic contention that the Resurrection demonstrated the truth of His Messiahship. The ‘rising from the dead’ had put the whole matter in a new light. The disciples themselves had temporarily relinquished their view that Jesus was the expected deliverer, but the Resurrection enabled them to recover their faith in a transfigured form. We are not surprised that many Pharisees were among the early disciples (Acts 15:5). Gamaliel, a prominent Pharisee, counselled caution in dealing with the new movement. He suggested that they should wait developments and accept the verdict of Providence. It was a Pharisaic belief that history judged all movements. Gamaliel was willing to keep an open mind, and in this attitude he represented the more enlightened Pharisaism of the day. When they considered the question in the light of the Resurrection, there seemed nothing in the doctrine that Jesus was the Messiah which was inconsistent with the Messianic hope as it prevailed among the Pharisees. But they had not long to wait before they saw the significance of the new movement, and their interest was converted into determined and relentless opposition when they understood its true inwardness. The historian of Acts puts into the mouth of Stephen one of the most epoch-making utterances in the New Testament. Stephen was a Hellenistic Jew, and his early training had fitted him to grasp the universality of the gospel. Christianity was the true completion of the religion of Israel, and, therefore, the supersession of Judaism. It was the fulfilment of the hope of Israel. The religious teachers of the nation had tried to bring out the true nature of religion, but the nation, in the person of its official leaders, had offered continued resistance to the Holy Ghost, with the result that the religion of the prophets had degenerated into Judaism. In the light of Stephen’s conception of the gospel, Jewish institutions were temporary; they had no abiding significance. They were not essential to the spiritual and universal gospel of Christianity. This speech contradicted Pharisaism at every point. Stephen was charged with speaking ‘words against this holy place, and the law’ (Acts 6:13). He spoke ‘blasphemous words against Moses and against God’ (Acts 6:11). These accusations were inevitable from the Pharisaic point of view, for to the orthodox Pharisee the Law was a complete and final system. The charge of blasphemy had been brought against Jesus Christ, and the repetition of the indictment in the case of Stephen shows that the disciple had understood the mind of the Master. Henceforth the opposition of Judaism to the Christian Church is uncompromising and unbroken, and the martyrdom of Stephen was followed by the death of other prominent members of the Church. But the scattering of the Church meant the spreading of the gospel. There seems little doubt that refugees played no small part in the earliest missionary activities of the Church. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the opposition which Judaism was able to offer to the young churches which came into existence in different towns and villages in Asia Minor and in Europe, for throughout the Roman Empire there were large Jewish settlements. In connexion with the repeated outbreaks of persecution in various centres, the unbelieving Jew was the dark figure that stood in the background. There is truth in Tertullian’s statement_ that Jewish synagogues were the chief sources of persecution. The historian of Acts saw in Judaism the real opponent of Christianity. To him there was no other rival religion, for the heathen world was irreligious. Its numerous religions were not worthy of the name. To the strict Pharisee it was also equally clear that the real opponent of Judaism was Christianity. Judaism could hold its own against heathen religions, but Christianity was a powerful rival, for it deprived Judaism of everything except its nationalism. The Jew repeated, in the case of the Christian missionary, the charge which had been brought against Jesus. He knew that it carried weight with the representative of Rome. In Thessalonica they urged ‘certain vile fellows of the rabble’ to lead the opposition. The charge of high treason was insinuated in the words ‘These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus’ (Acts 17:7). It was this charge that finally decided Pilate to speak the fateful word and hand over Jesus to His persecutors. Generally throughout the Acts, Rome, in the person of its proconsuls, is represented as taking on the whole a favourable view of Christianity. The brunt of the opposition came from the representatives of Judaism. But much depended on the temperament and character of the Roman governor as well as on the manner in which the prosecutors conducted the charge. The Jews in Corinth were not quite so alive to the possibilities of the situation as their compatriots at Thessalonica. The Corinthian Jews indicted Paul for urging men to worship contrary to the Law. Gallio replied that he was not concerned about their religious controversies. He would interfere only in case of crime or political misdemeanour (Acts 18:14-15). It is possible that the historian lays stress on the favourable attitude of Rome to the early Christians in order to impress on his Roman readers that there was no real incompatibility between the Christian religion and the interests of the Empire. The Christian Church felt the force of Jewish persecution in a peculiarly violent manner in the first half of the 2nd cent. when they refused to join in the revolt of Bar Cochba-the ‘Son of the Star’ (Numbers 24:17), who headed a Messianic movement. The Christians refused to admit his claim, and were exposed to the vengeance of both Rome and the would-be Messiah. To the Romans they were Jews, whilst to the insurrectionists they were renegades.
The Church of Pentecost consisted entirely of Jews who accepted the apostolic doctrine that Jesus-Crucified and Risen-was the Messiah. Apart from that confession, they remained Jews and retained their Judaism in its entirety; and we must not read too much into that elementary creed. Even Peter and John, not to mention their converts, had not fully understood the teaching of Jesus. But it is an astonishing fact that within half a century the leading minds of the Church had set forth the content of the Christian religion, in Gospel and Epistle. When the Jew perceived the universal character of the gospel, he became its relentless opponent. He was too much of a nationalist to accept a gospel that placed all nations on an equality, whilst his reverence for the Law would not permit him to believe that it could be superseded. His nationalism and conservatism made him a bitter persecutor of ‘the Way.’ There were two alternatives for the Jew-conversion or persecution. He had a profound reverence for the Torah. It was complete and final. The orthodox Jew believed that the world would be saved by being Judaized, as the Christian preacher believed it would be saved by being evangelized. Judaism was not one religion among many-it was the religion. The Jew claimed for Judaism what the Christian apologist claimed for Christianity-finality and absoluteness. The Jew had to embrace Christianity or oppose it by every means at his disposal. Both Judaism and Christianity were exclusive religious. The Jew who refused to be converted must have possessed that ‘intense faith’ in which Lecky has discovered the origin of persecution. The Christian religion also produced a faith which counted it all joy to suffer for righteousness’ sake. It was this exclusiveness and sense of superiority which made Judah the best hated nation in the ancient world; but for the same reason the Christian Church won the bitter hatred of the Graeco-Roman world with its indolent syncretism and low ethical ideals. It has been maintained that persecution in the strict sense of the term originated within Judaism, and in this doctrine of exclusiveness, inasmuch as the Jew persecuted Christians solely for their religious views-i.e. for heresy, and for no other reason. But there was a close intermingling of religious and political motives, and in Judah especially nationalism and religion were closely associated.
6. The attitude of Rome to Christianity.-The representatives of Rome paid little or no attention to the ‘new and magical superstition’ which had sprung up in Judah. To them Christianity was simply a Jewish movement. But they were alive to the possibilities of the movement and were always on the look-out for political developments in connexion with any religious agitation. Rome was familiar with ‘Messianic’ risings in Palestine, and the Jew never missed an opportunity of laying before the Emperor a charge of disloyalty against Christians. It was the only way to overcome the apparent apathy of Rome. Throughout Acts, Rome is represented, in the person of her proconsuls, as indifferent to the quarrels between Christian missionaries and their Jewish adversaries (Acts 18:14-15; Acts 25:19). The attitude of Pilate to Jesus was typical of the attitude of Roman governors to His followers. They were interested in religious doctrines in the light of their influence on individuals as subjects of the Empire. They were often guilty of gross indifference. The Jews relied on the apathy of Roman governors and frequently took matters into their own hands. It is admitted that the Empire possessed a magnificent system of law. But it is easy to indulge in exaggerated language in regard to the administration of law, especially in remote parts of the Empire. Roman governors frequently turned their blind eye to the sufferings inflicted on Christians by their Jewish or pagan persecutors.
It is obvious that for some time Rome looked upon the followers of Christ as a Jewish sect. In so far as the representative of Rome had condemned Jesus on political grounds, it would follow that His disciples would experience similar treatment at the hands of Imperial governors. It is interesting in this connexion to consider the account which the Roman historian gives of the movement. According to Tacitus, the founder of the sect, Chrestus by name, had been condemned by Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. His followers were vulgarly called ‘Christians.’ They were universally hated on account of the abominable deeds of which they were guilty, and their hatred of the human race. The execution of their leader gave a temporary check to the pestilent superstition. But it broke out afresh, and extended to Rome, where everything that is vile and scandalous accumulated._ The historian gives the ordinary Roman view. Christians were simply Christ’s faction. The attitude of Pilate to the Founder of the sect should also be the attitude of Rome to His followers-an attitude of contempt mixed with hatred. In view of this fact the question arises how it came about that Rome ultimately became such an implacable enemy of the ‘pestilent superstition,’ which at first seemed to be beneath contempt.
In religion Rome practised ample tolerance. This does not mean that Roman Emperors favoured religious liberty or freedom of conscience. Centuries must elapse before governments will be found to admit the rights of individuals in religion, or even of States which form parts of a larger Empire, although Jesus Christ did suggest a sphere within which Caesar could exercise no jurisdiction. But Roman Emperors would not admit that view, for the power of the State, in the person of the ruler, was absolute, and it covered all the activities of life. Nevertheless it was the policy of Rome to allow conquered States to retain their gods and their religious customs, in so far as the free exercise of their ancestral religion or their worship of their national deities did not interfere with loyalty to the Empire, and especially with their willingness to pay homage to the Emperor by sacrificing in his name. Rome’s interest in religion was entirely political. It was the continuance and stability of the Empire that concerned Rome and her rulers. Religions were tolerated and encouraged in so far as they promoted tranquillity and good order. ‘The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.’_ The toleration of local or national religions was part of Rome’s method of governing her extensive dominions. ‘The Jews,’ wrote Celsus, ‘are not to be blamed, because each man ought to live according to the custom of his country; but the Christians have forsaken their national rites for the doctrine of Christ.’_
Rome permitted the worship of national gods and the continuance of national cults. But there was no religious liberty in this apparent tolerance. The gods worshipped and the cults practised in different parts of the Empire had to receive the Imperial sanction. Cicero_ remarks that the worship of gods which had not been recognized by law was a punishable offence. No religion had any standing until it received the Imperial imprimatur. No gods could be worshipped unless they were ‘publice adsciti.’ The State’s approval was necessary. Christianity was not a national faith, and for a time it did not secure the Imperial sanction. In the former sense it was a unique phenomenon within the Empire. It seems that for a time Christianity enjoyed the privileges which had been extended to Judaism as a national religion. Judaism had been treated with exceptional favour, for the Jew was exempted from the worship of the Emperor. It was a concession to Jewish monotheism. But the open rupture between Judaism and Christianity which was manifest to the world by the middle of the century, and the persistent persecution of Christians by Jews, compelled Rome to inquire into the meaning of the new movement. The Empire tolerated old and national religions, but Christianity was a thing of yesterday, and belonged to no nation, but embraced all peoples. As such Christianity stood outside the law of the Empire. It created divisions in every nation, and town, and family. Judaism was the religion of the Jews, but Christianity gathered or created its own clientele. John saw ‘a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation, and of all tribes and peoples and tongues’ (Revelation 7:9). That was the condemnation of the Christian religion in the opinion of Imperial Rome. The first edict of toleration (a.d. 311) cast in the face of the Christian religion that it had ‘collected a various society from the different provinces of the Empire.’ Christianity, because of its non-national or international character, was divisive and anarchical, although, when rightly understood, the gospel supplied the universal religion and formed the bond of union which made of all nations a world-wide brotherhood.
What Judaism was in the pre-Christian world, Christianity was in the Roman Empire-an exclusive religion. From the very start Christianity was proclaimed as the religion of fulfilment. It was final and absolute-‘and in none other is there salvation; for neither is there any other name under heaven that is given among men, wherein we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12). Peter stated in the name of Christianity what every orthodox Jew would have claimed for Judaism. Christianity was essentially exclusive and intolerant. The apostles proclaimed one God-the Father of their Lord Jesus Christ. They preached one Saviour-the Crucified Christ. There was only one religion-and that was Christianity. When Jesus stated that He was ‘the way, the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6), it became impossible for His disciples to be tolerant of any other religion, for tolerance would be treachery. We have already traced the germ of this antagonism between the true and the false in the teaching of Elijah, who maintained that Jahweh and Baal were mutually exclusive, and it developed into the religion of post-Exilic Judah. Paul had stated the Christian attitude-‘Though there be that are called gods, … to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him’ (1 Corinthians 8:5 f.). The Christian who worshipped the ‘God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ’ could not fall in with the prevalent syncretism which implied that every god was as good as another, and every religion a matter of nationality. The Empire had experienced the same exclusiveness in the case of Judah, and had, in the interest of tranquillity, made allowance for it by extending t
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Persecution'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/p/persecution.html. 1906-1918.
