“away with the atheists,” by which he meant, “away with the pagans, who denied the one, true God of the Christians.” Subsequent demands of Polycarp he would not grant; and so he was killed.
Even allowing for the possibility that such accounts as these of Perpetua’s and Polycarp’s martyrdoms were written in such a manner as to encourage resistance to both smooth and harsh words which sought to lead Christians into ways that all Christians should resist, these accounts do suggest the degree of incomprehension on the part of pagan officials, demanding sacrifices, when faced with what they saw as Christian obstinacy. What Christians believed or did not believe, especially as “belief” or “faith” was thought to be the lowest form of cognition by those brought up on classical Greek philosophy, was of little concern. What was of concern to the local officials was a gesture, literally a gesture of honor to the cult, and an acceptance of a widely held religious tradition. One can almost hear their plaintiff cry, “We are not asking you to forsake the worship of your god. We are simply asking you to honor our gods as well.” For, in short, the official powers wanted peace and stability, not martyrs for a faith.
It was in this wider context that Christians began to write “apologies,” explaining and, to some extent, defending their worship and way of life. Their themes already are outlined in Bishop Polycarp’s conversation with the proconsul of Asia in the amphitheater in Smyrna in AD 156. In Polycarp’s looking “up to heaven and [saying], away with the atheists,” he was highlighting both the Christians’s commitment to the one God of the Gospels—“heaven,” to which Polycarp lifted his eyes, being a frequent circumlocution for “God”—and their resistance to that “atheism” that denied the one true God in its exchanging the worship of the Creator for that of creation, as embodied in the cultic statues before which sacrifices were offered. In offering the proconsul an opportunity to learn the doctrines of Christianity, Polycarp was seeking both to be open and transparent, not secretive, and to give the lie to the rumors that Christians engaged in immorality and cannibalism. In telling the proconsul that Christians “have been taught to render honor, as is proper, if it does not hurt [Christians], to princes and authorities appointed by God,”21 Polycarp was outlining the very nuanced position that Christians then were minded to maintain towards the imperial and civic powers of the empire. In short, the main themes that the Apologists sought to address were the very same topics that Christians—be they the bishop of an ancient see or a young, breast-feeding mother in Carthage—could find themselves addressing in their daily life.
Questions for reflection
and discussion
1 Given that to many minds good governance, effective administration, better finances, and enhanced infrastructure generally lead to a state’s peace and prosperity, to what extent was Celsus correct when he maintained that whatever Christians receive in this world, they receive from the state alone?
2 In what sense, if any, may people properly speak of the God of Christianity being wrathful?
3 What place in religion is there for the practice of propitiating, or appeasing, the divine?
4 Some early Apologists saw the empire as the enemy of the church, while others recognized that even a non-Christian emperor could be, and often was, a minster of God. How may these very different perspectives contribute to the thinking of contemporary churches as they contemplate how better to relate to their governments and peoples?
5 How radical should conversion to Christianity be? Should, for example, Christian parents insist upon their children being educated only in a church school, or, indeed, only in a school of a particular Christian denomination? Or, in what ways should members of the armed forces, upon converting to Christianity, reconsider their position?
1. Aelius Aristides, Panegyric to Rome, 26. 70.
2. Aelius Aristides, Panegyric to Rome, 26.100.
3. Pliny, Letters, 10.97.
4. Athenagoras, Plea, 1.2.
5. Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, 4.30.3.
6. See Origen, Against Celsus, 8.67.
7. See Acts 17:23, which tells of the apostle Paul noticing such an inscribed altar.
8. Pliny, Letters, 10.96.
9. Acts 19:23–27.
10. Virgil, Aeneid, 4.173–97.
11. Pliny, Letters, 10.96.1.
12. Pliny, Letters, 10.31, and 10.33.
13. Pliny, Letters, 10.97.
14. Justin, Apology, 1.68.
15. Tertullian, On Idolatry, 10.
16. See 1 Corinthians 7:20–24.
17. The Martyrdom of Polycarp, 9.3.
18. Pliny, Letters, 10.96,5-6.
19. See Hebrews 6:4–6.
20. Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas, 1–21.
21. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 6.15.18–25. See also Romans 13:1–4.
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