Notes for Historical Prospective of the Liturgy

1. W
CHAPTER VII
THE PERSECUTIONS
AND THE EUCHARIST
e cannot properly understand and appreciate the pre-Nicene
Liturgy if we forget the very real and in some ways
horrifying threat of torture and death which faced every
Christian during the Roman persecutions. Many things will
become intelligible and explicable if we remember the two
and a half centuries of Rome's totalitarian regime andits iron
law of non licetesse christianos,"Chris- tians are not
allowed to exist!'' Certainly we will miss what the
Eucharistic rite actually meant to the early Christians and
how it was the very heart of the Church's life unless we
recognize the intense hatred, slander, calumny, and actual
danger which the Christian had to face in his normal daily
life.
The obligation of Catholics, for example, to be present at Sunday
Mass under pain of serious sin, which appears so formalistic and
mechanical now to the average Protestant mind, was something
that was burned into the Christian conscience in the centuries
between Nero and Diocletian. It is not mere historical memory of
the Last Supper that explains the fact that men, women, and children
willingly ran the risk of arrest, imprisonment, and death every week
of their lives just to be at the Eucharistic service. They did it because
they were convinced of the absolute necessity to take their own part
in the self-oblation of Christ, a necessity which to them was even
more binding than the instinct of self-preservation. This conviction
was based on the whole doctrine of redemption and on the last
command of Jesus to his own at the Last Supper. It was based on
the will of Christ who intends by his sacrificial-atoning death to
draw all men unto himself and in a most special way the members
of his mystical body, the Church.
Nor was it yet a longing for personal communion with God that
brought the individual Christian to the Eucharistic service every
Sunday at the risk of life and limb; he could and did unite his heart
and soul to the Eucharistic Lord by his daily Communion from the

2. PERSECUTIONS 71
reserved sacrament in his own home. No, what brought him to the
Eucharistic sacrifice was the profound conviction that as a member
of the body, the Church, he had to take his own part in the fulfillment
of the will of God who in an unbloody way offered himself anew
every Sunday for the redemption of mankind. Sooner or later any
scholar worthy of the name is forced into this conclusion by a serious
study of the Pre-Nicene centuries of Christianity.
There were some periods of comparative quiet and uneasy toler-
ation, but from Nero to Valerian (c. A.D. 65 to A.D. 26o) attendance
at Christian worship was a capital crime. Only when the central
government in Rome was otherwise occupied with war, rivalry for
the imperial throne, etc., or when local authorities chose to "look
the other way " did Christians enjoy uneasy peace. At times, the
persecutions continued unabated for years. But always, whether
from civil authorities or from the mob, the challenge of Art thou
a Christian? brought swift martyrdom or apostasy to the individual
Christian.
Up to A.D. 252, the Church's discipline remained unyielding :if the
courage of a Christian failed even momentarily and he burned incense
before the idols (or before a picture of the deified emperor), he was
excluded from the corporate worship of the Church until death. It
made little difference whether or not he did life-long penance for his
momentary, single act of apostasy. If a man standing before his
pagan Judge pleaded guilty of being a Christian, condemnation and
execution were completed on the same day-or he was imprisoned
if the arena needed candidates for titillating the senses of a populace
who enjoyed the spectacle of living men, women, and children being
torn limb from limb by wild beasts or smeared with pitch and turned
into living torches. At other times, upon instruction from the
administration, the sentences were "mitigated "into servitude for life
in one of the imperial mines where, as a rule, the prisoners died
within two or three years. There was in those days no comfortable
way of leading a Christian life. In fact life and Christianity were
incompatible. One or the other had to be sacrificed. To affirm
one's belief without proving it every week by cautiously treading
one's way through the empty streets in the predawn to the corporate
act of worship, the Eucharist, was merely empty talk, pointless and

3. 72 CHAPTER VII
fruitless. If one were a Christian, one simply took such a risk in
spite of the constant threat to freedom and life.
After A.D. 260, the civil law against Christians or, rather, against
the Christian assembly, was relaxed somewhat. Yet, to be a Chris-
tian was still laesa maz"estas, high treason. Inthis period of compara-
tive peace and toleration, martyrdom or apostasy still depended
upon whether one was accused or not. A Christian was far from
secure :an angry neighbor, an envious competitor or even a bitter
child might make the fatal accusation. We read, for instance, in
contemporary records of Marinus, a soldier who was good enough
in his profession to be promoted to a centurion :an envious comrade
makes the deadly charge against him and within three hours he is
dead. 1
Or the betrayed Tiburtius, who was tortured and then
beheaded on the Lavican Road three miles outside Rome; St.
Susanna who was accused, probably by her suitor, because she
refused to marry. Anyone could accuse, anything could induce
such a charge, and Christians died by the thousands. Almost
always, however, the storm center of the blood baths was the Euchar-
ist because much risk could have been avoided had not attendance
been obligatory.
The sheer heroism of many is staggering. Eyewitness accounts
are not lacking. "We ourselves," Eusebius tells us, "witnessed a
great crowd of people who in one single day endured beheading or
the punishment of fire; the orgy went on so long that the deadly
blade became blunt and killed by its weight. The executioners
themselves became exhausted and took turns at their work. We
also saw a most marvelous inspiration, a truly divine force, the
readiness of those who believed in Christ God. Immediately when
sentence had been pronounced on one group, another came before
the tribunal from the opposite side acknowledging themselves
Christians and remaining steadfast in face of dangers and torments
of all kinds. .. they received with joy the final sentence of death.
They sang hymns and thanked the God of all till their lastbreath. "s
Aside from official persecution, aside from perpetually fearing
the charge of Christian being leveled at him from any quarter, the
1Eusebius, Eccl. hist., VII, 15 (PG 13, 270 [Series graeca]).
• Ibid., VIII, 9, 1-5 (PG 13, 309-310 [Series graeca]).

4. PERSECUTIONS 73
Christian still had to face a lifetime of suspicion and ostracism from
his neighbors, the opposition of his own relatives ifnot his immediate
family, and the intense hatred of the populace at large for the alleged
polluted doctrines and disgusting practices of his faith. Sometimes
even apostate Christians were not safe from the frenzied mob, as
in Lyons in A.D. 177.
It wasnot merely a fewfanatically crueland ignorant pagans who
believed the gruesome stories and rumors of Christian ritual murder
and cannibal feasts based on a misunderstanding of the Eucharist :
this was the general opinion, even of decent-minded pagans. A
pagan not sincerely convinced of the actuality of Christian orgies,
promiscuous vice and even incest was a rare exception. It is no
wonder that the disdplina arcani was applied with all the rigor and
force at the comm.and of a struggling Church. We can readily
understand the suspicion caused by any unguarded Christian talk
of"receiving the most precious body and blood "or by an indiscreet
remark about the "kiss " of brothers and sisters ! Christians were
helpless against calumny. The most effective defense would have
been an open and public celebration of the Eucharist, but it would
have brought swift death to all participants. Besides, the whole
idea of primitive Christianity about the absolute separateness ofthe
ecclesia and the Eucharist would not have allowed this.
To get an idea of what went on in the public mind about the
Christians we only have to read Tertullian :
They think that the Christians are the cause of every disaster
to the state and are at the bottom of every misfortune of the
people. If the Tiber floods the city or if the Nile fails to
fill the fields, if there are portents in heaven or earthquakes
on earth, ifa famine comes or a plague,they clamour instantly,
"Throw the Christians to the lion. " So many to one
lion ? 8
His irony is even more biting when he counters the popular
rumors about the orgies at the Christian Eucharist and demands a
show of factual evidence for the charges; he demands, "how many
babies any particular person has eaten,how many times anyone has
committed incest, who the cooks were ..."and immediately adds,
• Tertullian, Apologeticus, xl (PL I, 542-543 A). Our translation.

5. 74 CHAPTER VII
"What a boast for any governor ifhe actually caught a man who had
eaten a hundred babies! "' And he goes on :
Suppose for a moment that these things were true. I ask
you, then, whether in believing such things you would think
it worth while to attain eternal life with such a conscience.
Come now! Plunge your knife into the baby, guilty though it
is of nothing, enemy to no one, everybody's son. .. or maybe
that's some other Christian's job . . .. stand here, then, beside
this human being gasping in death before it has really lived;
wait for its new little soul to flit away. Take the fresh
young blood and soak your bread in it. Then gulp it down
with zest!
Meanwhile, as you recline at table, note the place where
your mother is, where your sister. Note it carefully, so
that you make no mistake when the dogs [which were chained
to the lamps] plunge all in darkness, for you will be guilty of
a crime ifyou fail to commit incest.
Initiated and confirmed in mysteries such as these you will
live forever! Tell me now, is eternity worth all this; if it
isn't, then these things shouldn't be believed. But even if
you believed them, I deny that you would want to commit
them. And even if you wanted to, I tell you, you couldn't.
Why is it then that others can, ifyou cannot ? Why cannot
you, ifothers can ? I suppose we have a different nature ....
I suppose we have a different sort of teeth, have different
muscles for incestuous lust! You believe that men can do
these things? Then you should be able to do them too; you
are a man yourself like the Christian. Ifyou could not bring
yourself to do these things, you should not believe that the
Christians can, for a Christian is a man too just like you.
"But, " you say, "not knowing anything about it, they are
deceived and imposed upon. They were unaware that
anything of the sort was imputed to the Christians . . . . "
Yet, I suppose, it is usual for those who want to be initiated
to go first to the master of these sacred rites to inquire what
preparations must be made. In such a case no doubt he
would say," Well, you need a baby, a little tiny one who does
not know yet what it is to die and can smile under your
knife . . . and bread with which to catch its juicy blood.
Besides this, you need candlesticks, lamps, a few dogs and
bits of meat to draw them on to overturn the lamps. And
'Ibid., ii(PL I, 318-321).

6. PERSECtrrIONS 75
most important of all you must bring your mother and your
sister." But what if mother and sister do not want to come
or what if you have no mother or sister ? What about the
Christians without any close female relatives ? I suppose,
then, a man cannot really be a Christian unless he is someone's
brother or son ?
Maybe these preparations are made without the foreknowl-
edge of those concerned ? At any rate, after once going
through the experience they know the procedure, support it,
and condone it. "They are afraid of being punished, " you
say, "if they reveal it. ". . . Come now, granted that they
are afraid, why do they persevere? The only logical con-
clusion is that you would no longer want to be that which
you would not have been at all had you known ahead of time
what it was. 6
Such was the stigma of being a Christian, the price of regularly
attending the Eucharist. Certainly, the government, especially the
central government at Rome, was better informed than the populace,
but like any totalitarian regime it took strong measures to protect
itself from what it considered a potential political enemy. Political
expediency dictated discreet nurturing of such gross misconceptions
of Christianity.
Government officials and policy-makers were perfectly aware that
the single act of offering sacrifice to idols or to the deified emperor,
which apostates were compelled to perform, would not change
their beliefs or conviction. The apostates would still remain
convinced Christians at heart. The government understood this
but it also understood very well the discipline of the Church which
would exclude for life from the ecclesia any Christian who let himself
be pressured into even a single act of apostasy. That is why it did
not initiate any organized propaganda to defend pagan beliefs until
the latter part of the third century. Just how well the small circle
of government officials and high policy-makers knew the facts from
their investigations of Christianity can be seen from the writings of
the Neoplatonist Porphyry. a They are far from being gratuitous
• Ibid., viii. Our translation, from PL I, 363-365.
• Porphyry wrote fifteen books " against the Christians. " Unfortunately, little
of this tremendous work is extant; this deficiency is somewhat made up by the
numerous quotations cited by various Christian authors.

7. CHAPTER VII
assertions about the principles of Christianity; in fact, so well-
informed was he of some doctrines of Christianity that some writers,
without any real proof, saw in him an apostate Christian. No less
well-informed was the prefect of Bithynia (and later governor of
Egypt), Hierocles, whose Friendly Discourse on Truth to the Christians
showsconsiderable knowledge ofChristian teachings.
Toward the middle of the third century, the well-organized
persecution of Decius raged with especially savage furyandshrewdly
made apostasy unprecedentedly easy, causing the lapse of many
Christians. The government had reason to congratulate itself on
its effectiveness. But in A.D. 252,the Church countered,not without
opposition from some of its own members, by changing its iron
policy of lifetime exclusion from the ecclesia into one of restored
membership to the repentant after a suitable period of penance.
The penances imposed for various lapses were severe indeed, but
now those the Church lost through apostasy were restored at least
in part through reconciliation. The writings of St. Cyprian bear
ample evidence of the eager droves of apostate Christians coming
back into the Church. It was a weakness in courage, not in faith,
that had led them to defection. The continued strength of their
belief is evidenced by the eagerness and sincerity with which they
sought to resume their Christian life. Many of these lapsed Chris-
tians later sealed their faith with martyrdom.
This change in Church policy baffled the government. It waged
a second wave of persecution under Valerian (A.D. 254-259), to
stamp out the Christian revival, but this time with little effect :
the pagans were forced to admit defeat, at least temporarily. When
the empire found itself engaged in foreign war, the whole problem
was laid aside for a while, with relief to both persecutors and perse-
cuted.
In A.D. 260, the edict of Gallienus granted virtual freedom of
worship to the Christians and a restoration of their property. The
legal position, however, was still far from clear : by law, the Chris-
tians could "use their ecclesiai, " but since Christianity was not a
legal religion, the charge of high treason could still be made against
individual Christians.
This somewhat ambiguous toleration, such as it was, afforded

8. PERSECUTIONS 77
the struggling Church a precious opportunity to increase, organize,
and prosper. In many cities and towns, special buildings were
set up for worship. 7
In some places, for instance, in Asia Minor,
because of the large numbers of Christians, it was an open secret
who the clergy were and where the Eucharist was celebrated. In
other places, where the Christians were still a definite minority,
secrecy and discretion were the order of the day. During forty
years of comparative quiet, the government chose merely to ignore
the whole problem unless forced to deal with specific accusations
against individual Christians.
Then it came-the longest and bitterest storm of persecution
that the infant Church ever had to face. For ten years, under
Diocletian (A.D. 303-313), the blood of Christians flowed unabated.
Arrests were much easier to make because who the Christians were,
who the clergy were, was semipublic knowledge-and they died by
the thousands. Gradually, but irrevocably, the clergy was deci-
mated, mostly by martyrdom but occasionally by apostasy. For a
time, it seemed that Christian worship would disappear from entire
provinces. The fury of the storm was unleashed against everything
Christian : organized ideological warfare, in the form of fierce
intellectual propaganda, aimed at discrediting Christian beliefs,
while Christian literature was being systematically destroyed.
The persecution began in Nicomedia, where Emperor Diocletian
resided during the winter of A.D. 302-303. Contemporary testimony
desbribes it thus :"People of both sexes and of all ages were thrown
into the fire; not one at a time, but whole groups of them were
bound together and burned; slaves were flung into the sea with a
great stone tied to their necks . ..the prisons were fullto overflowing
while new kinds of torture were an hourly invention." 8
The
conflagration spread rapidly to the outlying territories. Almost
7 Generally, the divine services were still held in private dwellings, though in
some places special buildings were being set up specifically for worship. To
date, I believe, the only pre-Nicene church found in the East is that at Dura-
Europos in Mesopotamia (c. A.D. 230-26o). It seems to have been remodeled
from a private house. The baptistry had been painted with Old and New Testa-
ment scenes, but the assembly hall had not yet been decorated when it was de-
stroyed. Cf. Excavations at Dura-Europos, Preliminary Report of V. Season of
Work, 1931-1932 (New Haven :Yale, 1934), pp. 238-288.
• Lactantius, De mortibus persecut., IS (PL 7, 216 A-217 B).

9. 78 CHAPTER VII
simultaneously, Galerius, who had influenced Diocletian to turn
persecutor, extended the scourge to his own territories along the
Danube. On orders from Diocletian, Maximinian did likewise in
Italy and Africa. The milder Constantius alone endeavored to
find means of avoiding the carnage in Gaul, Spain and Britain.
Destruction of the Christians' sacred books became an essential
goal of this final persecution, so that the obligation arose to defend
them even at the cost of one's life. Since the imperial edict ordered
the Christians to surrender (tradere) the books to the authorities,
those who obeyed this command were traditores ("those who
surrendered "). The names surrenderers and traitors became synon-
ymous in the Christian mind. The political authorities were
implacably efficient in their work. None of the great uncial codices
of Scripture still extant dates back before the fourth century. Like
the Jews of modem-day Europe who tried to save their sacred
books under Hitler, Christians tried to hide their sacred rolls,
bringing them on their persons to distant, safer places. In
Thessalonica, some women-Agape, Irene, and Chione--made it
their specialtask to preserve the sacred Scriptures. Written accounts
of such searches and confiscations have come down to us. 8
As time
went on, the twenty, thirty or more million Christians who lived
within the confines of the Roman empire at the beginning of the
fourth century showed no signs of giving in. The continual slaughter
was of such vast proportions that even the pagans began to sicken
of it. This perhaps more than anything else dictated the subsequent
change of policy into something considered "lenient ":commutation
of the death penalty to that of forced labor in the imperial mines
and quarries, which provided an almost inexhaustible labor force for
this lethal work. Those condemned to the mines (ad metal/a) were
called con/ essores metallici ("mining confessors ") by the Church, for
it was no less horrifying and in a way more so,than slow martyrdom.
• E.g., the protocol of the confiscatory action at Cirta in North Africa (now
Constantine, in Algeria). The inventory of items seized included two golden
chalices, six silver chalices, six silver dishes, seven silver lamps, seven short bronze
candlesticks with their lamps, torches and many other articles useful to the
Christians. When the imperial officials demanded the sacred books, however,
these had already been transported to safety. The bookcases were found empty
(cf. PL 8, 730-732).

10. PERSECUTIONS 79
The substarvation level of sustenance coupled with the severity of
hard labor took their toll in a slower though no less inexorable
way than the sword and the arena. The porphyry quarries of the
Thebaid area alongside the Red Sea, the marble quarries of Pannonia
and Cilicia, the copper mines of Palestine and Cyprus, the lead
mines of Sardinia-all consumed their hapless victims within a few
years at most. When a Christian was sentenced to one of these
mines, he was also mutilated in some way; usually his right eye was
cut out with a knife and the wound burned with a hot iron;the tendon
of his left foot was also cut to thwart escape. 10
Transfer from
one mine to another took further devastating toll. Long lines of
human skeletons, the "mining confessors," would trudge for hun-
dreds of weary miles through the desert under the burning sun;those
who fell along the way-and they were many-served to feed the
jackals and other beasts of prey.
Silent and uncomplaining, these living martyrs kept up their
religious practices as best they could-and even made converts,
as happened in the marble quarries of Pannonia ! Sometimes the
influx of prisoner-workers was so great that many huts and sheds
had to be built. When this happened at the mines of Phoeno in
Palestine, the Christians took this opportunity to build themselves
one more shed to be used as a church. The superintendent discov-
ered it, but surprisingly, he allowed them to use it provided the
day's work was done. 11
This happy state of affairs did not last
long, however, for we read further that after the governor came to
the mines, he ordered the Christians transferred elsewhere. Thirty-
nine, too weak for work, were beheaded. 12
Undoubtedly those who
were transferred would still meet for the Eucharist wherever they
happened to be, just as a St. Denys and his flock had done a little
more than fifty years before : "And every spot where we were
afflicted became to us a place of assembly for the feast. .. field,
desert, ship, inn, prison. "13
1o Eusebius, De mart. Palaest., vii, 3-4 (PG 13, 625-626); Hist. eccl., viii, 12,
ro, etc. (PG 13, 313-314, etc.). Both Series graeca.
11 Cf. Hist. eccl., viii, 13 (PG 13, 315-316 [Series graecaJ); De mart. Palaest.,
vii, 3; xiii, 4-5 (PG 13,638-639 [Series graeca]),
11 De mart. Palest., xiii, xo (PG 13, 640 B [Series graecaJ).
11 Cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VII, xxii, 4 (PG 13, 275 C [Series graecaJ).

11. Roman law respected the condemned person and allowed even
criminals to be buried in decent tombs. As Eusebius points out,
the tombs of Christians might become places of veneration for the
faithful. That is why the bodies of martyrs, even those of officicals
of the imperial court who had been executed and buried, were
exhumed and flung into the sea. 14
What happened in Caesarea probably happened in other places :
Governor Firmilian ordered that the bodies of the martyrs be left
in their place of execution to be devoured by vultures or wild
beasts. Because the Christians, relatives, and friends ofthe deceased
were forbidden to take away the bodies, and the wild animals had all
they could eat, the vicinity of Caesarea became one huge chamel.
Eusebius, who saw it, describes it thus :"All around the city lay
scattered bowels and human bones. ... very close to the city gates
was a sight surpassing all words and tragic description, for human
flesh remained undevoured not just in one place but was flung about
in all directions. Some said that even within the city gates, they had
seen whole human limbs, pieces of flesh and lengths of bowels." 16
This was the great baptism of blood, the passion of fire, the Good
Friday which the Church had to endure before it could finally rise
from the ashes to organize, build up, and flourish. Her glorious
resurrection began with the Edict of Toleration published in all
territories under the jurisdiction of Galerius, Licinius, and Constan-
tine, and was confirmed two years later by the Edict of Milan.
At long last the Church was free. No longer did a Christian
have to fear that he would never come home when he setoutto attend
the Eucharist. No longer did he have to dread the numbing
challenge, "Art tJwu a Christian?" The gnawing feeling of fear
that perpetually gripped his stomach was finally gone. He could
now worship his God in peace, without listening for the footsteps
of soldiers who might come to take all away and bring swift death
to him and his dear ones-or, worse still, having to face the frighten-
ing alternative of apostasy to which he was never quite sure that he
would not succomb. Dizzy, perhaps, with happiness, he realized
that the long persecution was over.
"Eusebius, Hist. eccl., viii, 6, 7 (PG 13, 306-309 [Series graeca]).
u De mart. Palaest., ix, IO-II (PG 13, 631 [Series graeca]).