In this translated version of a doctoral dissertation originally written in Danish at the University of Southern Denmark, Jakob Engberg looks again at the much discussed subject of the persecution of the early Christians, concentrating on the period running from ad 50 to 250. Christians, according to Engberg, were rarely the object of imperially motivated persecution (the so-called Trajanic and Hadrianic rescripts had very little influence upon the way in which Christians were treated, and this in spite of Tertullian's implied claims to the contrary), and tended in fact to be victims of local opposition. While it is true that Christians were opposed for a number of reasons (in this context Engberg, following Gavin Langmuir's work on persecution of Jews in the medieval period, differentiates between ‘realistic’ [somewhat empirical], ‘xenophobic’ [less empirical], and ‘chimerical’ [less empirical still] reasons), these were in the main ‘realistic’:
Any investigation of Christianity would confirm the assumption of contemporary pagans that the Christians' worship of Christ was superstitious, and the refusal of Christians to worship other gods was the worst form of ungodliness. The crime of the Christians was both passive and active in nature: the refusal to worship the gods on the one hand and the excessive devotion to Christ on the other – both jeopardised the peace with the gods (p. 333).
It is wrong, however, to think that ‘realistic’ motivations become more frequent as time goes on. All forms of opposition exist from the beginning (and Engberg is similarly sceptical about trying to show that types of opponent changed over time). Generally speaking the better educated critics of Christianity avoided the more exotic accusations made against Christianity by some (cannibalism, incest etc.).
This is a clearly written book which covers most of the relevant primary literature relating to its subject and discusses it judiciously. Most of its author's conclusions are sensible and unsurprising, and the book will, I think, have more the role of a helpful summary piece than an innovative contribution to the field. Some might wonder whether Engberg has distinguished too strongly between the different types of hostility he identifies (in fact on occasion he sees intersections between them), and whether in fact the categories are really that useful (the differences between them are somewhat vague, especially those between ‘xenophobic’ and ‘chimerical’, dependent as they are on levels of believability); and whether we can be as certain as Engberg is that imperial rescripts were quite as irrelevant as he claims them to be. But by and large this is a useful addition to the already massive pile of secondary comment on the persecution of the Christians.
