The Gnostic Sects and the Roman Empire

Abstract

Two generations of lawyers and historians of the early Church have worked over the scanty evidence bearing on the legal and political relations between the first Christian communities and the Roman Empire. It is not the intention of the present writer to add to the enormous volume of work on the subject. The results of their battles have been ably summarised by A. N. Sherwin-White, and with his conclusions the legal problem may be allowed to rest until new evidence is forthcoming. The object of this paper is to look at the question from another point of view, and to ask who were the sufferers, and in particular, who were martyred in the period before the first general persecution under Decius. Were Polycarp, Justin, Blandina and the rest chance victims of private denunciation and the fury of the mob, or did they represent a tradition of belief in which martyrdom became the climax of earthly life? And what of those who obeyed the precept to flee during persecution? Was their action due to cowardice, or was it the belief that martyrdom was not the will of God? Can we see in the controversy over martyrdom which engaged so much of Tertullian's energies, one more phase in the strife between the orthodox and gnostic concepts of Christianity, on the outcome of which so much in the future of the Church depended? What, in fact, was the relationship between the Gnostics and the Roman authorities?