Back in November of 2020, I gave a talk on Diocletian, Christianity and St Alban as part of the St Albans Cathedral's series. The talk was to raise funds for Conservation 50 which is working with other groups to start a 'blue plaques' scheme to celebrate the famous and worthy men and woman of St Albans, and to improve the much-neglected alleyways of the city.
I was subsequently asked if I could share a transcript of the lecture. The talk I gave on Zoom, based around a series of slides and was ad-lib. It is now available on Youtube: https://youtu.be/ToMDvLm1DhI
There is no transcript but, as I have been pressed by some friends to write the talk up into an article, I can offer this version, which is based on the original talk:
My aim in this article is to examine how the Roman Empire dealt with religious dissent and in particular the why and the how the Emperor Diocletian persecuted the Christians and his connection to the British martyr St Alban.
I am going to start with looking at the Roman state and understanding its political structure and use of power. The Roman Empire was at its greatest extent in the 117 CE under the Emperor Trajan. It was vast, roughly covering almost 1,900,000 square miles with an estimated population of around 70 million at that time. Trajan himself had added to the Empire the province of Dacia to the north of the Danube and also for a brief period, after his conquest, all of Mesopotamia was under Roman administration. The logistical problems of trying to govern and manage an empire of this size without the means of modern communication were immense.
The easiest and quickest way for the Romans to move around the Empire was by water whether by sea or river. At the heart of the ancient world was the Mediterranean and the Romans just as the Greeks before them were Like frogs around a pond…, (Plato). However, as the empire expanded many territories depended on communication across land and although Roman roads are famous for their quality and straight lines, this means of transport was slow by today's standards, so central government often had difficulty in both communicating and exerting control in outlying provinces.
As Rome expanded through more conquests its political system had transitioned from an oligarchy (Greek for 'the rule of the few'), governance by the elite noble families, to an autocracy, the rule of one. After the assassination of Julius Caesar in BCE 44, his nephew and adopted son, Octavius seized power and put on the mantle of an autocrat; recognised eventually as the sole ruler with the title of Augustus (which can be translated as 'venerable'). Although initially he had officially claimed he was primus inter Pares = 'first amongst equals', and was referred to as Princeps (the first one), the later status conferred by the name Augustus cemented his absolute power.
Among the other titles Augustus took the most significant was imperator - 'to command', an acclamation and title conferred on a victorious general, which came after his rule to mean the head of state (based upon the fact that he was commander in chief of the military). The imperator, the emperor, was the supreme ruler of Rome, who presided over an empire that had been subjugated through military conquest, so the power acquired by the emperor was that of a victorious general. In Roman memory and culture, because of its historical associations, the title of rex = king was abhorred, so political and social conduct was based upon the legal framework of oligarchic rule that had been established by Senatorial government prior to the ascent of an autocrat. Emperors, however, despite the initial charade of senatorial authority, were soon to become the significant legislators, issuing imperial decrees that technically had universal validity across the empire. However, as I mentioned above, because of communication difficulties, their legislation was not always immediately effected.
The rejection of the concept of monarchy, which is generally based on hereditary succession, meant that technically the emperorship was a meritocratic position rather than one that was inherited through the bloodline. This constitutional meritocratic concept led to a conflict of entitlement between familial descent and 'worthiness'. Worthiness was mainly based upon the backing of military force and was often contested between rival generals. Families would naturally wish to found a dynasty and pass the emperorship on to their sons but the tradition of constitutional meritocracy encouraged those who felt themselves worthier and better placed to challenge hereditary succession by using military force.
Although the Senate was maintained there was only a pale shadow of oligarchic control; given a cursory nod, the government of the empire was in reality under the absolute rule of the emperor. Roman administration had always tended to be totalitarian in practice, using coercion to ensure complete obedience of its subjects with little respect for its subjects' individual rights. Those subjects of the empire that qualified as 'Roman citizens' did have a privileged legal status that gave them access to the judiciary and a different scale of punishment if convicted but during the imperial period, this was often overridden by an emperor's arbitrary use of power. Political resistance to the imperial regime was ruthlessly suppressed and dissidents and opponents eliminated, often along with many members of their family and associates.
Though emperors regularly attempted to found dynasties, these were liable to be overthrown by assassination or military force. The regimes of previous emperors were often condemned by their successors, with the approval of a sycophantic Senate, and might be expunged from history. In the way Stalin removed Trotsky from Soviet records, for example, the famous photograph of Lenin speech in Moscow in 1920, Roman emperors would obliterate the record of their rivals or predecessors, damning their memories, damnatio memoriae. There is probably an example of such a damnatio memoriae in a painted roundel from the Severan period (199 CE) showing the imperial family, the Emperor Septimius Severus, his wife Julia Domna and their two sons, Caracalla and Geta. An extreme example of sibling rivalry, the portrait of Geta has been savagely erased probably as a result of Caracalla killing his brother and damning his memory.
To sustain absolute control over their vast realm emperors demanded complete loyalty and this was demonstrated by continual acts of obeisance. At one level loyalty to the emperor was maintained through an imperial cult, introduced after the deification of Julius Caesar by Augustus, requiring oaths of allegiance and worship of the emperor. The Imperial Cult was to play an important role in the conflict between the Roman state and Christianity. Roman religion was polytheistic and tended to incorporate deities from other cultures but was intolerant of any religion that denied its gods and the imperial cult. For this reason, monotheism was distrusted as anti-Roman and, therefore, tended to be persecuted.
When the Romans conquered Judaea, and incorporated the Jewish people into the Empire, there were tensions because Judaism was monotheistic and did not recognise the Roman pantheon. Even before Rome took control there had been tensions between the Hellenistic (Greek-speaking) population, settled in Palestine after Alexander the Great's conquests, and the Jews. Under Rome there were several Jewish rebellions, partly fuelled by the conflicts with Hellenistic population but also as resistance to Roman governance. The Jews, therefore, were often in a state of agitation, spurred on by the more extreme Jewish sects who saw Roman polytheism and rule as a religious abomination.
One of the most serious and well-known rebellions is that of 66-73 CE because we have an account by an eye witness, Flavius Josephus. Jerusalem was captured and sacked by the future Roman Emperor Titus. The temple was destroyed and the menorah and other plunder brought back to Rome. The conflict was finally brought to an end when the Romans besieged the fortress of Masada, defended by 967 of the Jewish sect of Zealots and their families. The Roman army built a ramp up the side of the fortress but the defenders, rather than be captured committed mass suicide and, according to Josephus, only two women survived by hiding in a well.
Paradoxically, despite the Jews rebelling against Roman rule, the emperors were relatively tolerant of the Jewish religion because their monotheism was seen as being specific to the race of Jews and did not extend to the majority of subjects of the empire, the gentiles. However, the monotheism of Christianity, which cut across ethnicity and could be embraced by all, was intermittently to be perceived as undermining the authority, culture and, most importantly, the success of Rome. The pagan gods had to be placated as they were recognised by the state as the key reason why Rome had been so preeminent in the ancient world.
After the conversion and proselytising of Paul of Tarsus, Christianity, though strongest in the eastern provinces, gradually spread across the whole Empire. Initially, Christianity was regarded by the Roman authorities as an obscure relatively harmless sect of Judaism but as its membership increased its monotheistic and inclusive doctrines - preaching equality - began to be recognised as dangerous because it not only rejected Roman polytheism, but also Roman hierarchy and its social system, the fabric of the Roman Empire.
Our evidence, which is inevitably biased towards the Christian perception, does reveal that as well as there being suspicion and condemnation from the Roman rulers there was also resentment amongst the pagan population of this new religion, which seems to have arisen over concerns based on its secrecy and opaque rituals. Hostile accusations were made about child sacrifice, the drinking of human blood and cannibalism. These were standard Roman tropes used against its enemies: Rome had condemned Carthaginians for child sacrifice (but there is archaeological evidence to suggest they were not wrong about there being such sacrifices) and it can be understood how the elements of the eucharist might be interpreted as some form of anthropophagy (the eating of human flesh by human beings).
As well as ripostes to pagan accusations much of the literature that has survived from the Early Church Fathers is dominated by debates about the nature and doctrine of Christianity. The early physical evidence of Christianity within the Empire suggests that the followers of this new religion kept a low profile. There are the archaeological remains of the catacombs (the underground tunnels and chambers) in Rome dating from the 2nd to 4th century CE where Christians both worshipped and buried their dead. They were hidden from public view and their decorations presented allegorical themes rather than the later more conspicuous iconography of the crucifixion.
An interesting and contentious fresco which has been interpreted as revealing the egalitarian nature of early Christianity has been discovered in the Catacomb of Priscilla. It appears to show women taking part in the eucharist, suggesting gender equality in the early church. This fresco is still a matter of dispute by the Vatican authorities as it might be evidence that the patriarchal hierarchy of the Church is a later invention.
As the Christianity spread across the empire, another reason for suspicion was that Christians appeared to communicate with each with a secret code. There is graffiti evidence that, though tending to hide their faith, they did reveal their affiliation to fellow followers of the new religion through signs and acrostics: the most well-known being the Greek word for fish ἰχθύς(ichthys) which spells out the initial letters for Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτήρ (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour).
The first major imperial persecution of the Christians we learn about was under Emperor Nero. He blamed them for causing the Great Fire of Rome(65 CE). Some believe he was looking for a scapegoat to avert the rumour that he had deliberately instigated the fire himself in order to seize land for his new building developments, like his famous Golden House. There is the evidence from the Roman historian Tacitus where he states to avert the blame for the fire falling on him Nero,
... fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Chrestians (sic) by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. (Tacitus, Annals15.44)
Although this evidence is generally accepted on face value and confirms the first major imperial persecution, there is some doubt about its authenticity with suggestions that a Christian copyist (a monk?) may have inserted an interpolation in a later manuscript of Tacitus.
There is also the suspicion that later Christian authors, wishing to exaggerate the importance of the cult of martyrdom for the early church may have falsified history to enhance the suffering and resolution of the early members of the Church. Such fake news inevitably undermines historians confidence in the authenticity of some of these accounts. Take, for example, the case of the cleric and historian Eusebius, writing in History of the Church in the early 4th century CE, where he quotes some tentative sources, claiming a persecution of the Christians under the Emperor Domitian (89-96 CE). It is the first reference (over two hundred years later) to any persecution under Domitian and there is no contemporary evidence corroborating the allegations. It is, therefore, uncertain that there really were state-driven persecutions in the first century CE.
There is much firmer ground for understanding the imperial view of the Christians during the reign of Trajan when we have some clear evidence from a contemporary source, Pliny the Younger, who was a lawyer, writer, and imperial administrator. He is best known for his Letters (Epistulae); a couple of these describe the eruption of Vesuvius when his uncle, Pliny the Elder died in 79 CE. Pliny the Younger was sent as governor to the province of Bithynia (now in modern Turkey). Around 112 CE Pliny wrote to the Emperor Trajan seeking his advice on how to deal with those who had been brought before him in court, accused anonymously of being Christians (EpistulaeX.96).
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Trajan responds to Pliny's query succinctly with four orders:
Do not seek out the Christians for trial.
If the accused are found guilty of being Christian, then they must be punished.
If the accused deny they are Christians and show proof that they are not by worshipping the gods, then they must be pardoned.
Anonymous accusations should not be considered.
So, it was technically a crime in this period to be a Christian but there was no imperial edict warranting wholesale persecution. Certainly compared with some later Roman imperial regimes both Trajan and his successor Hadrian had a relatively tolerant policy towards Christianity.
This position was to change for the Christians as the Roman Empire became less stable because of external threats and a breakdown in the continuity of imperial succession which led to internal turmoil. By the third century CE access to imperial power lay firmly with the military. As the Roman legions struggled to maintain the frontiers of the empire, their generals became the most powerful figures in the state. The political dominance of the army then led to rival commanders vying for the position of emperor so that internal struggles, civil wars and assassinations plagued the empire. Between 235 and 284 CE there were over 30 different emperors, and even the unity of the Empire became fragmented with rivals forming satellite empires.
As Rome succumbed to what is now generally referred to as the Third Century Crisis, the territorial integrity of the empire was undermined: frontiers were breached by invasions and whole provinces lost. The northern frontiers were under attack from Germanic tribes, Goths, Alamanni and Franks made irregular incursions, seeking plunder and sometimes territory. The powerful Sassanian dynasty of Persia regularly invaded the eastern provinces, usually seeking plunder and money to fund their wars against invading nomadic Turkic tribes that threatened Persia.
In a Shakespearian way the empire was assaulted not just by internal and external warfare, as Claudius says in Hamlet When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions(Act IV, Scene V) but it suffered from plagues and near economic collapse with hyper-inflation. The two most serious outbreaks of plague we have evidence for were the Antonine Plagues of 166-180 n CE and the so-called Plague of Cyprian 251-270 CE. Without accurate figures it is not possible to quantify the actual death toll caused by these plagues but Pontius the Deacon writing in around 259 CE describes the ravages of the disease in the North African city of Carthage:
Afterwards there broke out a dreadful plague, and excessive destruction of a hateful disease invaded every house in succession of the trembling populace, carrying off day by day with abrupt attack numberless people, every one from his own house. All were shuddering, fleeing, shunning the contagion, impiously exposing their own friends, as if with the exclusion of the person who was sure to die of the plague, one could exclude death itself also. There lay about the meanwhile, over the whole city, no longer bodies, but the carcasses of many, and, by the contemplation of a lot which in their turn would be theirs, demanded the pity of the passers-by for themselves. No one regarded anything besides his cruel gains. No one trembled at the remembrance of a similar event. No one did to another what he himself wished to experience.
(Translated by Robert Ernest Wallis. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.)
The plague was to cause a catastrophic shortage of manpower resulting in lower production and a shortage of recruits for the army, which fundamentally weakened the empire and was a major contributor to the instability and military failures that afflicted Roman government throughout the third century.
There were also severe economic consequences for the state in terms of a breakdown in trade and loss of taxes. Successive emperors tried to deal with the weakened economy by devaluing the currency: Roman coinage was mainly based on silver and throughout the third-century emperors consistently reduced the amount of silver in the coinage; for example by the time of the Emperor Claudius Gothicus (268 to 270 CE) the coin known as the Antoninianus just had a silver wash. The loss of confidence in the currency resulted in prices being pushed and therefore massive inflation.
Following a standard practice of society and governments in trouble, Roman emperors looked for someone to blame for the empire's troubles and Christians soon became regular scapegoats. The fact that Christians rejected the old gods - the gods who were responsible for Rome's past successes - made them immediate suspects for the immediate ills that the empire faced. In 250 CE the Emperor Decius published an edict to all provinces demanding that all subjects make a sacrifice on behalf of the emperor to the gods. Once a sacrifice had been made a magistrate would issue a certificate (a libellus), testifying the sacrificant's loyalty to the ancestral gods. Christians who believed this to be against their faith resisted and this resulted in their execution. Though Decius edicts have not survived there are two letters from the Emperor in which he is encouraging the persecution of Christians. We also have accounts of the martyrdom of the Bishop of Carthage, Cyprian, and Sixtus II, Bishop of Rome along with his deacons, including Saint Lawrence who was roasted on a gridiron. He is said to have faced his death with great bravery and made the remark to his executioners: I am cooked on that side; turn me over.
There is a fine 5th century mosaic of St Lawrence facing his martyrdom in a chapel at Ravenna which later became the resting place of the imperial princess Gallia Placidia. Although the severity of the persecution died down after the first year following Decius Edict the future emperor Valerian was to renew the edict in 253, resulting in more Christian executions. It was not until 260 that the Emperor Gallienus repealed the edict.
The need to have the old gods restore Rome's good fortune fuelled a sense of a golden age in the past that had to be recalled: these gods had enabled Rome to have unprecedented success: it was thanks to Jupiter, and the pantheon of classical gods that the city of Rome had become the ruler of the world and it was the neglect of the old traditions that had created the chaos of the 3rd century. Those that had turned away from the pagan gods to embrace Christianity were undermining the Roman Empire by their rejection of the old gods. The Christians defiance against polytheism were part of the reason that the state had suffered a series of setbacks.
This perception of the Christians came to be highlighted when Diocletian became emperor and attempted to reform the Empire, based upon a reverence for the old gods and traditional Roman practices. Born (244 CE) with the name Diocles from the city of Salona (now in Croatia) in the province of Dalmatia, he rose to prominence in the army becoming commander of Protectores Domestici, an elite cavalry unit acting as a bodyguard to the emperor. On the death, in suspicious circumstances, of the Emperor Numerian, he was chosen by the legions of the eastern provinces to be the next emperor. He immediately took the more Latin sounding name Diocletian and after a brief civil war when he defeated Numerian's brother Carinus he set about restoring the integrity of the empire.
He made a major constitutional change, based on his view that the Empire was too vast for one man to rule. He initiated a system which came to be known by the Greek word tetrarchy, meaning the rule of four. This consisted of two senior Augusti and two junior Caesars. The western half of the empire was ruled over by Diocletian's military colleague Maximian and his Caesar, Constantius, and Diocletian, as the senior Augustus, based himself in the east, the wealthier provinces, with Galerius as his Caesar.
An intriguing sculpture, brought back from Constantinople when it was sacked by the Fourth Crusade in 1205, now sits on the corner of the cathedral church of San Marco in Venice. Made of porphyry, a very hard stone from Egypt, the naturalistic classical style is abandoned for an iconic, stylised and abstract depiction; the pose is a piece of propaganda: the four emperors all look the same, they are equal, brothers, they clutch each other to reinforce their unity and they grip their swords - they provide the military protection the empire requires but also, not so subtly, they declare they rule through force and will not be challenged. The image of the emperors is not physically grounded but rather it hints at a spiritual and transcendental reality. This style is a precursor to religious stylised hieratic art of the Middle Ages.
The Tetrarchs first task was to reunify and stabilise the Empire. In the west the province of Britannia that had broken away from the central government was now brought back under its control. After pushing back the Germanic tribes on the Danubian frontier, Diocletian travelled to Nicomedia in the east (now in modern Turkey) and charged his Caesar, Galerius, to campaign against the Sassanians Persians, in order to recover previously lost territories. In 298 CE Galerius secured a major victory of the Sassanian king Narseh, even capturing his wife, harem and treasury.
Diocletian and Galerius met at the city of Antioch and this was to be the start of a religious cleansing which was to prove to be a disaster for the Christians. We are told when a sacrifice to the ancient gods failed to deliver good auspices the Christians were blamed. Diocletian, despite his reforming policies towards government, the military, law, and the economy, or perhaps because of them, took an ultra-conservative position with regard to religion. He styled himself as a ‘restorer’ rather than a revolutionary. He cemented his Roman legitimacy by associating himself with the past so when it came to religion he promoted the ancient gods, by adopting the title for himself of Jupiter, the head of the ancient pantheon, while his co-Augustus, Maximian was linked to Hercules, the ultimate ancient hero. Any religion that undermined the old religion was viewed with suspicion and was condemned. He began to mount campaigns against any novel beliefs that rejected the established religious traditions that had alien origins and seemed to corrupt ancient Roman morals.
Diocletian first took action against the Manichaeans, followers of a Persian religious prophet and leader, Mani (216-274 CE). Mani believed in a form of dualism which saw the world in terms of light and dark, good and evil. Not only did this religion fly in the face of the old Graeco-Roman pantheon but was also Persian in its origin, the enemy of Rome. In 302 CE an Edict was issued that all Manis literature and his followers were to be burnt.
One of our main later Christian sources, Lactantius, claims there was a dispute between Diocletian and Galerius as to how Christians should be dealt with. We are told that Galerius took a hardline position but Diocletian was reluctant to initiate any sort of persecution. To resolve the issue, it was agreed to consult the oracle of Apollo at Didyma. When the oracle responded that Apollo was hindered in advising because of the impious. Diocletian took action and ordered the newly built church in Nicomedia to be destroyed and all Christian scriptures to be burnt.
On 24th February 303 CE an edict against the Christians was issued which ushered in a period of persecution: not only were scriptures and churches destroyed but they were deprived of legal rights, lost their status and rank - senatorial, equestrian, veterans of the army, etc. These actions seemed to have been thought not enough and a Second Edict was published, ordering the arrest and imprisonment of all bishops, priests and clergy.
Perhaps Diocletian felt this went too far, because the Third Edict was issued that offered an amnesty, as long as sacrifices are made to the ancient gods. This requirement seems to have failed as a Fourth Edict was issued in 304 which demanded that all persons should gather to offer a collective sacrifice to the gods. In reality the edicts had been patchily applied, particularly in the West throughout the territories controlled by Maximian and Constantius where they hardly seem to have been enforced at all. The brunt of the persecution of the Christians was in the East and this did not technically cease until Galerius issued an Edict of Toleration in 311. Overall, the edicts have been judged as a failure and it seems most Christians escaped punishment and even among the pagan population there seems to have been little appetite for the persecution of Christians. Where there were martyrs, their sufferings merely served to strengthen the resolve of fellow Christians.
In 3005, probably because of ill health, Diocletian decided to abdicate, the first Roman emperor in 400 years to do so. Once he retired his Tetrarchic system began to fall apart when Constantiusson, Constantine, and Maximian's son, Maxentius, demanded senior imperial roles. Constantine was with his father in York and when Constantius died in 306 CE, he was proclaimed Augustus by his father's troops so the desire for hereditary succession overrode the meritocratic concept Diocletian had tried to instal. Maxentius then also took the title of Augustus.
In 308 CE with the danger of major civil wars between the rival candidates Diocletian came out of his retirement from his palace at Split (in Croatia) and tried to re-establish a tetrarchy. He ignored Constantine's and Maxentius' claims but the new arrangement of Augusti and Caesars that he had agreed with Galerius soon fell apart. Diocletian went back to his palace and lived on for a further four years, tending his gardens, we are told. Meanwhile, a series of civil wars, which he had sought to prevent, broke out across the empire as the various rival generals sought to eliminate each other.
After a series of brutal campaigns, the ultimate victor turned out to be Constantine. Before his crucial victory (312 CE) over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge in Rome, later Christian sources record how he had a vision and/or a dream in which he saw a cross or according to another source the Greek Xhi-Ro in the sky with the words “in this conquer”. In preparing for the battle his soldiers were instructed to paint the symbol on their shields. The belief that it was the Christian God that gave him victory later became a key factor in the legend of Constantine's military and political success. Whatever the reality of this story the year following his victory at the Milvian Bridge, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan granting tolerance to Christians along with all other religions:
... we (Constantine and Licinius) have allowed other religions the right of open and free observance of their worship for the sake of the peace of our times, that each one may be free to worship as he wishes; this law is made that we may not seem to undermine the dignity of any religion. (Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, ch. 48.}
Though Constantine's own conversion to Christianity has many question marks, there is no doubt his mother, Helena, was a key driving force in promoting Christianity. She made a visit to Palestine and not only uncovered the historical sites associated with Christ but also found a series of relics from a piece of the True Cross, the nails used to crucify him, the spear that had pierced his side, the Holy Lance, and the garment he wore on his death. Helena both promoted the idea of a pilgrimage to the Holy Places and the concept of the power of relics engendered with their sympathetic magic.
Often referred to as the Triumph of the Church or Triumph of Christianity, Constantine came to completely change the Late Roman world not only by bringing an end to the persecution of Christians but initiating a process whereby Christianity was to emerge as the state religion.
The consequence was that not only Constantine but future emperors were to act as 'God's vicar on earth' and control the Church in terms of both its doctrine and hierarchy. The adoption of Christianity by the state also resulted in new persecutions but this time it was the pagans; for example the Emperor Justinian I (482- 565 CE) is accused by the contemporary historian Procopius of slaughtering over 50,000 pagans. As well as tearing down pagan temples and banning pagan practices, sadly, many classical manuscripts were destroyed.
Apart from the attacks on pagan polytheism which was anathema to monotheistic Christianity, two crucial elements in the evolution of the Christian religion as the state religion were the reinforcement and development of the Church hierarchy and the articulation of the Cult of Martyrdom/ Saints which focussed on the devotion of early Christians and their resistance to the imperial persecutions. Our main sources, however, concerning the martyrs are factually problematic in that they are hagiographies (holy writings) that have a religious purpose rather than a historical one. The writers praise the martyrs, giving them all sorts of miraculous powers, so that, although they undergo terrible torture and gruesome executions, they triumph through adversity and reveal the power of their Christian God.
If we take St George, the patron saint of England, as an example of these shadowy saints'' lives, we have virtually no clear facts concerning his existence. There are two main sources for his life, one in Greek and the other in Latin: he is identified as a soldier saint from the province of Cappadocia (now central Turkey) martyred at the time of Diocletian. However, he is best known for his vanquishing of a dragon. This legend comes first from an 11th-century Georgian source and is reiterated in the 13th century Golden Legend, which rather than placing St George’s death at the time of Diocletianic persecutions, suggests he was martyred in 287 CE. The story is that St George rescued a king's daughter who was being sacrificed to a dragon that was devastating a city named Silene in Libya. When he gave his reward to the poor the citizens were so amazed they all converted to Christianity.
This leads us to consider St Alban, Britain's proto-martyr, where we encounter the same sort of narratives: facts are difficult to pin down amongst a series of insubstantial references. Historians believe the earliest mention of St Alban is found in Vitricius, who was the Bishop of Rouen and wrote The Praise of Saints, around 396 CE. He makes reference to a martyr in Britain, who while he is in the hands of an executioner performs a miracle with the parting of a river. It is uncertain that this is St Alban but if it is, indeed, him, it is unclear from the description whether he is referring to the river Thames or the Ver.
The main source for St Alban’s martyrdom is the Passio Albani, a hagiography written, it is thought, in the 5th or 6th century. The Passio Albani became the main source for later accounts of St Alban's martyrdom. There are six different surviving manuscripts with three different versions of the saint’s life. It is very much a hagiography, with a concentration on miraculous events so concerns have been raised about its authenticity. Though the author is anonymous, there is a case for it having been commissioned by Germanus of Auxerre.
There is evidence from the Life of Germanus, Vita Germani (written in the 5th century CE) that Germanus visited Britain and, what was claimed to be, the tomb of St Albans in 429 CE. The Passio Albani became the main source for later accounts of St Alban's martyrdom.
We also learn from the writer and follower of St Augustine, Prosper of Aquitaine (c. 390 – c. 455 CE), that Germanus went to Britain to deal with a doctrinal dispute. He states,
Agricola, a Pelagian, the son of the Pelagian bishop Severianus, corrupted the British churches by the insinuation of his doctrine. But at the persuasion of the deacon Palladius, Pope Celestine sent Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, as his representative, and having rejected the heretics, directed the British to the catholic faith.
Pelagius (c.354 – 418 CE) was a theologian who was said to have come from Britain. He rejected the idea of original sin and promoted the concept of free will. Pelagius thought that it was abhorrent that anyone would be born, carrying the sins of their father or their mother. He believed that human beings began life, essentially, as a blank sheet, and, therefore, there was free will, which could take a person in one direction or another, for good or ill. Pelagius became embroiled in a dispute with Augustine of Hippo (in North Africa and not to be confused with St Augustine of Canterbury), who propounded the argument of the apostle Paul that Adam and Eve had been contaminated by concupiscence and as a consequence, all humans were born with original sin. It was, therefore, only through the grace of God that men and women could be saved. In the end, the Catholic Church accepted Augustine’s argument and his view on original sin shaped future church doctrine. Perhaps because of his British origins, it seems as if the Pelagian view was persisting in Britain and Germanus' mission was to bring the British Christians back into line with Rome.
It is not clear what Germanus knew about St Alban before he journeyed to Britain but we are told that when he returned to the continent he carried some soil soaked with the blood of St Alban. Germanus returning to Auxerre with a Saint’s relic illustrates the growing importance of the cult of saints and martyrs. At some point a shoulder bone of Alban is believed to have found its way to Cologne and, as we know, was returned to the Cathedral in 2002. It seems probable that the cult of St Albans played a part in Germanus’ mission to denounce Pelagianism and ensure the reintegration of the British Church with Rome.
Our next source for St Alban is the 6th-century monk Gildas who gives a short account of Alban's martyrdom in his polemic entitled On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain. Gildas calls Alban a martyr of Verulamium but states,
...so also the martyr, with a thousand others, opened a path across the noble river Thames, whose waters stood abrupt like precipices on either side.
Gildas adds to the uncertainty that can be observed in Vitricius’ account about where the Moses’ style miracle of the parting of the waters takes place.
Bede (c.673 – 735 CE) the Benedictine monk, in his famous Ecclesiastical History of the English People, gives a more detailed account St Alban’s martyrdom and records his bold statement of faith which is still used as a prayer in the Cathedral today:
I worship and adore the true and living God who created all things.
Much later on there is a fuller account in the Life of St Albans written by Matthew Paris (c.1200-1259), a Benedictine monk, where the miracles are given great prominence. We are told that when Alban was led off to execution the first executioner refused to do it and became converted to Christianity, and was himself then executed. A second executioner did behead Alban, but his eyes fell out. Alban’s head is supposed to have rolled down a hill, which suggests the execution site may have been where the Abbey was founded. Where the head came to a rest a miraculous spring started to flow. I happen to live in Sopwell Lane, which adjoins Holywell Hill, in St Albans. Sopwell Lane acquired its name because it was along this road into the city that the nuns from a nearby nunnery, in mediaeval times, would sell to pilgrims, coming to visit St Alban's tomb, scraps of bread, known as ‘sops’, dipped in the holy well of St Alban. The cult of St Alban, as ‘the first British martyr’ became immensely important and was the focus for the powerful monastery that was founded and gave its name to the present city.
Historically, we do have real problems with St Alban, not just in terms of understanding the reality of his life and there are some historians who even doubt his existence. If his existence is accepted, our sources are so imprecise that it is unclear as to where and when his execution took place. There are various imperial candidates who might be responsible for his death. The first is the Emperor Septimius Severus who the historian John Morris argues is mentioned in one of the manuscripts of the Passio Albanus:
Alban received a fugitive cleric and put on his garment and his cloak (habitu et caracalla) that he was wearing and delivered himself up to be killed instead of the priest… and was delivered immediately to the evil Caesar Severus.
Severus was in Britain between 2008 -2011 CE and Morris advocates 209 CE as the most likely date of St Alban's execution.
Alban's execution might have taken place between 251 and 259 when the emperors Decius and Valerian promulgated state persecution of the Christians. Another possible candidate is the Emperor Carinus as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives the year 283 CE as the date of Alban’s martyrdom. Bede, however, who was probably following Gildas, places Alban’s death in 305 which is a couple of years after Diocletian’s edicts against the Christians. This is generally still the most accepted date but historically not the most plausible. Diocletian never travelled to the western part of the empire, which were controlled by Maximian and specifically Constantius in Britain and the evidence suggests that the persecutions that Diocletian and Galerius had ordered were not pursued in the western provinces.
So to recap, what were the causes of the persecution against the Christians? If we start with the ideology of the Roman Empire; it was polytheistic, hierarchical and elitist, whereas Christian doctrines were monotheistic, egalitarian and universal. Where Rome was autocratic and totalitarian, Christianity was theocratic - God’s word trumped the emperor’s command. The Roman state was absolutist and coercive whereas a tenet of Christianity was tolerance, or though, we know, Christianity could also be violent (I gave the example of Justinian’s massacres of pagans earlier). Both Rome and Christianity were in their different ways totalitarian which made coexistence fraught with tensions and issues. Roman culture focussed on the physical world and the afterlife was shadowy and insignificant. Roman tombstones bear witness to how important achievements were in this life whereas Christianity was relatively indifferent to the here and now but focused on the soteriological - offering salvation and paradise in the afterlife.
These differences between the Roman state and Christianity became more problematic for peaceful coexistence as the religion expanded not only threatening Roman social order and culture but also Christianity was also seen as undermining the continued success of the Empire. It is often the standard reaction of governments and their citizens to look for scapegoats when faced with hardship and failure and Rome was no exception: Christians because of their different ideology and culture were inevitably targets in the same way that groups of people who are different from the majority tend to get blamed.
We have seen how Christianity turned these persecutions into a key element of their faith that honoured those who suffered for their devotion to their religion, which manifested itself as the Cult of Martyrs/Saints. St Alban is a fine example of the historical importance of the Cult of Martyrs/Saints to Christianity.
Finally, can we blame Diocletian for the death of St Alban? The Emperor's attempt to re-establish the old gods and recover a Roman age that had passed certainly resulted in the persecution and deaths of Christians. Was he responsible for the martyrdom of St Alban? Case not proven!
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