Schism as Identity Transformation in Early Christianity: Sociological Observations on a Most Consequential Intra-Faith Rupture

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Schism as Identity Transformation in Early Christianity: Sociological Observations on a Most Consequential Intra-Faith Rupture

Schismogenesis and the Identity-Difference Dialectic

It is a widely recognized sociological principle that group identities are often decisively shaped or influenced by encounters with so-called Others, whether in the form of competitive rivalry, cultural stimulation, or the imposition of relations of dominance. The categories of “identity” and “difference” are thus a correlative pair, in that collective identities are crystallized and articulated through the detection and specification of group differences, which in turn imparts greater salience and meaning to those differences, as the developing solidarities and identities take on clearer lines of contrastive demarcation. That dialectical interplay has been documented most extensively in the study of inter -group relations, such as rivalries and struggles between nations, religious and ethnic communities, political parties, business firms, and so on. Instances of intra -group differentiation, however, present a significant variation on this dynamic, inasmuch as they proceed from a situation of original unity or solidarity to growing divisiveness and segmental factionalism. Here, the reworking of collective identities is conditioned by a disturbing fact: the “Other” to be condemned or combatted was formerly “one of us,” an ex-insider who now lays claim to an identity and purpose that had once been shared.

The transition from unity to fragmentation within a social movement or organization can thus be modeled as an “identity-to-difference” process, for which the theory of “schismogenesis” provides a particularly apt and insightful framing. First put forth by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson (1935), and subsequently enriched by Marshall Sahlins (2000, 2004), the pivotal concept derives from the Greek words skhisma , meaning ‘cleft’ or ‘division’ (from the verb skhizein ‘to split or sunder’), and genesis , signifying ‘creation’ or ‘generation’. Schismogenesis thus refers to the sociological dynamic through which splits or fissures within a group or organization are created, giving rise to the emergence of oppositional or contending factions. What is particularly noteworthy for analytical purposes is that a schismogenic process tends to follow a structurally phased logic of marked consistency:



A schismogenic dynamic, in short, is one that progressively transforms the disputing parties into “structural antitypes,” with each side polemically presenting itself as “the inverse of the other” (Sahlins 2004:69). Having started from a position of basic unity and agreement, the contending factions are drawn into a spiral of mutual censure and recrimination, amplifying the points of difference through their dialogical exchanges. The schism that occurs, then, is not simply a division or sundering—a making of two out of one—but a transformative remaking of the rival constituencies, who are carried to new positions and self-understandings in the course of their polarizing conflict.

Whenever issues of identity and difference are raised to prominence by social-historical circumstances, one might reasonably expect that the possibilities for schismogenesis would increase accordingly. The domains of politics and religion—each a principal locus for the construction and negotiation of collective identities—provide many of the clearest and most striking examples, in the form of factional disputes and schisms that tear apart and reorder political parties and religious movements. Although sect formation and schismatic developments can be found in all of the major religious traditions, it is Christian history that displays the most prolific manifestation of these phenomena—a sociological signature trait reflective of the fact that Christianity is a religion founded upon and largely defined by a particular set of credal statements. Christian identity, in other words, has always been a matter of determining what constitutes “right belief.” The question of orthodoxy, however, has rarely permitted an uncontested resolution.

Crisis of Empire and the Christian Challenge

Over the so-called long third century—roughly the period between the death of Marcus Aurelius and the ascension of Constantine—the Roman empire would undergo a series of fundamental alterations to its social organization and in its cultural framing of reality. Two interlinked trends would decisively force the fashioning of new arrangements and understandings.

The larger dynamic took the form of a deepening institutional crisis in the affairs of empire, a multi-sided development that would manifest most alarmingly in a growing incapacity of the Roman state to defend its extended borders and maintain stable internal governance. Mutinies and rebellions within the ranks of the legions—often over inadequate pay—issued in a spate of usurpations, as contenders for the imperial crown rose and fell in rapid succession. The civil wars that accompanied these successive misadventures entailed a massive squandering of resources, while also exposing Rome’s frontier regions to repeated barbarian plundering and the territorial encroachments of a resurgent Persian power. Escalating military demands placed unsustainable strains on the treasury, necessitating yet further debasements in the coinage. Inflationary pressures and contractions in the commercial and craft sectors followed inexorably. The ravages of war and the burdens of taxation combined to erode the agricultural supports of the entire social order, a process of rural dislocation and impoverishment that would register in the dual guise of population decline and rising social banditry.A well-placed participant, surveying the ruin as it appeared in its earliest phases, conveyed the precipitous fall in a telling metaphor, characterizing the unexpected imperial reversal as a passage “from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust.” [1]

The second developmental trend—internally connected to the first—centres on the rising social fortunes of the Christian Church, an illegal, quasi-secretive cult association that would find in the hardships and disorders of the times a greater receptiveness for its peculiar and alarming message of imminent world destruction. This grim but increasingly worrisome prophesy carried surprising appeal, however, owing to its astute coupling with an enticing offer of selective deliverance from the pending doom. For to all those who might willingly renounce the idolatrous traditions of their ancestors and commit themselves, exclusively, to the one true religion and its one true God, the Church generously offered the immediate rewards of intensive membership solidarity and charitable supports, as well as a promise of personal immortality in a heavenly world to come. Though the followers of Christ still constituted a marginal movement demographically (perhaps a million members, or roughly two percent of the empire’s total population), the numerous micro-cellular congregations scattered across every province were clearly entering a growth phase in recruitment, which now included prized converts from the higher strata of wealth and status, whose resources—material and cultural—contributed decisively to enhanced organizational performance (Lane Fox 1987). An effective command structure had achieved primacy in the office of the bishop, ruling through a hierarchical ministerium of presbyters and deacons, under which functioned various specialized lesser offices, such as lectors, exorcists, and deaconesses. The capabilities of the Church in empire-wide coordination had likewise developed significantly from the earliest days, when epistolary communication and occasional visitation had sufficed to bind local communities to the shared project of missionary evangelization. From the latter half of the second century onwards, major issues of doctrine, ritual, and discipline would be subject to conciliar decisions by the high clergy, convening periodically at regional synods under metropolitans of increasing power and authority. If the militia Christi —as the zealous devotees of the crucified man-god provocatively styled themselves— remained an “army” of modest muster, they could now boast openly of their expansion and ubiquitous presence.[2]

By mid-century, these counterposing trends—spiralling disarray for an empire under strain from pressing security threats and functional incapacities versus recruitment gains and organizational advances for an expansionary Church—would violently intersect in the form of two state-sponsored persecutions, the first under the emperor Decius ( 249–251), the second initiated by Valerian ( 257–260). Both efforts were unprecedented in scope, scale, and punitive intensity. Under the terrorizing impress of concerted imperial repression, the Christian Church would buckle and fissure, as efforts to address the unanticipated crisis of mass apostasy within its ranks would split the movement into contending factions. In the schismogenic struggle over Christian identity and purpose that ensued, a reorganized Catholic mainstream would emerge triumphant, its prospects for continued growth markedly enhanced by the more moderate stance on membership requirements it had been forced to adopt in response to the dual exigencies of imperial persecution and factional rivalry against its own disciplinary hardliners.

The Decian Persecution and the Disciplinary Crisis of the Church

Late in the year 249 ce, an extraordinary imperial directive was despatched throughout the extended domains of the Roman world. Monitored sacrifices to the gods were to be made by the inhabitants of the empire, all of whom—exempting the Jews, whose ancestral monotheism continued to enjoy legal recognition—were to perform a mandated act of devotional loyalty at their local temples. Commissions were empowered to oversee the sacred procedure and to make record of compliance, with census and tax rolls furnishing controls over identity. Specified times were announced for the stipulated observances, and signed certificates were issued to confirm the loyalty of all dutiful subjects. Here, from the preserving sands of Egypt, is one of forty-six surviving papyrus specimens, all of which were composed in standardized petitionary form:



As issued by the emperor Decius—a senior senator of distinguished military service, and only recently carried to power by his Danubian legions—the purpose of this call for an empire-wide sacrifice is not difficult to establish. Promulgated in the midst of a deepening military, political, and socio-economic crisis, this was a measure designed to regain the seemingly lost “favour of the gods,” the pax deorum that had sponsored and sustained Rome’s imperium from its inception. But if so, the crucial question arises: why had the ancestral deities withdrawn their tutelary support?

The certificates of compliance would appear to provide a transparent disclosure, seeing as the citizenry had been tasked with a comprehensive affirmation of their loyalty. For in addition to the notarized act of compulsory sacrifice, every dutiful subject was required to attest that he or she had “always” ( aei ) and “continuously” ( diatelein ) offered customary devotion in the past. The Decian decree, in other words, was an instrument purposefully designed to draw out, identify, and discipline religious deviants. In light of the pragmatic inclusiveness of Roman polytheism, and the ease with which its expansive sacred canopy provided legitimacy to a wide range of cultic practices, the deviants in question could only have been those who offended the gods through perverse refusal of their rightful worship. The suspected transgressors in this regard—already known and widely reviled—were members of the Christian superstitio , an illegal association of “degenerates” and “traitors” to religion and empire who, as Tacitus famously inferred, were animated by their “hatred of the human race” ( Annals 15.44).

Judicial precedent had long established that for self-declared Christians, or those charged with so being, opportunity would be granted either to renounce or disprove adherence to the illegal superstitio . As Christian teachings and writings were known to feature a demonizing denunciation of polytheistic belief and observance, a simple act of sacrifice to the gods, conducted before a presiding magistrate, served as the standard arbitrating mechanism.[4] By extending this “sacrifice test” to the population at large, Decius and his advisors undoubtedly anticipated that the edict would strike a shattering blow against the renegade movement. The binding requirement to obtain notarized certificates could be expected to induce defections from the more moderate sectors of the cult, while concurrently driving zealots and militants into the open, either via flight or through defiant gestures of voluntary martyrdom—a response pattern that had, in fact, manifested in earlier state-church encounters. In contrast to the sporadic and localized persecutorial efforts of the past, the innovative device of certification provided officials with policing controls of a comprehensive sweep, to which a devout and anxious citizenry—now called upon to participate collectively in a sacred effort to reclaim divine favour—would contribute the essential local surveillance that would permit a more efficient tracking of all known and suspected subversives.

As the implementation of the decree rolled across the provinces, initial results were everywhere encouraging. The bishop of Rome was promptly tried and executed, his martyrdom soon followed by those of his episcopal peers at Antioch and Jerusalem. Bishops elsewhere, along with their presbyters and deacons, were apprehended and imprisoned in considerable number, though it appears that a majority of clerics alertly managed to evade arrest through flight or concealment. Defiant members of the laity were also rounded up, women and children included, to await trials before the provincial governor. Decius must have been particularly gratified by incoming reports that vast numbers of Christians were complying with the edict to sacrifice, signalling thereby a possible willingness to abandon their perverse and subversive allegiance to the “crucified criminal” they had hitherto worshipped as “Lord and saviour” of their “future kingdom.” In a few instances, entire congregations were said to have been led up to the smoking altars by their own bishops, cheered on by approving crowds. Having mobilized to the task, the Roman state had demonstrated a formidable capacity to create apostates.

How history might have transpired had the “blasphemous serpent” and “forerunner of Antichrist” been granted a longer reign is open to speculation, for Decius and his eldest son were slain in battle during a Balkan campaign against invading Goths in the summer of 251. A horrific plague gripping the empire carried off his younger son, and renewed political disorders and urgent military challenges—from barbarians in the north and Sassanians in the east—would displace the Christian problem, temporarily, to a concern of secondary importance.[5]

Mass Apostasy, Penitential Reform, and the Schism of the Katharoi

Christian leaders who experienced this violent “sweep of the dragon’s tail” were anxiously forthright in describing the “ruin and devastation” the persecution wrought upon their communities. From across the empire, all surviving testimony indicates that a majority of Christians—some in frantic eagerness, others in anguished trepidation—made their way to the temples, and there offered sacrifices to the gods they had denounced as demons upon their conversion to Christ. A few sought to avoid the full horror of the polluting deed by sending slaves or kin as proxies; others, in far greater number, resorted to the familiar expedient of plying local officials with bribes, in exchange for their signatures on privately submitted affidavits of sacrifice. A brisk production in forged certificates appears to have developed as well, to judge from the reported massive scale of the traffic in bogus libelli that would soon throw the churches into protracted chaos and factional conflict. Distressingly large numbers from the clerical ranks opted for discretion over valour, taking refuge in remote areas or seeking anonymity in distant cities where fellow believers might provide material support. The exemplary martyrdoms that had been lauded in countless sermons were disconcertingly few, though a great many did heroically court incarceration and torture by defying the order to sacrifice, thereby earning exalted spiritual status as “confessors.”

Following a vigorous opening phase to the Decian persecution, enforcement began to subside during its second year of operation, as the Roman state became increasingly preoccupied with the escalating military threats and border incursions that would presently claim the emperor’s life. Discretionary local amnesties appear to have been granted, with significant numbers of imprisoned confessors gaining unexpected release. Scheduled trials and repeat arrests continued to terrorize the faithful, but these coercive efforts gradually grew more sporadic, and the overall downturn in policing vigilance emboldened many of the exiles and fugitives to venture their return. Resurfacing episcopal authorities resumed direct management of their churches, and diligently set themselves to the task of rebuilding their shattered congregations.

According to the terms of the Christian salvation promise, the miraculous cleansing and spiritual empowerment of the baptismal “washing of regeneration” ( loutrou palingenesias ) required continued preservation for its salvific efficacy; any return to “sin’s dominion” risked the loss of what had been divinely gifted. Lesser failings of character or conduct were atonable thr ough acts of charity, prayer, and fasting, but the restorative adequacy of these penitent measures did not extend to the commission of graver offenses, of which apostasy was assuredly the most fatal. To renounce Christ was to reaffirm Satan; and by so doing one not only forfeited membership in the sacred body of God’s elect, but all prospects for salvation in the heavenly life to come.

The Decian calamity accordingly posed hazards of unprecedented gravity for the Church. Confronted by mass defections on a scale that called into question the organizational viability of the Christian movement and the fundamentals of its belief system, the clerical leadership found its decision options dangerously and fatefully polarized. Should the strictness of traditional norms and disciplinary practices be upheld, in compliance with God’s enduringly revealed word? Or should the exigencies of the times take precedence, in recognition that the redeeming powers of the Church furnished warrant for tactical adjustments in the escalating cosmic struggle? The deep divisions besetting the ranks of the laity presented a particularly difficult challenge. For there were steadfast believers everywhere who had courageously withstood the serpent’s onslaughts, risking torture, imprisonment, exile, and even death to affirm their devotion to Christ. A great many others had defiantly courted arrests that never came, by refusing to present themselves before the superintending magistrates. But the ranks of these “standing faithful” were overwhelmed by the far greater numbers of “fallen” or lapsed members who had denied their Saviour, through either the abominable act of sacrifice or the damning deceit of procuring the bogus certificates of idolatrous compliance. As throngs of these lapsi now pressed for forgiveness and reinstatement, it became increasingly clear that for the Church to endure and prosper during its earthly sojourn, the damning sin of apostasy would require a new understanding.

If the magnitude of the Decian crisis was new, the ideological challenge it presented was not unfamiliar. Christians of the immediately preceding generation had contended over a related principle, brought to the fore by growing recognition that many of the more recent converts and less zealous members were experiencing difficulties in upholding the purity demands that attended their baptismal cleansing. Two reformist metropolitans, Callistus of Rome ( 217–222) and Agrippinus of Carthage (fl. 215), accordingly chose to modify, quite radically, the established distinction between lesser or venial sins and the so-called mortal or irremissible sins ( peccata aeterna, hamartia pros thanaton ).[6] These latter offenses were held to be fatal to the perpetrator’s prospect for salvation, seeing as their commission would issue in an aggrieved departure of the indwelling Holy Spirit that had been gifted during baptism. Though fornication and adultery had long been ranked alongside apostasy and murder in the category of peccata mortalia , Callistus and Agrippinus now ruled that sacerdotal powers of absolution could be extended to these sexual transgressions as well, contingent upon demonstration of appropriate repentance and atonement. Moderates everywhere embraced the new policy, but traditionalists either refused or resisted its implementation—even to the point of an open split in the Roman church, where the more conservative elements were led into schism by the learned presbyter Hippolytus (c. 170–235), duly elected counter-bishop to the laxist rival he would denounce as a sorcerer and corrupting sensualist ( Refutatio Omnium Haeresium 9.12).

By forcibly shifting the focus from carnal desires to issues of idolatry and apostasy, the empire-wide persecution launched by Decius struck at the very core of Christian identity. For on this matter their Redeemer had spoken not in parables, but in categorical speech: “Whosoever shall confess Me before men, such will I confess before my Father in heaven; but whosoever shall deny Me, such will I also deny” ( Matthew 10.32). Indeed, the parallel scripture in the Gospel of Luke (12.8–11) expressly links the obligation of “bearing witness to Christ” to trials of persecution, whether held in the “synagogues” or before “the rulers and authorities.” In the wake of the mass apostasy brought on by the Decian edict, the ecclesiological quandary permitted no evasion. Would the Church continue to self-identify as a spiritual gathering of those who stand firm against the Satanic foe, ever faithful to their baptismal pledge? Or would the depleted ranks of Christ’s army be restored through the polluting and demoralizing readmission of known deserters and apostates?

From the pastoral pamphleteering and extensive epistolary correspondence that survives, it is possible to reconstruct the broad flow of events for this transformative episode, and to do so with sociological details of considerable informational density and specificity.[7] Explanatory comprehension of the unfolding dynamic can best be attained by attending to its developing phases:



The passage from the onset of persecution to the eruption of schism was driven by two overriding concerns: (1) the organizational imperative of restoring to communion the majorities that had apostatized, and (2) the ideological constraint of seeming to do so within the normative parameters established by tradition and scripture. Difficulties arose from the start, as large numbers of those who had secured the illegal certificates of sacrifice—disparagingly dubbed libellatici —promptly pressed for readmission on the grounds they had thereby astutely avoided the polluting act of idolatry. Imprisoned confessors, in their exalted status as martyrs-to-be, were soon utilizing their anticipated intercessory powers with God to grant “letters of peace” to those making appeal, a practice that all but ordered the bishops to offer merciful reconciliation to the lapsed. In several notorious instances, letters of indulgence were even extended to the sacrificati who had committed open apostasy.As panic and disorder spread, various confessor groups began issuing blanket reconciliations for all those who had demonstrated remorse, while clerics who had remained at their stations—either inclining towards leniency themselves or yielding to popular pressures—started to readmit to full Eucharistic communion all who had fallen, including those who had but recently “served at the altars of Satan” and had “tasted of the poisonous food of the idols.” [8]

From their places of concealment, the preeminent bishops attempted to reassert disciplinary control through envoys and letters. Having been spiritually compromised by their own unseemly retreat from the fray, however, their counsels met a mixed reception. Illustrative is the predicament confronting Dionysius of Alexandria, as conveyed in an imploring missive sent to his colleague, Fabius of Antioch. After reporting that the churches throughout Egypt have been “torn asunder” by imprisonments, banishments, and martyrdoms for the heroic few, and widespread flight and apostasies for the less courageous many, the fugitive metropolitan discloses the attending scandal. His own confessor-martyrs are now assertively pushing through laxist accommodations for the sacrificati , restoring them as penitents eligible to share in the congregational feasting and prayers. Wary of Fabius’ traditionalist disposition, Dionysius defensively registers his own approval of this merciful policy through a selective invocation of scripture, citing the passage in Ezekiel (18.23) where God is credited with a preference for the repentance, rather than the death, of sinners.[9] Cyprian would face yet greater challenges in the African churches, where localized alliances between imprisoned confessors and laxist clerics had led to an abandonment of all penitential order and the polluting readmission of apostates to the sacrosanct table of the Eucharistic celebration (Cyprian Epistles 15–20). The situation in Rome was momentarily more stable, owing to concord between the clergy and the imprisoned confessors against premature restoration of the lapsed; but even here paralyzing uncertainty remained as to the terms of any permanent settlement ( Epistle 8).

Miasmic anxieties ran high in the ancient Mediterranean world, and markedly so among Christians, for whom any contact with the demonically infested culture of polytheism would call forth a panic of apotropaic gestures and curses to ward off the polluting dangers. A proposal to readmit idolatrous apostates into communion with the faithful would thus encounter formidable resistance, cognitive as well as emotional, and any resolution to the present crisis countenancing such a step would require a most difficult reordering of world view and practice. Not only would it be necessary to attenuate still further the traditional dichotomy between mortal and venial sins—by bringing the most heinous of the aeterna peccata within the ambit of sacerdotal powers of reconciliation—but deeply ingrained pollution anxieties would have to be addressed in a corresponding manner.

During the intense opening phase of the persecution, moderates and traditionalists stood united against the reckless conduct of laxist confessors and clerics, who were readmitting the lapsed to communion without due regard to scripture or proper episcopal oversight. To curb these excesses, the Carthaginian and Roman sees issued interim rulings that sought to stabilize practices on the following principles: (1) sacrificati and libellatici were alike guilty of apostasy, the former having denied Christ openly, the latter having done so deceptively; (2) apostasy, as a sin “against God,” lay beyond priestly powers of absolution; (3) ardent penance is to be enjoined upon the fallen in the hope this might secure God’s divina misericordia in the Judgement to come, while renewing their zeal for the battle still raging; (4) demonstrated repentance will merit Eucharistic consolation from the Church for those in articulo mortis; and (5) martyrdom, as a cleansing “baptism of blood,” remains available for those eager to reclaim their lost salvation (Cyprian Epp . 8, 17–19, 30, 31, 36).[10]

These provisional guidelines, sensibly balanced to the urgency of the crisis and the demands of tradition, proved unworkable. The sheer magnitude of the disaster was such that Church leaders who adopted a principled stance against leniency found themselves outflanked by more laxist clerics and the vociferous apostate majorities who rallied behind claims that the confessor-martyrs—God’s privileged advocates—had already sanctified their full restoration. In the regional synods that resumed convening over the spring and summer of 251, these sociological realities would both frame and inform the conciliar debates that ensued, and the accommodative resolutions that were made.

The African churches were the first to hold congress, a reduced but adequate number of clerics managing to assemble in Carthage in late April. Charged debate over the competing claims of scripture, custom, and reason marked the proceedings, but agreement was eventually reached that the degrees and circumstances of apostasy required corresponding penitential distinctions. On sensible and compassionate grounds, it was decided that those who had resorted to bogus certificates were guilty of a lesser offense. Admittedly weak of faith, their intention—to avoid the befouling ingestion of demonic offerings—rendered their acts of desperation pardonable. On condition that the “pollution of conscience” thereby incurred had since been cleansed by streaming tears of repentance, all these lapsed were deemed eligible for immediate restoration. For those who had actually participated in the idolatrous sacrifices, however, their defilement was so thorough—entailing a corruption of both flesh and spirit—that terms of lifelong penance were deemed fitting and necessary. Yet even here, various Church leaders acknowledged that many of the faithful had succumbed involuntarily, a majority to fear and terror, but for notable others only after horrific tortures. In due course, these clerical sympathies would translate into generous relief measures for the penitent lapsi ; but for the present, the fallen were advised to take comfort in the promise that all deathbed reconciliations would, as before, be accompanied by the Church’s intercessory blessings for the heavenly trials to come.

Notwithstanding his influential authority as metropolitan, these synodal rulings confirm that Cyprian had failed to garner support for the compact he had made earlier with the presbyters of Rome, which held that libellatici and sacrificati were alike guilty of apostasy, and that no “loosing” by God’s earthly servants could possibly be extended to this most transgressive of mortal sins. But having yielded to the tide of conciliatory opinion, Cyprian would hail this new consensus for its “healthy moderation,” and thenceforth devote his ministry to the overriding priority of “restoring the fallen to salvation” (Ep. 55.6–7).

As the African synod drew to a close, news arrived that a papal succession crisis had erupted in Rome. Cornelius, a senior presbyter, was the first to have been consecrated, but this act was quickly countered by the election of Novatian, a gifted presbyter-theologian who had been exercising ecclesiastical guidance in the year since pope Fabian’s early martyrdom. Novatian’s envoys, clamouring for a public investigation, laid damning charges that Cornelius’ elevation had been procedurally fraudulent and sacrilegious, owing to the man’s earlier procurement of a certificate of sacrifice. Shortly thereafter, two Italian bishops who had participated in Cornelius’ suspect ordination arrived, denouncing the Novatianist usurpation ( Epp . 44, 45). With the possibility that a libellaticus had been raised to the throne of Peter, the situation was dire. For if Novatian’s counter-election was simply an act of personal aggrandizement—as Cornelius alleged—why were the Roman confessors so conspicuously supporting his cause?

The succession dispute quickly devolved into an open struggle between disciplinary traditionalists and reformers throughout the Christian world. Letters of justification were sent out by the rival popes, setting off an intense round of propagandistic charges and ideological positioning. Opinion in the churches tended to split along existing fault lines, with laxist and rigorist factions vying for the moderates whose backing normally decided the local balance of power. Excommunicated by an Italian synod convened by Cornelius in early July, Novatian and his supporters embarked on a full-scale campaign to rally support for the rigorist cause. Presenting themselves as “defenders of ecclesiastical doctrine” and “vindicators of the Gospel,” the Novatianists proceeded to establish links o f solidarity with like-minded clerics and laity across the empire. To ensure the spiritual efficacy of the Church’s sacramental ministrations, communities presently being led by clerics who had failed to stand during the Decian persecution would receive bishops and presbyters consecrated by Novatian himself. In swift order, a functioning Church of the Katharoi assumed institutional form and doctrinal coherence, its ranks filled by all the many traditionalists who could find no warrant—scriptural or customary—for continued communion with known idolaters and apostates. In laying claim to “purity” status, the Novatianists signalled their opposition to the penitential reforms that were being pushed by moderate and laxist elements in the Catholic or “Universal” Church, whose leaders they denounced for abetting the most sacrilegious of sins and offenses against God. Novatian’s call to reaffirm and reconstitute the ecclesia pura that Christ and His Apostles had mandated—a Church free from the polluting presence of apostates, fornicators, and adulterers—struck a deeply resonant chord.[11]

Cyprian, having already ratified a policy of leniency in the recent African synod, opted to side with Cornelius. With his own episcopacy under pressure from laxist circles, any continuing alliance with disciplinary hard-liners would jeopardize the emerging Catholic consensus. But in setting aside the traditional stipulation regarding the mandatory and perpetual excommunication of apostates, the party of moderation courted other risks. For did these penitential concessions not invite, recklessly, the corruption of Christ’s “virgin bride” through the polluting readmission of those who had renounced their Saviour, in vile appeasement of the minions of Satan? Did they not make open mockery of the scriptural requirement for purity within the Church?

Pressed on those very points by one of his own African bishops—absent, like many others, from the recent synod— Cyprian responded with a carefully composed circular (Ep. 55). Acknowledging that his opposition to leniency had been unyielding during the persecution, the prelate defends his earlier stance as a prudent tactic to encourage the fallen to enter the fray and reclaim, through martyrdom, their lost salvation. But with Decius slain and persecution abating, he can now openly endorse the compassionate views of his colleagues, that “conditions for reconciliation ought to be made less stringent” ( Ep. 3.2). If he has shown greater forbearance in this than many deem justifiable, he has done so for purposes of “gathering together our scattered brethren,” conceding that in “providing for the salvation of the many,” he is “yielding to the urgent needs of the times” ( Ep. 7.2). As for those who would shut the door of repentance, is it not manifest they have enrolled in the camp of the Devil, becoming complicit thereby in the murder of their abandoned brethren? In refusing to distinguish between those who had sacrificed and those who merely obtained certificates, Cyprian goes on, the pitiless Novatian reveals himself to be no true follower of Christ, but of the Stoics, subscribing to their perverse paradox on the ‘equality of all sins’ ( omnia peccata paria esse ). Hardened in inclementia and acerbia , this arrogant schismatic fails to realize that the lapsed have suffered grievous, but not fatal wounds, and can be “revived unto faith” by penitence (16.3).[12] In the battle against Satan, the Church militant must deploy her powers of absolution in full measure: “No one,” he sweepingly declares, “ought to be debarred from the fruits of repentance and the hope of reconciliation” (27.3). Seeing as the Church functions in the service of the Lord’s redemptive compassion, it follows that “reconciliation can be granted through His bishops, to all who implore and call upon His mercy” (29.1).[13]

With this new discourse of moderation, Catholic pastoral reasoning has broken through the barriers of tradition and scripture, clearing a path for future penitential adjustments as might be required. Within a year, the African synod will lift its sentence of lifelong penance for the sacrificati , granting a blanket amnesty to all. In justifying the hasty reversal, Cyprian will write of having received “divine communications” warning of renewed persecution ( Ep. 57). For the apocalyptic contest drawing near, the weakened army of the Lord must replenish its ranks, and to ensure adequate muster every willing soldier must be restored to communion. Against the traditional view that the saving glory of martyrdom should suffice to inspire those fallen from grace, Cyprian counters by vesting the potency for accomplishment in the ecclesiastical sacramentum , rather than in the hearts of believers: “a person cannot be fit for martyrdom, if he has not been armed for battle by the Church; his mind fails if it has not been aroused and fired through reception of the Eucharist” (4.2). In Rome, Cornelius and his successor Lucius will ratify these expansive rulings for the Italian churches ( Ep. 68), following the same laxist course that Dionysius has been charting for Egypt. By summer’s end in 253, the Catholic party line will secure widespread confirmation in the Eastern churches, when a grand synod convening in Antioch rules against what is brazenly styled “the innovations of Novatian”![14]

Schismogenesis and the Valerian Persecution

The separation of Christian moderates and hardliners proceeded apace over the ensuing years, resulting in the consolidation of two distinctive ecclesiastical organizations “in all the provinces and cities” across the empire ( Ep. 55.24). As Catholics and Katharoi confronted one another, each camp was driven to assail its rival on those points that had precipitated the initial rupture, a process that elevates those issues into the principal identity markers of the competing Churches. This “schismogenic” dynamic—a refashioning of new group identities out of the contested sundering of an original unity—would lead towards an increasingly polarized opposition, with each side valorizing its own position through an intensifying deprecation and negation of the practices and principles espoused by the other.

Where the Catholic faction would invoke pastoral obligations to mercy and reconciliation, the Katharoi would insist upon the purity of God’s elect and the irremissability of the peccata aeterna . The “healthy moderation” and “gentle justice” defended by Catholics was countered by a Novatianist demand for “strict evangelical censure and discipline.” Denunciations and recriminations—the favoured mode of discourse—were correspondingly registered in counterpoint. Catholics were the “indulgent advocates of vice,” insensibly given to “irreligious laxity” and “mistaken compassion.” Katharoi were the “murderers of penance,” the “destroyers of charity.” Through their laxist reforms, Catholics had abandoned the antiqua fides and disciplinae evangelicae , and were thus deserters from God’s army.In erecting their “counterfeit altar,” the Katharoi had turned “traitor to the Church.” By readmitting adulterers, fornicators, and even apostates into full communion at the Lord’s banquet, Catholics brought not only shame but contagious pollution to the “virgin bride of Christ.” By arrogantly refusing to extend the “healing medicines of penance” to their fallen brethren, the Katharoi were at one with the “brother-hating heresy of Cain.” [15]

In the escalating polemic, each side began to deny the efficacy of the sacerdotal ministrations carried out by the rival organization, thereby placing the salvation of all believers into heightened doubt and anxiety. With both churches subscribing to the exclusivist principle of “one faith, one baptism” ( Ephesians 4.5), it followed that the dispute over penitential standards would widen to encompass other ecclesiastical functions and capabilities. Consistent with his traditionalist belief that a Christian is one who faithfully preserves the gifted presence of the Holy Spirit, Novatian logically concludes that lapsed clerics are incapable of bestowing sacramental grace. The corrupting restoration of apostates, moreover, spreads their deadly contagion throughout the congregation, resulting in a comprehensive loss of the Spirit’s salvific presence, voiding all penitential rites and oblations in the process. Novatianist churches accordingly adopt an “immunizing” policy of rebaptizing all those who abandon the Catholic fold for communion among the Katharoi. The Catholic leadership will reciprocate by following an identical course, denying to their opponents any capacity to possess or dispense the powers of the Spirit, on the ground that schism is a form of collective apostasy from the true Church, the Ecclesia Mater . Cyprian’s rhetorically potent formula for the emerging Catholic consensus, “there is no salvation outside the Church,” was functionally braced by the principle that the “priesthood of God” could be found only where the line of succession from Christ’s apostles had remained unbroken ( Ep. 73.21). All ministrations by schismatic clerics—who were labelled such by definitional fiat—are thus incapable of sanctifying, for the powers they murderously command are demonic rather than divine, and the master they serve is not Christ but Satan ( De ecclesiae catholicae unitate 6–11).[16]

These deepening divisions within the Christian polity are unlikely to have escaped the notice of Roman officials, whose responsibilities for safeguarding the public order against subversive associations ranked high on the list of priorities. The Decian fallout in particular would have drawn close monitoring, given the immense logistical effort that had been made to break the offending superstitio . Though little was done to reinforce the persecution during the brief and chaotic reign of the emperor Gallus, incidental banishments and carceral martyrdoms con tinued. With plague still raging and military setbacks mounting—Shapur’s devastating advances in the east ( 252–253) yielding much plunder and huge territorial gains in Syria—the Christians were effectively left to their own factional pursuits. Gallus’ assassination by mutinous troops paved the way for the respected Valerian to take power in September 253, and he, along with Gallienus, his son and co-emperor, set about restoring order and security.

The deepening military crisis took precedence from the outset of their joint reign, with Gallienus overseeing operations against barbarians raiding along the Rhine and Danube, while Valerian directed his legions against Scythians, Goths, and Persians in the east. In the midst of these urgent challenges, however, the persecution of Christians was abruptly renewed in the summer of 257. Having served alongside Decius, and of similar background and career experience—aristocratic lineage, senatorial rank, prominent military commands— Valerian carried the same traditionalist values and dedication to preserving the Roman order. The eradication of Christianity would have presented itself as a necessary task and sacred obligation. Nor would doubts about feasibility have given much pause, seeing as the Decian example had demonstrated that the Roman state possessed a formidable capacity to create apostates. All this good work had been undone, however, by the innovative and unexpected flexibility of the Catholic Church in restoring its fallen members to full membership, though at the marginally disruptive cost of a factional rift within its ranks. Lessons appear to have been learned, for Valerian would incorporate those facts in his revised anti-Christian strategy.

Where Decius had sought to force Christians into mass apostasy, Valerian opted to strike at the organizational functioning of the movement. His first edict featured two measures: members from the upper clerical ranks who refused participation in the traditional rites were to be banished, and all Christian assemblies and cemeterial gatherings prohibited, under threat of capital punishment (Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 7.11). Cyprian, Dionysius, and scores of other high clerics—Catholic as well as Novatianist—were duly sent into exile; lesser clerics and lay Christians who proved troublesome were despatched to the mines or executed outright. By thus removing the episcopal commanders from their posts, and by banning all forms of assembly for the ranks, Valerian aimed at reducing the Christian communities to disorder and demoralization. By the following summer, the emperor was ready to venture a full-scale assault on the Christian power structure. Terms of uncompromising severity were announced: summary executions for all higher clergy who refused to offer sacrifice to the gods; senators, high-ranking officials, and equestrians who had joined the illegal superstitio were to suffer loss of property and status, and execution if they refused to renounce membership; matronae were to be dispossessed of property and exiled; and those among the freedmen and servants of Caesar’s household who had confessed Christ were to be stripped of their possessions and consigned to forced labour on imperial estates (Cyprian Ep. 80).

The objectives behind these measures are discernable from the targets chosen. As the devotees of Christ were known to be drawn overwhelmingly from the poor and servile classes, what could be more effective than a “dual decapitation” that would deprive the faithful of their leadership and their most prosperous and influential patrons? Though the number of Christian senatores and notables at this time is likely to have been exceedingly small, converts from the propertied strata had been gaining alarming momentum, and notoriously so among the ranks of aristocratic matrons.[17] Valerian’s coercive mandatum sought to reverse and prevent any further betrayal by members of the elite, while simultaneously sundering the Christian masses from the patronage supports that sustained their celebrated welfare operations. As for the punitive relegation of Christians among the Caesariani , Valerian was particularly keen to remove potential spies, and those holding influential positions in the palace staff who might have interfered with his effort to suppress the atheistic cult.

Valerian’s policy met with vigorous early enforcement. Within days of the second decree’s issuance, the Roman pope Sixtus and several of his deacons were apprehended for violating the ban on assembling and promptly executed. Other leading clerics—including the implacable rivals Cyprian and Novatian—would presently follow, as recorded martyrdoms accumulated from across the empire. Out of the artful tangle of preserved memory, expansive legend, and outright fabrication that constitutes the Christian tradition, it is difficult to chart the course of the persecution as it progressed over the remaining two years of Valerian’s reign. But even allowing for a prodigal measure of padding in the various regional and local martyrologies, there is little reason to doubt either the impression or the likelihood that considerable numbers of Christians—clerics most prominently—perished in the process. Of apostasies there is scant mention, a reflection of the fact that Valerian’s policies were intended to bring about a “top-down” dismantling. The strategy was doubtless sound, and against a Roman state committed to the task, any active resistance from the persecuted would have met with efficient slaughter. Yet this effort, too, foundered, and on a contingency similar to that which had cut short the Decian attempt. In the summer of 260, while seeking to relieve Edessa from Persian siege, Valerian’s plague-ravaged legions were routed by Shapur’s forces, and the emperor himself taken captive. Unable, or perhaps unwilling, to ransom his elderly father from a bondage rumoured to be marked by daily humiliations, Gallienus signalled a change in domestic policy by promptly abandoning the persecution. By imperial order, Christians were granted permission to resume their religious activities “without molestation,” and instructions were delivered to the treasury to expedite the return of all properties confiscated from the Church (Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 7.13). Decades would pass before the next, and last, empire-wide persecution would be attempted.

Aftermath: Puritan Marginalization and the Catholic Ascendency

The Decian and Valerian persecutions were pivotal episodes in the developmental trajectory of the Christian faith. As set within the standard narrative—pitting a resiliently surging subcultural movement against a flagging imperial power, its social order buckling under the strains of continuous war and ongoing political instability—these successive “contests” are commonly thought to register the shifting strengths of the contending parties. Closer attentiveness to the social processes entailed, however, must qualify any presumptive teleology, for the contingencies that played into the imperial failures were not inconsequential, and the Christianity that emerged from the struggle was not the same one that had entered it.

In the wake of the mass apostasies occasioned by the Decian persecution, the Church underwent a sociologically momentous bifurcation, as the penitential dispute between traditionalists and pragmatists led to a schismatic consolidation of two antagonal organizations, each keyed to significantly different conceptions of Christian identity. Most crucially, this separation of Katharist from Catholic was accompanied by a major realignment within the ranks of the faithful, as the rival communities appealed to fundamentally distinct membership constituencies. Though a quantifiable demography of the schisma is beyond recovery, surviving sources leave little doubt as to its historic scale. Clerical testimony from across the empire is uniformly grim in reporting that large numbers of believers—outright majorities in many congregations—fell into apostasy. Recognizing that a permanent loss of these lapsed multitudes would jeopardize the mission of the Church, Catholic leaders worked their way toward a policy of reconciliation, overturning scriptural rulings and established norms on the irremissibility of mortal sins in the process. Moderate and laxist elements would henceforth function as the stabilizing base of Catholic Christianity. In opposing these reforms, Novatian drew support from the puritan and traditionalist ranks, and while constituting a numerical minority, the elevated zeal of these constituencies imparted to Katharist congregations the advantages of intensified solidarity and disciplined commitment. Even on the certainty that a substantial majority of moderate Christians remained within the Catholic fold, Novatianist recruitment successes were not minor, and can be estimated to have reached levels of twenty, and possibly upwards of thirty percent. The vehemence of Catholic alarm over Novatian’s early progress—the schismatic label quickly giving way to envenomed charges of heresy—confirms that a self-sustaining base of support had been attained, as does the fact that the Church of the Katharoi would operate successfully for centuries to come, with major cities commonly hosting several puritan congregations. Schematic delineations of the “unitary before” and “schismatic after” are provided in Figures 1 and 2, respectively:

The sociological implications of this realignment are readily identified. Where laxist, moderate, and rigorist factions had formerly counterbalanced and restrained each other within a unitary institutional organization, post-Decian Christianity would proceed along bisected paths. The Catholic variant, driven polemically towards an unrestricted affirmation of forgiveness and toleration, would move to a new equilibrium centered on a laxist-moderate alliance. The Katharoi, rallying to affirm and uphold the evangelical call to purity, would anchor their faith in the unbending zeal of committed traditionalists. By thus separating and segregating these sociologically distinct constituencies, the schism would reorder the “field of action” within Christianity, affording each camp the latitude to pursue policies solicitous of the needs and understandings of its own particular carrier group.

No longer constrained by the inhibiting presence of rigorists and disciplinary hard-liners, Catholic Christianity is henceforth free to progressively and pragmatically attune its salvific programme to incorporate and retain ever larger numbers of converts, which it accomplishes through a facilitating expansion in its sacramental means of bestowing absolution and grace to wayward members. In this reformed conception of Christianity, the formalistic criterion of unity—now expressly defined in authoritarian fashion as continuing loyalty to bishops of Catholic lineage—will take precedence over the substantive requirement of living spiritually in compliance with the baptismal pledge. Indeed, even the most heroic manifestations of the Faith will be subordinated to the issue of ecclesiastical affiliation, as Cyprian and his colleagues will rule that schismatics and heretics who “suffer for the Name” can earn no saving purification thereby. In the very act of separating from God’s ordained bishops, the renegade forfeits salvation, for “outside” the Church there can be no workings of the Spirit—no genuine baptisms, no healing penances, no authentic prayers, no partaking of heavenly food, nor even the inspired miracle of a baptism by blood: “there can be no martyr who is not in the Church” (Cyprian De unitate 14). Considering that the Catholic leadership had only recently decided, contentiously and divisively, to extend absolution to all the many spiritless apostates who had failed the test of affirming Christ, this unabashed “political” usurpation of the blessings of martyrdom was undoubtedly greeted with confident derision inside the Katharist congregations.[18]

Compelled by the difficulties of defending policy innovations against the proscriptions of convention and scripture, Catholics were led to reframe the discourse on sin by bringing it under the aegis of their increasingly dominant principle of institutional primacy. For by claiming that the workings of the Spirit are confined to the mediating operations of a Church established in and through its apostolic episcopate, any act of defiance or rebellion against that order will necessarily constitute an offense of gravest magnitude. On such reasoning, the most grievous of sins becomes schism, which not only shatters the sacred unity of the Church, but fatally removes its misguided followers from the saving grace of the Spirit. In a rhetorically astute counter to Novatianist censure of their role as “indulgent patrons” who transgress the Lord’s command by granting absolution and communion to those guilty of adultery and apostasy, Cyprian and his allies would attempt to shift the discrediting onus by assimilating both of these offenses with schism. For what is a “rending of the Church” if not a form of collective apostasy, which must be accounted a far greater sin than any singular failing of idolatry, seeing as it entails—so Dionysius reasoned—the fall of many (cited in Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 6.45.1). More categorically, Firmilian of Cappadocia denounced the schismatic as “an apostate from the communion of ecclesiastical unity,” and condemned their gatherings as “adulterous and whorish unions” incapable of producing children of God ( Epistle 75.24, 14). In the anonymous tract Ad Novatianum, probably composed by Sixtus II, Novatian himself was assailed as “an apostate from the family of God” and a raving antichrist who subscribed to the murderous “heresy of Cain” ( Ad Novatianum 13, 14). Cyprian would push this line of polemic to its extreme, repeatedly denouncing the schismatic “apostates and deserters” who split the Church and steal away and destroy innocent brethren, abandoning the “chaste bride of Christ” for the corrupting allures of “adulterous unions” outside the one sacrosanct “house of God” ( Epp. 55, 69, 71, 72; De unitate 6, 10). With unity as his regulating principle—unity is a sacrament, he declares— Cyprian would go so far as to propose that schism is an offense far more destructively encompassing than idolatrous apostasy, and that it alone, accordingly, is an irremissable sin, inexpiabilis, beyond the redeeming powers of either penance or martyrdom ( De unitate 14).

The effectiveness of this Catholic counter-critique in reviving the faith and solidarity of dispirited congregations can safely be presumed, considering that great numbers of one-time apostates would have eagerly welcomed any opportunity to discharge or displace residual feelings of guilt and anxiety through a self-affirming castigation of those who had stood more resolutely in the recent trials of fidelity. It was reassuring, no doubt, to be told that Novatianist clerics were “priests of the devil,” that their false sacraments polluted rather than cleansed, and that the communion of renegades and deserters is a communion of the dead. But negative campaigning against the schismatic “Other” carries its own limitations, and if relentlessly pursued, risks exposing the compensatory and defensive motives that drive the intensified hostility. Herein resides the historic importance of the Valerian persecution.

Under Decius, the coercive instrumentalities of public monitoring and compliance certification had proven effective in the making not only of apostates, but schismatics as well. Valerian opted for a different course, which featured a direct assault on the clerical and social elites of the Christian establishment. Through targeted arrests, banishments, and executions for the recalcitrant, Valerian sought to break the offending superstitio by depriving the membership ranks of their leaders and patrons. He, too, was successful to a point; but it was not in the creation of yet more apostates or schisms. Valerian’s legacy lies rather in the making of martyrs, and Catholic martyrs most notably. The celebrated martyrdoms of Sixtus II and Cyprian took pride of place, but less prominent clerics from across the empire would also claim their heavenly crowns in defiance of the imperial orders. Though the persecution hit the Katharist communities as well—with Novatian himself among the martyrs—this inclusionary “levelling” by the Romans inadvertently enabled the Catholic majority to reclaim its lost glory, and thereby blunt the force of ongoing Novatianist censure of prior timidity. Cyprian had earlier attempted, tendentiously, to claim that Satan’s molestations were confined to Christians of the true Church, whereas schismatics were but lightly touched by persecution, seeing as the Adversary “does not seek out those he has already subdued, or look to subvert those he has already made his own” ( Ep. 60.3). But now this line of reasoning could be forwarded with greater confidence, as the toll of Catholic martyrs mounted. Indeed, this heroic recovery found immediate polemical celebration, in the Passio Sanctorum Montani et Lucii , written early in 259, which relates the imprisonment and martyrdoms of several Carthaginian clerics and lay supporters. In a strikingly pointed speech, one of the central figures delivers a stern rebuke of the heretics, blunting their superbia and contumacia by calling upon them to return to the fold and acknowledge the “truth of the Church,” which is now being gloriously affirmed through “the abundance of her martyrs,” her copia martyrum ( Passio Sanctorum Montani et Lucii 14).

The social destinies of the two competing Churches would mirror their opposing stances on the issue that triggered the schism, as the mainstream Catholics continued to widen their embrace of the penitent and the lax, while the marginalized Katharists remained zealously intent upon faithful compliance with the holiness vows of the baptismal redemption. The possibilities for future development and expansion lay clearly with the inclusionary variant, its growing moderation and pragmatism progressively setting the stage for an unanticipated but eventual compact between Church and State, to be brokered under Constantine. Yet despite so remarkable a worldly ascendancy, the Catholic conscience would remain haunted by the Novatianist presence for centuries to come. The mocking jibe that Catholics were Capitolini —the successors of apostates who had rushed to offer idolatrous worship to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the triad of Roman deities commonly venerated in the main urban temple complex—carried too much historical truth for easy dismissal. Hence the repeated engagements that Catholic leaders felt constrained to undertake against their unsettling competitor. Reticius of Autun thus duly produces a “great volume” Against Novatian (c. 330). The prolific mathematician-astronomer Eusebius, bishop of Emesa, continues the offensive with a major treatise Against Jews, Gentiles, and Novatians (c. 350). Pacian of Barcelona composes a lengthy defence of the Catholic Church against the stinging criticisms of Sympronian, a rival Katharist bishop (c. 380). The formidable prelate Ambrose writes two books On Repentance (c. 384), dedicated to a comprehensive refutation of Katharist objections to the granting of absolution for mortal sins, and a simultaneous affirmation of the Catholic position that “God has promised His mercy to all, and grants to His priests the power of loosing without any exception” (Book I.3). Novatian’s ghost similarly flits in and about in various orations and homilies of the great eastern hierarchs, Gregory Nazianzen and John Chrysostom, both of whom fault the Katharoi for their uncharitable harshness and presumptive immodesty. Even as late as the dawn of the seventh century, the puritan challenge continued to disturb and offend, as indicated by the six books Against the Novatians (c. 605) that are credited to Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria. Nor was Catholic aggression confined to the discursive. Exploiting their new alliance with the imperial state, several of the more aggressive prelates did not shrink from outright persecution, which took the form of property confiscations and the closure or demolition of Novatianist churches, most notably in Rome under Innocent I (c. 410) and Celestinus (c. 425); in Alexandria under Cyril (c. 412); throughout Galatia under Leontius of Ancyra (c. 400); and across Ionia and Lydia under Chrysostom (c. 402), whose threats to carry out the same in Constantinople appear to have been frustrated by significant senatorial backing for the popular Novatianist patriarch, Sisinnius.[19]

In sociological hindsight, these polemical and repressive measures appear misguided, seeing as puritan causes tend to be purposefully self-limiting, their base of appeal inherently restricted. In working out a pastoral and theological rationale for the restoration of the Decian lapsed, the Catholic Church had adventitiously hit upon a world-winning formula that would permit a far-reaching reorganization of the Christian experience, its sustaining axis no longer turning on “living in the Spirit,” but on providing restorative access to it. Without the imperial persecutions of Decius and Valerian, and the ecclesiological factionalism of Novatian and Cyprian, the arrival of a Constantinian moment might well have missed its fateful juncture.

Bibliography

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de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. 1963. “Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?” Past and Present 26:6–38.

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Knipfing, J. 1923. “The Libelli of the Decian Persecution.” Harvard Theological Review 16 (4):345–90.

Lane Fox, R. 1987. Pagans and Christians. London.

Hekster, O., de Kleign, G., and Slootjes, D. 2007. Crisis and the Roman Empire. Leiden.

MacMullen, R. 1976. The Roman Government’s Response to Crisis, A.D. 235–337. New Haven.

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———. 2004. Apologies to Thucydides. Chicago.

Footnotes

Note 1
Cassius Dio Roman History 72.36.4. The most recent edition of the Cambridge Ancient History series carries a suitable “Crisis of Empire” subtitle for the volume covering this period (Bowman, Garnsey, & Cameron 2005). Other important explorations include Alföldy 1974, MacMullen 1976, and Potter 2004. Revisionist murmurings against the notion of a “systemic crisis” are doubly suspect, tending towards excessive skepticism as regards contemporary accounts and lacking cogency as sociology. The archaeological evidence leaves little doubt that a sharp decline in material conditions occurred over the course of the third century, as registered chiefly in the form of urban contraction and underfunded public infrastructure, price inflation, decreased agricultural output, weakening trade links, and population decline. For an alert synthesis, see Jongman 2007.

Note 2
Exemplified most brazenly by Tertullian’s embellished declaration: “We are but of yesterday, yet we have filled all that belongs to you, your cities, tenement blocks, fortresses, towns, exchanges, even the military camps, tribes, municipal councils, palace, senate, and forum; all that remains to you alone are your temples” ( Apologeticus 37.2.4 – 5). More striking still are the seditious implications of his preceding claim, that should the Christians chose to adopt a stance towards Rome as “open enemies,” rather than “secret protectors,” they would—as “a people spread the whole world over”—vastly outnumber any of the empire’s three most formidable regional opponents of the day: the Moors of Africa, the Germanic Macromanni, and the Parthians of Persia.

Note 4
The legal aspects and juridical procedures of persecution are authoritatively examined by G. E. M. de Ste. Croix (1963) and T. D. Barnes (1968).

Note 5
Christian invective against the persecuting emperor was naturally drawn to the symbolism of John’s Revelation , with its monstrous “great dragon” destined to wage war against “those keeping the testimony of Jesus” ( exontōn tēn martyrian iēsou ), and upon which sat Rome herself, the vile Whore of Babylon, “drunk from the blood of the saints” she had cruelly martyred (12.3 – 17;17.3). Cf. Cyprian Ep. 22.1: Decius as anguem maiorem, a metatorem antichristi . The Acta Pionii has its central martyr make tearful allusion to the text by speaking of “the stars of heaven that are being dragged down to earth by the dragon’s tail,” in clear reference to the many fallen saints who were then apostatizing under Decius’ demonic edict (Cyprian Acta Pionii 12.2 – 3).

Note 6
In a stinging rebuke that reflected the rigorist temper of many in the African churches, Tertullian would censure this episcopal innovation as an open assault on chastity and purity, bitterly mocking the incongruity of granting absolution to adulterers and fornicators while continuing to uphold the scriptural ban on murderers and idolaters, De pudicitia 1.6; 5.10–15; 12.11 (c. 218). From his Egyptian vantage point, Origen expressed similar concerns over this drift towards penitential pragmatism, and the arrogation of priestly powers not countenanced by the scriptures, De oratione 18 (c. 235).

Note 7
The voluminous writings of the African metropolitan, Cyprian of Carthage, provide a fascinating bedrock of sharp observation and interested commentary. In addition to his two treatises on the crisis, De lapsis and De ecclesiae catholicae unitate , there survives a collection of 82 letters consisting of “real time” engagements and reactions, the majority either written by or addressed to Cyprian during his time of concealment. Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History , Books VI and VII, sketches out the Decian and Valerian persecutions and selectively reproduces key texts from the period, most notably the correspondence of the influential Dionysius, metropolitan of Alexandria. Several treatises authored by the “anti-pope” Novatian, and a few Acta Martyrum that contain elements of historical verisimilitude, the Passio Pionii most notably, provide invaluable supplemental information.

Note 8
Cyprian’s De lapsis furnishes an informative overview; many of the more telling details are to be found in the bishop’s urgent epistolary communications, for which G. W. Clarke’s wonderfully learned four-volume annotated set, The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage (1984–1989), provides invaluable commentary.

Note 9
Quoted in Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 6.42; similar policy letters were sent to bishops in Upper Egypt, Laodicea, Armenia, and elsewhere (6.46).

Note 10
In Egypt, Dionysius was already following a more openly laxist course, to the point of granting a full “blotting out of the sin” ( tēs harmatias exaleiphtheisēs ) with bestowal of the Viaticum (Eusebius Church History 6.44).

Note 11
The Katharoi made a point of rejecting the earlier penitential innovation—sponsored by Callistus and Agrippinus—that had extended sacerdotal powers of remission to the sins of adultery and fornication. In his treatise De bono pudicitiae , Novatian reaffirms that those guilty of “vices of the flesh” have lost their inheritance in the celestial kingdom (6), for these are the sins that “bring death to the soul” (14).

Note 12
Only months before, while still in concord with Novatian, Cyprian had forcefully written that the sacrificati had immolated themselves as victims upon Satan’s altars, “cremating their faith to ash in the fatal fires” ( De lapsis 8).

Note 13
Here, too, Cyprian abandons an earlier position, having insisted, categorically, “There is no remission in the Church for one who has sinned against God” ( Testimonies 3.28). Under this principle he actually quotes several of the key scriptural passages that the Novatianists would subsequently employ in justifying their denial of ecclesiastical absolution for those guilty of mortal sins: Matthew 12.30–32; Mark 3.28; and 1 Samuel 2.25.

Note 14
Dionysius’ account is selectively preserved in Eusebius ( Ecclesiastical History 7.4); but the text also indicates that the Novatianist cause had initially attracted powerful supporters in the East, Fabian of Antioch and Alexander of Jerusalem most notably. It was only upon the deaths of these and other traditionalist leaders—and the passage of their sees into the hands of laxist bishops—that the tide turned decisively against the so-called innovations of the Katharoi. For the key episcopal transfers, compare the earlier and later lists reported at 6.46 and 7.5, respectively.

Note 15
Much of this invective and the accompanying principled arguments can be found in the Cyprianic corpus (which includes letters from Cornelius and Novatian), along with the relevant materials preserved in Eusebius.

Note 16
A majority of Catholic bishops followed the practice of rebaptizing all returning heretics and schismatics—some even requiring exorcism first—but there was opposition. During the Roman papacy of Stephen (254–257), the entire Catholic Church was thrown into disarray, with Stephen insistent that a penitential “laying on of hands” was sufficient for a renewal of the Spirit. Against condemnations of his policy from Cyprian, Dionysius, Firmilian, and other leading bishops, Stephen stood defiant, threatening excommunications for those who denied the divine efficacy of the sacrament through the perverse folly of forcing upon Christians “a secondary washing.” Cyprian responded by pushing his exclusionary logic to the full, decrying all baptisms “outside” the true Church as consisting of waters adultera et profana , regardless of whether or not they invoked Christ’s name ( Ep. 73.1).

Note 17
A development most strikingly indicated by Callistus’ innovative policy (c. 220) of permitting high-status women to enter into monogamous contubernium with servile or humble brethren. Condemned as an inducement to fornication and murderous abortions by traditionalists, the Roman pope’s dispensation astutely evaded the legal penalties of status degradation and property loss that attended marriages of unequal status (as scornfully reported in Hippolytus Refutatio 9.12.24).

Note 18
The Novatianist riposte on this matter has not survived the partisan circumstances of textual preservation, but its central line of argument undoubtedly followed Tertullian’s earlier affirmation of the traditionalist-rigorist position: that the true Church is an ecclesia spiritus , filled with “spiritual men,” and not simply a gathering of “numerous bishops” (Tertullian De pudicitia 21). Novatian himself offered a comprehensive encomium on the centrality of the Spirit in his principal theological tract, emphasizing its divine role in constituting Christians as living “temples of God” and in preserving the Church incorruptam et inviolatem ( De trinitate 29).

Note 19
These incidents are reported by Socrates Scholasticus ( Ecclesiastical History 7.9 and 11; 7.7; 6.11, 19, 22), who also includes mention of widespread persecutions of the Novatianists under the brief periods of Arian domination, in 356 during the reign of Constantius, when imperial troops killed, tortured, and forcibly baptized many ( Ecclesiastical History 2.38), followed by confiscations and banishments in 375 under Valens ( Ecclesiastical History 4.9).