Decian Persecution (250): The First Empire-Wide Persecution

The Decian persecution was the first persecution of Christians to apply across the entire Roman Empire. In late 249 or early 250 the emperor Decius ordered all inhabitants to sacrifice to the gods and to obtain a written certificate proving they had done so. Christians who refused faced prison, torture and in some cases death, while many others complied. The episode ended with Decius’s death in 251, but it left deep divisions inside the church over what to do with those who had given way.

Background

Before 250 Christians in the Roman Empire were persecuted locally and occasionally. Since the time of Trajan, as shown in the letters exchanged between Pliny the Younger and the emperor in about 112, Christians were not hunted down by the state, but could be punished if accused and if they refused to renounce their faith. Outbreaks depended on local governors and popular hostility.

Decius, a senator from Pannonia, became emperor in 249 after defeating Philip the Arab near Verona. The empire was under severe pressure from the Goths on the Danube and the Persians in the east, a period now called the Crisis of the Third Century. Decius presented himself as a restorer of traditional Roman values and even added the name Trajan to his own, recalling a successful emperor of the past.

By the mid-3rd century Christianity had grown considerably. It was well organised, with bishops in most important cities, and the church of Rome supported a large clergy and many widows and poor people. Christians were still a minority, perhaps a few per cent of the empire’s population, but they were more visible than ever, and their refusal to take part in public cults could easily be seen as disloyalty at a time of military crisis and plague.

The edict

The text of the edict does not survive, but its contents can be reconstructed from Christian writers and from papyri. Every inhabitant of the empire had to sacrifice to the gods, pour a libation and taste the sacrificial meat in the presence of local commissioners, who then issued a certificate. Deadlines were set for each community. In Egypt the commissioners were local men of standing, and people came before them in family groups, sometimes with their children, to perform the rite and have their declarations witnessed.

Historians generally agree that the edict was not designed as an anti-Christian measure. It seems rather to have been a grand act of loyalty and religious unity, asking the gods to protect the new emperor and the empire. Because nearly all free people had become Roman citizens after the Constitutio Antoniniana of 212, Decius could address the whole population as one religious community. But for Christians, who regarded sacrifice to other gods as idolatry, the order forced a choice between conscience and the law.

The libelli

About 45 certificates, called libelli, survive on papyrus from Egypt, mostly from villages in the Fayum and from Oxyrhynchus. They follow a standard formula: the applicant declares that they have always sacrificed to the gods and have now, in the presence of the commissioners, sacrificed, poured a libation and tasted the offerings. The commissioners then sign to confirm it.

Most of the surviving certificates are dated between June and July 250. One was issued to a priestess of the crocodile god Petesouchos, showing that pagans too had to comply. The libelli give a rare view of how an imperial order was carried out at village level and are among the most important documents of the period.

Martyrs and confessors

Among the first victims was Fabian, bishop of Rome, executed on 20 January 250 and buried in the Crypt of the Popes in the Catacombs of Rome. Babylas, bishop of Antioch, and Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, died in prison. In Smyrna the priest Pionius was burned alive in March 250; an account of his trial, the Martyrdom of Pionius, survives. The theologian Origen was imprisoned and tortured in Caesarea; he survived but died a few years later.

Many Christians who refused to sacrifice were imprisoned rather than executed. Those who survived torture or imprisonment were honoured as confessors and gained great prestige in their communities. Others fled. Bishop Cyprian of Carthage and Dionysius of Alexandria went into hiding and guided their churches by letter, a decision for which Cyprian was criticised. The numbers executed are unknown, but most historians believe they were relatively small compared with the numbers who complied.

Dionysius of Alexandria, in letters quoted by the church historian Eusebius, described the scene in his city. Some Christians came forward pale and trembling to sacrifice, others hurried to the altars insisting they had never been Christians, while a few stood firm and were put to death, including an elderly man named Julian. Others, such as the elderly virgin Apollonia, had already been killed in mob violence in the city shortly before the edict. Such accounts, though written by committed Christians, give a vivid sense of the pressure on ordinary believers.

The lapsed controversy

The persecution’s biggest effect on the church came from those who gave way. Christians distinguished several groups of lapsi: those who actually sacrificed (sacrificati), those who burned incense (thurificati), and those who obtained a certificate by bribery or through friends without sacrificing (libellatici). Contemporary accounts, including Cyprian’s, suggest that large numbers lapsed, sometimes whole congregations.

Once the pressure eased, many lapsed Christians wanted to return. In Carthage some confessors issued letters of peace promising readmission, challenging the bishop’s authority. Cyprian insisted that the church as a whole must decide. A council at Carthage in 251 agreed that the lapsed could be readmitted after a period of penance, with stricter terms for those who had actually sacrificed. Cyprian set out his views in On the Lapsed and On the Unity of the Catholic Church, both written in 251.

In Rome the dispute caused a schism. When Cornelius was elected bishop in 251 and took a moderate line, the priest Novatian, who opposed readmission, was consecrated as a rival bishop. His followers, the Novatianists, formed a separate church that survived for several centuries.

Aftermath

The persecution seems to have lost force during 250 and ended when Decius and his son were killed by the Goths at Abritus in June 251. Christians saw his death as divine judgement. A second empire-wide persecution came under Valerian in 257–258, during which Cyprian was executed in Carthage on 14 September 258 and Bishop Sixtus II in Rome. The last and largest was the Great Persecution begun by Diocletian in 303.

Timeline

• 249, autumn: Decius defeats Philip the Arab and becomes emperor.
• Late 249 or early 250: Edict ordering universal sacrifice.
• 250, 20 January: Fabian, bishop of Rome, is executed.
• 250, March: Pionius is martyred at Smyrna.
• 250, June–July: Most surviving Egyptian libelli are issued.
• 251, spring: Council of Carthage on the lapsed; Cornelius and Novatian rival bishops in Rome.
• 251, June: Decius killed at Abritus; the persecution ends.
• 257–258: Persecution under Valerian.

Why it matters

The Decian persecution was a turning point in relations between the Roman state and Christianity. For the first time an emperor demanded religious conformity from every inhabitant, and the surviving libelli show the order being carried out. Inside the church, the debate over the lapsed shaped ideas of penance, forgiveness and church authority that remained important for centuries.