Reinhard Selinger proposes a new interpretation of Emperor Decius’s famous edict of late 249 or early 250 ordering the inhabitants of the Empire to bring an offering to the gods. It is often interpreted as a direct attack on the Christians.
Decius (emperor 249–251) was an experienced public official (suffect consul, provincial governor, urban prefect and victorious general). He defeated and succeeded the allegedly Christian-friendly Iulius Philippus (Philip the Arab), whose reign had seen the glorious celebrations of the thousandth anniversary of the city of Rome in 247–248 but also the beginning of the 3rd-century-crisis, characterized by barbarian invasions and civil wars. Both scourges would fill Decius’s short reign too. He assumed the name Traianus, a clear allusion to the sentiment felicior Augusto, melior Traiano sis (“be more fortunate than Augustus, better than Trajan”). However, these hopes would be dashed. In 250 the Goths invaded Moesia (south of the Danube). When attempting to intercept them on their way home, laden with rich spoils, Decius together with his son and co-emperor Herennius were defeated and killed in the disastrous battle of Abrittus (in the northeast part of modern Bulgaria) in the summer of 251. Decius’s reign was short, but eventful.[1] No issue seems to have been discussed by historians as much as the emperor’s alleged persecution of the Christians as (supposedly) evidenced by an edict of his ordering all inhabitants of the empire to bring an offering to the gods. Eusebius of Caesarea (“the Father of Church History”) claimed that Decius, out of hatred for his predecessor Philippus, began a persecution against the churches.[2] Eusebius contrasts nicely an evil emperor with a good one. Lactantius even looks upon Decius as the devil personified.
Few vexed questions in ancient historiography can be solved or even elucidated without the help of extant original sources. For the “Decian persecution” we have now, in addition to the above-mentioned highly polemical narrative sources, extant original sources in the form of 47 libelli, petitions to magistrates for a certificate to prove that the person(s) in question had made the required offering to the gods.[3] These records were discovered in the late 19th and early 20th century and an analysis, with textual editions, of the 41 then known was published in 1923 by J. R. Knipfing.[4]. Most of the libelli come from the village of Theadelphia in the Fayum Oasis in Middle Egypt. They are all written in Greek on papyrus. As an example, I quote (in English translation) the libellus of a certain Aurelius Alexander issued on June 21st, 250 (no. 15 in Knipfing’s article, papyrus 23 in Selinger’s book):
To those appointed to oversee the sacrifices.
From Aurelius Alexander of the village of Theadelphia.
I have always been constant in sacrificing to the gods, and now too, in your presence, in accordance with the orders I have offered sacrifice, and I have poured a libation, and I have eaten of the sacrificial offerings. I ask you to certify this below. May you prosper.
[Two members of the committee:] We, Aurelius Serenus and Aurelius Hermas, saw you sacrificing.
[A note by the petitioner:] The year one of the Emperor Caesar Gaius Messius Quintus Traianus Decius Pius Felix Augustus, Pauni 27 [June 21, 250].
In one petition only (Selinger, Papyrus 8), there is an explicit mentioning of an edict (‘the divine [i.e., imperial] edict’). Variants of the phrase “I have offered sacrifice, and I have poured a libation, and I have eaten of the sacrificial offerings” recur in the petitions, and this phrase was probably a direct quotation from the stipulations of the edict. No deity is mentioned by name as recipient of these offerings. However, one of the sacrificers, Aurelia Ammonous, is mentioned as “priestess of the god Petesouchos, the great, the mighty, the immortal, and priestess of the gods in the Moeris quarter” (Knipfing, no. 3; Selinger, Papyrus 3). (Petesouchos was one of the forms of the crocodile god.) Since the text of the edict is not preserved, it cannot be determined whether the edict targeted a specific group of people. However, as already mentioned, it is often interpreted as a direct attack on the Christians, who were forbidden to sacrifice to the pagan gods.
The edict is in the focus of Selinger’s monograph. It contains four chapters: 1. Decius’ Persönlichkeit (“Decius’s personality”), 2. Decius’ Opferedikt (“Decius’s sacrifice edict”), 3. Die Opferbestätigungen (“The confirmations of sacrifice”), and 4. Die Folgen für die Christen (“The consequences for the Christians”). The book is concluded by two series of editions: Die Supplicationes zum Dies Imperii (“The supplications on the dies imperii”; 44 documents; English translations only) and Die Opferbestätigungen (“The confirmations of sacrifice”; 47 libelli, Greek texts and English translations).
As mentioned, Decius’s hatred of his Christian predecessor was, according to Christian authors, the cause of his persecution of Christians. Modern researchers have attempted to find a motive for Decius’s sacrifice edict that is independent of the reasons given in Christian sources. Recent studies suggest, for instance, that the edict was motivated by a need for claiming legitimacy, and as a test of loyalty towards an emperor who had come to power by usurpation, by the pressure to integrate the empire (the centrifugal tendencies were strong), by a drive for unity and a tendency toward centralization, and by the need for renewal in the light of the millennium celebration. It may also be viewed as the misguided reaction of the central administration under the influence of the plague.
To make proposed explanations feasible, Selinger claims that it should be possible to locate a distinct event in Decius’s reign or a fixed day in the Roman calendar in connection with the issuing of the edict, for the wording of the petitions does not seem to indicate that the edict was something out of the ordinary. Previous research does not demonstrate a feasible occasion for such an edict, claims Selinger. He suggests that a supplicatio could be an appropriate occasion for the issuing of the edict. There were two types of supplicationes: when pestilence, defeat or some other calamity threatened the commonwealth, the senate could decree rites whereby the Roman people might expiate transgressions and ensure divine goodwill; the other type was thanksgiving for dangers surmounted. For an emperor, the date of his accession (his dies imperii) was obviously an event of particular importance. The recognition of that event by the senate, people and army of an emperor who, like Decius, had ascended to the throne by usurpation must have been a particularly burning question. In Selinger’s opinion the celebration of the dies imperii was thus the context in which the edict was issued, to claim loyalty to the new regime from the people of the empire and to congratulate the new emperor. The fact that they recognized the new ruler was acknowledged by participating in a religious ceremony. Selinger has compiled a list of 44 documents ranging in date from the reign of Tiberius to that of Tacitus as evidence for the occurrence of dies imperii celebrations. He claims that they were the normal procedure when an emperor acceded to the throne and that Decius cannot have had any good reason to expect that someone might take offence, for it was the same procedure as for previous accessions to the throne. But some people did – some bishops. They seem to have made the edict a tool with which to grind axes on matters still unknown to us. The Christians who had sacrificed were stigmatized, while those who had not signaled that they were the true believers. Why they did not find a way to accept the emperor in the way that Joseph and Jesus accepted Augustus and Tiberius respectively or turn towards “the unknown God” as did St. Paul is a question worth examining. It might have been illuminating also to take into account Paul’s words in his 1 Corinthians 8, where he discusses god and idol sacrifices and seems to be understanding to the Christians who had found it necessary to compromise.[5] The edict was probably a matter of minor importance to the imperial authorities in those troubled times, but it was to have tremendous consequences for the Christians both in their relationship to the imperial regime and between each other. The last sub-chapter in the book is entitled “(K)eine Christenverfolgung?” that is: “no persecution” or “a persecution” and argues that the emperor’s purpose and the perspectives and aims of the various Christian groups are very different questions and should be discussed separately. In the interest of objectivity, I suggest that researchers call this event “the so-called Decian persecution”.
This book will be of great interest for scholars and students interested in historical method and the issues that fueled the enmity between Emperor and church and among various Christian groups in the 3rd century. The keywords of the subtitle, “tradition” and “restoration” (Tradition und Restauration), are teasing but disappointingly left unexplained.
Notes
[1] For the events it is easiest to see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decius
[2] Historia Ecclesiastica 6.39.1
[3] For a nice example of a certificate see https://berlpap.smb.museum/Opferbescheinigung/?lang=en. If we assume that these offerings were universal, there must have been issued hundreds of thousands of certificates of this type, but only the ones mentioned have come down to us.
[4] J. R. Knipfing, “The Libelli of the Decian Persecution”, Harvard Theological Review 16.4, 1923, 345-390.
[5] For a rhetorical analysis of 1 Cor. 8 see Anders Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof. Pauline Argumentation in 1 Corinthians (Coniectanea Biblica, New Testament Series 29), Stockholm 1998, pp. 135–173.