Sacrifice, Martyrdom and Persecution

In 391 ce the Serapion of Alexandria was spoiled of its contents and the statue of the pagan god Sarapis destroyed. Already in antiquity the end of the Serapeion was a famous event and it is described prominently by the pagan writer Eunapius and by four fifth-century church historians.^{^[1030]} Famous though it was, the precise course of events is impossible to reconstruct: the sources are contradictory and have filled up lacunae in their information with guesswork.

According to the earliest Christian version, that ofRufinus (402/3 ce), the course of events was as follows. During the refurbishment of a derelict basilica into a church, skulls were found in the basement. Taking this as proof of pagan crimes, Christians paraded these in the streets, which led to a violent response from the pagans. Street riots ensued, after which some pagans locked themselves up in the temple of Serapis, taking Christians hostage. After a deadlock of a few days, an imperial order finally declared that they could leave unharmed but that the idols should be destroyed. Published in 402/403, Rufinus’ account is highly stylised and dramatised and occupies nine out of thirty-four chapters in his last book. If such a literary stylisation renders Rufinus a problematic source for historical reconstruction, it underscores the purpose of this episode in his church history. In his account the episode displays paganism in its purest form. Biblical as well as GraecoRoman sources considered Egypt to be the land of idolatry, where animals were worshipped as deities. Rufinus thus seizes on the event to construct an archetypical image of paganism. This is underscored by the general anonymity of all actors in the episode, except for two pagans. The leader of the pagans locked up in the Serapeion is, significantly, called Olympus - the name of the mountain of the gods in classical mythology.

Although a historical person, the fact that Rufinus mentions this name when leaving the others out underscores the link of Egyptian paganism with Hellenism. The second named character is a fraudulent priest of Saturnus called Tyrannus - the tyrant. Tyrants, in antiquity, behave immorally and often violently, and the Egyptian pagans live up to that stereotype.

Indeed, when the pagans are locked up in the Serapeion with Christian prisoners, they commit the ancestral crimes of paganism: they organise a persecution and force their hostages to sacrifice. Christians who refuse are executed by crucifixion, and the dead are thrown into a cave. In that way, the pagans repeat the very acts that were revealed by the skulls in the basement of the basilica. Rufinus explicitly signals to his readers that these are crimes that reflect the very essence of paganism when citing from the official response to the event. The emperor declared that

satisfaction was not to be sought for those whom the blood they had shed before the altars, had made martyrs and the glory of whose merits had overcome the pain of death, but that otherwise the cause of the evils and the roots of the discord which had taken up the defense of the idols should be eliminated, so that once these were done away with, the reason for the conflict might also disappear.^{^[1031]}

Martyrdom and persecution, then, are caused by the very nature of paganism, that is, idolatry. Hence pagans exclude themselves from civilised society.

At the heart of Rufinus' story lies religious or even sacred violence: pagan altars demand blood sacrifice and they lead to persecution and martyrdom. Such sacred violence, exclusively ascribed to the pagans, is tacitly contrasted with two lesser forms of violence in which Christians participate. First, Rufinus notes that the conflict between pagans and Christians is usually limited to shouts and tension, but that it degenerates into a riot in this case. He clearly blames the pagans for this, yet also notes that Christians do not hold back.

The episode thus starts off as an instance of ordinary violence, before degenerating into sacred violence. Second, Rufinus describes the dismemberment of the statue of Serapis in terms that strongly remind one of popular executions in late antique cities.^{^[1032]} Such acts of lynching were often condoned by the authorities and they expressed the symbolic exclusion of bad bishops, governors and functionaries from the city. One can also understand the destruction as mimicking an official condemnatio memoriae and so inflicting the same punishment on Serapis as on statues of usurpers and bad emperors. By describing the destruction of the statue in these terms, Rufinus tacitly underscores the legitimacy of the act.

The narrative of Rufinus is thus subtly structured by a juxtaposition of three forms of violence which receive different moral valuations. Such a structure allows him to underscore the deeply problematic nature of pagan sacred violence. This is usually missed in scholarly readings of the episode, as they start from the assumption that the whole episode is paradigmatic for late antique ‘religious violence'. I concur that it is paradigmatic, but for different reasons. Rufinus illustrates how sacred violence is found with one's enemies and, in doing so, he combines in a single episode the three concepts that shape late antique Christian understandings of such violence: blood sacrifice, persecution and martyrdom.

In late antiquity blood sacrifice was in need of justification, and also among pagans. Yet the plausibility of Rufinus' narrative is based on the link Christians perceived between pagan blood sacrifice and human sacrifice (a link that is sometimes also found in pagan sources). This was, in turn, contrasted with the Christian rejection of blood sacrifice and a more general rejection of the shedding of blood. Indeed, a widespread moral discourse held that a proper Christian (and a fortiori a bishop) should not spill blood in times of peace (warfare was perceived to be a different, albeit not always unproblematic, matter). It explains well-attested interventions of bishops and monks to save criminals from execution, as well as the panegyrical accounts of late antique emperors who may condemn someone to death but never actually execute him.

The rejection of gladiatorial and hunting games on the part of Christians was rooted in the same rejection of spilling human blood in peacetime. The pagan orator Libanius suggested that Christian governors should have to choose between being Christian or being a governor, for the latter position demanded that one was willing to wield the sword of execution.^{^[1033]} The link, then, which Rufinus makes between blood sacrifice and the tyrannical nature of paganism sums up how a particular religious practice became in his representation a symbol of general bloodthirstiness.

Second, the pagans in the Serapeion organised a persecution. Late antique Christians lived with a history of three centuries of persecution before Constantine. The Christianisation of the empire did not put end to this. Persecution continued outside the empire, in particular in the Persian Empire, but it was also perceived as a real possibility within the Christian Empire - notwithstanding our image of a triumphant Christianity.^{^[1034]} The persecution under the last pagan emperor Julian (361-3 ce) only confirmed that anxiety. As a highly charged interpretation of reality, the label ‘persecution' quickly came to be applied by particular Christian groups to legislation that targeted them or to bishops who sought to limit their gatherings. The category allowed the persecuted group to situate itself on the right side of the pagan-Christian divide and to accuse the other of doing what only pagans would do.

Finally, persecution results in martyrdom. In Rufinus' story, martyrdom appears in a very traditional, pre-Diocletianic form: it is death inflicted by pagans on Christians who refuse to deny their faith. In that sense, it is a form of death that is religious in nature, and results, conversely, in an elevated status within the Christian community. The presentation of Rufinus glosses over the numerous ambiguities and problems that martyrdom posed for Christianity.

At once highly praiseworthy and yet not to be coveted, the deaths of martyrs and confessors could generate tensions in communities: it always needed to be established that someone was a true confessor or martyr and then ascertained how his status could be made compatible with existing hierarchies in communities. Such problems came to the fore in intraChristian conflicts: were the Donatists who died during Constantine's repression of the schism victims of persecution and hence martyrs, or were they recalcitrant heretics who had been punished by the state? Martyrdom is a status that depends on one's identification of the true church.

The discourse of martyrdom has been highlighted as an engine of late antique religious violence: martyrdom could be actively sought by attacking other religious groups or could serve as a justificatory ideology after the fact.1^{^[1035]} The circumcelliones, depicted in Catholic sources as the stormtroopers of the North African Donatists, are, for example, alleged to have interrupted pagan celebrations to seek martyrdom - yet this is reported by Catholic sources who sought to discredit the Donatists.^{^[1036]} If the martyrdom discourse might arouse enthusiasm for violence, we underestimate its complexity if we only see it as a source of escalation. Indeed, as the Serapeion episode illustrates, it could also serve to de-escalate violence. The edict of Theodosius does not impose any punishment on the pagans, who are clearly murderers. It orders only two things: the victims of the pagans are said to have obtained the status of martyr, and the destruction of idols is ordered. The first measure clearly aims at soothing the Christians while avoiding the infliction of more bloodshed (which would have required a military attack on the Serapeion). Such a pragmatic use of martyrdom language by political bodies can be observed elsewhere too. After Constantine decreed toleration of the Donatists in 321 ce, he stated that no punishment would be meted out to perpetrators of violence against Catholics, for their victims already enjoyed the status of martyr with God.

Similarly, in the early fifth century, Marcellus of Apamea was killed when attacking pagan shrines. The provincial council refused to take action against his murderers on the grounds that Marcellus had received sufficient glory as a martyr.^{^[1037]} Scholars have tended to read these instances as celebrations of martyrdom and post factum justifications of violence. In fact, there can be no doubt that in all these cases the authorities used the discourse to appease tensions by giving honour to the victims and amnesty to the criminals.

In late antiquity accusations of persecution and claims to martyrdom proliferate. I have argued that they connected contemporary events back to the original narrative of Christianity: in martyrdom and persecution the primordial, pagan crimes against Christianity are re-enacted, crimes that are violent and bloody. Designating crimes that are far worse than ordinary murder, these categories are highly morally charged and therefore allow Christian groups to situate themselves on the right side of the Christian- pagan divide. Within a context of enduring conflict within Christianity, accusations of persecution proliferate precisely because they allow narratives to be crafted that situate oneself on the right side of history, religion and morality.

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Source: Fagan Garrett G., Fibiger Linda, Hudson Mark, Trundle Matthew (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Violence. Volume 1: The Prehistoric and Ancient Worlds. Cambridge University Press,2020. — 756 p.. 2020

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