Reading the Early Church Fathers: From the Didache to Nicaea

193 Pages·2012·2.29 MB·English

by  James L. Papandrea

Reading the Early Church Fathers

From the Didache to Nicaea

James L. Papandrea

PAULIST PRESS

NEW YORK / MAHWAH, NJ

Note to the Reader: For a list of the primary sources Internet links, select the Online Resources tab at www.paulistpress.com and then select the
book’s title, Reading the Early Church Fathers.
The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition Copyright © 1989 and 1993, by the Division
of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America or are from the author’s own translation.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Cover Image: Chrysostom and Athanasius, Ridley Hall Chapel, Cambridge, from a photograph by Stephen Day.
Cover design by Cynthia Dunne, www.bluefarmdesign.com
Book design by Lynn Else
Copyright © 2012 by James L. Papandrea, www.JimPapandrea.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Papandrea, James Leonard.
Reading the early church fathers : from the Didache to Nicaea / James L. Papandrea.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61643-091-7
1. Fathers of the church. 2. Christian literature, Early—History and criticism. I. Title.
BR67.P365 2011
270—dc23
2011036793
Published by Paulist Press
997 Macarthur Boulevard
Mahwah, New Jersey 07430
www.paulistpress.com

CONTENTS

Introduction

How to Read Early Christian Texts

Chapter 1: THE CHURCH IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

What Do We Mean by Church?
Relations with Judaism
Relations with the Romans and the Beginning of Persecution
The Martyr Documents

Chapter 2: THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS

The Didache
Clement of Rome
Second Clement
Ignatius of Antioch
Polycarp of Smyrna
The Martyrdom of Polycarp
Papias of Hierapolis
The Epistle of Barnabas
The Shepherd of Hermas

Chapter 3: THE APOLOGISTS

The Apology of Aristides
The Epistle to Diognetus
Justin Martyr
The Martyrdom of Justin
Tatian
Melito of Sardis
Athenagoras
Theophilus of Antioch
Clement of Alexandria

Chapter 4: THE CHURCH IN THE SUBAPOSTOLIC AGE

The Development of the Hierarchy
Worship and the Sacraments
Christology and Theology in the Subapostolic Age
From Apology to Theology

Chapter 5: THE THEOLOGIANS

Irenaeus of Lyons
Tertullian
Hippolytus
Origen
Novatian

Chapter 6: THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON

Stages of Development of the New Testament

Patristic Exegesis
The History of Patristic Exegesis

Chapter 7: THE CHURCH IN THE THIRD CENTURY

Christology and Theology in the Third Century
The Episcopacy and the Emerging Primacy of Rome
Persecution in the Third Century
The Controversy over Baptism and Rebaptism
What, Then, Is the Church?

Chapter 8: THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE

The Great Persecution
The First Christian Emperor
The Arian Controversy
Unity through Standardization

Chapter 9: ONGOING THEMES

Anthropology
Ecclesiology
Christology
Soteriology
Conclusions

Charts and Tables
Appendix: The Primary Sources
Notes
Subject Index

For Susie, my soul mate, who brings out the best in me

What kind of yoke is that of two believers,

of one hope, one desire, one discipline, one and the same service?

…Both are equal in the Church of God,

equal at the banquet of God….

Between the two echo psalms and hymns,

and they mutually challenge each other

which shall better chant to their Lord.

When Christ sees and hears such things, he rejoices.

To these he sends his own peace.

Where these two are, he is there himself.

—Tertullian, To His Wife

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank those who went before me in the study of early Christianity; although the
reader may notice that the endnotes for this volume emphasize the primary sources (and this is
intentional, since I believe the primary sources are the place to begin), nevertheless I recognize
that I stand on the shoulders of my predecessors in the field. I especially want to thank those who
taught me to love the early Church and to appreciate the importance of historical theology: my
professors at Fuller Theological Seminary, including James E. Bradley, Marianne Meye
Thompson, Ralph Martin, and Colin Brown; my dissertation advisors, Dennis E. Groh and
Robert Jewett, and Northwestern professors James Packer and John Wright; my students,
including the Holy Family Bible Journey group and the students at Garrett-Evangelical
Theological Seminary. Last but far from least, I want to thank those colleagues, friends, and
conversation partners who have always supported me, encouraged me, challenged me, debated
with me, and taught me so much about the grace of God, including Rich and Karin Vetrano,
George Kalantzis, Stephanie Perdew VanSlyke, Glenn Murray, Paul Jarzembowski, Graziano
Marcheschi, and my bandmates in Remember Rome. Getting to this point would not have been
possible without each of you, and I have valued our conversations immeasurably. Finally, to my
friends at Paulist Press, thank you for your confidence in me and in this project. May God bless
those who read it, and may it draw them closer to God through Christ, in the spirit of James 4:8,
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

INTRODUCTION

The period of the Church fathers (usually defined as the first five centuries of the Christian era)
is known as the patristic period. Therefore, the study of patristics refers to the study of the
history and theology of the early Christian Church. We will begin our study with the
subapostolic age, which, as the name suggests, begins where the apostolic age ends, with the
leadership of those whom the apostles had chosen to succeed them. However, we can already see
the second generation of Church leaders in the pages of the New Testament, in people like Mark,
Luke, Timothy, and John the Elder, to name just a few. Therefore, the subapostolic age overlaps
somewhat with the New Testament, and in fact there is no well-defined line of division between
the age of the apostles and the next phase of Church history. At the very least, we have to
acknowledge that some apostles lived longer than others; thus, the second generation of
leadership begins earlier in some places than in others.

Therefore, our exploration begins in the late first century, and though we will not focus on any

of the documents that would come to be included in the New Testament, a few of the documents
we will examine were written before the latest of the New Testament writings. One must keep in
mind that the “New Testament” as we know it was not yet a standardized collection in the
second century, and while the formation of the New Testament canon is a subject for a later
chapter, we will begin to ask the question why some of the earliest Christian writings were not
included in the Christian Bible.

The subapostolic age encompasses two phases of the history of the Church. The first phase is

often referred to as the age of the apostolic fathers. The second is the age of the apologists. Each
will be explained as we come to it. For now, however, it is important to note that just as there is
overlap between the apostolic (New Testament) age and the subapostolic age, there is also an
overlap and no clear dividing line between the time of the apostolic fathers and the apologists
within the subapostolic age. Therefore we will not concern ourselves with attempting to define
these stages of Church history by a strict time frame. In general, chapters 2 through 4 will cover
about a century, from the last decades of the first century to the last decades of the second
century, or about 80 CE to 180 CE. This date is a turning point because the first true theologians
emerge at the end of the second century, beginning a new era in the history of the Church. After
that, the next four chapters will examine the Church up to the early fourth century, leading to the
Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. This time is taken as a watershed in Christian history, for reasons
that will become evident below. The final chapter will look at the major themes that emerge from
the early Church and track their trajectories in the fourth and fifth centuries and beyond.

How to Read Early Christian Texts

Before we can examine the various writers and documents of the subapostolic age, we need to
pause for a moment to address the differences between the writings of the early Church and
modern literature. It is tempting to read early Christian documents as though they always give us
just the facts; often, however, the authors are presenting more of a wish list than a news report.
We must keep in mind that most of the early Christian writers were not consciously writing
history for our benefit today; they were writing for the people of their own time, to convince

them of something. Therefore, the following caveats will be helpful to keep in mind while
reading the patristic documents.

Don’t assume uniformity across the Roman Empire, or uniformity of development.

Just because a certain document includes evidence of a particular belief or practice, one cannot
generalize that belief or practice as if it were universally held by the whole Church. As long as
the Church was not legally recognized, communication was limited between cities and especially
between the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire. Even where communication was
easy, Christians in different areas did not necessarily agree. Proof of this is in the New Testament
itself, where many of the earliest Christian documents (the letters of Paul) would not exist if it
were not for conflict and disagreement. Therefore, one must take the origin of a document into
consideration when one is trying to determine what the Church believed and practiced. In reality,
the old impression of the early Church (based on Acts 2:44), that it was characterized by a
uniformity that was eventually lost and never regained, is probably far from the truth. In fact, as
it happened, it was most likely quite the opposite. There was certainly a significant amount of
diversity within the early Church that over time went through a kind of standardization as the
boundaries of acceptable belief and practice were drawn.1

In addition to diversity across the empire, we also have to acknowledge a diversity across

time. In other words, we cannot assume that traditions developed at the same rate from one place
to another. For example, if we can determine that the limitation of one bishop per city had
developed in Antioch, that does not necessarily mean that it had also developed in Rome by the
same time. The end result is the same: just because a document provides evidence of a belief or
practice at a particular place and time in history (assuming that the document can even be dated
with accuracy), that does not necessarily mean that the same belief or practice was held in other
places at the same time, or in other times at the same place.

Don’t assume that something is new the first time it is mentioned.

Unfortunately, there are many early Christian documents that we no longer possess. Some were
lost to the decay of time, others were deliberately destroyed. In fact, there may be more
documents that we don’t have than that we do. The documents available to us are called extant,
in that they thankfully still exist. But the fact that there are many missing pieces of the early
Christian puzzle means that we cannot assume that a lack of mention of something in the extant
sources is definitive proof that it did not exist. An argument from silence is not evidence of
absence. What is more, we cannot assume that the early Christian writers told us everything, or
even tried to. Often the beliefs and practices most universally agreed upon in the early Church
are the very ones that no one bothered to write about. Why take up precious parchment or vellum
writing down what everyone already agrees about? For the most part, issues are discussed
precisely because they are not agreed upon.

Therefore, if something shows up for the first time in a certain document written at a certain

time, we cannot assume that it did not exist in the Church before then. In fact, it is safer to
assume that it was not new, since, as we will see, the early Christians were often skeptical of
anything new, and to be accepted, an idea had to have at least an air of age to it.2 On the other
hand, it is also possible that an author will exaggerate the length of time a particular practice has

been around in order to enhance its credibility.

Don’t assume that a tone of certainty is evidence of agreement.

Since the main reason for writing was often to enter into debate and convince someone of a
particular point of view, the authors of early Christian documents will naturally write as though
what they are saying is the only reasonable point of view. Here we need to read between the
lines, however, and recognize that if, for example, Ignatius says that everyone knows there
should be only one bishop in each city, there is obviously some disagreement on that point or he
wouldn’t bother to write it. If everyone really did know it, they would not need Ignatius to tell
them. Therefore, if an early Christian writer takes the attitude that “everyone knows this is how
it’s always been done everywhere…,” you can be sure that someone was out there doing it
differently.

When reading patristic texts, always ask yourself why the text was written. Who is the

opponent? What is the agenda? In order to properly interpret a document, we must keep these
things clear in our minds, especially when the authors resort to ridicule and name-calling (and
they do).

Don’t assume that the content of early Christian documents is raw information.

Remember that reading patristic texts is not like reading a contemporary history. The aim of
early Christian authors was never just to report the facts, but to convince and convert. We must
assume that even when they are reporting historical events, the documents already contained at
least one layer of interpretation. This is because the ultimate goal of early Christian authors was
to promote a Christ-centered view of history, and while it is certainly the case that they believed
Christ to be Truth incarnate, this conviction did not lead them to create unbiased accounts. On
the contrary, their accounts are biased because they are first and foremost statements of faith.
Therefore, early Christian texts of the subapostolic period and beyond are not to be treated as
divinely inspired. They are the product of sincere but evangelistically motivated Christians
attempting to interpret the inspired texts and the events of history, both of which they believed to
be a product of God’s providence. But, to put it bluntly, they could be wrong at times. A case in
point is Irenaeus, who was a brilliant theologian and a pioneer in the interpretation of scripture,
but nevertheless had his Roman history wrong and thought that Jesus had lived in the time of
Claudius (reigned 41–54 CE).3 Eusebius of Caesarea, the first Christian historian, combined oral
and written records to create his Ecclesiastical History, but at times he contradicts himself when
reporting competing traditions.

For our purposes, we will still focus on the primary sources as the best record of the history of

the early Church, and we will take them as reliable in the absence of contradictory evidence.
Eusebius is an especially valuable source, and often he is our only source of information about
the Church fathers and their writings, sometimes preserving documents (or fragments of
documents) that are otherwise not extant. We simply have to keep in mind that he was a fourth-
century writer, in the East, who seemed to have as his agenda a desire to promote the glory of the
Constantinian dynasty. Therefore, we take his word with a grain of salt when he is transmitting
traditions from the first centuries of the Church, or from the West, or from sources hostile to his
cause. At one point, this bishop of Caesarea was even questioned as to the orthodoxy of his faith

(that he might have leaned toward Arianism), and so this, too, must be kept in mind.

Chapter 1

THE CHURCH IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

What Do We Mean by Church?

First of all, we have to ask, What do we mean by church? There were no cathedrals, in fact no
church buildings of any kind.1 One could not walk down the street and see “a church.”
Christians met in homes, in groups small enough to fit into one room of a house or apartment. As
the group of Christians in any given city grew to the point where they all could no longer fit into
one house, the group divided between two or more houses.2 Therefore, the Church was not yet a
tangible entity, but more of a concept.3 It was the body of Christ, understood to be the extension
of the kingdom of God on earth, and it existed wherever people gathered in the name of Christ
(Matt 18:20).

Initiation into the Church was, of course, by baptism, and thus baptism formed the boundary

of the Church. In other words, the Church was the worldwide community of the baptized, and the
local expression of the Church was a group of the baptized in a particular city. Baptism required
catechesis, so the local communities of Christians quickly devised methods for training initiates
and preparing them for baptism. This would eventually evolve into the catechetical “school,”
which could be very informal or, in the larger cities, a more formal program, something like the
philosophical schools of the time. Early Christian catechesis focused more on ethical concerns
than theology, and from the very beginning it was extremely important to draw the lines of
distinction between Christian morals and the morals of the rest of Greco-Roman culture and
society.4 In the second and third centuries (and beyond), the Church was literally struggling to
define Christianity itself. It did so first ethically, then theologically.

Since the Church was understood to be the extension of God’s reign on earth, and since the

conflict between Church and culture would soon force the Church into an “us versus them”
position, the boundary lines of the Church became tied not only to the initiation of baptism, but
also to the culmination of that initiation, the table of the Eucharist. In other words, what baptism
initiated one into was the mystery of the incarnation of Christ, celebrated—but also participated
in—at the eucharistic table. The table of the Lord was the kingdom of God on earth, the down
payment of the Christian’s heavenly inheritance. Therefore, salvation itself, as participation in
Christ, was embodied in the Eucharist, and so the Church came to be defined by the table. And
since salvation was found at the table of the Eucharist, and the Eucharist was found in the
assembly of the Church, the early Christians believed that there was no salvation outside the
Church.5

Relations with Judaism

When one reads the New Testament, it is relatively easy to see that the movement Christ started
was in conflict with Judaism from the beginning. At first, that conflict was an internal struggle
between two competing ways of understanding God’s revelation. Both sides were forced to face

their irreconcilable differences when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE. After that
point, the sacrifices ended and the priesthood eventually died out, and Judaism itself had to
figure out how to continue as a religion without the sacrificial system that was once central to its
faith.

The vast majority of Jewish faithful followed the Pharisees, the experts in the Jewish law who

became the Rabbis. They made the written word of God, the Torah, the new center of their faith.
A minority of Jewish believers went a different way, however. They followed the disciples of a
man called Jesus of Nazareth, and these disciples taught that Jesus was himself the living Word
of God. Those who took this path, of course, would eventually be called Christians, but we have
to keep in mind that the concept of “Christianity,” as a separate religion, did not exist in the
beginning. In the first century, the movement Jesus started was known simply as “the way” (Acts
9:2, cf. John 14:6), and it was only after the destruction of the Temple that Christianity would
finally become a separate religion.

All this is to say that Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism are twins from the same parent

(Temple Judaism). As such, there was a lot of sibling rivalry, especially at the beginning when
Christianity was still seen as a sect within Judaism. During that time, Christians continued to
worship in the synagogues with their Jewish family and neighbors, but they also met at dawn on
Sunday mornings to do something that would horrify their fellow Jews: they worshiped Jesus.
This became the greatest bone of contention between the more traditional Jews and the earliest
followers of Jesus. A traditional Jew would wonder how one could worship Jesus and still say
one is a good Jew—for Judaism must be monotheistic (Deut 6:4). For the followers of Christ,
their liturgical practice would put them on the defensive theologically, forcing them to try to
figure out a way to justify the apparent oxymoron of Christian monotheism. The result was the
development of doctrine in the early Church, and the answer to the question of Christian
monotheism was the doctrine of the Trinity.

Therefore, much of the dialogue between Christians and Jews in the early decades centered

around the Christian conviction that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Some Jews were convinced by these arguments and converted to Christianity. Many were not
convinced and continued to believe that what the Christians were doing was a form of
polytheism, and blasphemy against God. Some even felt justified in following in the footsteps of
the preconversion Paul as they participated in persecution against their Christian neighbors (Acts
17:5ff). But the persecution of the Church by Jews would give way to persecution by the Roman
Empire when the Romans began to take notice of the Church as something separate from
Judaism. Ironically, as long as Christianity was seen as a sect within Judaism, the Romans left it
alone, either reasoning that it was part of an ancient religion and was probably not a threat, or
failing to notice that it even existed. Once Christianity was out from under the umbrella of
Judaism, it became perceived as something new and therefore potentially dangerous.

Relations with the Romans and the Beginning of Persecution

Somewhere around the year 52 CE, the Roman emperor Claudius heard that there was some sort
of conflict in the Jewish quarter of Rome. What was probably a conflict between Christian Jews
and non-Christian Jews was perceived by the Romans as an internal dispute among the Jews—
and in a way, it was. To prevent any possible unrest, Claudius expelled all Jews from the city of
Rome, including, of course, Jewish Christians.6 This is why the apostle Paul encountered

Priscilla and Aquila outside of Rome—they had been forced to leave with all the rest (Acts
18:2). But this left the Christian community in the city of Rome in the hands of newly converted
Gentiles. Those who had been Christian the longest, who knew the stories of Jesus, and who
understood the tradition and roots in Judaism were now gone. This may have been the occasion
for the writing of the Gospel of Mark, since the Gentile Christians who remained would need to
know the stories. In any case, the fact that the Jews had left Rome, but some Christians
remained, demonstrated that Christianity was not simply a Jewish sect. Therefore, even before
the final split between Judaism and Christianity that took place after 70 CE, the Romans began to
notice the existence of the Church.

The first impressions of the Church on its Roman neighbors were not good, mainly because of

misunderstandings. Hearing that Christians ate the body of Christ and drank his blood, some
believed they were cannibals. Hearing married Christians call each other “brother” and “sister”
led to rumors about incest. The fact that the Christians met at dawn left some thinking they were
another mystery cult, like the ones that already existed in Roman society, yet with the distasteful
additions of cannibalism and incestuous orgies.7 Roman writers thought that Christianity was
bad for society, and called it a “destructive superstition.”8 The Roman historian Suetonius would
call the Church “a new and mischievous superstition.”9

In general, therefore, the Roman attitude toward the Church, once the Romans realized it

existed, was unfavorable. Those in the Roman government feared that it might be subversive,
like the movement of the Zealots in Judea. The Zealots, born out of the annexation of Judea to
Syria as a Roman province in 6 CE, would eventually provoke the Romans into the war that led
to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.10 So one can see how the
Romans would view any new “movement” as suspicious. In addition, the average Roman would
have worried that people who refused to worship the gods of Rome would anger those gods,
causing them to remove their protection from the empire. Ironically, the Christians, who
worshiped only one God as opposed to many, were called “atheists.”

At the same time, the Roman emperors were enjoying their ability to be treated as gods

themselves. Julius Caesar, who was assassinated to prevent him from becoming emperor, was
still proclaimed a god by the senate after his death. When his nephew and heir, Octavian, became
the first emperor, it was natural that he be considered the “son” of a “god.” So when Jesus came
into the world during the reign of Octavian (who had come to be called Augustus), and the
Christians said that Jesus was the Son of God, this was in direct competition to the emperor, who
was called a son of a god. The next emperor, Tiberius, apparently reasoned, Why wait until
you’re dead to be deified? A son of a god is a god, right? Therefore, he demanded to be called
dominus, or “lord.” So when Jesus was conducting his ministry during the reign of Tiberius, and
his followers called him Lord, this was in direct competition to the lordship of the emperor. By
the time the emperor Domitian reigned at the end of the first century, he demanded to be called
dominus et deus, or “lord and god.” So when the Fourth Gospel recorded that Thomas called
Jesus “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28), the Church held this up as their way to say, Jesus is
Lord and God, not that one in Rome who claims to be lord and god! In the minds of many, this
pitted the kingdom (or empire) of God against the empire of the Romans. As we will see, the
emperors will eventually try to force their Christian subjects to choose between Christ and
Caesar (cf. Luke 23:2, John 19:12, 15).

On July 18 in the year 64 CE, a fire broke out in the city of Rome. It leveled a major part of

the center of the city. Coincidentally (or not), the emperor Nero had plans on his desk for a new

palace to be built on that spot. Naturally, rumors began to circulate that he had started the fire to
make room for his new “Golden House.” Nero needed a scapegoat to divert attention away from
himself. He blamed the fire on the Christians, and most people were happy to vent their
frustration on the Church, though many did not believe its members were guilty.11 Thus the first
persecution of Christians at the hands of the Romans began. Anyone admitting to being a
Christian was charged with the crime of arson and could be executed. Many people died in the
circus of Nero, which is now in the Vatican, at the site of St. Peter’s Basilica.12 The apostles
Paul and Peter were martyred at about this time; Peter himself was crucified in Nero’s circus.13
The important thing to note is that the persecution set a precedent for the future attitude of the
Romans toward the Church. Though this persecution was limited to Rome and was temporary,
the official position of the Roman government was that Christians were to be seen as enemies of
the state.

In the year 81 CE, the emperor Domitian came to the throne, and in 95 CE he began

persecuting the Church.14 According to tradition, Domitian had his own cousin, Flavius
Clemens, executed for “atheism.” It is likely (but not certain) that this refers to Christianity,
though the actual motivation for the execution might have been anything. As the story goes,
Clemens’s wife, Flavia Domitilla, was subsequently exiled, leaving land to the Roman Christians
that would eventually be used for the catacombs named after her.15 It was also at this time that
the apostle John was exiled to the island of Patmos, where he would write the Book of
Revelation.16 But even at this time, persecution was sporadic and regional. Christians continued
to worship, though at some times and places they had to meet in secret. The early Christians,
however, never hid in the Roman catacombs, as some legends (not to mention movies) suggest.
The catacombs were legally registered burial grounds, so the Romans knew exactly where they
were. They may have had funeral services at a burial site, and there are some chapels in the
catacombs that attest to this, but the cramped quarters, the lack of light and fresh air, not to
mention the possible smell of decaying bodies, would make regular worship (let alone hiding out
for any length of time) impossible.

In the early second century, a Roman governor named Pliny wrote from his province in the

east to ask the emperor Trajan for advice on what to do about the Christians. Trajan, who was
emperor from 98 to 117 CE, wrote back and confirmed that although Christians deserved to be
executed, Pliny should not try to seek them out. If any were accused, he should interview them
and ask them whether they were Christians. He should not take the accuser’s word for it, since
anyone might accuse someone to avoid paying a debt or to settle a conflict. Therefore, the
accused were given a chance to speak for themselves, and if anyone denied being a Christian,
proving it was as simple as swearing an oath to the emperor and making some act of worship of
the traditional gods, perhaps as little as throwing a pinch of incense on a pagan altar.17 If there
was still some question about a person’s sincerity, they could be required to curse Christ, since
even Pliny believed that a true Christian would never do that.18 If anyone was willing to do this,
they were to go free. If they were not willing, they could be tortured, or sent into exile, having all
their property confiscated, or possibly sent to the mines, which was essentially a slow death
sentence. If they were Roman citizens, they were sent to Rome for trial and execution, as
Ignatius of Antioch was in the year 110 CE. Otherwise, they were sentenced to death, which
could come by beheading (if the governor wanted to be merciful), crucifixion, burning at the
stake, or being thrown to the wild beasts in the arena. According to Eusebius, no distinction was
made for age or sex.19 The important thing to note here is that, by the second century, we have
two important milestones in the history of persecution. First, we have gone from requiring a