Term Paper on "Christians and Romans to the Emperor Publius"

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Christians and Romans

To the Emperor Publius Diocletian, I, Patricius, son of Gaius Valerius and grandson of Septimus Valerius, who lived and died in service to the Senate, send my greeting and my salute from my little desk in my home near Sais, in the Delta.

The waves of persecution have reached the shores of the Nile. In this place of extreme contrasts between paradise and desert, a miracle and testimony of God's mercy to the world, another less noble, less divine, contrast has become rife. It is the contrast of a nation teeming with foreigners of every tongue and religious persuasion setting aside one group to receive the full weight of all the vilification and hostility which the other groups can produce. That this is unreasonable at the very least, and a very great evil otherwise, should be manifest to everyone, even the uneducated. For can a man's physical body which is composed of many organs survive if he decides to excise one organ? Can a man live without his liver? Even if he could, should he invoke the surgeon to remove it, would any good come of this?

I would suggest, my lord, that Rome needs her Christians and would suffer for their loss, just as she would suffer for the loss of the Egyptians or the Jews or the Greeks. Each group makes its contribution to the thing that is the whole empire.

My goal is not to flatter, nor to seem impolitic, but to address certain injustices which have been left at the doorstep of Christians everywhere, and which are based upon fear, ignorance, and short-sightedness. Mighty Emperor, in this debate whether Christians ought to be condemned as traitors to the state, you have subscribed to

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and perpetuated the popular belief that to confess to be a Christian is to be an avowed traitor, that such as profess that Christ is their king can be loyal to no other king, and that the presence of those who profess that Christ is their god no other god can endure. From this is derived the accusation that Christians are atheists as well as traitors. Defamers of Christians even go so far as to say that they are unfit for service in the armies of Rome.

A know, mighty Emperor, that to be king is to be surrounded by those wishing to whisper in your ear, saying whatever they will to forward their own agenda, and that you cannot be blamed for having such notions about Christians. This is merely the influence of what has been told you by advisors, such as Galerius, who are either misleading Your Majesty deliberately or who have merely conveyed the same lies and untruths with which they themselves have been misinformed. But how many of your advisors, how many of your supplicants, how many of your household servants or courtiers are Christians? I will warrant that none of them are, else how could you have this long received such slander about loyal Roman subjects without rebuttal?

How can Christians be traitors? Christ is the king of Christian's religious lives, not their political lives. We hold Christ to be in service of the King of the Universe, so being in the service of Christ is to be in the service of the All-Mighty. If Christ is in the service of the King of the Universe, then all other earthly kings and princes are also subordinate to that same greater King, and Christians cannot betray the emperor, as one of the Most High's earthly princes.

Christ has admonished his followers that Christians ought to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. As the King of our hearts, Christ does not want human taxes or money but our love and obedience to God's will for love and righteousness to flourish and proliferate. Christ would that Caesar keep his taxes for his own uses.

Further, our faith teaches us that God honors and supports good government and good leaders, so Christians ought to support the same. God loves justice, wisdom and mercy, all qualities that proceed from Rome. The things that are dear to God are dear to us also, so should Christians support Rome, as the source for so much that God loves, rather than betray her.

The charge has also been laid against us that we are atheists; nothing could be further from the fact. Though we place no faith in the gods of Rome, neither do the Egyptians nor the Greeks, nor the Jews for that matter. The Gauls continue to pray and do homage to their own gods as well, to the exclusion of prayers and homage to the Roman gods. Yet in none of these other cases is this fact a cause for anxiety on the part of the emperor. Only Christians are forced to worship Roman gods or die, only Christians make the emperor nervous. Why is this so?

The Emperor considers himself divine, but the tendency to regard princes as divine is the consequence of the government's fear that men would not treat a human king with the same deference as a divine one. The king adding to his robes of state the robes of divinity is an attempt to exert a level of control that is actually unnecessary, especially when it is applied toward the wholly unnecessary persecution of Christians. But good government is divine in a sense, because it exists only with God's blessing.

Further, each man is divine. Our scriptures teach us that we are all made in the image of the All-Mighty, and not merely this, but animated by God's spirit also. Of all the creatures in the world, even a fool can see that only man approaches to being a god in his capacity to reason, create, and to express himself with languages to other members of his race. When Christ walked the earth, he addressed his disciples, saying, "Know ye not that ye are gods?" Since we believe that Christ is himself God, by this we know that even God himself considers each of us divine, no less so the emperor. Let the emperor content himself with the divinity that is all men's.

It has been said that Christians should be suspected of diverse evil deeds because we keep to ourselves. This could be said of any other group, but not of Christians. The empire is full of people from different parts of the world, and in the large cities each group of foreigners has its neighborhood. Greeks tend to live and work with Greeks, Jews with Jews, Parthians with Parthians. These groups are groups because their members share so much in common, and that being the case they tend to marry their own.

To some degree this could be true of Christians, for the founders of our faith admonish Christians against marrying those who are not Christians, just as a Parthian may admonish his children not to marry Scythians, but whereas a man is born a Parthian or a Scythian and must remain so all his life, any person in the world can become a Christian. Do the Gauls go abroad inviting the world to become Gauls, do the Jews do this, or the Egyptians? In each case, my lord, each group is content with itself, but this is not true of Christians.

So in a greater sense, Christians are totally lacking in that clannishness which is the hallmark of every other group in the world. Yet whereas every other group is allowed to exist in peace, only the Christians are caught, fined, sent to prison, set on fire, worried to death by wild animals or vicious dogs, and for what?

My king and emperor, you and others have also assailed Christians with the accusation that we are not fit for service in Rome's armies, and that soldiers who convert to Christianity should be driven out of the army, killed, or at the very least be forced to run the gauntlet.

True, Christians would rather not fight, for we have been taught by Christ to love our enemies. Christians believe each man is beloved of God, and since loving God is part of Christian faith, it would be hateful to us to destroy what God loves, to kill the very thing we believe God came into the world to save.

However, the Empire could be a great haven for Christians, as nowhere else in the world are men so civilized, nowhere else do such diverse people mingle and coexist so peacefully; Christians blend into the background and should and could be as safe from persecution in Rome as are the Jews or Greeks. When the empire is threatened by foreign invaders, it threatens the haven for Christians that the empire has been and could be. Since the conquest of the empire by barbarians would bring ruin to Christians as well as pagans, many of whom would likely be butchered; it follows that serving in the Roman army aids… READ MORE

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Quoted Instructions for "Christians and Romans to the Emperor Publius" Assignment:

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Before I give you the guideline, please lat me know as soon as possible if you can't find a ***** for this. Because last time, it got me in trouble. Thank you.

This is a creative project, asking you to imagine yourself as an ancient person and therefore to write “in character.” You are highly encouraged to draw upon the primary sources and imitate their writing style in order to find a distinctly “ancient” voice. However, avoid excessive direct quotation from those texts. Use footnotes to indicate the sources of your ideas.

Unless otherwise specified, the characters involved may be of either sex; but keep it plausible within the limits imposed by the gender roles of the time.

Choose from one of the following situations. You are welcome to come up with a scenario of your own, but if so you must see me or your TA to discuss it at least a full week before the due date.

1. You have organized a panel discussion including some of the most famous ancient historians: Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Plutarch, Livy, Tacitus, etc. Imagine a debate between these historians along the following lines: what is the purpose of writing history? Should historians simply attempt to tell us what actually happened, or do they serve a larger moral purpose? To what extent is it appropriate to alter the facts, or even make stuff up, in order to make a point?

2. Pericles’ Funeral Oration extolled the virtues of Athenian democracy as “an education to the whole world.” Write a response to Pericles on behalf of the women of Athens.

3. Stage a debate between Socrates and Plato: do philosophers really know best? Can they be trusted to govern society?

4. ***** the Great checks himself in to Megalomaniacs Anonymous, a 12-step program for recovering tyrants. Describe his conversation with the philosophers in charge of the program, as they attempt to help him overcome his character flaws.

5. Greek educators in the fourth century BC debate whether or not Homer should be taught in the schools. Does it teach the right kind of values to our children?

6. In the aftermath of the Ides of March, imagine that Brutus and Cassius are captured and put on trial for their role in the assassination of Julius Caesar. They hire Cicero as their defense attorney. Write speeches on behalf of the prosecution and the defense.

7. You are a young Roman from a wealthy and prominent senatorial family. Instead of pursuing a promising career in politics or imperial service, you have thrown it all away and instead entered the arena to fight alongside the gladiators. Write a letter to your family explaining this shocking decision.

8. Christians and Romans debate: can Christians be loyal to the Roman Empire? Or do their religious beliefs and customs preclude them from full assimilation into Roman society? Should we let Christians serve in the military?

Or: can Jews be loyal to the Roman Empire, or do their religious beliefs and customs preclude them from full assimilation? Can they be trusted not to revolt?

9. Re-write the trial of Socrates. Either: write a persuasive speech for the prosecution. Or: write a speech that you think Socrates ought to have given in his defense (it should be substantially different from the speech recorded in Plato’s Apology) that might have persuaded the Athenians to acquit him.

10. By the first century BC, the Roman Republic had plunged into political chaos and civil war. A group of prominent Romans gathers to discuss: “What has gone wrong with our society, and what should we do about it?” Describe their discussion, and try to include different points of view as to the causes of the problem (whose fault is it?) and different suggestions as to solutions (can the republic be saved, or is monarchy inevitable?).

11. You are a Persian nobleman in the court of King Xerxes. You have heard that certain Greek historians are spreading false and misleading accounts of the recent war between the Greeks and Persians. Write an account of the war from the Persian point of view – why Persia was justified in going to war, why its result was “really” a victory for Persia. If the Great King Xerxes is pleased with your work, he will not behead you!

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