PERSECUTION
Since the fall there has been permanent conflict and tension, within each person, and between people.
It is a consequence of sin: the alienation of fallen man extends from his separation from God and enmity against Him, to enmity against his own fellow men, translated into envy, jealousy, strife, hatred, lies, desire for dominance, exploitation. , and many other destructive attitudes. Furthermore, there is the aforementioned internal dichotomy, which translates into a state of permanent dissatisfaction.
One of the results is the persecution launched by fallen man, individually, collectively and institutionally, against every manifestation of God in grace, and against every faithful testimony on the part of God.
Persecution can take various forms and degrees:
slander (Mt. 5:11);
contempt (John 8:48);
ostracism (Luke 6:22);
imprisonment (Luke 21:12);
confiscation of property (Heb. 10:34);
death (John 16:2).
The causes of persecution may be individual, as in the death of Abel at the hands of Cain (Gen. 4), popular hatred (Acts 21:27), or institutional action, in an attempt to achieve ideological uniformity, as in the cases in which total submission to the State is required (cf. the cases of Daniel’s three friends, thrown into the fiery furnace for refusing to worship the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, (Dan. 3), as well as the throwing of Daniel into the pit of the lions for disobeying the order not to pray to God (Dan. 6).
Elijah had also been persecuted in Jezebel and Ahab’s attempt to impose Baal worship on the kingdom of Israel; Many prophets of the Lord also suffered death at the hands of these wicked kings (1 Kings 19; cf. 18:1-4). During the Persian domination, an edict was promulgated throughout the empire of Persia, at the instigation of Haman the Agagite, to kill all Jewish subjects (Est. 3).
The reason given was to achieve uniformity of behavior (cf. Esther 3:8). But the bloodiest of the persecutions that the Jews suffered at the time of the OT was that of Antiochus Epiphanes, who wanted to completely Hellenize his empire, and ordered the implementation of Greek culture, religion and customs also in Palestine.
Having desecrated the Temple and cruelly put to death many Jews who persisted in remaining faithful to the Law of Moses, the Jews finally rebelled and, led by Mattathias and later by his son Judas Maccabeus, freed themselves from the Syrian yoke (see ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANS and MACCABEES).
In He. 11:36-38 gives a vivid picture of the persecutions suffered by the faithful witnesses of the OT, “of whom the world was not worthy.”
In the NT the persecutions against the testimony and witnesses of God continue. Christ predicts persecution (Mt. 16:21; 17:22, 23; Mark 8:31) and suffers it personally:
in Nazareth they tried to throw him off the cliff (Lk. 4:16-30), and several times he had to leave public view, because the authorities tried to kill him (Jn. 7:1, 25, 32; 10:31, 39, 40; 11 :7-9, 16; 47:54, 57, etc.).
The Lord presented persecutions to His own as proof of discipleship (Mk. 4:17), and declared blessed those who should suffer persecution for His name’s sake (Mt. 5: 10-11). He pointed out that the disciple could not be greater than his Lord. If they had persecuted the Lord Himself, how could they not also persecute the disciples? (cf. Jn. 15:20).
Finally, the Lord was betrayed, “by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God,” and arrested and killed by the hands of wicked people (cf. Acts 2:23). In this way, the Creator of all suffered persecution and death at the hands of His own creatures, an indicator of the depth of man’s instinctive enmity in his sin against God and against His personal manifestation on earth, revealing the hopelessness of his situation, of his need for grace.
Note also that the persecution suffered by Christ was religious, showing how religiosity is no guarantee of reaching a relationship with God, since man’s religious sense is also perverted by the fall (see FALL). Man does not need “religion”, but a new birth (see REGENERATION).
As the Lord had already indicated, the path of Christians would be marked by persecutions. Once resurrected, he personally indicated to Peter that he himself would bear witness until death (John 21: 15-22).
The first persecutions against Christians were instigated by the Jewish authorities. At first, amid the pressures to which the apostles were subjected by the Sanhedrin, a touch of moderation was given with the prudent advice of Gamaliel (Acts 5:34).
However, they soon forgot that call to prudence, and a fierce campaign was unleashed, which had its bloody beginning with the murder of Stephen (Acts 7:1-60), which was followed by a “great persecution” (Acts 7:1-60). . 8:1). Saul of Tarsus stood out in his zeal against nascent Christianity (see PAUL) (cf. Acts 22:4).
King Agrippa had James, John’s brother, imprisoned and killed (Acts 12:2). He then had Peter imprisoned, who was freed by supernatural intervention from God, who sent his angel (Acts 12:7-11). The implacable opposition of the Jews to the nascent Church is reflected in Paul’s words in 1 Thes. 2:14, 15.
The Jews continually tried to eliminate Paul, attempting to kill him on several occasions (Acts 14:2-6, 19-20; 17:1-9, 13; 18:12 ff.; 21:27-32 ff.; 23:12-22 ff.; cf. 2 Cor. 11:24, etc.).
There were also persecutions from the beginning by pagan elements (Acts 16:11-40; 19:23-41), but they were explosions of anger due to the displeasure with which certain elements viewed this faith that was spreading; Officially, the first years were one of open tolerance on the part of the authorities.
Ramsay points out that Paul’s appeal to Nero had, among other purposes, to establish the fact that the Gospel could be legitimately preached without any prohibition from the Empire, being a “religio licita” (legal religion) (“St Paul the Traveler and the Roman Citizen”, p. 308).
But already in the NT we notice the great change in the official policy of the Empire in its dealings with Christianity between Paul’s acquittal and his second imprisonment, when Nero accused the Christians of the burning of Rome (July 64 AD).
This persecution is reflected in the “Annals” of Tacitus (15:44), in which he himself considers Christians to be the dregs of the earth, echoing the slander that was then spread against them (cf. 1 Pet. 4). :12 ff.; 2 Tim. 4:16).
The Christians, in common with the Jews, refused to worship the emperor. After the persecution of Nero this fact became important among the reasons that the Roman Empire had for persecuting them.
The persecutions led the apostle John to exile on the island of Patmos, and there he wrote the Apocalypse; In this book we can glimpse the persecution that was taking place in Asia. In Smyrna there was suffering, persecutions by the Jews, prison and tribulation for the believers, to whom the crown of life was promised (Rev. 2:10); Antipas, a faithful witness of the Lord, had been killed in Pergamos (Rev. 2:13); the patience of the believers in Ephesus and Thyatira is mentioned (Rev. 2:2, 19); in Philadelphia believers had been pressured to deny Christ; there the persecutions had also started from Judaism (Rev. 3:8-9); There is, however, no mention of persecution in Sardis or Laodicea. It is possible that Christians there had assimilated so much to the values and way of life of paganism that they did not cause concern (Rev. 3:1-6, 14-22).
With its persecutions, Rome sought to establish the principle of absolute loyalty of citizens to the state, with all possible mechanisms, including that of religious adherence with worship of the emperor. In contrast to this position of the Empire, Christianity demands a primary and absolute loyalty to God (cf. Acts 4:18-20).
The Christian is urged to obey earthly authorities for the sake of conscience, since his authority is derived from that of God (cf. Rom. 13: 1-14). However, this principle was subversive for the Roman conception, which demanded absolute and conditional loyalty, not derived.
Paganism instinctively realized the radicalness of the opposition of concepts, and attempted to destroy Christianity. The most bitter persecutors of Christians were generally the “enlightened” emperors:
Trajan,
Antoninus Pius,
Marcus Aurelius (the philosopher emperor),
Seventh Severe.
In particular, the persecutions of Decius in the year 250 AD were very bloody. and that of Valerian, his successor.
Under Gallienus, who followed him, an edict of toleration was given, which was revoked by Diocletian, who launched a bitter persecution, in the year 303 A.D., with the declared purpose of destroying the name of the Christians from under heaven. Special attention was paid to the destruction of the sacred writings of Christianity, with a large number of copies of the NT disappearing.
Thus, for almost two hundred and fifty years the mere profession of Christianity was considered, in the Roman Empire, a crime deserving of the most terrible torture and death. In the year 313 Constantine promulgated the Edict of Milan, which established the freedom to profess and practice Christianity.
However, the persecutions continued, although now taking on a different character. The Church fell victim to the desire for power and, perverting its values, allied itself with the world, trying to establish its dominion, identifying the Kingdom of God with the dominion of the Church.
The persecutions of the dissidents, the Jews and the pagans themselves began by the official Church, which in turn sought to impose uniformity, disobeying the warnings of Christ (Mt. 13:27-28; 26:51-52 ). As a result, many protested by separating themselves from such a state of affairs, to be persecuted in turn.
The history of Christianity is a sad story of massacres, crusades, intrigues and persecutions, illuminated only by the actions of minorities who have sought to be faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, minorities of faithful Christians who have known and continue to know persecution in large areas of our current world, in the hands of totalitarian regimes that demand absolute loyalty that the Christian neither can nor should give except to God.
Thus, believers have known, like other non-believers, the horrors of the Inquisition, and, today, suspicion, slander, control and prison, mistreatment, and death, coming from powers inspired by various ideologies, atheistic, Islamic, pagan and neo-pagan, which have in common their hatred against the gospel of the grace of God.
The divine declaration through the pen of Paul that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12) continues to be fulfilled. And Christians are called to mutual assistance in common suffering with those who suffer, in the communion of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:26).
The situation of persecution in which the Church was born will only end on earth when the conflict of the centuries ends with the establishment of the Kingdom of God with power. Now justice suffers (cf. Mt. 5:6, 10); at the coming of Christ, justice will reign (cf. Mt. 6:33; Is. 32:1; 42:1 ff., etc.); In the new heavens and the new earth righteousness will dwell (2 Pet. 3:13).
In addition to the consciousness of final victory, the Christian also knows that Christ has already overcome the world (John 16:33), and that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:35-39).