The Gnostic Gospels (Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction Books)

IV

The Passion of Christ and the Persecution of Christians

THERE IS ONLY one fact on which nearly all accounts about Jesus of Nazareth, whether written by persons hostile or devoted to him, agree: that, by order of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, he was condemned and crucified (c. 30). Tacitus, the aristocratic Roman historian (c. 55–115), knowing virtually nothing about Jesus, mentions only this. Relating the history of the infamous Nero (emperor 54–58), he says that Nero, accused of starting major fires in Rome,

substituted as culprits and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of persons hated for their vices, whom the crowd called Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not only in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where everything horrible or shameful in the world gathers and becomes fashionable.¹

The Jewish historian Josephus mentions Jesus of Nazareth in a list of troubles that disturbed Jewish relations with Rome when Pilate was governor (roughly 26–36). A comment attributed to Josephus reports that “Pilate, having heard him accused by men of the highest standing among us … condemned him to be crucified.”²

Jesus’ followers confirm this report. The gospel of Mark, probably the earliest of the New Testament accounts (c. 70–80), tells how Jesus, betrayed by Judas Iscariot at night in the garden of Gethsemane opposite Jerusalem, was arrested by armed men as his disciples fled.³ Charged with sedition before Pilate, he was condemned to death.⁴ Crucified, Jesus lived for several hours before, as Mark tells it, he “uttered a loud cry”⁵ and died. The gospels of Luke and John, written perhaps a generation later (c. 90–110), describe his death in more heroic terms: Jesus forgives his torturers, and, with a prayer, yields up his life.⁶ Yet all four of the New Testament gospels describe his suffering, death, and hasty burial. The gospels, of course, interpret the circumstances leading to his death to demonstrate his innocence. Mark says that the chief priests and leaders in Jerusalem planned to have Jesus arrested and executed because of his teaching against them.⁷ John presents a fuller account, historically plausible. He reports that as Jesus’ popularity grew and attracted increasing numbers to his movement, the chief priests gathered the council of the Sanhedrin to discuss the dangers of riot. Some among the uneducated masses already acclaimed Jesus as Messiah⁸—the “anointed king” who they expected would liberate Israel from foreign imperialism and restore the Jewish state. Especially during Passover, when thousands of Jews poured into Jerusalem to celebrate the holiday, this impetus might ignite feelings of Jewish nationalism, already smoldering in the city, into revolt. The council held the responsibility for keeping the peace between the Jewish population and the Roman occupying army—a peace so tenuous that when, only a few years later, a Roman soldier stationed on guard in Jerusalem during Passover expressed his contempt by exposing himself in the Temple courtyard, his act provoked a riot in which 30,000 people are said to have lost their lives. Josephus, who tells this story, adds: “Thus the Feast ended in distress to the whole nation, and bereavement to every household.”⁹

John reconstructs the council debate concerning Jesus: “What are we to do? … If we let him go on thus,” the masses may demonstrate in favor of this alleged new Jewish king, “and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.”¹⁰ The chief priest Caiphas argued for the expedience of arresting one man at once, rather than endanger the whole population.¹¹ Even John had to recognize the political acumen of this reasoning: he wrote his account not long after the Jewish War of 66–70, an insurrection against Rome that ended in the total disaster which, according to John, Caiphas had predicted: the Temple burned to the ground, the city of Jerusalem devastated, the population decimated.

Yet if the sources agree on the basic facts of Jesus’ execution, Christians sharply disagree on their interpretation. One gnostic text from Nag Hammadi, the Apocalypse of Peter, relates a radically different version of the crucifixion:

… I saw him apparently being seized by them. And I said, “What am I seeing, O Lord? Is it really you whom they take? And are you holding on to me? And are they hammering the feet and hands of another? Who is this one above the cross, who is glad and laughing?” The Savior said to me, “He whom you saw being glad and laughing above the cross is the Living Jesus. But he into whose hands and feet they are driving the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute. They put to shame that which remained in his likeness. And look at him, and [look at] me!”¹²

Another of the Nag Hammadi texts, the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, relates Christ’s teaching that

it was another … who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. It was another upon whom they placed the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height over … their error … And I was laughing at their ignorance.¹³

What does this mean? The Acts of John—one of the most famous gnostic texts, and one of the few discovered before Nag Hammadi, having somehow survived, in fragmentary form, repeated denunciations by the orthodox—explains that Jesus was not a human being at all; instead, he was a spiritual being who adapted himself to human perception. The Acts tells how James once saw him standing on the shore in the form of a child, but when he pointed him out to John,

I [John] said, “Which child?” And he answered me, “The one who is beckoning to us.” And I said, “This is because of the long watch we have kept at sea. You are not seeing straight, brother James. Do you not see the man standing there who is handsome, fair and cheerful looking?” But he said to me, “I do not see that man, my brother.”¹⁴

Going ashore to investigate, they became even more confused. According to John,

he appeared to me again as rather bald-(headed) but with a thick flowing beard, but to James as a young man whose beard was just beginning.… I tried to see him as he was … But he sometimes appeared to me as a small man with no good looks, and then again as looking up to heaven.¹⁵

John continues:

I will tell you another glory, brethren; sometimes when I meant to touch him I encountered a material, solid body; but at other times again when I felt him, his substance was immaterial and incorporeal … as if it did not exist at all.¹⁶

John adds that he checked carefully for footprints, but Jesus never left any—nor did he ever blink his eyes. All of this demonstrates to John that his nature was spiritual, not human.

The Acts goes on to tell how Jesus, anticipating arrest, joined with his disciples in Gethsemane the night before:

… he assembled us all, and said, “Before I am delivered to them, let us sing a hymn to the Father, and so go to meet what lies before (us).” So he told us to form a circle, holding one another’s hands, and himself stood in the middle …¹⁷

Instructing the disciples to “Answer Amen to me,” he began to intone a mystical chant, which reads, in part,

“To the Universe belongs the dancer.”—“Amen.”

“He who does not dance does not know what happens.”—“Amen.” …

“Now if you follow my dance, see yourself in Me who am speaking …

You who dance, consider what I do, for yours is

This passion of Man which I am to suffer. For you could by no means have understood what you suffer unless to you as Logos I had been sent by the Father …

Learn how to suffer and you shall be able not to suffer.”¹⁸

John continues:

After the Lord had danced with us, my beloved, he went out [to suffer]. And we were like men amazed or fast asleep, and we fled this way and that. And so I saw him suffer, and did not wait by his suffering, but fled to the Mount of Olives and wept … And when he was hung (upon the Cross) on Friday, at the sixth hour of the day there came a darkness over the whole earth.¹⁹

At that moment John, sitting in a cave in Gethsemane, suddenly saw a vision of Jesus, who said,

“John, for the people below … I am being crucified and pierced with lances … and given vinegar and gall to drink. But to you I am speaking, and listen to what I speak.”²⁰

Then the vision reveals to John a “cross of light,” and explains that “I have suffered none of the things which they will say of me; even that suffering which I showed to you and to the rest in my dance, I will that it be called a mystery.”²¹ Other gnostics, followers of Valentinus, interpret the meaning of such paradoxes in a different way. According to the Treatise on Resurrection, discovered at Nag Hammadi, insofar as Jesus was the “Son of Man,” being human, he suffered and died like the rest of humanity.²² But since he was also “Son of God,” the divine spirit within him could not die: in that sense he transcended suffering and death.

Yet orthodox Christians insist that Jesus was a human being, and that all “straight-thinking” Christians must take the crucifixion as a historical and literal event. To ensure this they place in the creed, as a central element of faith, the simple statement that “Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.” Pope Leo the Great (c. 447) condemned such writings as the Acts of John as “a hotbed of manifold perversity,” which “should not only be forbidden, but entirely destroyed and burned with fire.” But because heretical circles continued to copy and hide this text, the second Nicene Council, three hundred years later, had to repeat the judgment, directing that “No one is to copy [this book]: not only so, but we consider that it deserves to be consigned to the fire.”

What lies behind this vehemence? Why does faith in the passion and death of Christ become an essential element—some say, the essential element—of orthodox Christianity? I am convinced that we cannot answer this question fully until we recognize that controversy over the interpretation of Christ’s suffering and death involved, for Christians of the first and second centuries, an urgent practical question: How are believers to respond to persecution, which raises the imminent threat of their own suffering and death?

No issue could be more immediate to Jesus’ disciples, having themselves experienced the traumatic events of his betrayal and arrest, and having heard accounts of his trial, torture, and final agony. From that time, especially when the most prominent among them, Peter and James, were arrested and executed, every Christian recognized that affiliation with the movement placed him in danger. Both Tacitus and Suetonius, the historian of the imperial court (c. 115), who shared an utter contempt for Christians, mention the group principally as the target of official persecution. In telling the life of Nero, Suetonius reports, in a list of the good things the emperor did, that “punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of persons given to a new and malificent superstition.”²³ Tacitus adds to his remarks on the fire in Rome:

First, then, those of the sect were arrested who confessed; next, on their disclosures, vast numbers were convicted, not so much on the count of arson, as for hatred of the human race. And ridicule accompanied their end: they were covered with wild beasts’ skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed, were burned to serve as torches by night. Nero had offered his gardens for the spectacle …²⁴

Tacitus interprets Nero’s action in terms of his need for a scapegoat. As yet, the government may have considered the Christians outside Rome—if it considered them at all—too insignificant to initiate systematic action against the movement. But since the time that Augustus ruled as emperor (27 B.C.–A.D. 14), the emperor and the Senate had moved to repress any social dissidents whom they thought potential troublemakers, as they did astrologers, magicians, followers of foreign religious cults, and philosophers.²⁵ The Christian group bore all the marks of conspiracy. First, they identified themselves as followers of a man accused of magic²⁶ and executed for that and for treason; second, they were “atheists,” who denounced as “demons” the gods who protected the fortunes of the Roman state—even the genius (divine spirit) of the emperor himself; third, they belonged to an illegal society. Besides these acts that police could verify, rumor indicated that their secrecy concealed atrocities: their enemies said that they ritually ate human flesh and drank human blood, practices of which magicians were commonly accused.²⁷ Although at this time no law specifically prohibited conversion to Christianity, any magistrate who heard a person accused of Christianity was required to investigate.²⁸ Uncertain about how to treat such cases, Pliny, the governor of Bythynia (a province in Asia Minor), wrote (c. 112) to Trajan, the emperor, requesting clarification:

It is my custom, Lord Emperor, to refer to you all questions whereof I am in doubt. Who can better guide me …? I have never participated in investigations of Christians; hence I do not know what is the crime usually punished or investigated, or what allowances are made … Meanwhile, this is the course I have taken with those who were accused before me as Christians. I asked them whether they were Christians, and I asked them a second and third time with threats of punishment. If they kept to it, I ordered them taken off for execution, for I had no doubt that whatever it was they admitted, in any case they deserve to be punished for obstinacy and unbending pertinacity … As for those who said they neither were nor ever had been Christians, I thought it right to let them go, when they recited a prayer to the gods at my dictation, and made supplication with incense and wine to your statue, which I had ordered to be brought into court for the purpose, and moreover, cursed Christ—things which (so it is said) those who are really Christians cannot be made to do.²⁹

Trajan replied with approval for Pliny’s handling of the matter:

You have adopted the proper course, my dear Secundus, in your examination of the cases of those who were accused before you as Christians, for indeed, nothing can be laid down as a general rule involving something like a set form of procedure. They are not to be sought out; but if they are accused and convicted, they must be punished—but on the condition that whoever denies that he is a Christian, and makes the fact plain by his action, that is, by worshipping our gods, shall obtain pardon on his repentance, however suspicious his past conduct may be.³⁰

But Trajan advised Pliny against accepting anonymous accusations, “since they are a bad example, and unworthy of our time.” Pliny and Trajan agreed that anyone who would refuse such a gesture of loyalty must have serious crimes to hide, especially since the penalty for refusing was immediate execution.

Justin, a philosopher who had converted to Christianity (c. 150–155 A.D.), boldly wrote to the Emperor Antoninus Pius and to his son, the future emperor, Marcus Aurelius, whom he addressed as a colleague in philosophy and “a lover of learning,”³¹ protesting the injustice Christians endured in imperial courts. Justin relates a recent case in Rome: a woman who had participated with her husband and their servants in various forms of sexual activity, fueled by wine, then converted to Christianity through the influence of her teacher Ptolemy, and subsequently refused to take part in such activities. Her friends persuaded her not to divorce, hoping for some reconciliation. But when she learned that, on a trip to Alexandria in Egypt, her husband had acted more flagrantly than ever, she sued for divorce and left him. Her outraged husband immediately brought a legal accusation against her, “affirming that she was a Christian.” When she won a plea to delay her trial, her husband attacked her teacher in Christianity. Judge Urbicus, hearing the accusation, asked Ptolemy only one question: Was he a Christian? When he acknowledged that he was, Urbicus immediately sentenced him to death. Hearing this order, a man in the courtroom named Lucias challenged the judge:

“What is the good of this judgment? Why have you punished this man, not as an adulterer, nor fornicator, nor thief, nor robber, nor convicted of any crime at all, but one who has only confessed that he is called by the name of Christian? This judgment of yours, Urbicus, does not become the Emperor Pius, nor the philosopher, the son of Caesar [Marcus Aurelius], nor the sacred Senate.”³²

Urbicus replied only, “You also seem to be one.” And when Lucias said “Indeed I am,” Urbicus condemned him—and a second protester in the audience—to follow Ptolemy to death.

Recounting this story, Justin points out that anyone can use the charge of Christianity to settle any personal grudge against a Christian: “I, too, therefore, expect to be plotted against and crucified”³³—perhaps, he adds, by one of his professional rivals, the Cynic philosopher named Crescens. And Justin was right: apparently it was Crescens whose accusation led to his own arrest, trial, and condemnation in A.D. 165. Rusticus, a personal friend of Marcus Aurelius (who, by that time, had succeeded his father as emperor), conducted the trial. Rusticus ordered Justin’s execution along with that of a whole group of his students, whose crime was learning Christian philosophy from him. The record of their trial shows that Rusticus asked Justin,

“Where do you meet?” … “Wherever it is each one’s preference or opportunity,” said Justin. “In any case, do you suppose we can all meet in the same place? Not so; for the Christians’ God is not circumscribed by place; invisible, he fills the heavens and the earth, and is worshipped and glorified by believers everywhere.”

Rusticus the prefect said, “Tell me, where do you meet? Where do you gather together your disciples?”

Justin said, “I have been living above the baths of a certain Martinus, son of Timiotinus, and for the entire period of my stay at Rome (and this is my second) I have known no other meeting place but there. Anyone who wished could come to my abode and I would impart to him the words of truth.”

The prefect Rusticus said, “You do admit, then, that you are a Christian?” “Yes, I am,” said Justin.³⁴

Then Rusticus interrogated Cariton, the woman named Charito, Euelpistis, a slave in the imperial court, Hierax, Liberian, and Paeon—all of them Justin’s students. All declared themselves Christians. The account proceeds:

“Well, then,” said the prefect Rusticus, “let us come to the point at issue, a necessary and pressing business. Agree to offer sacrifice to the gods.”

“No one of sound mind,” said Justin, “turns from piety to impiety.”

The prefect Rusticus said, “If you do not obey, you will be punished without mercy.”³⁵

When they replied, “Do what you will; we are Christians, and we do not offer sacrifice to idols,” Rusticus pronounced sentence: “Let those who have refused to sacrifice to the gods and to yield to the emperor’s edict be led away to be scourged and beheaded in accordance with the laws.”³⁶

Given this danger, what was a Christian to do? Once arrested and accused, should one confess to being a Christian, only to receive an order of execution: immediate beheading if one was fortunate enough to be a Roman citizen, like Justin and his companions, or, for noncitizens, extended torture as a spectacle in the public sports arena? Or should one deny it and make the token gesture of loyalty—intending afterwards to atone for the lie?

Charged with the unpleasant duty of ordering executions for noncompliance, Roman officials often tried to persuade the accused to save their own lives. According to contemporary accounts (c. 165), after the aged and revered Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna, in Asia Minor, was arrested by the police,

the governor tried to persuade him to recant, saying, “Have respect for your age,” and other similar things that they usually say; “Swear by the genius of the emperor. Recant. Say, ‘Away with the atheists!’ ” Polycarp, with a sober expression, looked at all the mob of lawless pagans who were in the stadium … and said, “Away with the atheists!” The governor persisted and said, “Swear and I will let you go. Curse Christ!” But Polycarp answered, “For eighty-six years I have been his servant, and he has done me no wrong … If you delude yourself into thinking that I will swear by the emperor’s genius, as you say, and if you pretend not to know who I am, listen and I will tell you plainly: I am a Christian.”³⁷

Polycarp was burned alive in the public arena.

An account from North Africa (c. 180) describes how the proconsul Saturninus, confronted by nine men and three women arraigned as Christians, worked to spare their lives, saying,

“If you return to your senses, you can obtain pardon of our lord the emperor … We too are a religious people, and our religion is a simple one: We swear by the genius of our lord the emperor and offer prayers for his health—as you ought to do too.”³⁸

Meeting their determined resistance, Saturninus asked, “You wish no time for reconsideration?” Speratus, one of the accused, replied, “In so just a matter, there is no need for consideration.” In spite of this, the proconsul ordered a thirty-day reprieve with the words “Think it over.” But thirty days later, after interrogating the accused, Saturninus was forced to give the order:

Whereas Speratus, Narzalus, Cittinus, Donata, Vestia, Secunda, and the others have confessed that they have been living in accordance with the rites of the Christians, and whereas, though they have been given the opportunity to return to the Roman usage, they have persevered in their obstinancy, they are hereby condemned to be executed by the sword.³⁹

Speratus said, “We thank God!” Narzalus said, “Today we are martyrs in heaven. Thanks be to God!”

Such behavior provoked the scorn of the Stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who despised the Christians as morbid and misguided exhibitionists. Many today might agree with his judgment, or else dismiss the martyrs as neurotic masochists. Yet for Jews and Christians of the first and second centuries, the term bore a different connotation: martus simply means, in Greek, “witness.” In the Roman Empire, as in many countries throughout the world today, members of certain religious groups fell under government suspicion as organizations that fostered criminal or treasonous activities. Those who, like Justin, dared to protest publicly the unjust treatment Christians received in court made themselves likely targets of police action. For those caught in such a situation then, as now, the choice was often simple: either to speak out, risking arrest, torture, the formality of a futile trial, and exile or death—or to keep silent and remain safe. Their fellow believers revered those who spoke out as “confessors” and regarded only those who actually endured through death as “witnesses” (martyres).

But not all Christians spoke out. Many, at the moment of decision, made the opposite choice. Some considered martyrdom foolish, wasteful of human life, and so, contrary to God’s will. They argued that “Christ, having died for us, was killed so that we might not be killed.”⁴⁰ As past events become matters of religious conviction only when they serve to interpret present experience, here the interpretation of Christ’s death became the focus for controversy over the practical question of martyrdom.

The orthodox who expressed the greatest concern to refute “heretical” gnostic views of Christ’s passion were, without exception, persons who knew from firsthand experience the dangers to which Christians were exposed—and who insisted on the necessity of accepting martyrdom. When that great opponent of heresy, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was arrested and tried, he is said to have accepted the death sentence with joyful exultation as his opportunity to “imitate the passion of my God!”⁴¹ Condemned to be sent from Syria to Rome to be killed by wild beasts in the public amphitheater, Ignatius, chained and heavily guarded, wrote to the Christians in Rome, pleading with them not to interfere in his behalf:

I am writing to all the churches, and I give injunction to everyone, that I am dying willingly for God’s sake, if you do not prevent it. I plead with you not to be an “unseasonable kindness” to me. Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, through whom I can attain to God. I am God’s wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become pure bread of Christ … Do me this favor … Let there come upon me fire, and the cross, and struggle with wild beasts, cutting and tearing apart, racking of bones, mangling of limbs, crushing of my whole body … may I but attain to Jesus Christ!⁴²

What does Christ’s passion mean to him? Ignatius says that “Jesus Christ … was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified, and died.”⁴³ He vehemently opposes gnostic Christians, whom he calls “atheists” for suggesting that since Christ was a spiritual being, he only appeared to suffer and die:

But if, as some say … his suffering was only an appearance, then why am I a prisoner, and why do I long to fight with the wild beasts? In that case, I am dying in vain.⁴⁴

Ignatius complains that those who qualify his view of Christ’s suffering “are not moved by my own personal sufferings; for they think the same things about me!”⁴⁵ His gnostic opponents, challenging his understanding of Christ’s passion, directly call into question the value of his voluntary martyrdom.

Justin, whom tradition calls “the martyr,” declares that before his own conversion, when he was still a Platonist philosopher, he personally witnessed Christians enduring public torture and execution. Their courage, he says, convinced him of their divine inspiration.⁴⁶ Protesting the world-wide persecution of Christians, he mentions those persecuted in Palestine (c. 135):

It is clear that no one can terrify or subdue us who believe in Jesus Christ, throughout the whole world. For it is clear that though beheaded, and crucified, and thrown to the wild beasts, in chains, in fire, and all other kinds of torture, we do not give up our confession; but the more such things happen, the more do others, in larger numbers, become believers.⁴⁷

Consistent with his personal convictions concerning martyrdom and his courageous acceptance of his own death sentence is Justin’s view that “Jesus Christ, our teacher, who was born for this purpose, was crucified under Pontius Pilate and died, and rose again.”⁴⁸ Justin concludes his second Apology (“Defense” for the Christians) saying that he has written it for the sole purpose of refuting “wicked and deceitful” gnostic ideas. He attacks those who, he says, are “called Christians,” but whom he considers heretics—followers of Simon, Marcion, and Valentinus.⁴⁹ “We do not know,” he says darkly—combining admission with insinuation—whether they actually indulge in promiscuity or cannibalism, but, he adds, “we do know” one of their crimes: unlike the orthodox, “they are neither persecuted nor put to death” as martyrs.

Irenaeus, the great opponent of the Valentinians, was, like his predecessors, a man whose life was marked by persecution. He mentions many who were martyred in Rome, and he knew from personal experience the loss of his beloved teacher Polycarp, caught in mob violence, condemned, and burned alive among his enemies. Only twelve years later, in the summer of 177, Irenaeus witnessed growing hostility to Christians in his own city, Lyons. First they were prohibited from entering public places—the markets and the baths. Then, when the provincial governor was out of the city,

the mob broke loose. Christians were hounded and attacked openly. They were treated as public enemies, assaulted, beaten, and stoned. Finally they were dragged into the Forum … were accused, and, after confessing to being Christians, they were flung in prison.⁵⁰

An influential friend, Vettius Epagathus, who tried to intervene at their trial, was shouted down: “The prefect merely asked him if he too was a Christian. When he admitted, in the clearest voice, that he was,”⁵¹ the prefect sentenced him to death along with the others. Their servants, tortured to extract information, finally “confessed” that, as the Romans suspected, their Christian employers committed sexual atrocities and cannibalism. An eyewitness account reports that this evidence turned the population against them: “These stories got around, and all the people raged against us, so that even those whose attitude had been moderate before because of their friendship with us now became greatly angry and gnashed their teeth against us.”⁵²

Every day new victims—the most outspoken members of the churches in Lyons or the neighboring town of Vienne, twenty miles down the Rhône River, were arrested and brutally tortured in prison as they awaited the day set for the mass execution, August 1. This was a holiday to celebrate the greatness of Rome and the emperor. Such occasions required the governor to display his patriotism by sponsoring lavish public entertainment for the whole population of the city. These obligations burdened provincial officials with enormous expenses for hiring professional gladiators, boxers, wrestling teams, and swordsmen. But the year before, the emperor and the Senate had passed a new law to offset the cost of gladitorial shows. Now the governor could legally substitute condemned criminals who were noncitizens, offering the spectacle of their torture and execution instead of athletic exhibitions—at the cost of six aurei per head, one-tenth the cost of hiring a fifth-class gladiator, with proportionate savings for the higher grades. This consideration no doubt added incentive to the official zeal against Christians, who could provide, as they did in Lyons, the least expensive holiday entertainment.

The story of one of the confessors in Lyons, the slave woman Blandina, illustrates what happened:

All of us were in terror; and Blandina’s earthly mistress, who was herself among the martyrs in the conflict, was in agony lest because of her bodily weakness she would not be able to make a bold confessor of her faith. Yet Blandina was filled with such power that even those who were taking turns to torture her in every way from dawn to dusk were weary and exhausted. They themselves admitted that they were beaten, that there was nothing further they could do to her, and they were surprised that she was still breathing, for her entire body was broken and torn.

On the day set for the gladitorial games, Blandina, along with three of her companions, Maturus, Sanctus, and Attalus, were led into the amphitheater:

Blandina was hung on a post and exposed as bait for the wild animals that were let loose on her. She seemed to hang there in the form of a cross, and by her fervent prayer she aroused intense enthusiasm in those who were undergoing their ordeal … But none of the animals had touched her, and so she was taken down from the post and brought back to the jail to be preserved for another ordeal … tiny, weak, and insignificant as she was, she would give inspiration to her brothers … Finally, on the last day of the gladitorial games, they brought back Blandina again, this time with a boy of fifteen named Ponticus. Every day they had been brought in to watch the torture of the others, while attempts were made to force them to swear by the pagan idols. And because they persevered and condemned their persecutors, the crowd grew angry with them, so that … they subjected them to every atrocity and led them through every torture in turn.

After having run through the gauntlet of whips, having been mauled by animals, and forced into an iron seat placed over a fire to scorch his flesh, Ponticus died. Blandina, having survived the same tortures,

was at last tossed into a net and exposed to a bull. After being tossed a good deal by the animal, she no longer perceived what was happening … Thus she too was offered in sacrifice, while the pagans themselves admitted that no woman had ever suffered so much in their experience.⁵³

Although Irenaeus himself somehow managed to escape arrest, his association with those in prison compelled him to bring an account of their terrible suffering to Christians in Rome. When he returned to Gaul, he found the community in mourning: nearly fifty Christians had died in the two-month ordeal. He himself was persuaded to take over the leadership of the community, succeeding the ninety-year-old Bishop Pothinus, who had died of torture and exposure in prison.

In spite of all this, Irenaeus expresses no hostility against his fellow townsmen—but plenty against the gnostic “heretics.” Like Justin, he attacks them as “false brethren” who

have reached such a pitch of audacity that they even pour contempt upon the martyrs, and vituperate those who are killed on account of confessing the Lord, and who … thereby strive to follow in the footsteps of the Lord’s passion, themselves bearing witness to the one who suffered.⁵⁴

This declaration concludes his detailed attack on the Valentinian interpretation of Christ’s passion. Condemning as blasphemy their claim that only Christ’s human nature experiences suffering, while his divine nature transcends it, Irenaeus insists that

the same being who was seized and experienced suffering, and shed his blood for us, was both Christ and the Son of God … and he became the Savior of those who would be delivered over to death for their confession of him, and lose their lives.⁵⁵

Indeed, he adds, “if any one supposes that there were two natures in Christ,” the one who suffered was certainly superior to the one who escaped suffering, sustaining neither injury nor insult.” In the day of judgment, he warns, when the martyrs “attain to glory, then all who have cast a slur upon their martyrdom shall be confounded by Christ.”⁵⁶

Tertullian, another fierce opponent of heresy, describes how the sight of Christians tortured and dying initiated his own conversion: he saw a condemned Christian, dressed up by Roman guards to look like the god Attis, torn apart alive in the arena; another, dressed as Hercules, was burned alive. He admits that he, too, once enjoyed “the ludicrous cruelties of the noonday exhibition,”⁵⁷ watching another man, dressed as the god Mercury, testing the bodies of the tortured with a red-hot iron, and one dressed as Pluto, god of the dead, dragging corpses out of the arena. After his own conversion Tertullian, like Irenaeus, connected the teaching of Christ’s passion and death with his own enthusiasm for martyrdom: “You must take up your cross and bear it after your Master … The sole key to unlock Paradise is your own life’s blood.”⁵⁸ Tertullian traces the rise of heresy directly to the outbreak of persecution. This, he says, impelled terrified believers to look for theological means to justify their cowardice:

This among Christians is a time of persecution. When, therefore, the faith is greatly agitated and the church on fire … then the gnostics break out; then the Valentinians creep forth; then all the opponents of martyrdom bubble up … for they know that many Christians are simple and inexperienced and weak, and … they perceive that they will never be applauded more than when fear has opened the entries of the soul, especially when some terrorism has already arrayed with a crown the faith of martyrs.⁵⁹

To what he considers “heretical” arguments against martyrdom Tertullian replies:

Now we are in the midst of an intense heat, the very dogstar of persecution … the fire and the sword have tried some Christians, and the beasts have tried others; others are in prison, longing for martyrdoms which they have tasted already, having been beaten by clubs and tortured … We ourselves, having been appointed for pursuit, are like hares being hemmed in from a distance—and the heretics go about as usual!⁶⁰

This situation, he explains, inspired him to attack as heretics those “who oppose martyrdom, representing salvation to be destruction,” and who call encouragement to martyrdom foolish and cruel.

Hippolytus, the learned Greek teacher in Rome, also had witnessed the terror of the persecution under the Emperor Severus in the year 202. Hippolytus’ zeal for martyrdom, like Tertullian’s, was matched by his hatred of heresy. He concludes his massive Refutation of All Heresies insisting that only orthodox doctrine concerning Christ’s incarnation and passion enables the believer to endure persecution:

If he were not of the same nature with ourselves, he would command in vain that we should imitate the teacher … He did not protest against his passion, but became obedient unto death … now in all these acts he offered up, as the first fruits, his own humanity, in order that you, when you are in tribulation, may not be discouraged, but, confessing yourself to be one like the redeemer, may dwell in expectation of receiving what the Father has granted to the Son.⁶¹

In his mid-seventies, Hippolytus himself fulfilled his own exhortation: arrested on the order of the Emperor Maximin in 235, he was deported to Sardinia, where he died.

What pattern, then, do we observe? The opponents of heresy in the second century—Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus—are unanimous both in proclaiming Christ’s passion and death and in affirming martyrdom. Also, they all accuse the heretics of false teaching about Christ’s suffering and of “opposing martyrdom.” Irenaeus declares:

The church in every place, because of the love which she cherishes toward God, sends forth, throughout all time, a multitude of martyrs to the Father; while all others not only have nothing of this kind to point to among themselves, but even maintain that bearing witness (martyrium) is not at all necessary … with the exception, perhaps, of one or two among them … who have occasionally, along with our martyrs, borne the reproach of the name … For the church alone sustains with purity the reproach of those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, and endure all sorts of punishments, and are put to death because of the love which they bear toward God, and their confession of his Son.⁶²

Irenaeus here denies to gnostics who die for the faith even the name of martyrs: at best they are only “a sort of retinue” granted to the true martyrs, who are orthodox Christians.

Although Irenaeus undoubtedly exaggerated the infrequency of martyrdom among the heretics, martyrdom did occur rarely among gnostic Christians. The reason was not simply cowardice, as the orthodox charged, but also the differences of opinion among them. What attitudes did gnostics take toward martyrdom, and on what grounds? Evidence from Nag Hammadi shows that their views were astonishingly diverse. Some advocated it; others repudiated it on principle. Followers of Valentinus took a mediating position between these extremes. But one thing is clear: in every case, the attitude toward martyrdom corresponds to the interpretation of Christ’s suffering and death.

Some groups of gnostics, like the orthodox, insisted that Christ really suffered and died. It is claimed that several texts discovered at Nag Hammadi, including the Secret Book of James, the Second Apocalypse of James, and the Apocalypse of Peter, were written by disciples known to have undergone martyrdom—James, the brother of Jesus, and Peter. The author of the Secret Book of James, probably a Christian living in the second century who was anxious about the prospect of persecution, places himself in the situation of James and Peter. As they anticipate undergoing torture and death, he reports, they receive a vision of the risen Lord, who interprets the ordeals they face in terms of his own:

… If you are oppressed by Satan and persecuted, and you do his [the Father’s] will, I [say] that he will love you and make you equal with me … Do you not know that you have yet to be abused and to be accused unjustly; and have yet to be shut up in prison, and condemned unlawfully, and crucified (without) reason, and buried (shamefully), as I (was) myself? … Truly I say to you, none will be saved unless they believe in my cross. But those who have believed in my cross, theirs is the kingdom of God.… Truly I say to you, none of those who fear death will be saved; for the kingdom of death belongs to those who put themselves to death.⁶³

This gnostic author not only insists that Christ really suffered and died, but even encourages believers to choose suffering and death. Like Ignatius, this gnostic teacher believes that one becomes identified with Christ through suffering: “Make yourselves like the Son of the Holy Spirit!”⁶⁴

The same concern with persecution, and a similar analogy between the believer’s experience and the Savior’s passion, dominates the Second Apocalypse of James. The Savior, “who lived [without] blasphemy, died by means of [blasphemy].”⁶⁵ As he dies he says, “I am surely dying, but I shall be found in life.”⁶⁶ The Apocalypse climaxes with the brutal scene of James’s own torture and death by stoning:

… the priests … found him standing beside the columns of the temple, beside the mighty corner stone. And they decided to throw him down from the height, and they cast him down. And … they seized him and [struck] him as they dragged him on the ground. They stretched him out, and placed a stone on his abdomen. They all placed their feet on him, saying, “You have erred!” Again they raised him up, since he was alive, and made him dig a hole. They made him stand in it. After having covered him up to his abdomen, they stoned him.⁶⁷

As he dies he offers a prayer intended to strengthen other Christians who face martyrdom. Like Jesus, James is “surely dying,” but “shall be found in life.”

But while some gnostics affirmed the reality of Christ’s passion and expressed enthusiasm for martyrdom, others denied that reality and attacked such enthusiasm. The Testimony of Truth declares that enthusiasts for martyrdom do not know “who Christ is”:

The foolish—thinking in their heart that if they confess, “We are Christians,” in word only [but] not with power, while giving themselves over to ignorance, to a human death, not knowing where they are going, nor who Christ is, thinking that they will live, when they are (really) in error—hasten toward the principalities and authorities. They fall into their clutches because of the ignorance that is in them.⁶⁸

The author ridicules the popular view that martyrdom ensures salvation: if it were that simple, he says, everyone would confess Christ and be saved! Those who live under such illusions

are [empty] martyrs, since they bear witness only [to] themselves.… When they are “perfected” with a (martyr’s) death, this is what they are thinking: “If we deliver ourselves over to death for the sake of the Name, we shall be saved.” These matters are not settled in this way.… They do not have the Word which gives [life].⁶⁹

This gnostic author attacks specific views of martyrdom familiar from orthodox sources. First, he attacks the conviction that the martyr’s death offers forgiveness of sins, a view expressed, for example, in the orthodox account of Polycarp’s martyrdom: “Through suffering of one hour they purchase for themselves eternal life.”⁷⁰ Tertullian, too, declares that he himself desires to suffer “that he may obtain from God complete forgiveness, by giving in exchange his blood.”⁷¹ Second, this author ridicules orthodox teachers who, like Ignatius and Tertullian, see martyrdom as an offering to God and who have the idea that God desires “human sacrifice”: such a belief makes God into a cannibal. Third, he attacks those who believe that martyrdom ensures their resurrection. Rusticus, the Roman judge, asked Justin, only moments before ordering his execution, “Listen, you who are considered educated … do you suppose you will ascend to heaven?” Justin answered, “I do not suppose it, but I know it certainly and am fully persuaded of it.”⁷² But the Testimony of Truth declares that such Christians are only “destroying themselves”—they were deluded into thinking that Christ shared their own mortality, when in reality he, being filled with divine power, was alien to suffering and to death:

The Son of Man [came] forth from imperishability, [being] alien to defilement.… he went down to Hades and performed mighty works. He raised the dead therein … and he also destroyed their works from among men, so that the lame, the blind, the paralytic, and the dumb, (and) the demon-possessed were granted healing.… For this reason he [destroyed] his flesh from [the cross] which he [bore].⁷³

The Apocalypse of Peter discloses how Peter, noted for his misunderstanding, becomes enlightened and discovers the true secret of Jesus’ passion. The author of this book, like the author of the Secret Book of James, apparently was a gnostic Christian concerned with the threat of persecution. As the Apocalypse opens, “Peter” fears that he and his Lord face the same danger: “… I saw the priests and the people running up to us with stones as if they would kill us; and I was afraid we were going to die.”⁷⁴ But Peter falls into an ecstatic trance and receives a vision of the Lord, who warns him that many who “accept our teaching in the beginning”⁷⁵ will fall into error. These “false believers” (described, of course, from the gnostic viewpoint) represent orthodox Christians. All who fall under their influence “shall become their prisoners, since they are without perception.”⁷⁶

What the gnostic author dislikes most about these Christians is that they coerce innocent fellow believers “to the executioner”—apparently the forces of the Roman state—under the illusion that if they “hold fast to the name of a dead man,” confessing the crucified Christ, “they will become pure.”⁷⁷ The author says,

“… These are the ones who oppress their brothers, saying to them, ‘Through this [martyrdom] our God shows mercy, since salvation comes to us from this.’ They do not know the punishment of those who are gladdened by those who have done this deed to the little ones who have been sought out and imprisoned.”⁷⁸

The author rejects orthodox propaganda for martyrdom—that it earns salvation—and expresses horror at their exclamations of joy over acts of violence done to the “little ones.” In this way the catholic community will “set forth a harsh fate”;⁷⁹ many believers “will be ground to pieces among them.”⁸⁰

Yet while the Apocalypse of Peter rejects the orthodox view of martyrdom, it does not reject martyrdom altogether: “others of those who suffer” (that is, those who have attained gnosis) acquire a new understanding of the meaning of their own suffering; they understand that it “will perfect the wisdom of the brotherhood that really exists.”⁸¹ In place of the teaching that enslaves believers—the orthodox teaching of the crucified Christ—the Savior gives Peter the new vision of his passion that we noted before:

… He whom you saw being glad and laughing above the cross, he is the Living Jesus. But he into whose hands and feet they are driving the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute. They put to shame that which remained in his likeness. And look at him, and (look at) me!”⁸²

Through this vision, Peter learns to face suffering. Initially, he feared that he and the Lord “would die”; now he understands that only the body, “the fleshly counterpart,” the “substitute,” can die. The Lord explains that the “primal part,” the intelligent spirit, is released to join “the perfect light with my holy spirit.”⁸³ Gnostic sources written by Valentinus and his followers are more complex than either those which simply affirm Christ’s passion or those which claim that, apart from his mortal body, Christ remained utterly impervious to suffering. Several major Valentinian texts discovered at Nag Hammadi clearly acknowledge Jesus’ passion and death. The Gospel of Truth, which Quispel attributes to Valentinus or a follower of his, tells how Jesus, “nailed to a tree,” was “slain.”⁸⁴ Extending the common Christian metaphor, the author envisions Jesus on the cross as fruit on a tree, a new “fruit of the tree of knowledge” that yields life, not death:

… nailed to a tree; he became a fruit of the knowledge [gnosis] of the Father, which did not, however, become destructive because it (was) eaten, but gave to those who ate it cause to become glad in the discovery. For he discovered them in himself, and they discovered him in themselves …⁸⁵

Contrary to orthodox sources, which interpret Christ’s death as a sacrifice redeeming humanity from guilt and sin, this gnostic gospel sees the crucifixion as the occasion for discovering the divine self within. Yet with this different interpretation, the Gospel of Truth gives a moving account of Jesus’ death:

… the merciful one, the faithful one, Jesus, was patient in accepting sufferings … since he knows that his death is life for many.… He was nailed to a tree … He draws himself down to death though eternal life clothes him. Having stripped himself of the perishable rags, he put on imperishability …⁸⁶

Another remarkable Valentinian text, the Tripartite Tractate, introduces the Savior as “the one who will be begotten and who will suffer.”⁸⁷ Moved by compassion for humanity, he willingly became

what they were. So, for their sake, he became manifest in an involuntary suffering.… Not only did he take upon himself the death of those whom he intended to save, but also he accepted their smallness … He let himself be conceived and born as an infant in body and soul.⁸⁸

Yet the Savior’s nature is a paradox. The Tripartite Tractate explains that the one who is born and who suffers is the Savior foreseen by the Hebrew prophets; what they did not envision is “that which he was before, and what he is eternally, an unbegotten, impassible Word, who came into being in flesh.”⁸⁹ Similarly, the Gospel of Truth, having described Jesus’ human death, goes on to say that

the Word of the Father goes forth into the all … purifying it, bringing it back into the Father, into the Mother, Jesus of the infiniteness of gentleness.⁹⁰

A third Valentinian text, the Interpretation of the Gnosis, articulates the same paradox. On the one hand the Savior becomes vulnerable to suffering and death; on the other, he is the Word, full of divine power. The Savior explains: “I became very small, so that through my humility I might take you up to the great height, whence you had fallen.”⁹¹

None of these sources denies that Jesus actually suffered and died; all assume it. Yet all are concerned to show how, in his incarnation, Christ transcended human nature so that he could prevail over death by divine power.⁹² The Valentinians thereby initiate discussion of the problem that became central to Christian theology some two hundred years later—the question of how Christ could be simultaneously human and divine. For this, Adolf von Harnack, historian of Christianity, calls them the “first Christian theologians.”

What does this mean for the question of martyrdom? Irenaeus accuses the Valentinians of “pouring contempt” on the martyrs and “casting a slur upon their martyrdom.” What is their position? Heracleon, the distinguished gnostic teacher, himself a student of Valentinus’, directly discusses martyrdom as he comments on Jesus’ saying:

“… every one who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God; but he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.… And when they bring you before … the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious how or what you are to answer …”⁹³

Heracleon considers the question, What does it mean to “confess Christ”? He explains that people confess Christ in different ways. Some confess Christ in their faith and in their everyday conduct. However, most people consider only the second type of confession—making a verbal confession (“I am a Christian”) before a magistrate. The latter, he says, is what “the many” (orthodox Christians) consider to be the only confession. But, Heracleon points out, “even hypocrites can make this confession.” What is required universally of all Christians, he says, is the first type of confession; the second is required of some, but not of all. Disciples like Matthew, Philip, and Thomas never “confessed” before the magistrates; still, he declares, they confessed Christ in the superior way, “in faith and conduct throughout their whole lives.”⁹⁴

In naming these specific disciples, who often typify gnostic initiates (as in the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Thomas), Heracleon implies that they are superior to such martyr-apostles as Peter, whom the Valentinians consider typical of “the many”—that is, of merely orthodox Christians. Is he saying that martyrdom is fine for ordinary Christians, but not necessary for gnostics? Is he offering a rationale for gnostics to avoid martyrdom?

If that is what he means, he avoids stating it directly: his comments remain ambiguous. For he goes on to say that although confessing Christ “in faith and conduct” is more universal, this leads naturally to making an open confession at a trial, “if necessity and reason dictate.” What makes such confession “necessary” and “rational”? Simply that a Christian accused before a judge cannot deny Christ: in that case, Heracleon admits, verbal confession is the necessary and rational alternative to denial.

Yet Heracleon articulates a wholly different attitude toward martyrdom from his orthodox contemporaries. He expresses none of their enthusiasm for martyrdom, none of their praise for the “glorious victory” earned through death. Above all, he never suggests that the believers’ suffering imitates Christ’s. For if only the human element in Christ experienced the passion, this suggests that the believer, too, suffers only on a human level while the divine spirit within transcends suffering and death. Apparently the Valentinians considered the martyr’s “blood witness” to be second best to the superior, gnostic witness to Christ—a view that could well have provoked Irenaeus’ anger that these gnostics “show contempt” for the martyrs and devalue what he considers the “ultimate sacrifice.”

Although Irenaeus acknowledges that the gnostics are attempting to raise the level of theological understanding, he declares that “they cannot accomplish a reformation effective enough to compensate for the harm they are doing.”⁹⁵ From his viewpoint, any argument that Christians could use to avoid martyrdom undermines the solidarity of the whole Christian community. Rather than identifying with those held in prison, facing torture or execution, gnostic Christians might withdraw support from those they consider overzealous and unenlightened fanatics. Such actions serve, Irenaeus says, to “cut in pieces the great and glorious body of Christ [the church] and … destroy it.”⁹⁶ Preserving unity demands that all Christians confess Christ “persecuted under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead, and buried,” implicitly affirming the necessity of the “blood witness” that imitates his passion.

Why did the orthodox view of martyrdom—and of Christ’s death as its model—prevail? I suggest that persecution gave impetus to the formation of the organized church structure that developed by the end of the second century. To place the question in a contemporary context, consider what recourse remains to dissidents facing a massive and powerful political system: they attempt to publicize cases of violence and injustice to arouse world-wide public support. The torture and execution of a small group of persons known only to their relatives and friends soon fall into oblivion, but the cases of dissidents who are scientists, writers, Jews, or Christian missionaries may arouse the concern of an international community of those who identify with the victims by professional or religious affiliation.

There is, of course, a major difference between ancient and modern tactics. Today the purpose of such publicity is to generate pressure and gain the release of those who are tortured or imprisoned. The apologists, like Justin, did address the Roman authorities, protesting the unjust treatment of Christians and calling on them to end it. But Christians wrote the stories of the martyrs for a different purpose, and for a different audience. They wrote exclusively to other Christian churches, not in hope of ending persecution, but to warn them of their common danger, to encourage them to emulate the martyrs’ “glorious victory,” and to consolidate the communities internally and in relation to one another. So, in the second and third centuries, when Roman violence menaced Christian groups in remote provinces of the Empire, these events were communicated to Christians throughout the known world. Ignatius, condemned to execution in the Roman arena, occupied himself on his final journey writing letters to many provincial churches, telling them of his own situation and urging them to support the catholic (“universal”) church organized around the bishops. He warned them above all to avoid heretics who deviate from the bishops’ authority and from the orthodox doctrines of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection. His letters to the Christians in Rome, whom he had never met, testify to the efficacy of such communication: Ignatius was confident that they would intervene to prevent his execution if he allowed them to do so. Later, when some fifty Christians in Lyons and Vienne were arrested in June 177, they immediately wrote to “our brothers in Asia and Phyrgia who have the same faith,” describing their suffering, and sent Irenaeus to inform the well-established church in Rome.

Pressed by their common danger, members of scattered Christian groups throughout the world increasingly exchanged letters and traveled from one church to another. Accounts of the martyrs, often taken from records of their trials and from eyewitnesses, circulated among the churches in Asia, Africa, Rome, Greece, Gaul, and Egypt. By such communication, members of the diversified earlier churches became aware of regional differences as obstacles to their claim to participate in one catholic church. As noted earlier, Irenaeus insisted that all churches throughout the world must agree on all vital points of doctrine, but even he was shocked when Victor, Bishop of Rome, attempted to move the regional churches toward greater uniformity. In 190, Victor demanded that Christians in Asia Minor abandon their traditional practice of celebrating Easter on Passover, and conform instead to Roman custom—or else give up their claim to be “catholic Christians.” At the same time, the Roman church was compiling the definitive list of books eventually accepted by all Christian churches. Increasingly stratified orders of institutional hierarchy consolidated the communities internally and regularized communication with what Irenaeus called “the catholic church dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth”—a network of groups becoming increasingly uniform in doctrine, ritual, canon, and political structure.

Among outsiders, reports of brutality toward Christians aroused mixed emotions. Even the arrogant Tacitus, describing how Nero had Christians mocked and tortured to death, is moved to add:

Even for criminals who deserve extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty, that they were being destroyed.⁹⁷

Among the townspeople of Lyons, after the slaughter in the arena, some wanted to mutilate the corpses; others ridiculed the martyrs as fools, while others, “seeming to extend a measure of compassion,” pondered what inspired their courage: “What advantage has their religion brought them, which they preferred to their own life?”⁹⁸ No doubt the persecutions terrified many into avoiding contact with Christians, but Justin and Tertullian both say that the sight of martyrs aroused the wonder and admiration that impelled them to investigate the movement, and then to join it. And both attest that this happened to many others. (As Justin remarked: “The more such things happen, the more do others, in larger numbers, become believers.”)⁹⁹ Tertullian writes in defiance to Scapula, the proconsul of Carthage:

Your cruelty is our glory … All who witness the noble patience of [the martyrs], are struck with misgivings, are inflamed with desire to examine the situation … and as soon as they come to know the truth, they immediately enroll themselves as its disciples.¹⁰⁰

He boasts to the Roman prosecutor that “the oftener we are mown down by you, the more we grow in numbers: the blood of the Christians is seed!”¹⁰¹ Those who followed the orthodox consensus in doctrine and church politics also belonged to the church that—confessing the crucified Christ—became conspicuous for its martyrs. Groups of gnostic Christians, on the other hand, were scattered and lost—those who resisted doctrinal conformity, questioned the value of the “blood witness,” and often opposed submission to episcopal authority.

Finally, in its portrait of Christ’s life and his passion, orthodox teaching offered a means of interpreting fundamental elements of human experience. Rejecting the gnostic view that Jesus was a spiritual being, the orthodox insisted that he, like the rest of humanity, was born, lived in a family, became hungry and tired, ate and drank wine, suffered and died. They even went so far as to insist that he rose bodily from the dead. Here again, as we have seen, orthodox tradition implicitly affirms bodily experience as the central fact of human life. What one does physically—one eats and drinks, engages in sexual life or avoids it, saves one’s life or gives it up—all are vital elements in one’s religious development. But those gnostics who regarded the essential part of every person as the “inner spirit” dismissed such physical experience, pleasurable or painful, as a distraction from spiritual reality—indeed, as an illusion. No wonder, then, that far more people identified with the orthodox portrait than with the “bodiless spirit” of gnostic tradition. Not only the martyrs, but all Christians who have suffered for 2,000 years, who have feared and faced death, have found their experience validated in the story of the human Jesus.