Although Origen was a gifted scholar, he, like Tertullian, chose a path that led him into conflict with the Church. Origen’s troubles involved disobedience to Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria, whom he “thought a worldly, power-hungry prelate consumed with pride in his own self-importance, enjoying the honor of presiding over a wealthy community in a great city.”75 Origen decided to escape the situation and travel, making his way to Rome and then to the east, where (although a layman) he was allowed to preach. In Palestine, he was ordained to the priesthood without Demetrius’s permission, which greatly angered the bishop. Upon return to Egypt, Origen quickly realized that the situation with his bishop was untenable. He left and returned to Caesarea in Palestine, where he was welcomed. While living in the Holy Land, Origen composed his famous apologetic work Contra Celsum (“Against Celsus,” countering the pagan Roman author discussed earlier). In the mid-third century, Origen was caught up in the general persecution of Decius and was arrested, imprisoned, and horribly tortured. Origen was an influential and important early Christian scholar and apologist. He suffered for the Faith heroically and died in 254 from the effects of his imprisonment and torture.76
The First Empire-Wide Persecution
The mid-third century witnessed the short reign of Decius as Roman emperor. Decius (r. 249–251) was a strong and inflexible man with little administrative experience. He desired unity in the Empire and disliked the presence of the Christians, who refused to worship the state gods. So, he issued an edict in January 250 that required every citizen in the Empire to make a public sacrifice before the idols of the pagan gods. All those who sacrificed received a certificate, known as the libellus, documenting their adherence to Decius’s edict. Failure to comply resulted in arrest, torture, and execution. This edict produced the first extensive Empire-wide persecution of the Church. Previously, persecution of Christians had been confined to particular cities or provinces but was not applied uniformly throughout the Empire. Decius, in an attempt to solidify support for his reign and to reassure the public of the security of the Empire, believed the edict would root out unpatriotic elements in Roman society.
The edict produced mass confusion, chaos, and fear in the Church. Pope Saint Fabian (r. 236–250) refused to sacrifice and was martyred. However, other Christians, including bishops, offered the sacrifice in order to save their lives. Wealthy Christians offered bribes to others to sacrifice in their names, or had their slaves sacrifice, thinking that by not personally sacrificing, they could avoid moral culpability. Most Christians resisted the edict. Those who had given in caused scandal and a challenge to the Church when the persecution ended and they requested readmittance. The persecution stopped at the death of Decius, who, while campaigning in the Balkans against the barbarian Goths, disappeared in a swamp — his body was never recovered. Later Christian authors highlighted the fact that Decius was the first Roman emperor to be killed by a foreign enemy and indicated this fate was the result of his persecution of the Church.
Valerian Persecutes the Church
A few years after the death of the tyrant Decius, a man from a noble senatorial family ascended the throne as emperor. Valerian (r. 253–260) was friendly to Christians at first, but when political and military problems plagued the Empire he, like previous emperors, utilized the Church as a scapegoat. Various barbarian tribes, including the Franks, were on the move along the northern border and had made incursions across the Rhine River. The Persians had launched an invasion in the east, conquering and destroying territory (including the city of Antioch). Valerian distracted the populace from the politico-military situation by issuing an edict ordering the execution of all Christian bishops, priests, and deacons in 257. The saintly bishop of Rome, Sixtus II (r. 257–258), was executed by a group of soldiers while meeting with his flock in a Roman cemetery along the Appian Way. A Roman deacon, Lawrence, was ordered to gather the wealth of the Church and bring it to the Roman authorities several days later. At the appointed time, Lawrence arrived with a group of poor people, indicating the Church’s riches lay not in material goods but in the corporal works of mercy undertaken for the benefit of others. The authorities were not amused at Lawrence’s behavior. They ordered his execution: burning alive on a gridiron. Tradition attests that Lawrence, in the midst of the excruciating experience, joked with his executioners, asking them to turn him over since he was done on that side.
A few years later, Valerian and the legions were defeated by the Persians at the Battle of Edessa. Valerian was captured by the Persian king Shapur I (r. 240–270) and subjected to humiliating treatment throughout five years of captivity, including being used as a footstool by Shapur when mounting his horse. When Valerian died in captivity, Shapur ordered the flaying and stuffing of his corpse for a war trophy. Once more, a Roman emperor who had sought the destruction of the Church suffered an ignoble end.
Diocletian’s Division and Great Persecution
The Roman Empire experienced a profound political crisis of instability in the third century. Over twenty emperors were murdered, and a new emperor, on average, put on the purple every three years. For over two hundred years (31 B.C.–A.D. 180), there had been only sixteen emperors, but in the ninety years encompassing most of the third century, there were twenty-eight! The man who became emperor in the year 284 was acutely aware of this volatile situation and the need for greater political security in the Empire. Diocles was thirty-eight when he was proclaimed emperor, upon which he changed his name to Diocletian. As the son of slaves (his father rose to be a freedman), he was familiar with the necessity of hard work and sacrifice. Diocletian joined the army, becoming known as an exceptional administrator who loved the imperial traditions of Rome and who earnestly desired to return the Empire to its former strength and glory. Diocletian lived in ways unlike those of previous emperors; he was not known to drink alcohol and was devoted to his family, refusing to take mistresses (a rare occurrence among the Roman nobility). He was fiscally frugal and ran the imperial court like his army headquarters, establishing a multilayered bureaucracy with strict ceremonies and rituals. Very few people were granted audiences, and those who did were required to prostrate themselves before him.77
Diocletian made a decision in the late third century that had a lasting impact on the Empire, the Church, and the world. Realizing that the Roman Empire was too large and cumbersome to be governed by one man, he divided the Empire in two. The western half encompassed what became Europe and parts of North Africa. The eastern half of the Empire contained Greece, Asia Minor, the Holy Land, and Egypt. He also established smaller regional jurisdictions in each half of the Empire, named “dioceses” after himself.78 There were twelve dioceses in all, each ruled by a vicar. Diocletian’s reorganization increased the imperial bureaucracy to over thirty thousand officials — as one contemporary wrote, “more numerous than flies on sheep in springtime.”79