A few months ago, an online friend of mine asked if I had read The Myth of Persecution by Candida Moss. I had not, although I had heard of the book and actually had it on my “wishlist” on Amazon. A few years ago I saw an article about how some conservative Christian groups were up in arms about the book because Moss had argued that Christians were not actually continually persecuted for the first 300 years straight in the history of the early Church. That is actually true—there were certain emperors and certain times in which Christians were persecuted, but no educated person who knows anything about the early Church thinks Christians were consistently persecuted on an empire-wide scale for 300 years straight. And so, I put the book on my “wishlist” and figured I’d eventually get around to it. After my friend asked me about it, though, when I saw I had some points racked up on my credit card, I realized I could basically get the book for free. Why not?
Well, I’ve now read it. The kindest thing I can say about it is that I was extremely disappointed. The most objective thing I can say about it is that it reminds me of books like God’s Anatomy by Francesca Stavrakopoulou and God’s Monsters by Esther Hamori. …And I did not like those books at all. A lot of hyper-skepticism of long-accepted views and history, a lot of gross oversimplifications and caricatures, and a lot of revisionist history. To be absolutely critical of the book, though, will take a short book analysis series.
If I were to crystallize what is wrong with The Myth of Persecution, I’d have to boil it down to three things:
- Moss’s “target” that she sets out to dispel is the notion that Christians were consistently persecuted for 300 years, and that the Roman Empire had this systematic intent to persecute Christians for solely being Christians. The problem with that is no one who knows anything about early Church history thinks that in the first place. So, what she claims to be dispelling isn’t a position that anyone familiar with the early Church holds in the first place.
- Moss’s response to this fictitious claim isn’t to argue that there were periods of persecution, but it wasn’t 300 years of ongoing persecution—her response is that Christians were hardly ever persecuted at all. She goes out of her way, with an astounding display of the most hyper of hyper-skepticism, to dismiss almost all of the early church accounts of various martyrs.
- Why does she do this? As she starts off with in the introduction and as she hammers home in the last chapter, she highlights certain conservatives and Republicans who claim Christians in America are being persecuted, and then claims they’re only doing it so they can oppress their opponents. Simply put, appealing to the martyrs is a power play to justify oppression of others. What does that have to do with the historical validity of, let’s say, the martyrdom of Polycarp? To any clear-thinking person, the answer is “Nothing.” But for Moss, you can’t trust the account of Polycarp’s martyrdom is reliable because…you know, Glenn Beck.
Basically, Moss’s rationale for dismissing the validity of almost any and all stories of Christian martyrdom is this: “Sometimes, people today try to justify oppressing other people by claiming they, are in fact, the ones being persecution…just like the early Christian martyrs.” Now, is it true that sometimes people who claim to being persecuted are actually the ones inflicting harm? Sure. Is it true that some conservative Christians in America today are always claiming that they are being “persecuted,” when in reality it simply has to do with a policy they don’t like? Sure. But is any of that relevant to accessing the historical reliability to the various martyrdom accounts of the early Church? Of course not.
And that is the fundamental problem with Moss’s book. It isn’t a real academic assessment of martyrdom in the early Church. It is an ideological work pushing a certain agenda: “Republicans and Evangelical Christians are bad and divisive! They only appeal to early Christian martyrs because they want to oppress you!” That is not the work of an academic. It’s the work of an activist. It shouldn’t matter if you are an Conservative Evangelical or not—I’m no longer an Evangelical; I’m Orthodox—everyone should be able to recognize the work of an activist with an agenda.
With that, allow me to take you on a tour of The Myth of Persecution. There are eight chapters in total, but I do not plan to write eight posts on it. Still, I imagine there will be at least three.
The Introduction
In the introduction to her book, Moss lays out the basic thesis of her book and the reader gets a pretty good idea the direction in which she is heading. First, as I just mentioned above, Moss claims that, according to Christian tradition, “Christianity was a persecuted and suffering religion. During this period—the so-called Age of Martyrs—its members were hunted down and executed, and their property and books were burned by crusading emperors” (7). That isn’t correct, Moss argues.
Now, although Moss is correct to say that view isn’t correct, that view isn’t, in fact, what Christian tradition teaches. No one claims that what the situation for Christians for a solid 300 years or that official Roman policy was to hunt down and execute Christians solely for being Christians. Simply put, the real history is a lot more complicated than that. Nevertheless, Moss throws up that oversimplistic caricature as the fundamental assumption in her book.
Second, she lets the reader know quite early that she thinks conservative Catholics, Evangelicals, and members of the GOP are bad…and they like to appeal to the stories of the martyrs to claim that they, too, are being persecuted…and they like to appeal to the stories of the martyrs as a way to justify their own political agenda and oppression of marginalized groups: “Martyrdom is easily adapted by the powerful as a way of casting themselves as victims and justifying their polemical and vitriolic attacks on others” (9). And again, “The language of martyrdom and persecution is often the language of war” (14).
Ironically, in her clear and obvious labelling of conservatives as “the bad ones,” Moss goes on to say that those who appeal to the martyrs to justify their own polemics against others have a dangerous “us versus them” mentality.
Thirdly, Moss claims, as the title suggests, that the so-called “Age of Martyrs” never really happened—there really was never any real persecution and that Christian martyrdom is largely a myth. To be clear, after presenting an oversimplified caricature (that Christians were systematically hunted down for 300 years straight) as her “target,” Moss runs to the opposite end of the spectrum and claims that martyrdom never really happened. Yes, throughout the book she will say something like, “Now obviously, some Christians did die. The Romans did execute some…but…” then she’ll make some kind of excuse or justification for it, like it really was “prosecution” and not real “persecution.”
Tied to this, Moss points the finger largely at Eusebius of Caesarea in the early 4th century, the guy who composed his History of the Church during the reign of Constantine, as being the main culprit who made up this supposed “Age of Martyrs” myth. He did it to give Christians who had gained political power under Constantine (as well as Constantine and succeeding emperors as well) moral justification to oppress others.
The result of all this, and the argument of Moss’s book is the following: “The traditional history of martyrdom is a myth, a myth that gives Christians who deploy it in the sorts of examples adduced here the rhetorical high ground, but a myth that makes dialogue impossible” (20). She ends her introduction by emphasizing the argument she is making in her book is not “merely academic.” Her concern is that this “myth of persecution” often “endorses political warfare rather than encouraging political discourse; and it legitimizes seeing those who disagree with us as our enemies” (21). Simply put, her driving concern is how some people today (i.e. those conservative Christians) are mean and intolerant.
Before we move on to chapter 1, though, I want to highlight something Moss says at the beginning of her introduction that is just baffling. When talking about Jesus’ followers, she says, “Although some Christians argued that the crucifixion was an elaborate magic trick and that Christ never really died, the majority started to see the suffering of the innocent as a good thing.” The fact that the Son of God willingly embraced death for the salvation of others necessarily meant that death for God must be good—otherwise why would he have done it?” (5).
This is a bafflingly ignorant statement on so many levels. First off, where does she get that some of the early followers of Jesus claimed the “crucifixion was an elaborate magic trick”? I assume she must be alluding to the later Gnostics of the second century—but they were not the early followers of Jesus. Not only that, they were condemned as heretics who twisted the original Gospel message. But, as we will see later, Moss views these later Gnostic heretics as more “moderate, liberal-minded Christians.” At best her statement here is historically ignorant. At worst, it is purposefully deceptive.
Second, nowhere in the Gospels or the New Testament is it claimed suffering and death are good things. The Gospel message is not that Jesus suffered and died because those were “good things.” It says he underwent suffering and death—which are bad things—so he could overcome and defeat death. It was his resurrection that overcame death that was the ultimate “good thing” that brought about salvation. The “good news” of Christianity is that through Christ the power of death has been defeated, and even though Christians might suffer and certainly die, they too will be resurrected and be with Christ in the new creation. Moss, though, doesn’t even mention the resurrection and therefore gets the entire Gospel message wrong. I do not know anyone in the New Testament, or any early Church Father, who says, “Hey guys! Suffering and death are good! I mean, hey, look at Jesus! He just loved it! You should do it too!”
Chapter 1
Only a few quick words need to be said about Chapter 1, “Martyrdom Before Christianity.” In it, Moss sets out the oversimplistic caricature that Christians believe that martyrdom is unique to Christianity and that martyrdom “proves” Christianity is true because why would anyone die for something they weren’t convinced is true? Moss basically says, “Sure, Christians coined the term ‘martyr,’ but Jews, Romans, and Greeks also often died for their religious beliefs.
She then points to a few Greek myths in which a character’s death is seen as a self-sacrifice for the good of the people. She points to Pericles’ Funeral Oration in which the dead soldiers are praised for their sacrifice on behalf of Athens. She points to Socrates’ death as one that many early Christians writers pointed to as an example of a worthy, heroic death. Her conclusion? All of them had deaths viewed as self-sacrifice, just like Jesus!
She then points to Jews who died during the time of the Maccabees and to Daniel who, in Daniel 12:1-3, mentions that “those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” Her point? Along with that hope for vindication is the hope to see your enemies put to shame.
Moss ends Chapter 1 by emphasizing that, contrary to what Christians think, Christian martyrdom wasn’t unique to Christianity—other people long before Christianity died for their religious beliefs: “Death for Christ is just a variant in an ancient worldview that thought that dying for something greater than oneself was the best way to die” (52-53). Well, that’s wonderful. The only problem with Moss’s argument is that I do not know one single person who ever claimed that no other people in world history ever died for their religious beliefs. It’s the strawiest of a straw man argument. Furthermore, to reduce the Gospel message to “It’s good to die for something greater than yourself” is laughable.
Conclusion Thus Far
As should be obvious, there are red flags right from the jump in Moss’s book. In my next post, I will attempt to cover chapters 2-4. In Chapter 2, Moss claims that Christians borrowed from Jewish and Pagan martyrdom traditions. In Chapter 3, Moss claims that the early Christian martyrdom stories were invented. In Chapter 4, Moss claims that the early Christians really were never persecuted in the first place…well, maybe later on a few times, but most of the time it really wasn’t persecution.
The next post should be interesting.
