Here in my final post on Candida Moss’s book, The Myth of Persecution, I will cover Chapter 7: “The Invention of the Persecuted Church,” and Chapter 8: “The Dangerous Legacy of a Martyrdom Complex.” After that, I will give my concluding thoughts to the book as a whole.
Chapter 7: The Invention of the Persecuted Church
To get right to the point, Moss argues that Eusebius of Caesarea, who wrote his History of the Church in the early 300s during the reign of Constantine, played upon the “shrill rhetoric” of early Church Fathers like Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and Tertullian, and essentially made up the “myth” of a persecuted Church. Moss argues that Eusebius wrote his History of the Church with an agenda—he wanted to back Constantine, “uphold the church hierarchy,” and basically rhetorically assassinate all other legitimate forms of Christianity by labelling them as heretics.
He did this, she argues, by making “the martyrs into the champions of orthodoxy and the natural opponents of heresy” (222). So, for example, in his account of Polycarp, he uses the martyred Polycarp to condemn the Marcionites as heretics. In reality, she claims, the Marcionites were just “a group of Christians active in Rome in the second century who used as their canon only the Gospel of Luke and the writings of Paul. They were denounced, among other reasons, for rejecting the Old Testament” (222).
Of course, she conveniently avoids articulating what those “other reasons” are—namely, like claiming that the God of the Old Testament was the evil demiurge and that the God of the New Testament was the real Supreme Being. And rejecting the Old Testament is kind of a big deal, for the Christian message is that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament covenant. Apparently, Moss just thinks this was a legitimate Christian teaching in the 2nd century.
She also gives a bizarre version of the early Church, namely that Christians really didn’t go to church and that priests and bishops were constantly having to persuade their non-church-going followers of their own authority, over and against “competing clerics.” In fact, she claims there really was no such thing as Apostolic Succession that established the authority of bishops until Eusebius of Caesarea essentially invented it in order to solidify the power of the Orthodox Church. Therefore, according to Moss, when Eusebius wrote about the Martyrs of Lyons, he played up the “martyrdom” bit and connected Irenaeus to both the previous bishop Pothinus, as well as to Polycarp, in order to argue that the testimony of the martyrs and that so-called “apostolic succession” justified Irenaeus becoming the next bishop of Lyons, over and against any possible heretics. By doing this, Moss argues that Eusebius forced those other groups of legitimate Christians outside of the Church. Thus, “Eusebius creates and uses this idea of a persecuted church filled with martyrs in order to advance his agenda” (233).
I have to think she got her knowledge of early Church history from The DaVinci Code. Let’s be clear, her entire argument is one big conspiracy theory. With a mere wave of the hand, she dismisses Eusebius’ History of the Church on the twisted thinking that since he edited earlier accounts and was trying to make a point, he must be lying about Church history. She then says that if you take his book out of the picture, the real history of the early Church gets really cloudy. (Yes, if you get rid of the primary history book of Church history, you’re not going to have a lot of history to look at!). But that gives her license to basically make up her own history. It’s a very easy thing to do—ditch the early sources, grab some popcorn, and watch The DaVinci Code.
After that, she ends the chapter by briefly talking about the clear corruption of the later explosion of relics and stories later on in Church history. Yes, there was a lot of that, but for the life of me, I fail to see how that has any impact on the question regarding the historicity of persecution in the early Church.
She also points to apocalyptic literature as evidence that early Christians had a fascination with stories of torture and judgment of their enemies, and that the violent language in apocalyptic literature influenced the martyrdom accounts where those who tortured and killed Christians were characterized as being in league with Satan. And that, Moss argues, gave the established, Orthodox Church justification for going after pagans and perceived heretics. Basically, taking its cue from Eusebius, the Church invented martyrdom stories to justify the oppression of others: “The myth of persecution was, paradoxically enough, a way to marginalize others” (246).
Talk about re-writing history!
Chapter 8: The Dangerous Legacy of a Martyrdom Complex
It is in Chapter 8 where Moss circles back to what she said in her introduction and clearly lays out her own polemic and agenda. It has nothing to do with actually trying to understand history better. It has to do with…American politics, namely those nasty conservative Christians and Republicans. Her entire revision of Church history is aimed at showing how the GOP and conservative Christians are bad. She points to Newt Gingrich and Glenn Beck and claim that Republican voters often say they are being “persecuted” by Democrats and the liberal media. She quotes John Stott as talking about how the devil attacked the early Church and is still attacking the Church today. She brings up Rush Limbaugh and David Limbaugh and concludes that because those nasty Republicans have a “martyrdom complex,” they justify calling all liberals evil and therefore don’t have to engage in dialogue.
…I mean, Glenn Beck
To be clear, yes, many Republican politicians and pundits often claim Christianity is under attack. But for that matter, a lot of Democrat politicians and pundits play their own martyr card. Whatever your personal political leanings are, I don’t care. It is just highly ironic that in the conclusion to her book, where she argues that early Christians are pretty much the same as 21st century Republicans and engaged in heated polemics to attack their opponents, Moss engages in her own blatant polemic, where all the “bad guys” are in one political party. Let’s be clear, she has put forth a completely revisionist version of early Church history in order to justify her own polemic aimed at her modern-day political opponents. Talk about twisting history to push one’s own agenda.
In her final comments about Christians dying around the world today, Moss continues to play down the notion that Christians are persecuted, be it in North Korea, China, or elsewhere: “Not every Christian who dies tragically and violently in a foreign country is the victim of persecution” (258). She then highlights the actions of Communist China and says it isn’t so much a persecution of Christians, as it is just “one facet of the Chinese government’s censorship of religion in general” (258). She then shifts to some nonsensical observations, like the “war on Christmas” in the United States isn’t the same as Christians suffering in Tehran or Nigeria. No duh. Besides, what I want to know is should we really call the Christian suffering in Tehran and Nigeria “persecution”?
Moss then does another about face and says one more thing about early Church Fathers like Justin Martyr and Tertullian—the very same ones she accused of “shrill rhetoric.” Here at the end, though, she says they used rhetoric and dialogue to make their case before the Roman Empire that Christians should be tolerated: “they were still open to conversation and actively involved in trying to find common ground” (260). She even says they should be our model. How that squares with everything she has said about them throughout her book, I don’t know.
She ends her book with the following: “The story of Christian martyrdom is a myth that leads Christians to claim the rhetorical high ground, but a myth that makes collaboration and even compassion impossible. The recognition that this idea is based in myth and rhetoric, rather than history and truth, reveals that Christians are committed to conflict and opposition, but also that they don’t have to be” (261).
Conclusion
The Myth of Persecution is not a serious academic book on history. It is a modern polemic against conservative Christians and the GOP that presents a revisionist history of the early Church in order to make the case that Republicans are essentially the direct rhetorical descendants of Eusebius of Caesarea who worship empire and who want to oppress and marginalize all perceived threats to their power. Again, it shouldn’t matter what one’s political leanings are—any fair-minded, honest person should be able to see Moss’s book for what it is—academic hackery.
Just to be clear, let’s get a few things straight:
1. No, Christians were not persecuted for 300 years straight. No historian has ever claimed that. There were clear periods of Roman persecution; and throughout those 300 years, there was random flare-ups of public harassment and even persecution at local levels.
2. No, Rome didn’t persecute Christians simply for being Christians…or because they practiced baptism or sang hymns. No historian has ever claimed that. Rome persecuted Christians (ironically) for many of the reasons Moss mentions in her book, primarily because Christians refused to worship pagan gods or take part in the Imperial Cult. So, yes, Rome persecuted Christians because they viewed them as a threat to Roman unity—but the reason they did that was because Christians wouldn’t worship Caesar. Moss might equivocate and say that’s not really “persecution,” but that’s why I can’t take her seriously.
3. Just because the early martyrdom accounts are crafted, creatively shaped, and were written with an “agenda” (namely to encourage Christians who were suffering persecution), that doesn’t mean they are not historical. Contrary to what Moss (and other recent “historians”) claims, literary creativity and history are not mutually exclusive.
4. Finally, there’s no other way to say it—Moss’s work is complete revisionist history with a clear modern political agenda. The fact that it has gotten such acclaim is a woeful indictment on the state of academia today.
