The Church under Rome
An illegal and growing minority. Martyrs, apologists and bishops; the rule of faith and the canon of Scripture take shape; the first monks go into the desert.
The sources are now the Christians’ own letters, apologies and martyr acts, together with Roman officials’ reports. Persecution was local and sporadic until the empire-wide measures of Decius and Diocletian. In these centuries the church settled the outline of its ministry, its worship and its Scriptures.
Events of this era
- about AD 110, traditional dateIgnatius of Antioch Writes on the Road to Martyrdom
Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, is taken under guard to Rome to be thrown to wild beasts. On the way he writes seven letters that urge unity around the bishop, insist that Christ truly suffered, and ask the Roman Christians not to save him.
- about AD 112, estimated datePliny Asks Trajan How to Treat Christians
The governor of Bithynia and Pontus reports to the emperor on his trials of Christians and on what they do when they meet. Trajan rules that they are not to be hunted out, but are to be punished if accused and convicted.
- AD 132 to AD 135, estimated dateThe Bar Kokhba Revolt and Aelia Capitolina
The Jews of Judaea rise against Rome under Simon bar Kosiba, called Bar Kokhba. Hadrian’s armies crush the revolt at great cost, Jerusalem becomes the Roman colony Aelia Capitolina, and Jews are barred from the city.
- about AD 144, traditional dateMarcion Breaks with the Roman Church
Marcion of Pontus teaches at Rome that the God of the Jewish scriptures is not the Father of Jesus, and gives his followers one Gospel and ten letters of Paul. By his opponents’ account the Roman church expels him; his followers form churches of their own.
- about AD 155 to AD 165, estimated dateJustin Martyr Defends the Faith and Describes Its Worship
Justin, a philosopher turned Christian teacher at Rome, addresses a defence of the Christians to the emperor Antoninus Pius and describes their baptism and Sunday Eucharist. Some years later he is tried by the city prefect and beheaded.
- c. AD 155–156, estimated dateThe Martyrdom of Polycarp
Polycarp, the aged bishop of Smyrna, is arrested, refuses before the proconsul to curse Christ, and is burned in the stadium. His church describes his death in a letter and keeps his bones and the anniversary of his death.
- c. AD 157–172, estimated dateThe New Prophecy of Montanus
In Phrygia a convert named Montanus and two women, Priscilla and Maximilla, begin to prophesy in ecstasy and announce a new outpouring of the Spirit. The bishops of Asia reject the movement, which spreads none the less as far as Rome and Africa.
- AD 177, estimated dateThe Martyrs of Lyon and Vienne
Mob violence against the Christians of Lyon and Vienne ends in trials before the governor. The aged bishop Pothinus dies in prison, and the slave Blandina and others are killed in the amphitheatre. The survivors describe it in a letter to Asia.
- about AD 180, estimated dateIrenaeus Sets Out the Rule of Faith
Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, writes five books against the followers of Valentinus and Marcion. Against their claim to a secret tradition he sets three public tests: the faith the churches confess, the four Gospels, and the succession of bishops from the apostles.
- c. AD 170–200, estimated dateThe Muratorian List of New Testament Books
A Latin fragment, copied in a manuscript now in Milan, lists the books received in the church as it knew it. It counts four Gospels, Acts and thirteen letters of Paul. If it dates from the late second century, it is the oldest such list to survive.
- about AD 197 to AD 220, estimated dateTertullian Writes Christian Theology in Latin
At Carthage Tertullian writes a large body of Christian literature in Latin: a defence of the Christians before Roman governors, attacks on Marcion and other teachers, and a treatise on God as Trinity, three persons of one substance.
- about AD 201, estimated dateChristianity Takes Root in Edessa
A flood report of November 201, kept in the archives of Edessa, lists a church of the Christians among the buildings destroyed. It is dated evidence of a church in the Syriac-speaking East, where a later tradition traced the church back to a letter from Jesus.
- 7 March AD 203, estimated dateThe Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity
A group of newly baptised Christians is put to death in the arena in Roman Africa, among them the young mother Perpetua and Felicity, who gave birth in prison. The account preserves Perpetua’s own prison diary and her visions.
- about AD 203 to AD 254, estimated dateOrigen and the School of Alexandria
Origen takes charge of Christian teaching at Alexandria as a young man and spends fifty years on the text and meaning of Scripture, first there and then at Caesarea. He compiles the Hexapla, writes a systematic account of Christian teaching, and dies after torture under Decius.
- AD 250, firm dateThe Decian Persecution
The emperor Decius orders the inhabitants of the empire to sacrifice to the gods and obtain a certificate. Bishops are executed or driven into hiding, many Christians comply, and the churches are left divided over how to receive them back.
- AD 251 to AD 258, firm dateCyprian on the Unity of the Church
Faced with rival bishops at Rome and Carthage after the Decian persecution, Cyprian argues that there is one church, held together by one episcopate, outside which there is no salvation. He then defends his view of baptism against the bishop of Rome and dies a martyr in 258.
- c. AD 270–285, estimated dateAntony Withdraws to the Desert
A young Egyptian Christian hears the words of Jesus to the rich man read in church, gives away his property and withdraws by stages into the desert. Others follow, and the Life written by Athanasius makes him the model of the monk.
- AD 301 (traditional) or c. 314, traditional dateArmenia Adopts Christianity
King Tiridates of Armenia, by the account of the Armenian church, is converted by Gregory the Illuminator and brings his court and people to baptism. The Armenian church dates this to 301; the story was written down more than a century later.
- AD 303 to AD 311, firm dateThe Great Persecution under Diocletian
In February 303 Diocletian orders churches demolished and Scriptures burned. Further edicts imprison the clergy and require everyone to sacrifice. The persecution is brief in the West and lasts eight years in the East.
- 30 April AD 311, firm dateGalerius Grants Toleration
The emperor Galerius, mortally ill, issues an edict that ends the Great Persecution in his territories. It allows Christians to exist again and to rebuild their meeting places, and asks them to pray for the emperors and the state.
- 28 October AD 312, firm dateConstantine’s Victory at the Milvian Bridge
Constantine defeats Maxentius outside Rome and becomes master of the western empire. Christian writers say that he fought under a sign of Christ shown to him beforehand, in a dream according to Lactantius, in the sky according to the later account of Eusebius.