Early Christianity

between natural disasters and persecutions was real enough. A

letter from Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, to

Cyprian of Carthage records how, in the reign of Alexander

Severus (222–35), a series of violent earthquakes in Cappadocia

and Pontus provoked a local persecution (Cyprian, Letters

75.10.1). Aspirations towards piety for the sake of the prosperity

of the empire are explicit in surviving statements made by the

persecuting authorities themselves. The pagan emperor Galerius,

as he lay dying painfully from a horrific disease in 311, issued

an edict that halted the persecution, but which explained why he

(and Diocletian) had embarked on the policy in the first place:

Among the other measures which we are constantly drawing

up in the interest and for the good of the state, we had previ-

ously wished to restore everything in accordance with the

ancient laws and public order of the Romans, and to see to

it that the Christians too, who had abandoned the doctrine

[secta] of their own forefathers, should return to a sound

mind.

(Lactantius,On the Deaths of the Persecutors34.1:

a Greek translation of the same edict is given

in Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History8.17.6)

Other decrees of the tetrarchic emperors, such as an edict on

incest from 295, the command to persecute the Manichaeans

c. 300, and the famous edict on maximum prices of 301/2, simi-

larly drew a connection between tradition, religion, and imperial

prosperity (Humphries forthcoming c).

Christian alienation from Roman society

That the persecutions happened at all reflects not only what the

Romans (whether emperors, governors, or provincials) thought of

Christians, but also how the Christians had made themselves in

some ways a distinctive group within the empire’s population.

This was not a question of simple distinctions: we have already

EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE

196