The religious policy of Septimius Sever in the light of anti-Christian persecution

Alekaey Vital’evich Kargaltsev PhD in History, senior lecturer, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia (naberezhnaya reki Moiki, 48/20a, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 191186)
akargaltsev@herzen.spb.ru

Kargaltsev A. V. The religious policy of Septimius Sever in the light of anti-Christian persecution, Religiya. Tserkov’. Obshchestvo. Issledovaniya i publikatsii po teologii i religii [Religion. Church. Society: Research and publications in the field of theology and religious studies], Saint-Petersburg, 2018, vol. 7, pp. 168–181.

doi: 10.24411/2308-0698-2018-00009

Language: Russian

The name of Emperor Septimius Severus is associated with the tradition of local anti-Christian persecution (202–203), when an edict prohibiting Christian and Jewish proselytism appeared. After that many believers suffered: Perpetua, Felicitas and their comrades in Carthage, Origen’s father, the rhetoric Leonidas, Potamina and Basilides in Alexandria and others — as evidenced by the authentic hagiographic tradition and the messages of Christian historians. However, a detailed consideration of the circumstances of the death of Christian heroes causes considerable difficulties for researchers. If the martyrdom of the Carthaginian Christians is respectively well dated, the time of the death of Alexandrian comrades has been longly discussed in the scientific literature. Although formally Christianity at the beginning of the 3rd century continued to be a «forbidden religion», notable outbreaks of persecution rarely occurred, and the dramatic, according to Christian historians, change in the policy of Septimius Severus regarding the Church deserves special attention. The influence of Eastern cults on the emperor (Dio. LXXVI, 13, 2) or of his fears of possible unrest in the east of the Empire are usually mentioned. The article analyzes the extant evidence of Septimius Severus in the Roman and Christian traditions and answers the questions about the causes and circumstances of the anti-Christian persecution. A detailed analysis of the historiography on the subject is given, with diametrical divergence in the positions of individual researchers being noted. The main attention is paid to the testimony of Tertullian, who, according to the author, in his treatise «On Baptism» gave instructions to catechumens who were in real danger.

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Key words: Christianity, persecution, martyrs, Roman Empire, Septimius Severus

URL: http://rcs-almanac.ru/kargaltsev-2018-en/

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The Donatist hagiography and the Roman state

Andrei Leonidovich Mamontov PhD-student, the Institute of History, Saint-Petersburg State University (Mendeleevskaya linia, 5, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 199034) , almamontov1992@mail.ru

Mamontov A. L. The Donatist Hagiography and the Roman State, Religiya. Tserkov’. Obshchestvo. Issledovaniya i publikatsii po teologii i religii [Religion. Church. Society: Research and publications in the field of theology and religious studies], Saint-Petersburg, 2017, vol. 6, pp. 126–149.

doi: 10.24411/2308-0698-2017-00007

Language: Russian

With the Donatist hagiography being not well studied yet, especially in the Russian scholarship, the article attempts to fill the gap. Seven martyr stories are considered in the research, and some of them prove to be spuriously attributed to the dissident church (especially, The Passion of Cyprian). Other texts, undoubtedly Donatist, were written not by eye-witnesses (except, possibly, The Passion of Marculus), but after the actual martyrdom. These texts are notable for their fervent polemics against the Catholic Church («traitors») and the cruel assistant, the Roman state.
The author is particularly interested in the polemics against the Roman Empire. After the Constantinian revolution the pagan state turned into a Christian one, therefore we might expect from believers, even from Donatists, a certain «bonhomie» towards it. Still the Donatist church preferred the rhetoric of exclusion and filled their martyr stories with it. Military and civil servants were accused of cruelty, greediness, adultery, helping the false (Catholic) church, hating the true (Donatist) church, lawlessness and being employed by the devil.
Though some scholars suppose, that Donatists produced special political theology, criticizing secular interventions in religious affairs, the author concludes that dissidents themselves did not act fitting to such a theory. They used every chance to gain the help of the Empire. The polemics against it could have a more practical goal: to save the people from leaving the schism under pressure of the anti-donatist legislation.
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Key words: Donatism, hagiography, martyrs, North-African Christianity

URL: http://rcs-almanac.ru/mamontov-2017-en/

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