Christianity from 150 – 300 A.D.
The persecution continued in the second and third centuries and Christianity was still an illegal religion, where there were systematic persecutions of the Church throughout the Roman Empire, attempting to stamp out Christianity.
Famous martyrs of that period include St Agnes, St Cecilia, St Sebastian, and St Lawrence. Christian response, as always, was to hold firm to the faith. The courage of the martyrs continued to inspire the Christians to profess their faith.
In the third century, under the rule of Emperor Decius, though persecution still took place, the emperor didn’t seek to make martyrs as he knew martyrdom simply brought more attention to Christianity. Thus, he tortured the Christians instead in hope of having them to deny their faith. Those who had apostatized were known as the “lapsed.”
This situation led to the issue of how strict the Catholic Church was in forgiving those who fell into the serious sin of apostasy. There were some prominent Church figures such as Pope Callistus, Pope Cornelius and St Cyprian of Carthage, who represented the approach that any serious sin could be forgiven, and that those sinners could be reconciled. For example, Pope Cornelius and St Cyprian of Carthage granted that the lapsed could be received back into the Church on the condition that they did penance for the remainder of their lives. Both of them wrote eloquently that the Church is not the Church of the perfect. It’s like Noah’s ark, as Pope Callistus said, taking both clean and unclean animals. Even though those who had committed serious sins could be reconciled.
At that point, there were split opinions in the Church. A council of bishops set up strict rules regarding the re-admittance of the lapsed back to the Church. This led to the development of a rival church, Novatian, the first Anti-Pope in history, as well as other schismatic groups such as the Monatists.
St Cyprian thereupon wrote ‘On the Unity of the Church’ expressing that “Outside the Church there is no salvation. He cannot have God as his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.” He developed a ‘graded system,’ methods of church discipline, in which the more serious the sin, the more penance the person had to do.
St Cyprian believed that sincere believers should do penance that involved a period of sincere sorrowing to prove their faith. Upon the fulfillment of penance, the penitent could then appear in front of the congregation to ask for forgiveness, after which the bishops would pronounce forgiveness and they could be readmitted to the Lord’s supper. The Church during St Cyprian’s time held onto these ideas though it was a period of disunity.
This article was written by Joni Cheng.
Published on O Clarim, January 10, 2020