Before cathedrals, councils and universities, the Church was a small, poor and persecuted community, squeezed on the margins of the largest empire in the world. It is here, in the first three centuries, that everything begins, and whoever skips that beginning never understands the rest.
The image that remained in the popular imagination is that of the Christian running away to hide in a dark tunnel. It's a caricature. The early Church was not a band of fugitives: it was a network of communities that organized, celebrated and grew, even knowing that faith could cost their lives.
What were the catacombs really?
The catacombs were not hiding places, but underground cemeteries. In Rome, the law prohibited burying the dead within the city, and land was expensive. Christians excavated kilometers of galleries to bury their own, especially the martyrs, and celebrated there at the tombs. They eventually served as shelter, but their function was death and worship, not escape.
Going down into a catacomb is like reading, on the walls, the faith of these first Christians: the fish, the anchor, the Good Shepherd painted with few strokes. There is no fear there, there is hope.
Three centuries under the sword
The persecution was neither continuous nor uniform. There were periods of tolerance and brutal waves, according to the emperor. Nero blamed Christians for the burning of Rome; Decius and Diocletian tried to exterminate them by decree. What is impressive is not the suffering, but the serene refusal to deny faith, even in the face of death.
It was this firmness that converted the Empire. A saying from the time summed up the phenomenon: the blood of martyrs is the seed of new Christians. The more people tried to erase the Church, the more it spread.
The Church did not overcome persecution by resisting with weapons, but by witness.
The turning point: the Edict of Milan
In 313, the picture changes at once. The Edict of Milan, linked to the name of Constantine, grants freedom of worship and ends legal persecution. From a clandestine sect, Christianity became a tolerated religion and, within a few decades, the official faith of the Empire. A new world begins, with new problems: free to exist, the Church will now have to define, precisely, what it believes in.
To see the whole picture
The early Church is only the first act of a twenty-century history. To accompany it with the detail it deserves, from the persecution to the councils, from the catacombs to the cathedrals, the reference is the collection History of the Church of Christ, by Daniel Rops. To avoid going through such an extensive work alone, there is guided reading, chapter by chapter, with the entire historical, philosophical and theological context.
Estudo aprofundado
Curso História da Igreja, com o Prof. Dr. Rodrigo Bitencourt
Leitura aprofundada da obra de Daniel Rops, a história da Igreja contada com rigor e narrativa, do Império Romano ao Vaticano II.
Conhecer o curso de História da IgrejaFrequently asked questions
Were the catacombs hiding places for Christians?
Not exactly. They were mainly underground cemeteries, where Christians buried their dead and celebrated at the tombs of the martyrs. They served as an occasional refuge, but their main function was funerary and liturgical.
How long was the Church persecuted?
For almost three centuries, intermittently, from the 1st to the beginning of the 4th century. Persecutions ranged from local and sporadic to systematic and imperial, until they ceased with the Edict of Milan in 313.
What was the Edict of Milan?
It was the decree of 313, attributed to Emperor Constantine and Licinius, that granted freedom of worship in the Empire and ended the legal persecution of Christianity.
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