Latest / Marcus Aurelius: Rome's Philosopher King — Fexingo History / Marcus Aurelius and the Stoic's Faith: Christians Under the Philosopher King
Transcript
- Lucas: We've covered Marcus Aurelius's wars, his family, his inner circle, his Stoic practice — but there's one subject that's always felt like the elephant in the room when it comes to his legacy. The Christians. Luna: Yeah, the philosopher emperor presiding over persecution. That's a hard image to reconcile. Lucas: Exactly. And it's not a minor footnote — some of the most famous early Christian martyrdoms happened during his reign. The most notorious is the persecution at Lugdunum — modern Lyon — in 177 CE. That's about seventy years before the last big persecutions under Diocletian. So this is still early, but it's brutal. Lucas: What we know comes mainly from a letter preserved by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History. Eusebius is writing about 150 years later, but he seems to have had access to the original document from the Christian community in Gaul. It's a harrowing read. Luna: What triggered it? Was there a specific event? Lucas: According to the letter, it started with social friction. Christians were accused of 'Thyestean feasts' — cannibalism — and Oedipal incest. Rumours that stuck to early Christians everywhere. But in Lugdunum, the mob turned violent. Christians were publicly shamed, beaten, dragged into the forum. The governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, a man named Tiberius Claudius Saturninus — or possibly someone else, we're not sure — got involved, and he followed standard legal procedure. Lucas: And standard procedure, by that point, was shaped by an exchange between Pliny the Younger and Trajan about sixty years earlier. Pliny had written to Trajan asking how to handle Christians — he wasn't sure if just the name 'Christian' was a crime, or if specific acts were needed. Trajan's reply set the precedent: don't hunt them out, but if they're accused and refuse to recant, punish them. Luna: So the burden was on the accuser, but the Christian's refusal to sacrifice was the real crime. Lucas: Right. And that's what happened in Lyon. The governor interrogated the accused. Roman citizens were beheaded; non-citizens were subjected to the beasts in the amphitheatre. The letter describes the deaths of the bishop Pothinus, who was over ninety and died in prison from beatings, and a slave woman named Blandina, whose endurance became legendary. Lucas: Blandina was tortured repeatedly, then placed in a net and thrown to a bull. The crowd was amazed that she kept affirming her faith. She was eventually killed by a gladiator. The letter says the Christians saw her as a kind of martyr-heroine. Luna: What about Marcus himself? Did he know about this? Did he approve? Lucas: That's the big question, and the ancient sources don't give a clear answer. The Historia Augusta — which is often unreliable — has a line that says Marcus 'was harsh against Christians' and that their persecution was 'due to his decrees.' But the same source also says he was lenient in other matters. The Meditations never mention Christians by name. Some scholars think that's significant — that he either didn't consider them important, or he deliberately avoided engaging. Lucas: But there's one passage in Meditations — Book 11, chapter 3 — where he talks about the soul being ready to be separated from the body at any moment, and he says 'not like the Christians, but with deliberation, dignity, and without theatricality.' That's a direct swipe. He's basically saying Christian martyrdom is showy and irrational. Luna: So he knew about them, and he didn't respect their approach. Lucas: Exactly. And that's consistent with a Stoic perspective. Stoicism emphasized rational submission to fate, not defiant suffering for a cause. To Marcus, the Christians' eagerness for death probably looked like a kind of emotional excess — the opposite of apatheia. Combined with their refusal to participate in the state cult, which was tied to loyalty, it's not hard to see why he might have considered them a disruptive force. Lucas: There's also the fact that Marcus was under enormous pressure during the 170s — plague, war on the Danube, economic strain. In that environment, any group that seemed disloyal or different could easily become a scapegoat. The Lugdunum persecution happened while he was on campaign, so he may not have been directly involved, but his legal framework made it possible. Luna: And it's not like he stopped it, even if he knew. Lucas: No, and that's the uncomfortable truth. The emperor known for clemency — clementia — didn't intervene. Some later Christian writers, like Tertullian, even argued that good emperors like Marcus didn't persecute, but that's apologetics. The evidence suggests otherwise. There were also persecutions in other parts of the empire during his reign, like in Smyrna, where Polycarp was martyred around 155 CE — that might have been under Antoninus Pius, but it's close. Lucas: Now, there's a counter-argument that the letter from Lugdunum, and other martyr acts, were written to glorify the martyrs and may exaggerate. But the basic fact of state-sanctioned killing for religious non-conformity is well-attested. Luna: It does complicate the idea of the philosopher king. Lucas: It should. And it's a reminder that Stoicism, for all its talk of cosmopolitanism and reason, operated within a Roman imperial framework that had sharp limits on tolerance. Marcus wasn't a monster, but he wasn't a modern liberal either. He was a product of his time, and his time saw Christians as a threat. Lucas: I think one of the reasons this episode feels important is that it touches on something we've hinted at before — the gap between Marcus's personal philosophy and his political actions. We talked about clementia in the Avidius Cassius episode, and the ideal of mercy, but here that ideal seems to have failed. Luna: Or maybe it was selectively applied. Lucas: Exactly. It's easy to be merciful to a Roman senator who rebels. It's harder to be merciful to a group you see as superstitious and subversive. And that's a lesson that applies beyond Rome. Luna: It's a point that resonates. And speaking of what makes this show possible — I think it's worth mentioning that the reason we can explore these complex, often uncomfortable angles is because this is a listener-supported project, not beholden to advertisers or sponsors. Lucas: Yeah, that's a good point. A handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many of these deep dives. Without them, we'd have to cut corners or run ads, and neither of us wants that. Luna: And if you're one of those listeners, thank you. It really does keep the show going. Lucas: So, back to Marcus — after Lugdunum, the persecutions didn't stop, but they didn't become empire-wide either. They remained local, driven by mobs and governors. It wasn't until Decius in 250 CE that a universal edict forced all Romans to sacrifice. So the situation under Marcus was still ad hoc, but it set precedents. Lucas: One of the most interesting figures from this period is the Christian apologist Justin Martyr. He was executed in Rome around 165 CE, probably under the prefect Junius Rusticus — who we know was Marcus's Stoic teacher. That's a direct link between the intellectual circle of Marcus and a Christian death. Luna: Rusticus presided over Justin's trial? Lucas: Yes, according to the Acts of Justin. Rusticus asked him if he thought he would go to heaven, and Justin said he was confident. Rusticus then threatened him with torture, and Justin refused to sacrifice. He was scourged and beheaded. So here we have Marcus's mentor enforcing the very policy that Marcus tolerated. Lucas: It's a stark picture. The man who taught Marcus Stoic philosophy was also the man who sentenced a Christian philosopher to death. And Justin was no rabble-rouser — he'd written an Apology addressed to Antoninus Pius and Marcus, arguing that Christianity was a rational philosophy. He wanted dialogue, not confrontation. Luna: But dialogue wasn't possible because the legal framework didn't allow for it. Lucas: Exactly. It's a failure of the very rationality that Stoicism prized. And I think that's the note we should end on — not with a simple judgment, but with the recognition that even the wisest rulers operate within systems that constrain their wisdom. Marcus Aurelius remains a figure to admire, but admiration shouldn't mean whitewashing. Luna: Thanks for sticking with us through this one. Lucas: Next time, we'll look at another figure on the margins of Marcus's world — one that challenges our picture of the Antonine age from a different angle.