{Whether because of his Russian heritage or his existential stance, Pascal the existential Russian blue cat is sinking his teeth and his claws into the Great Refusal. Having previously noted that, in Christian tradition, Lucifer had pride of place as the inventor of Disobedience TM, Pascal now remarks the irony that the early Christians themselves embraced Disobedience TM (civil, of course) as a virtue, thus confirming that the merits of Disobedience TM are in the eye of the beholder.}
If Lucifer was, as Saul Alinsky claimed, “the first rebel,” should we then assume that all rebellion, every non serviam, is demonic? The sainted apostle Paul explicitly told the members of his ecclesia, “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” 1 That would seem to settle the issue, at least for Christians: Do what thou art told. Thou shalt not refuse authority.
Yet Paul, hardly a model of civic decorum himself, referred on more than one occasion to Satan as “the ruler of this world,” and it seems unlikely that Paul expected people to obey Satan; in fact, he stated, “Do not be conformed to this world,” which complicated the idea of submission to the authorities. Military service, holding public office, the payment of taxes, attendance at theater or at other entertainments: all these ways of being “conformed to this world” were questioned by Christians at one time or another.
Christians were a defiant lot from the start. While claims of widespread Christian martyrdom in the first few centuries CE have been exaggerated, there is ample evidence that, despite Paul’s admonitions, followers of Christ frequently ran into trouble with authorities. Moreover, the trouble was caused in many cases by Christians who stubbornly asserted a form of “Non serviam.”
It is true that, by and large, the first Christians were decent, law-abiding citizens of the various cities in which they resided, dutiful subjects of Rome who, as Paul had instructed, paid their taxes and followed the laws. The “non serviam” issue arose when Christians were called upon (along with their non-Christian neighbors) to participate in civic rituals that involved honoring the Roman emperor, who was, technically, held to be a god. Followers of Jesus refused to take part because (they said) it would have violated their monotheistic beliefs.
Traditionally, Rome had been tolerant of the myriad religious beliefs and practices found within the expansive borders of empire, so long as such beliefs and practices did not disturb the peace or scandalize the citizenry. 2 The fact that Jesus had been crucified under Roman law as a criminal inevitably raised suspicions about the loyalties of a cult that worshiped him, rather than the emperor, as a god; even so, Christianity, while being widely reviled, was not consequently outlawed. 3 Christians were allowed to openly proclaim their faith, and to gather for their agape services, despite rumors that such services featured cannibalism and incest; but, like adherents of other faiths, Christians were still expected to demonstrate publicly their loyalty to Rome.
Christians were not averse to affirming their civic allegiance. When pressed, they would verbally insist on their credentials as citizens, pointing to good works they did in the community; but they would not offer the ritual honors to Caesar. Exasperated, the Roman authorities sometimes bent over backwards to accommodate Christian sensitivities; in essence, they would tell Christians that they could offer sacrifice while maintaining mental reservations, or crossing their fingers, or muttering under their breath. 4 Weary magistrates implored them, explaining that the ritual was just a formality: Just make the gesture, they said, and be done with it. We would rather not punish you. We don’t care what you really believe.
A significant number of Christians refused the offer, a testament either to their honesty or their obduracy. Their stance was analogous, perhaps, to 21st-century Americans who refuse to stand for the national anthem, to salute the flag, or to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (worse, to recite it while deliberately omitting the words “under God”). The earliest followers of Jesus were unwilling to compromise on the issue. The Roman authorities, on the other hand, had to consider the potential reaction of the non-Christian masses to this blatant public defiance; in the end, they had to insist, and then they had to enforce that insistence—however cruelly.
What, you may ask, would Jesus have done? Would he have applauded those who suffered (or even invited) torture and execution rather than engage in a perfunctory and meaningless civic ceremony? We cannot know, of course, but we find a clue of sorts in the gospel of Mark:
Some of the Pharisees and Herodians went to Jesus to catch him in his words. They said, ‘Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity…you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?’
‘Why are you trying to trap me?’ Jesus asked. ‘Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.’ They brought him the coin, and he asked them, ‘Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?’
‘Caesar’s,’ they replied.
Then Jesus said to them, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.’
For Jesus, tokens of imperial authority were evidently meaningless, and certainly not worth taking a stand over or becoming embroiled in controversy. Would he have felt the same about the mandatory civic rituals and their dutiful gestures of obeisance to Caesar? There is no way for us to know, but Jesus’ followers had no doubt about what was expected of them: nothing short of a Great Refusal would suffice, a non serviam to Caesar, his empire, and his pretensions.
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Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire - Wikipedia
1 Paul goes on to say (in Romans) that “the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing,” a remark so ostentatiously obsequious (and so unlike Paul) as to suggest that Paul, sending this letter to Rome ahead of his arrival, was trying to scotch rumors that he and his fellow Christians were troublemakers or subversives of some kind. He had adopted a similar tactic in advising believers at Thessalonica to avoid rocking the civic boat: “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders.”
2 Or frighten the horses.
3 It was sporadically banned, and local persecutions flared up around the empire from time to time. The idea that the earliest Christians were forced into “catacombs” en masse to practice their faith is simply untrue.
4 A tactic famously adopted by Galileo, who, having been forced by Church authorities to cease promoting his heretical notion that the earth moves around the sun, was said to have muttered, as he left the ecclesiastical proceedings, “Eppur si muove”: “And yet it [the earth] moves.”
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