In Persecution in the Early Church, Herbert Workman expertly explains how state-led persecution sprung up through "red tape" regulations and on the basis that Christians were lawless rebels against the government.
A few quotes:
"But Julius Caesar, on political grounds, suppressed all [religious societies] except those of ancient origin, while Augustus placed all religious societies under the strictest control."
“The imperial idea that Christianity was a danger to the State and civilization itself, an anarchist institution, was maintained with varying insistence, some modification in detail, and occasional intervals of toleration, from the days of Nero to the final victory of the Church under Constantine.”
"A wise recognition of local usages was one thing, provided always that the interests of the State were duly conserved; a toleration founded upon the claims of conscience and the rights of the individual soul was a matter too absurd even for philosophers to discuss."
“The charge of anarchism exposed the Christians to one peril in special. It put them outside the law and brought them under the arbitrary executive jurisdiction of the magistrates and police superintendents.
These, as Mommsen has pointed out, were with large powers of immediate action (coercitio), on their own responsibility, against all persons whose conduct was likely to lead to political trouble.
Just as in modern Russia the Nihilist or the innocent reformer can be arrested and sentenced, even banished for life to Sakhalien, on mere ‘administrative order,’ without the presence of trial, or the need that the bureaucrat quote any law at all, so with the early Christian.”
“In theory, Christianity was a hateful thing, a danger to society, and the State, to be crushed out wherever found. In practice, vigilance varied considerably; there were spasms of enforcement of the law followed by reactions of indifference on the part of both Government and people.
Persecution was also to a large extent a local matter; an outburst of popular hatred driving the magistrate to put into force enactments that would be distasteful to some if only because of the extra work that they involved, to others because of their consciousness of their futility.
A modern illustration may make the matter clear.
The Christian was looked upon much as an Anarchist or Nihilist is looked upon by the police of Paris or St. Petersburg.
He is kept under strict observation; the police can proceed against him any day without formality or delay.
But because of that very fact the Anarchist is only arrested when popular feeling or his own doings demand.
If he keep quiet the police do not trouble him.
So with the Christian.”
“Another of this main argument should be noted. Christianity, as we have seen, was put down as a police measure by ‘administrative order' rather than by formal laws, or stately trials.”
It's hard to not see such a scenario being set up once again but this time under the guise of a "pandemic."
Michael Foster, https://t.me/iamfoster
