Show of strength
During the next half century martyrdom slowly made an impact on public opinion. During that time, Emperor Valerian ordered another round of persecution, lasting three years. The Christian hierarchy and wealthy supporters were harassed and church buildings and cemeteries confiscated. The persecution ended only when, in June 260, the Persians defeated and captured the emperor near Edessa.

In Carthage the most notable victim was Bishop Cyprian, and at his execution on September 14, 258, Christians demonstrated their support by keeping a public vigil for him the night before his beheading. It was a show of strength, a sign they had become a sizable and self-confident minority in some of the major provinces of the empire.

Whether due to the demonstration or not, during the next 43 years, the church enjoyed peace from all but minor, isolated persecutions. The decline in civic values and an economic downturn helped Christianity, and the church's size and influence increased enormously.

In Rome, catacombs such as that of Peter and Marcellinus expanded into great necropolises containing 11,000 or more burial sites. Church organization progressed throughout the empire. Even Roman Britain had its bishops. Once a purely urban institution, Christianity was finding increasing support in the countryside.

Thus, when the emperor Diocletian (reigned 284-305), after long hesitation, tried to destroy the church—the one non-conformist element in the empire—his task was infinitely harder than in his predecessors' day.

The failed persecution
The Great Persecution of 303-312 affected town and countryside alike. It was carried out to the letter by imperial officials, but many pagans had growing doubts about its justification and success.

First, there were too many Christians to suppress. By this time, many Christians served in the army and administration. In addition, Christians didn't defect en masse this time, and the fortitude of persecuted Christians influenced public opinion.

L. Caelius Firmicanus Lactantius (c.270-320) was a North African teacher of rhetoric who immigrated to Asia Minor and found employment at Diocletian's court. He became a Christian and wrote of events at Nicomedia and in the surrounding province of Bithynia. Christianity was growing rapidly, Lactantius said, and God permitted the persecution of some believers to draw in others.

"Great numbers are driven from the worship of the false gods by their hatred of cruelty," he wrote. Still more onlookers marveled at Christians who would rather die than worship Roman gods and wondered if their own gods were worth dying for:

"The people who stand around hear them saying in the midst of these very torments that they do not sacrifice to stones wrought by the hand of man but to the living God, who is in heaven: many understand that this is true and admit it into their breast."

Lactantius credited "numerous causes being collected together" (including miracles and exorcisms) for winning "a great multitude to God." But chief among them was the fortitude of the Christians when confronted with persecution.

Several hundred miles away from Lactantius's Nicomedia, a struggle of often horrific proportions engulfed Coptic Egypt. Eusebius of Caesarea (269-339) was in Upper Egypt during the final spasm of persecution ordered by emperor Maximian in 311.

Describing the carnage, Eusebius wrote, "Some suffered beheading, others punishment by fire; so that the murderous axe was dulled and worn out and was broken in pieces while the executioners themselves grew utterly weary." But every time this happened, Eusebius claimed volunteers for death rushed forward: "As soon as sentence was passed on one, another from one quarter and others from another would leap up to the tribunal and confess themselves Christians." They often went to their deaths singing psalms and hymns.

Coptic Christians in Egypt have never forgotten those days. They date their era from the accession of Diocletian in 284 as a permanent reminder of their triumph over imperial persecution.

From Tertullian's time many Christians became "evangelists to the death," but only in the fourth century did martyrdom become a serious factor in the church's growth. So long as the empire flourished and the values of Roman civilization prevailed, Christians were seen as an illegal and disloyal minority. Martyrs merely displayed their zeal to a largely hostile or indifferent populace.

About face
The Great Persecution seems to have flipped the scales. After the conversion of Constantine, martyrs became part of a "Golden Legend." In Rome, for example, the Spanish poet, Prudentius (d. 402) embellished the story of the martyrs with miraculous details of their legendary heroism against pagan governors.

So Tertullian was right after all, though his statements took time to become fulfilled. For him the martyrdom of Christians was the supreme influence that drew people (him among them) to Christianity: "For who that beholds [martyrdom] is not stirred to inquire what lies indeed within it?"

William H. C. Frend is professor emeritus of ecclesiastical history at Glasgow University. His most recent of many works is The Archaeology of Early Christianity (Fortress, 1996).