Europe's inner demons

To sum up: The explanation of the defamation of the early Christians is a complex one. When the Christians were a small minority, their attitudes, beliefs and behaviour were a denial of the values by which Graeco-Roman society lived and to which it owed its cohesion. Because of this, certain real Christian practices, notably the Eucharist and the Agape, were misinterpreted in the light of traditional stereotypes, so that a dissident religious minority came to look like a revolutionary political conspiracy. More than that — these practices were misinterpreted to such a point that they seemed absolutely anti-human, and those who indulged in them were put outside the bounds of humanity. And this mechanism could sometimes be used to legitimate persecutions, to which other motives, such as avarice and sadism, also contributed.

It is a pattern which was to be repeated many times in later centuries, when the persecutors would be orthodox Christians and the persecuted would be other dissident groups.

2. THE DEMONIZATION OF MEDIEVAL HERETICS (1)

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From the beginning of the third century onwards Christians gradually ceased to be regarded, and to regard themselves, as a militant outgroup; the process of integration into, and accommodation with, Graeco-Roman society had begun. But not all Christians adapted themselves to the changing circumstances. In the East, both compromise with the world and institutionalism within the Church were challenged by the religious revival known as Montanism (after its founder, Montanus). Based on the remote depths of Phrygia, in Asia Minor, Montanism embodied above all a revolt against the increasingly easy-going Christianity of the Greek towns. With its consuming thirst for martyrdom and its urgent prophecies of the End and the Millennium, the sect first made itself heard towards the close of the second century. But it survived for several centuries after that; and by the time Christianity had become the official religion of the Empire, this relic of earlier times had come to be viewed with grave suspicion.

Between the middle of the fourth and the middle of the fifth centuries, several representative Christians hinted that these intransigent backwoodsmen practised a sort of cannibalism. Philastrius, bishop of Brescia, has this to tell of them: “People say that at the Easter festival they mix the blood of a child in their offering and send pieces of this offering to their erring and pernicious supporters everywhere.”⁽¹⁾ Epiphanius also has the Montanists in mind when he says that certain sectarians “stick a little child all over with brass needles and so procure blood for the offering”.⁽²⁾ Even the great Augustine reports of these Phrygians: “People say that they have most lamentable sacraments. It is said that they take the blood of a one-year-old child, drawing it off through tiny cuts all over his body, and at the same time produce their Eucharist, by mixing this blood with meal and making bread out of it. If the boy dies, they treat him as a martyr; but if he lives, they treat him as a great priest.⁽³⁾ The Montanists themselves of course reacted just as the second-century Christians had done — they rejected these tales as malignant slanders.⁽⁴⁾ They knew they were innocent — indeed, this was even admitted by some leaders of the Church.⁽⁵⁾

St Augustine also hinted at strange customs amongst the Manichees. By his time the Manichaean religion, spreading outwards from its Persian homeland, was penetrating deep into the Graeco-Roman world. As it advanced westwards it came more and more under the influence of Christianity. In North Africa in particular it took on the appearance of a more “rational” version of Christianity, unencumbered by the Old Testament; and so became a serious rival to Catholicism amongst the educated. Augustine himselt was a member of the Manichaean church for nine years, before his conversion to Catholicism. But he was only an auditor, or secular Manichee; and the tale he tells concerns the electi, who were religious virtuosi.