DISCOVERY 



301 



the Roman Empire generally as anti-social and un- 

 patriotic, was largely absent in Phrygia ; under these 

 conditions, we can imderstand why the later tj'pe of 

 persecution fell with especial fury on the Phrygian 

 cities. Diocletian's policy was war on the Church as 

 such ; and good strategy demanded that he should 

 attack the enemy in his strongest positions. It is clear 

 that by the end of the third centurj' many parts of 

 Phr\'gia were almost solidly orthodox. Hence the 

 severity- of the Great Persecution in this area. 



The Anti-Christian Associations 



These are considerations of a general character. 

 But there were special conditions in Phrygia, and 

 especially in the rural districts of eastern Phrygia, 

 which accentuated the severity of the persecution. In 

 this area most of the land was in the private possession 

 of the Roman Emperors, and the coloni or farmers on 

 the Imperial Estates were united in associations whose 

 bond of union was the worship of the God-Emperor. 

 When the Emperor happened to be a Diocletian or a 

 Maximinus, these associations lay ready to his hand as 

 an instrument of persecution. Ramsay has in fact 

 shown, on the evidence of the inscriptions of the 

 Tekmoreian Brotherhood of the Estates near Pisidian 

 Antioch, that there was an artificial and official revival 

 of pagan worship on these Estates in the later third 

 century, and has connected this revival with the anti- 

 Christian propaganda organised by the Roman govern- 

 ment. These Estates had, it seems, succeeded to the 

 function of the Jewish synagogues of the second 

 century, and had become, if not the sources, at least 

 the media, of persecution. The Estates represented 

 in the subscription-lists of the Tekmoreian Brotherhood 

 at Antioch covered most of eastern Phrygia, and in 

 the activity of this widespread and highly organised 

 anti-Christian association we have doubtless a con- 

 tributory cause of the severity of the persecution in 

 this region. It is perhaps not without significance 

 that Laodicea Combusta was itself close to an Imperial 

 Estate, and inscriptions show that the bureau from 

 which the Estate was managed was located in the city. 



Montanism in the Persecution 



A further consideration which must be borne in 

 mind is the strength in Phrygia of a tj'pe of Christianity 

 which actually courted persecution ; and we may 

 hazard the guess that manj^ of the martyrs, both of 

 the earlier and of the later period, represented this 

 type. Phrygia was the home of Montanism ; and an 

 argument now in the press ' will make it clear, I hope, 

 that the peculiar north Phr\^gian tombstones, on which 

 Christianity is openly professed, belonged to a Mon- 



^ Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester, July 



tanist community. The Montanists, as readers of 

 TertuUian will remember, insisted on open profession 

 of Christianity even at the risk of martjTdom. The 

 argument that the north Phrygian " Christians to 

 Christians " epitaphs are Montanist is reinforced by 

 evidence from Lydia. Epiphanius, our principal 

 authority on the early heresies, informs us that soon 

 after the middle of the third century the Church of 

 Thyatira was entirely Montanist, and a recently 

 discovered third-centur}' inscription from the neigh- 

 bourhood of Thyatira makes open profession of Christi- 

 anity. The inscriptions show that Laodicea Combusta 

 was deeply affected by sectarianism in the later fourth 

 century, chiefly of the Montanist-Novatian type ; to 

 this city belongs the unique distinction of having 

 furnished a set of late fourth-century epitaphs men- 

 tioning Novatians, Cathari, Apotactites, Encratites, 

 and Saccophori, the very sectarians regarding whose 

 admission to the Church Amphilochius of Iconium 

 consulted the great Basil of Caesarea in a.d. 374. 

 Epiphanius, writing in the same year, mentions a place 

 which he calls " Phrygia the Burnt " as a nest of 

 heresies and a centre of the Pisidian Encratites. 

 The place he refers to, as I hope soon to prove else- 

 where, is Laodicea the Burnt. 



The Novatians and Encratites shared with the 

 Montanists a stern attitude to those who " lapsed " 

 in the persecutions, and communities of these sectarians 

 must have presented a specially tempting target to 

 the organisers of persecution. 



The Fate of the " New Jerusalem " 



I wiU close with a speculation. Eusebius and 

 Lactantius both refer to a Christian town in Phrygia — 

 neither gives its name — which was destroyed, with its 

 whole population, in the Great Persecution. Eusebius 

 adds the poignant detail that these Christians perished 

 in the flames, " calling upon the God who is over all." 

 Ramsay has published an ingenious argument identi- 

 fying this town with Eumeneia or with Attanassus, 

 whose inscriptions give evidence of a thriving Christi- 

 anity throughout the third century, and suddenly 

 cease at the end of it. But this is true (in a less marked 

 degree) of other Phrygian towns. Moreover, Eumeneia 

 and Attanassus were orthodox towns, and if an 

 orthodox city had distinguished itself in this manner 

 in the Great Persecution, it is unlikely that Eusebius 

 at least would have withheld its name. The silence of 

 Eusebius on this point, combined with the details 

 which he gives of this frightful massacre, appear to me 

 to point to a community of Montanist fanatics ; and 

 I would point out that Pepouza, in which a section of 

 the Montanists awaited the Great Persecution and 

 Descent of the New Jerusalem foretold in the 

 Apocalypse, has in fact disappeared without leaving 



