for tonight's conversations of great minds i'm joined by canada moss canada is the professor of new testament and early christianity at the university of notre dame and an expert in the role of mark hurd in christian theology are we now and scholar in her field of study she's received recognition for her research from the woodrow wilson foundation the national endowment for the humanities and the john templeton foundation her new book the myth of persecution early christians invented a story of martyrdom reveals the truth behind centuries of christian persecution stories is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the mindset of america's religious right kandor welcome thank you so much for having me thanks for joining us a couple of days ago bill o'reilly on fox news declared that there's a new war on religion let me just play this clip for you. the war in judeo christian tradition continues on in some public school districts in ten days it will be easter sunday but in some schools you are not allowed to say

the word easter no easter they're having spring you give that it's moderated by a spring bunny at least in san diego i don't go for an easter or you know the war on christmas is now over because we're coming up to easter so you know it's important to have another new religious target from the liberals i think this is exactly the kind of thing we see all the time in months of the religious right in particular saying that there's a war that this military attack on some element of christianity and this is i mean this where did this come from this. broad sense of persecution this is why the history's important because you know you can't really say there's a war on christmas or easter there really isn't so how do we get this idea and we get it from the early church we get it from the idea that christianity is intrinsically persecuted we're always under attack we can affirm that this period

known as the age of the modest after the death of jesus until the rise of the christian empire the masses or the bars yeah so it's this period after the death of jesus before the rise of the christian empire when christians think that they were constantly persecuted for the first three hundred years of projects right the first three hundred years of constant yes so what that means is that it's a different lays the groundwork for the idea that christians by that definition under attack whether it's by the romans or from heretics in their ranks or from now say liberals persecuting christians in america. but there was there an element of truth to that i mean those stories are pretty pervasive you know stephen being having a skin stripped off him john being crucified upside down or peter mixed it all up now in my brain over the years but you know we've all heard only. every single one of the of the original apostles there's some sort of riffing martyrdom story. yeah

that's interesting you know we have all of these stories thousands of stories in fact but the these stories come from decades centuries sometimes even a millennium after the events that they supposedly described and they've been written by people who want to present at those events they've been embellished so the story about peter he was crucified upside down we're told because he thought he was unworthy to die like jesus it's a great story. now the story itself. is can be dated to the earliest in the second century but he doesn't say he's unworthy to die like jesus he gives a whole other explanation and so well he says that sin has turned the world on its head and so by dying upside down it's a symbol of how christ comes to invoke this it's very theological yeah so i was this is a story being told by generations after his death yeah i mean this is maybe it's almost one hundred years after he died by someone who never met peter much less you

know watched him die and there are other elements of the story that sound a lot like ancient environments novels so peter has this kind of magical harry potter style deal with the flying magician he resurrects seriously yes. he resurrects a smoked fish and he you know there are sort of talking animals now in the story the reason why peter ends up dying is because he persuades the wives and concubines of rome in officials to stop having sex with these women officials so that understandably annoyed and they call for peter to be sort of put on trial and he dies on charges of atheism he doesn't die because he's a christian and they hate christianity he dies because you stop sex that's right. does that have anything to do with the history of sullivan. in the early catholic church you know it's interesting so celibacy doesn't actually enforced until the

eleventh century any priest getting married for a really long time peter himself or had a wife and a daughter. but most of the christian thought that people shouldn't be getting married do we know that peter actually had a wife and daughters that just could be just as apocryphal the story is that he was crucified upside down and give this long theological speech of you know. st thomas aquinas complex and very well yeah there's more evidence the idea that he was married so it comes from multiple sources but with the persecution stories these come from so much later and so we know peter died he's on alive today he must have died and it seems likely that he was executed but was he actually he did you know because of post a q sion because he was a christian and they just hate the christians or was he as is more likely was the executed as some kind of political revolutionary well there is i mean. funk and elaine pagels and what is

a richard fog peter fog for getting his first name he wrote the five gospels and then. for a long time have suggested actually particularly the three famous stories the turn the cheek take my cloak there was a third one those were basically jesus was that advise in his followers to force roman citizens to break roman law. you couldn't you could legally force a slave to carry something up to one mile but after one mile if you had broken the law because that would incite rebellion and so he said if you must carry something from i'll carry it for to write this these recalls to revolution is that the are you suggesting that there is some truth to that a b that peter by to continue that tradition this certainly seems have been a kind of revolutionary turn to jesus is message but the thing. the christians were much stronger than that so when they entered roman courtrooms they would say things

like well we can't respect your emperor we have our own emperor christ and we look forward to his impending brain when all of you will be judged and they'll be this new christian era now to a roman governor that sounds like rebellion when you saw it talking about your emperor who's going to overthrow the current government and this is this is an era in which you can be executed for adultery for starting fires for making disturbances at night or for slaughtering people in song just life is cheap yet life is very cheap so if you hear someone saying something that sounds revolutionary and they're trying to attract followers it's nothing to execute that person. was and or you just opened up a whole bunch of things here one of them they were talking about jesus is going to return that that has been a recurring theme throughout christianity that any minute now he's going to return and and typically that his return is going to be associated it's going to be preceded by more horrible persecution was that part of the early church

and when you know when did that come about and how does that play out today it does seem that the followers of jesus thought that jesus would be returning soon and that the wall was basically collapsing around them they saw wars they they read the signs of this is a sign of the apocalypse and so they thought things would get us the interesting thing is people have thought that at many points in time sure they thought in the medieval period they thought of twenty years ago they thought it you know eighteen months ago when someone talked about the rapture coming so and every time they've been proven wrong when did christians realize that the end wasn't tomorrow the way they did in the beginning on probably within the first future relations they realize that maybe they should you know stop putting down roots because jesus wasn't coming back and in a. matter of months right so this sort of like when it was i wanted white to call her followers in the late nineteenth century up to

a moment and you know here comes the end of them the end didn't come and so she said oh well this is called start the sort of the administration that's right so was there in the in the early days i mean you had you had jesus twelve disciples and the peter church shall we call it and then you had the people who were killing off the disciples in the followers of the disciples like paul you know sol saul of tarsus who never physically met jesus loves you except you know getting knocked off his horse and as a as a physical. to what extent did the peter church die out and get replaced by the pauline church and to what extent did that might that have fed these persecution stories or maybe even be necessary for the persecutions years right what's interesting about the persecution stories about paul is that some of them are very late so this is acts of the apostles which tells us about pulls

damascus right experience and him persecuting the church that was written at us thirty five years after there's offense and perhaps as late as one hundred he is so they've been embellished paul himself talks about how he passed a key to the church but it's kind of a rhetorical trick for pool he says look i was a prosecutor and now i'm. cute it it's sort of if you know it doesn't work for him it's not so if you know without agenda you might say. the polls show us when polls version of christianity won out because he became the apostle to all of the nations and pull seeing himself as suffering like christ and encouraging other people to want to suffer like christ that certainly plays a huge role in people starting to think of themselves as he did right and the peter church just basically. vanished i mean the actually the original jesus is a original church of jesus original disciples vanished altogether did they go

underground or the stories of the gnostics you know there's a bit of that that the orthodox church the coptic sometimes claim but you know they got him out of out of peter's church very well everyone can claim that you represent that original church that original message that jesus conveyed to his disciples or anyone can do that is there any evidence that anybody did that. the attack the text that has so much date of the gnostic texts the so much later than the earliest traditions of jesus and so it's quite hard to say that there is preserved the real authentic message that jesus had including the possible story of tongues in the gospel of thomas is pretty early but it's not sort of gnostic with a sort of it's not from this kind of sacked or anything like that. but paul of course never met jesus. so his brand of christianity you can certainly be concerned about the extent to which jesus' message was sort of lost by pull sort of winning

the theological war between the original twelve and himself and to some extent that means that his message has been lost in modern machines to some extent you could certainly make that claim and whether it's the revolutionary message or whether it's the compassion message i mean what we're yeah well you have to be concerned about the line of transmission because of paul i think that when it comes to the character of christianity people decide for themselves what elements that going to pick up on so you know it's very clear that early christians were sort of radically egalitarian for the time they were all about ministering to the poor that's not something that everyone wants or like trying to yeah so it really depends on what you bring to the gospel is what you're going to take out interest more conversations with great minds with candida moss after the.

we are facing a lot of problems you know. because no one thought to drink no good school. no no no no permits when you visit our parks. other local what's not enough well there's a law in the local needs you might want to community l.n.g. multan would be his judge shelly's it and you would. give general dunford for a matter of artist and was fights about how much fights. all fights. fights are right.

change. well go back to conversations of great minds i'm speaking with canada moss field professor and author of the book the myth of persecution how early christians

invented the story of martyrdom it's an extraordinary extraordinary work extraordinary book thank you for writing it. how does. how does the myth the person first of all you've i think you've largely established. with the exception of a couple of years there was one emperor that you talked about it was a die and. died lucian with the exception of that one period for a couple of years by and large christians were not the victims of intense persecution in the early church is that yeah that's right i mean there is two years between theory three and three or five when the emperor doctor patient institutes laws that really correspond to what we imagine when we think about persecution you know christians being forced to sacrifice being hunted down the romans were really going to make sure that they got them but apart from that brief two year period. we really didn't see anything much like the modern conception of persecution sometimes christians died as

a result of legislation that wasn't designed to talk at them but revolutionary religious law so there's an emperor called d.c.s. and he posted to create that was supposed to redefine something called the roman imperial coat the roman imperial cult it stabilized the empire it protected them from attack it was even a fight them and it wasn't a religious innovation it was much more like a pledge of allegiance which is kind of a variation on blue doing. for the concept that hitler was promoting we are of the soil we are of this race we are therefore this nation it gets a little bit like that although i'm sort of loath to bring in any comparisons that . were yeah but what's interesting is christians and historians told us that these this legislation was designed to target christians it was anti-christian legislation and it was wicked and then we discovered archeological evidence that in fact it was just general legislation it wasn't about the christians and the difference between general legislation that you don't want it or you feel you can't

you can act in accordance with and persecution that's designed to get you there's a difference between those things that we have to acknowledge and respect yeah it seems like us. if difference it is so if there was really in the in the in the first three hundred years the church before the church became the state to a large extent. held their ground until the. italian revolution of the late nineteenth century early twentieth century by being the catholics ruled much of europe most years. if that. persecution didn't happen why is that story so pervasive we touched on this earlier but how did how did it get how does it get continually renier church well there are a couple of reasons before jesus prosecution was not a badge of honor it was a sign that your daddy was angry with punishing you was impotent couldn't support

you this is the old testament notion you know good god tells joshua go to the city of i kill everybody cut over their stomachs but right and most everyone in the interim all would have agreed if you were being prosecuted you do not have divine support right with christianity with jesus dying on the cross persecution suffering modded and these now become so badges of honor you're now like jesus so prosecution sort of gets hard wired into the christian psyche now the reason that it's dade was because it's tremendously powerful rhetoric so you could say at the last while the romans of persecuting us but then with the rise of the christian empire christians maintained the idea that basically the world is part of iced it's us against them and where under attack and where the good guys except the people who are attacking us and now not the romans but say. you know the ottoman empire or heretics in the church are attacking us just like the romans and once you make that claim you can

legitimate any kind of violence against those groups because you're on the defensive you're the one who's persecuted and obviously you have to defend yourself this is why. rhetoric is so effective this is this is i lived in germany for a year we lived in a world where the middle of nowhere there were all these little castles around and . gotten some fascinating conversations with with a few real scholars of those who said basically you know for five hundred thousand years you would have castle in castle b. would have these multi-generational wars where the kings would keep the wars going because it would cause all the presidents to maintain their loyalty to the king you know if the other guys are out to get us and make him a two kings or good body is but nobody really knows it is that yet that's the psychology of this fake holiday if it is that this kind of persecution complex allows your group to really band together it brings about social unity and we can see that now when people use persecution rhetoric it's said if you know it's the

small tiny little group against the wall that's attacking us so even if your group isn't small and isn't powerless this idea gives your group real social cohesion and so when bill o'reilly goes on fox news and says there's a war on christmas or a worn easter which is kind of laughable when you consider that there's you know a billion just catholics brainwashed not to mention christian. this is rhetoric that is really the the purpose of the function of it is to bind him to his viewers essentially yeah and it sort of creates this community his view is ham other sort of republican commentators or right wing commentators it will all and it together with this tiny group we have to protect our terrain because we're under attack out to get us so even if the real conversation that's happening the debate that's happening is about how do we run our public schools. and challenges to sort of what has been fundamentally

a christian way of organizing society in educating our children even if that's the debate that's happening when you reconfigured that as a war. an attack certainly make you feel bonded as a group and you'll mobilize right well. elvis you know in the fifty's there were christians who were going oh my god swivel in his hips the hippies in the sixty's you know free love and sex and drugs what we can't have that. in the seventy's and eighty's we saw the rise of the jury falwell empires and these religious dynasty is really. has what are are all those part of one continuous are or are there milestones along the way were were the modern religious right come from those in this kind of persecution. well you know i'm i'm neither american north nor specialist in modern america so i couldn't really say but the rhetoric is sort of continuous part of it's actually in the new testament jesus predicts that

christians will be persecuted and so christians they will see jesus told us that we would be what's interesting is that when you look at the specifics of those passages a very different picture emerges so in the gospel of mark jesus says take up your cross and follow me defend me in court rooms and some of you who are standing here will be alive when i return bridge now clearly after one generation that starts to that is not true so what why is it that we subscribe to the other part of this prophecy that we're always persecuted it is because we think that it's been proven throughout history particularly in that early period that jesus is pacific prophecies one terribly accurate so he says that james and john the sons of seventy would be baptized with his baptism which is sort of a euphemism for die john the son of somebody is the only one of the disciples not to have been mata it. that's not

a great track record for prophesies. are now we can read this metaphorically we don't have to read it as a prophecy about prosecution the reason that we do is because this. persecution mentality is so useful when it comes to defending out and sort of making claims and sort of discussions about society where would modern christianity be without the persecution stories and do you find these same or similar persecution stories in others of the world's major religions right where would we be without it that's a really interesting question so prosecution language means that you're innocent you're all right and those other people they don't have legitimate grievances they just hate you so if we could get rid of that then we would have to try and think about why it is that those who disagree with us make the claims that they do we have to try and empathize with that position we have to try and understand it would be more compassionate and would have much better dialogue we'd be able to

collaborate about things in ways that we currently cost so so that the martyrdom story of the persecution story actually prevents conversation it's polarizing it divides the world into those that think instead of satan and those acting for god and you can't collaborate with satan. it makes perfect sense. has has there been a time in the history of the christian church when the persecution story wasn't front and center the way it is now. there have been christian groups that happen identified with this as strongly and there have been periods where christians have acknowledged that they all are really powerful group now. but the persecution language has always been a very positive function for at least church institutions because prosecutors in language are lousy to exclude people from your group they're attacking you like the persecuted so it's always sort of so if this were all so in writing your book the

myth of persecution are really christians invented a story of martyrdom captured jew are you just telling us the history. and here we can do what ever we want with it or are you suggesting that if christians were to wake up and say you know we're not a persecuted minority we have a lot of power. and we've got some really good stuff you know the new testament jesus that's really cool things. that might make a better christianity definitely the latter i'm suggesting that i'm not saying people can't penetrate not just now that's one thing but dropping the persecution language that would improve society that would make for better christian with members of other faiths and those who profess no religion. it would make for better dialogue between just people living in what is essentially a christian i society and we'd have to drop this sort of constant where we're being

attacked there's a war against us kind of mindset that we come to that we have and out of that might come a more civil society i hope so you know it might be naive and idealistic of me to think that but that's what we're supposed to be striving for are supposed to be striving for a better society. from earlier with to some extent persecution stories in judaism and in islam they exist in buddhism and hinduism there have been both british and hindu motus. and i have been acts of violence by both those groups against others who have you know actually said to commit a great violence in the names of the sacred traditions and this is something we have to face up to we're not always the innocent party and sometimes when we think that we're persecuted we're actually the prosecutor it's remarkable it's remarkable canada moss the book is the mists of persecution really christians invented a story of martyrdom thanks so much for being with us thank you so much pleasure to

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