History: Lapsist controversy
(Chadwick, Chapter 7)

Church History I: The Lapsist Controversy (235AD – 311AD)

Rome in the 3^rd century: stability, crisis, and recovery

• From Augustus in 27BC to the death of Alexander Severus in 235AD there were thirty Roman Emperors
• From 235AD to the accession of Diocletian in 284AD there were about thirty more

Augustus was a brilliant administrator but he could only plan for the world he knew and
by the 3^rd c. that world had changed:

1. A resurgent Persian Empire under the Sassanians
2. Increased numbers of Germanic tribesmen formed larger and larger alliances
3. A plague in the late 2^nd c. decimated the Roman population and slowed the economy
4. An overstressed system led to emperors being killed in battle or by usurpers on a regular basis with the army thinking only of its own needs

Roman religion declined during the same period:

1. Many people began taking philosophical ideas more seriously than sacrificial cults to the old gods
2. People moving to large cities tended to take less care for their traditional gods
3. So many new gods had been introduced that there were fewer resources available for the traditional ones
4. Every sincere Christian convert was one less participant in civic religion

For the first time the rising Christian movement began to challenge Roman identity:

1. Roman detractors of Christianity are on the defensive as well as the attack
2. The Emperor Decius instigated the first empire-wide persecution of Christians in 249 but was killed in 251, ushering in the “long peace”
3. Christians were forced to present a certificate of sacrifice and hand over the scriptures or be killed

Political and reformation under Diocletian (284-305):

1. He defeated invading forces on multiple fronts and created a college of four emperors to better deal with trouble on distant borders
2. He reformed taxation and administration (see accompanying map)
3. All this was done under the aegis of a return to traditional religion and anyone who was not on board became an enemy of the state: he launched the final and most severe persecution in Christian history.

Persecution effectively ceased with the death of Diocletian’s successor Galerius in 311:

1. Many Christians were martyred (in the thousands and maybe in the tens of thousands)
2. Many Christians also refused to be martyred: the sacrificed, they gave up scriptures (even fake ones), the bought certificates of sacrifice, or they simply fled
3. Those who remained steadfast were divided about how to receive those who had fallen (lapsed).
4. This created a division in the church between the rigorist and laxist camps that was often strongest in North Africa: The Novatianist and Donatist Schisms