The connection between Emperor Trajan, one of our ancestors, and the significance of Easter. A genuine historical episode told by specialists

How has Christianity managed to spread and reach about two billion Christians who celebrate Easter these days? By resistance, it is explained in an article on CNN.

In the time of Emperor Trajan, the governor had heard reports that a “sect” followed a criminal, who had been tortured and executed by the Romans. His descendants, however, believed that their leader was still alive. They met in the houses of each other for common meals where, according to rumors, they practiced cannibalism drinking their leader's blood and organizing the orgies.

The governor became even more puzzled when he called two leaders of the sect. Wrote about that meeting.

“I think it is all the more necessary to find out the truth from two sclavic women, whom they call deacons, even through torture,” wrote to the Roman Emperor Trajan. “I discovered nothing but a degrading and lacking superstition.”

He gave Traian assurances that he had applied Rome's firm hand to stop the “contagion”. The governor, the young man, would become known later. He would write other letters that gave historians crucial perspectives on the Roman Empire. And he would offer a disturbing report in the first person about the eruption of the volcano who buried the city of Pompei.

“Secta” would become the dominant faith in Rome

But Pliny would miss the seismic religious change that looked directly in front. That sect would become the dominant faith in Rome and the most widespread religion in the world. The cross, an instrument of torture used by the Romanian government to lighten the public revolutionaries, would “become the most recognized religious symbol of a god that ever existed”, as historian Tom Holland writes, “Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade The World.”

This unlikely ascent of Christianity is what many of the approximately 2 billion Christians celebrate these days. The most holy day in the Christian calendar commemorates what their faith considers the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, symbolized by the empty tomb.

But the miracle of Easter did not stop there. What happened in the whole Roman Empire in the years that followed was, in a certain sense, as amazing. Before Christianity became a religion, it was resistance, a campaign of poor people who started in a marginal area of ​​the Roman Empire, faced one of the most ruthless and militarized empires in history and won.

The first Christians responded to a spiritual need

The first Christians faced familiar challenges for anyone who lives today under authoritarian regimes or in failed democracies: a predatory elite owned almost all wealth, a repressive regime used fear to impose conformity and anyone could be arbitrarily arbitrarily or made to “disappear”.

The Romanian government had improved a preventive brutality that made any political change seem impossible, says activist and author Obery M. Hendricks. When the Romans heard that a group of protesters gathered near Nazareth, the hometown of Jesus, to denounce excessive taxes, sent the legions.

“The Roman legions came and killed people, crucifying 3,000 of them,” says Hendricks. “These people did nothing violent. They just protested. But the Roman Empire didn't tolerate that.”

And yet, the first Christians triumphed. The traditional Easter story says they have defeated because of their beliefs and courage. Partially true. But they also used two lesser -known tactics, relevant to any resistance movement today, regardless of ideology.

Lesson no. 1: Fill the void of compassion

The cruelty of the Romans created a moral void that the Christians filled. Romanians did not offer real benefits to many. Christians responded to this lack of compassion and built power around the care for others.

Life in Roman cities was miserable. According to Rodney Stark, the author of the book “The Rise of Christianity”, people lived in unhealthy conditions, among garbage, smoke, abandoned bodies, and diseases.

Christians, however, remained to take care of the patients during the epidemics, when others were running. Later, they set up orphanages, hospitals, food distribution systems. They offered what can be called the first social protection system in Rome.

They also promoted a different economic model. According to “Acts of the Apostles”, “all Christians had a heart and a soul and no one said that something was his, but they all had them in common.”

Inspired by Jesus, who preached the “good news to the poor” and criticized indifferent rich, their message was one of social justice.

Lesson no. 2: Support yourself in the community against fear

A popular myth claims that the constant persecutions of Rome have fed the growth of Christianity. Although there were persecutions, they were sporadic and the number of martyrs was exaggerated.

The support of the community was more important. In front of a repressive regime that sowed fear and apathy, Christians have found their courage through personal ties. It is not fear of defeating it, but loyalty and solidarity.

Many have converted not for theological reasons, but because family or friends invited them. Faith has spread organically, through reliable networks.

In addition, Christianity canceled the ethnic, social and gender divisions: Greeks, Jews, Romanians, rich or poor, women and slaves, all were welcome and treated with dignity.

How did the Christian movement evolve

In time, Christianity became so widespread that Rome could not stop. Emperor Constantine had legalized, converted and offered institutional support.

But say historians, something has been lost. The resistance message diluted. Salvation has become only about the afterlife, and the Church itself became oppressive in some periods.

And yet, for millions, the miracle of Easter continues to inspire. For many, it means that “today's caesares do not have the last word.”

The names of the two young people interrogated by the plinium was not kept. Most likely they were executed. But their courage lives. We remember them today. They embody a forgotten idea from the story of Easter: the Easter miracle is not limited to an empty tomb. Perhaps the biggest miracle started the next day.

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