It is true that most people have an exaggerated notion about the first 3 centuries. Persecution was horrific for 75 years from 250-325. Even then there were lulls. Before 250 AD it was sporadic. Christianity was illegal but Christians were not systematically sought out. Before 250, most persecution resulted from mob violence, ginned up animosities in a given city. (That’s the way it will be here too.)
All that is accurate history. Those who had the idea of constant, unrelenting persecution until Constantine the Great do need to have their myth debunked.
That martyr stories get inflated and are used for propaganda is also obvious. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is Protestant propaganda. The Anabaptists had their Martyrs’ Mirror.
Some reviewers think Moss goes further than debunking the common myth of unrelenting persecution. She may have invented a counter-myth, exaggerating the degree of propagandistic exaggeration by Christians. I haven’t read the book. I don’t think it deserves the kind of breathless condemnation it’s getting from Christian circles but it probably deserves scholarly critique.
Ephraim Radner’s scathing review in First Things raises some serious problems with the book, but he also may indulge in overkill.
At the same time, I am equally sure that many martyrs from that period died unremembered as well.
The number of documented Christian martyrs from the 20th century far outstrips any number of questionably documented Christian martyrs from the 3rd century.
Do you think that the mythology surrounding Peter and Paul’s martyrdom is true? I think that is highly likely as the two would be considered political rabble rousers and they could be considered easy scapegoats for Nero. However, you are right that the stories of the early martyrs contains some quite fantastical elements... St George and the Dragon and St. Catherine of Alexandria come to mind. It is easy to distinguish what might be a myth from more realistic stories like Perpetua’s.
Moss really has no more to say that Gibbon said 250 years ago. Of course the persecutions were exaggerated, but only because the state lacked the means and the will to to act systematically. The Romans were pikers compared with the Bolsheviks who killed a thousand priests.
[[All that is accurate history]]
Sources?