Random Historical Moments

Lapsi

The Catholic Encyclopedia on the "lapsi": Christians who had apostatised under fear of persecution.

The regular designation in the third century for Christians who relapsed into heathenism, especially for those who during the persecutions displayed weakness in the face of torture, and denied the Faith by sacrificing to the heathen gods or by any other acts. Many of the lapsi, indeed the majority of the very numerous cases in the great persecutions after the middle of the third century, certainly did not return to paganism out of conviction: they simply had not the courage to confess the Faith steadfastly when threatened with temporal losses and severe punishments (banishments, forced labor [smudged in my version]... death), and their sole desire was to preserve themselves from persecution by an external act of apostasy, and to save their property, freedom, and life. The obligation of confessing the Christian Faith under all circumstances and avoiding every act of denial was firmly established in the Church from Apostolic times. The First Epistle of St. Peter exhorts the believers to remain steadfast under the visitations of affliction (i, 6, 7; iv, 16, 17). In his letter to Trajan, Pliny writes that those who are truly Christians will not offer any heathen sacrifices or utter any revilings against Christ. Nevertheless we learn both from "The Shepherd" of Hermas, and from the accounts of the persecutions and martyrdoms, that individual Christians after the second century showed weakness, and fell away from the Faith. The aim of the civil proceedings against Christians, as laid down in Trajan's rescript to Pliny, was to lead them to apostasy. Those Christians were acquitted who declared that they wished to be so no longer and performed acts of pagan religious worship, but the steadfast were punished.

posted by Brituncula @ 2:14 PM