Apostles Persecution

Before the printing press, Europeans got their religious information from the Church, as most people were either illiterate or too poor to afford the expensive Bibles. However, the printing press made Bibles accessible to the public. This changed people’s opinions on religion, as they now educated themselves without relying on the Church. Martin Luther, a Catholic priest, was discontent with the Church’s practices, specifically their indulgences, where they accepted payments in return for salvation in the afterlife. Luther outlined his criticisms in the 95 Theses, sparking the Protestant Reformation movement. Luther’s 95 Theses spread throughout Europe, including 300,000 copies published in early 1500s Germany utilizing the printing press, thus introducing the new Protestant religion to more people. Religious reformation is an example of the Renaissance worldview that states “an individual’s dreams and achievements are given new emphasis”. For instance, Luther established the new Protestant religion because his dreams were possible, as people praised individualism. The group mentality was no longer significant, specifically for religion as people began to extend from

A lot of Jewish Christians were seen as traitors for fleeing after the revolt between the Jews and Romans. Jewish Christians diminished and made their way for a separate Christian Church. The Jews and Christians did not associate with each other and developed a separate identity. By this, they celebrated the Lords day on Sunday and the Eucharist every week instead of once a year. Becoming larger and more complex, centralized authority became stronger and bishops were acting more like Kings who could decide right from wrong. The early church now tried to bring their faith to others, which in return, was extremely difficult. When introducing Christianity to the Greeks, the Christian people brought up some Greek ideas and made a systematic Christianity with philosophical ideas. For the Romans, they brought in political identity and focused on form and rite instead of spiritual teachings. From this, Christians in the Roman Empire suffered severe persecution, because they refused to believe in the Roman Gods. Bibles were burned and bishops were killed in hopes to end Christianity in the Roman

Tacitus, perhaps the greatest Roman historian, provides us with an account of the fire of Rome.1 It is within this account, recorded in The Annals, that Tacitus mentions Jesus. In chapters 38 through 45 of Annals 15, Tacitus discusses how Nero implicated Christians as those responsible for the fire.

In 1522, Luther began to organize a reformed church and was the first to translate the New Testament into German. This New Testament sold almost 200,000 copies and created great appeal for Lutheranism. It allowed many Germanic people to read the Bible because it no longer required the people to know Latin. However, it did not reach everyone as many people were still illiterate. From its beginning, the reformation was tied to political affairs as it was supported by many German

After the Reformation, a significant amount of social changes came to light. Nevertheless, this time in history, as shown in Document 3, wouldn’t have reached the success that it did without the printing press. This was a machine that Johannes Gutenberg invented in order to spread information quickly and accurately. Martin Luther’s message was able to be easily spread throughout Europe now. And, with people having the ability to access the Bible on their own, not only was the population of Europe able to study Scripture without a priest, but also, the literacy rate in Europe dramatically increased.

First of all, there was a Great Fire of Rome that started in 64 AD, and Emperor Nero blamed the Christians for this horrible disaster. Although, many people thought that Nero started the fire, he took this opportunity to put all the blame on the people he hated the most, the Christians. After he blamed them, he sent them to jail for the crime of hating mankind. In jail they got tourcherd by dogs ripping them apart, and they

The large number of Romans accept religions of the Easts. Spread in to Mediterranean allowed Romans to contact with Jews. Jews in Palestine were therefore permitted to train Judaism until they rebel; the temple was then damaged by the Romans in 70 AD. As long as Pax Romana made possible St. Paul’s movements, it was not completely promoting to the spread of the Gospel message about Christ. The increased travel throughout the period allowed Roman Citizens to discover about many unknown religions, creating within some people a philosophical hunger and religious discontent that many resolved those issues by converting to Christianity. Also, the politics on that time (involving the worship of the emperor), and the closed nature of Christian worship, led to charges of treason and cannibalism against the Christians. The relatively easy travel allowed St. Paul to moralize throughout the Mediterranean and permit these terrible charges about Christians to lengthen throughout the empire, fueling the extreme dislike of Christians during later

Events of the 2nd Millenium AD such as the rise of renaissance culture, the rapid spread of heresy, and the development of the printing press all led to a radical transformation of society’s view on the Roman Catholic Church resulting in a loss of authority by the institution. This monumental event, the Protestant Reformation, started in 1517 A.D when Martin Luther made his list of grievances, 95 Theses, public. This provoked much debate and lead to the rejection of traditional Catholic teachings and authority and to the formation of many Protestant divisions such as the Lutheran Church, Calvinism, and quite a few more. One of the most early causes of the Protestant Reformation was the rise of Renaissance culture and its new philosophical ideas and art that introduced the first opposition to Catholicism’s role and teachings in society. Later on in this time period, the growth of heresy around 1100 A.D directly denounced the Catholic Church and sparked many new ideas on the issue. Finally, the printing press truly paved the way to the Reformation because it helped spread heresy and information quickly, in particular the document of

Martin Luther, a protestant, sparked the reformation in 1517 by his writing of the "95 Theses". This was a list of Luther's concerns about Church practices, which he posted on the door of the Castle Church in Germany. This was an

In the first three centuries of the early Christian church. The church was being martyred and treated badly by the Roman population. There were many reasons that the Romans persecuted Christians. Although many people thought the reason was because the Christians refused to worship the Roman gods or take part in the sacrifices. But, that was only part the reason that the Romans actually persecuted Christians. The Romans just hated the Christians in general because of their teachings of the Lord.

Martin Luther used the printing press to print copies of the 95 theses, which were spread through all of Europe. Soon people around Europe were able to see that

When Christianity first emerged it culturally threatened the Greco-Roman social order; they strongly adhered to the belief that Jesus was the messiah and their allegiance was with him, not the Roman Emperor. The emperors were viewed as ‘saviours’, they were not merely human but also divine and at the moment of death their soul would rise to the heavens. Due to them being pedestalized it was a popular tradition to build temples and make sacrifices to the emperor and thus, it also became important that everyone (with the exception of Jews as it was an ancient and already established faith which the Romans respected because of this) did the same. Romans were suspicious of new religions and the proclamation that Christians made deeply offended them. Christians voiced the belief that the person the Jews had sacrificed was the true saviour, the son of God which

During the beginning of the Roman Empire, Christianity faced hardships “after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the subsequent failure of the Bar Kochba rebellion. Early Christianity stood at the beginning of a protracted struggle to define, defend, and reproduce themselves in the face of other cultures, within which the adherents of these religions were obliged to live.” Christianity was perceived as a struggling religion and was widely frowned upon by the Romans during its early times. Christianity was especially viewed pessimistically by the Roman Emperor Nero. He persecuted many Christians and forced them to suffer a variety of punishments such as being burned alive, crucifixion, and being eaten alive by beasts.

In some ways, this might have strengthened and reinforced Christian faith because in the period between 68 CE and 313 CE (the year in which Emperor Constantine signed toleration of Christianity into law via the Edict of Milan), Christians had to be more careful in their practices; if an individual felt the desire to be a Christian, that individual had to be extremely committed to the faith and fully aware of the risks associated with it. For a number of years, public demonstrations and declarations of Christian faith continued to be an offense punishable by death in Rome. In addition, the reputation of Christians had been badly damaged by Emperor Nero in the aforementioned allegations of arson by Christians as the cause of the devastating

Back in the ancient days when Rome was still around, the Romans were polytheistic and weren't so fond of the Christians, with emperors of Rome menacingly persecuting Christians for false cases of incest and cannibalism. Nero (a Roman emperor) blamed the Christians for a fire that happened in Rome in 64 A.D., even though he supposedly was responsible for the fire. Nero persecuted the Christians by throwing them into an arena for citizens entertainment. The Christians were beaten, mauled, and even eaten and disassembled by lions or other vicious animals. Through my research, I have discovered that Christianity rose greatly through Christian women, Saint Paul, and Constantine.