Christians And Persecutions : Persecution In The Roman Empire

Christianity was frowned upon by the Romans. The Roman Emperor wanted the people to worship him and the Roman Gods. Christians were blamed for many of the misfortunes that happened in Rome. Due to the belief that Christians were to blame they were ostracized, tortured and even killed.

‘Christians to the lions’ as Trajan would say, an emperor in the early centuries Christianity to them have alienated the favour of their gods which has and would continue to cause disasters in the Roman Empire. The misfortune of Christians did not stop during this period, but it did come to a composed halt as Galerius, gave Christians the right to worship in some sense. Christianity during the early stages was clearly a course of persecution and forced pagan accusations. Constantine dramatically changed the recourse of religions with the battle of Milvian Bridge as Christianity became the predominant religion of the Roman Empire.

At the beginning of the first century a new religion was born and started to spread rapidly across the Roman Empire. Its source of inspiration was Jesus. It was different to the other religions of the day in a profound way. It was universal, offering all things to all men, proclaiming an afterlife, triumph over death, and presenting a road to salvation for all men and women. It emphasised the inner life and filled the spiritual void created by the Roman lifestyle. Yet it was one of many religions. There were many rivals, the mystery religions of Persia, Syria and Egypt were popular at the time and of course there was Judaism. Nothing at the time suggested this Jewish heresy could rival the other religions. Nevertheless Christianity spread relatively quickly, mainly due to the missionary work of St. Paul and, also, St. Peter. St Paul's journeys took him to Palestine, Asia, Macedonia, Greece, Rome and finally Spain. In addition this new religion spread quickly throughout the Roman garrisons and from there was carried by the soldiers through the Empire. In early fourth century Emperor Decius attempted to wipeout the Christian faith, the great persecution lasted thirteen years, but in 313 the 'Edict of Milan', in which religious tolerance was granted to Christians and previous

From the third to the fourth century, the Roman Empire witnessed a widespread attempt to stop the spread of Christianity. Initially, leaders of the church were predominately targeted, but later anyone admitting to Christianity became a target. The persecutions hit a climax during Diocletian’s reign. These persecutions actually helped the spread of Christianity by glorifying Christians and beginning a tradition of martyrdom that shaped the Church, and the strength that Christians displayed shows that the persecutions could not have possible stopped the spread of Christianity.

During the middle of the 1st century Paul who was a Hellenized Jew became a missionary to Gentiles throughout the Roman empire. The Prosecution of a Roman Citizen tells the story of how Paul, who was one of the twelve apostles, was handled by the legal procedures of the empire as a Roman citizen.

According to Gaddis (2005) some of the Christians were tortured as well as being burnt alive, while others were publicly executed. Furthermore, it would seem that the more the Romans persecuted them, the more their hatred grew for them, as they believed them to be disobedient and a danger to the Empire. As such they did everything in their power to rid themselves of the Christians. The only consequence for the Christians at this time was, they either obeyed the law by sacrificing to the Pagan Gods or face persecution. However, Gaddis (2005) suggests that some of the Christians looked at the Roman persecution as not so much a Roman persecution, but one from their own God, who was testing their faith so that they could repent for their

In contrast to the persecution experienced by early Christian followers, Christianity today does not experience the level of outward persecution. Christianity is practiced in an atmosphere nearly void of violence. It was not until the reign of Constantine when Christians were authorized to practice their chosen faith. The “Ediet of Milan”(313 A.D.), gave official recognition to the Christian faith, thus ending persecution within the Roman Empire. Before Constantine’s rule, there were many rulers eager to drive out the Christians. The Emperor Trajan (98-117 A.D.) established the first official policy relating to Christians and how they should be dealt with. Diocletion and the Apologists were the last of the persecutors in this era before Constantine. This marked the end of open persecution

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

Nero .born in 37AD, died in 68AD. Maybe the most disliked and violent emperor of the Roman times, Nero was the man that ruled Rome from 54AD to 68AD. Nero was known by his crazy acts, like burning the city where he ruled or the fact that he hated Christians that is why he was particularly violent and cruel to them. The fire, that burned three quarters of the city in 7 days straight made so many accusations to Nero, so he said the Christians did this, so all of them died in horrible ways. This was the first big persecution of the history; this is with this act that the Romans started to hate the people that believed in Jesus. The hate that Nero had for the Christians come from the Romans. Because the people in Rome already hated them, Nero

Christians went from being persecuted to dominating Rome rather quickly. In a world where separation between church and state does not exist, a Christian becoming the sole emperor of Rome symbolized a huge turning point in history. The power switched and the Pagans in turn became persecuted. Christians rose up and took control of all aspects of Roman society. The Pagan past was destroyed, banned, or forgotten about. Those Christians that did not agree with how things were being run either left the empire and became monks or formed their own sect. All of Rome changed.

During early Christianity, Roman officials did not know how to manage the issues that were brought about by this new religion. The main issue that arose was that Christians would not follow the polytheistic religion of the Roman state, and because of this, many were executed. Before their execution, Pliny, a governor of a province within the Roman Empire, would question each potential Christian. If they admitted that they were Christian, Pliny would “repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of punishment awaiting them” (Spielvogel 171). If they continued to admit it, Pliny would send them away to be executed since he thought “their stubbornness and unshakable obstinacy ought not to go unpunished” (171). If a person would willingly admit that they were Christian, they would be executed. However, if they were Roman citizens, Pliny would put them “on the list of persons to be sent to Rome for trial” (171). So in the case that a person was a Christian and a citizen of Rome, they would be treated a bit

We have always wondered why did the Romans persecute the Christians. There are all kinds of different theories; however, the textbook doesn’t include these theories. Therefore, the textbook needs to be rewritten. First of all the text book is missing information about why the christians were persecuted. Explained in document “C”, by somebody written in a time, is, “The very words of the [christian ritual], ‘Take and eat, this is my body broken for you,’ could be misread in a literal, cannibalistic way.” This shows that the textbook needs to be rewritten because this information is very important, valuable, and can’t be forgotten about. This shows that the textbook needs to be rewritten because this information is very important, valuable,

According to the sources the Christians were hated by the people of Rome. According to a source, that was written by Tacitus in 64 AD, they were “ a class hated for their abominations, who are commonly called criminals......... an immense multitude was convicted, not so much on the charge of arson as because of hatred of the human race.” (Tacitus, Annales 1a). They were convicted of crimes due to the fact that the Romans hated them. The

The extent of persecution has been well documented to this day, but the precise number of Christians persecuted is not revealed. Numerous historical manuscripts have not to this date given a precise number of those persecuted. Instead, it is simply stated as a great number or that it was a massive amount. The exact number of early Christians persecuted is not known. Many historical texts do not specify the exact number of people persecuted, but claim that it was a large number or simply a multitude. It has been stated that from 30 AD to 311 AD, a period in which 54 emperors ruled the Empire, only about a dozen took the trouble to harass Christians. It seemed that Claudius, because of his dislike for the Jews, and belief that the Christians

Martyrs tells us that the earliest persecution came under the rule of Nero in the year 67