Persecution In Religion

Roman society didn’t care for the Christians very much. They would blame them for communal catastrophes, such as earthquakes and outbreaks of diseases. They would claim that these misfortunes were caused by the Christians angering the gods. Being Christian by itself was illegal. “The crime of being Christians; that is, to belonging to an illegal sect or association. The penalty for such unlicensed association was death.” (pg. 174) There was freedom given to anyone who renounced their faith and was willing to worship a Roman god. The martyrs went through vicious punishments for staying in their faith. This tells us that living in Roman society could be fatal if you don’t follow what the Roman Empire expected you to be.

In the early Church, martyrdom was considered a "baptism in blood," similar in itself to the baptism in water. The baptism of martyrdom was at the origin of the conversion of many. To be a true disciple is to die as a martyr. The rationale of costly discipleship is witnessing to non-Christians. This shows that martyrdom can communicate much more deeply than any other discourse. It is difficult to evaluate the intensity and scale of persecution against Christians of the first three centuries; nevertheless what we have are some documents that shed light on the frequency of these afflictions. During the first century, there were occasional persecutions under Nero’s reign, especially the fire of Rome in 64 CE, which Christians were accused of having

Christianity during the early century was very difficult for many Christians. As many Christians were persecuted for not worshipping pagan gods.

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.

Nero, even today, is renowned for allegedly setting fire to his own kingdom (for his

The Pax Romana allowed Rome to expand, and created a period of peace that would spread the important religion of Christianity throughout the strong empire. The new religion of Christianity was Jesus’ interpertation of monotheistic religion, Judiasm. Christianity was unlike the polytheistic Roman religion which infuriated many Roman rulers. Despite the hatred of rulers it spread quickly throughout the empire and continued even after Jesus died. Although Christianity followers were persecuted they felt strongly about their beliefs and eventually the Edict of Milan was passed whih meant that Christianity was a religion approved by the emperor. Christianity changed from a sect of persecution to a state religion within the Roman Empire because

In 303 C.E according to Gaddis (2005), Emperor Diocletian ordered that all the Christian churches and scriptures to be destroyed. Furthermore, any Christian that held a rank in the government were to be dismissed. Diocletian was hopeful that these actions that he was taking would put an end to the Christians. However, once the decree was posted, many Christians were angered by this and were not about to give up so easily.

Christian life during the third century was a constant mix of small local persecution and continually being held as the scapegoats for any problem that occurred within the society.

Imperial persecution became wholesale throughout the Empire. Initially the Jewish community was the instigators of this persecution of Christians. The book of Acts outlines several incidents involving such persecution. During the decade of 60 A.D., periods of Roman persecution occurred, however this persecution was sporadic. For example, Nero was ruler of the Roman Empire, under his reign Rome was set on fire and burnt to the ground. Christians became the scapegoat for this cowardly act. Tasitus wrote that perhaps Nero himself started the blaze, as an excuse to persecute the Christians. Nero’s acts of persecution were contained within the confines of Rome.

Later in his reign, Nero became one of the first prosecutors of Christians. After the fire of 64, Nero tortured and executed countless Christians. Was known by some historians as the antichrist that the bible predicted.

Many had issues with Christianity and believed that those who supported or practiced it should be killed. The most known case is the emperor

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

During the first decades preceding Christ's death, Christians were tolerated but not really liked by the general population of the Roman empire due to their refusal to acknowledge the emperor as a living god. This act of defiance was considered heresy by the state .The real mass persecution of the Christian people came during the reign of the emperor Nero who needed a scapegoat on whom to blame the great fire during his reign.

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

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