Persecution Of Christian Persecution

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.

The document, The Passions of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, shows how brave the Christian faith was in Rome. During Diocletian’s ruling, Christianity was not a common religion. In fact, most Romans practiced polytheism. Under these circumstances, many Christian followers were publicly persecuted for their faith. The Roman government assumed that if the executions were public, it would discourage others from becoming Christians and shift away from the Roman life traditions, in which would guarantee wealth and prominence to the Roman elites. Shockingly, this did not bother the Christians that they were publicly sentenced to death because their faith in god was so strong they believed that by dying for their faith would bring them closer to god. Despite the cruelty and crudness of these executions however, it did not stop christianity from spreading. As a result, all persecutions were ended and it was declared leniency for the Christians. After such changes, Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire. Such adjustments in policy spread Christian religion throughout every edge of the Empire. Although these legal orders ended a lifetime of Christian persecutions, they also could have shattered the traditional Roman values system. By this time, the Christians had only believed in one god, who was not the emperor. Due to the disregarding of the emperor, it weakened his authority and credibility. Lastly, another change was enacted which caused the fall

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.

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.

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.

The Jews were the most powerful culture back in the ancient times. This was a threat to others. The Hebrews had their own homeland before they became Jews. The homeland was the center of trade, commerce, and cultural exchanged, through the three major areas, Asia, Europe, and Africa. These areas were also a common place for conflict groups war with one another(rabbi,yaaca,2008).The Jews are to themselves and they do not push their beliefs on other people. They have been persecuted throughout history. The cities have been destroyed to the ground by hated armies, the temples have been tarnished to the ground several times, and have been put out by Jerusalem many times. The

While Nero’s persecution of Christians in 64 AD led to the death of innocent people, it had a positive impact on making Christianity public and helped to establish it as a superior religion. Since Christianity was based on the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ, Christians expected to be tried and faced a lot of suffering for their beliefs. The persecution only meant that those killed became martyrs, who only brought popularity to religion. Furthermore, the attention paid by Nero also sent the message that Christianity was not a religion like any other. 18.

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

“When the Romans assumed control of a new city or region, they incorporated elements of the local religions into the Pantheon in Rome and allowed the conquered group to continue to worship their own deities largely undisturbed.” Christians probably would not have been harassed as much as they were if it would not have been for Nero and bringing attention to them blaming them for the Great Fire of Rome. The story can also be argued that is was untrue or exaggerated because of Nero’s violent tendencies enhanced the story because as mentioned before the Christians were still relatively unknown at this point. Aside from Nero blatantly

Now that Christianity was favored, many Christians sought to suppress pagan religions. However, the Edict of Milan promoted acceptance of all religions and so pagan practices were tolerated throughout much of the fourth century, although this too was to change toward the latter part of the century, when in 392 emperor Theodosius issued a decree which banned many pagan activities. As a result of these elements, Christianity had seen drastic changes during a time span of approximately one hundred years.

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.

Article title: Tacitus and Nero's Persecution of the Christians In the age of Nero, Christian persecution occurred. Tacitus is the authority over the fire that affected Christianity. Christian writers reasoned that Nero’s victims were because of their faith. On the other hand, pagan writers reasoned that Nero persecuted because of his mere incendiarism.

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

To understand the relationship between persecution and martyrdom we must look at what each word means. Let’s start with persecution. Persecution is the “active practice of persecuting especially those who differ in origin, religion, or social outlook; the condition of being persecuted, harassed, or annoyed.” Suffering from persecution is when someone or group of individuals demonize, ridicule, make fun of you for the way you look, behave, or what you believe, to attempt to make you conform to their standards. Persecution is usually, but not always, the precursor to violence or assault toward the individual or group targeted.

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