The For Stability And Power Balance Essay

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

It was this refusal that caused its practice to be illegal and those who chose to stick with the faith were prosecuted. Although people were being killed for practicing, Christianity started to become even more popular. After seeing Christian martyrs risk their lives for the sake of Christianity, many Romans were compelled and attracted to the faith. Also, there were Apostles who traveled around the empire spreading the message of Christianity. Then in 312 CE, Emperor Constantine proposed the Edict of Milan that banned all laws against Christianity. That allowed people to freely worship, without the fear of harsh punishment. He eventually converted on his deathbed. Then in 392 CE, Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of Rome. Christianity went from being an illegal religion to the official religion of the Roman Empire.

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

‘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 one time, all of Rome was united by a common religion. This religion, commonly referred to as the Roman religion, was derived from the religion in Greece. Members of this religion, which included the majority, if not all, of the Roman citizens, worshiped many different gods, including the creator or father god, Jupiter, the sun god, Apollo, the god of inspiring wars, Mars, and many others as well. The popularity of this religion began to decline when Christianity arose. It appealed to the majority of the people, particularly the lower class and slaves, who now had something to put their hope and faith in. This religion spread rapidly, and Roman emperors felt that because it was so influential it would become a possible threat. These leaders began persecuting Christians, but many Romans had already committed to this religion and refused to abandon it because they viewed it as the most important part of their life. This led to a lack of patriotism in Roman citizens who then rejected politics and became independent of the government.

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.

The Roman Religion in the Principate period (44 BCE-300 CE) was Polytheistic. Meaning that they believed in more than one god. They believed in the Greek gods and that they each had different powers. By the Dominate

Religion played a key role in the daily life and social system of Ancient Rome. Religion included the worship of many gods and more gods were often adopted from conquered areas. Because most religions were polytheist at the time, the Romans rarely disallowed a cult from a conquered region to continue. A few cults ran into controversy and opposition from citizens or government, such as the cult of Deus Sol Invictus, and that of Isis. Romans were also not keen on monotheistic religion which explains their separation from the Jews. But above all other religions, the Romans disagreed with, persecuted and were threatened most by Christianity.  The introduction of Christianity to the Roman Empire

In Document E it says that although the Emperor Galerius does not agree with the Christians religion they will be accepted in Roman society. This means that the emperor saw the loss of the Christian's life so terrible he needed to save them before the Roman empire crumbled. Document F expresses that Constantine issued the Edict of Milan to stop the persecution of Christians in Rome for their religion. This shows that the emperors took action so that Christianity could grow and expand as a religion and gain followers to work for the greater good. Document G says that Theodosius created a code that entailed that Christianity was now a state religion and was to be completely accepted throughout Rome. This ended any persecution of Christians in Rome and made the final step for Christianity to become a state religion. The emperors of Rome made laws that stopped the persecution of

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

As there was no separation of church and state in Ancient Rome, Marcus Aurelius also had to deal with a new religious sect known as “Christianity”. Christian devotees refused to take part in Roman festivals or honour the gods of the state. Despite his seemingly peaceful intellect, Marcus Aurelius had no time or sympathy for the Christians and they were persecuted in Gaule.

The Romans had a religion that they believed in but was not something concrete and was not of having a central idea. The religion was based on a mix of certain traditions and beliefs. Religion was not never really a big factor in their Empire. The Romans were stubborn with religion and this could be the reason they had an attitude towards these aspects of life. According to St. Augustine’s book Confession, he states that there were a lot of fake gods and there were two major religions in the Roman Empire. The very first religion was Paganism and that’s what his father was known to believe. Then the second main religion was Christianity which his mother believed in. The emperor of Rome at this time, Constantine himself was not a Christian when he conquered Rome, but rather he had a religious conversion when he won the fight with contending tetrarchs at the Milvian bridge in 306 AD, with help of image of the Cross. The

Prior to the conversion of Christianity in the Roman Empire, Emperor Diocletian persecuted Christians for eight years (284 – 305 CE). With the rise of Christianity, he believed the Roman Church was a direct threat to his own authority by convening the worship of God as first priority over the emperor. Diocletian restricted the worship of Christianity restricted the worship of Christianity. Followers of the faith, if caught, were persecuted by means of crucifixion, fed to the lions in the Coliseum, and in many other horrific manners. Christians did have the opportunity to avoid persecution by making scarifications to the emperor, however thousands refused and the martyrdom of the Christian followers fueled the rising.