Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire
The state and other members of civic society punished Christians for treason, various rumored crimes, illegal assembly, and for introducing an alien cult that led to Roman apostasy.
After Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) defeated his rival Maxentius (r. 306–312) at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in October 312, he and his co-emperor, Licinius, issued the Edict of Milan (313), which permitted all religions, including Christianity, to be tolerated.
[15]: 199 A third school asserted that Christians were prosecuted for specific criminal offenses such as child murder, incest, magic, illegal assembly, and treason – a charge based on their refusal to worship the divinity of the Roman emperor.
Sherwin-White says "this third opinion has usually been combined with the coercion theory, but some scholars have attributed all Christian persecution to a single criminal charge, notably treason, or illegal assembly, or the introduction of an alien cult".
[21]: 316 [22] Joseph Bryant asserts it was not easy for Christians to hide their religion and pretend to Romanness either, since renunciation of the world was an aspect of their faith that demanded "numerous departures from conventional norms and pursuits".
The Christian had exacting moral standards that included avoiding contact with those that still lay in bondage to 'the Evil One (2 Corinthians 6:1-18; 1 John 2: 15-18; Revelation 18: 4; II Clement 6; Epistle of Barnabas, 1920).
[21]: 316 "Christian attendance at civic festivals, athletic games, and theatrical performances were fraught with danger, since in addition to the 'sinful frenzy' and 'debauchery' aroused, each was held in honor of pagan deities.
Various occupations and careers were regarded as inconsistent with Christian principles, most notably military service and public office, the manufacturing of idols, and of course all pursuits which affirmed polytheistic culture, such as music, acting, and school-teaching (cf.
[26]: 119 [27]: 3 [26]: 112, 116, 119 McDonald adds that Christians sometimes "met at night, in secret, and this also aroused suspicion among the pagan population accustomed to religion as a public event; rumours abounded[26]: 120, 121 that Christians committed flagitia, scelera, and maleficia— "outrageous crimes", "wickedness", and "evil deeds", specifically, cannibalism and incest (referred to as "Thyestian banquets" and "Oedipodean intercourse") — due to their rumoured practices of eating the "blood and body" of Christ and referring to each other as "brothers" and "sisters".
[30]: 88–90 This inclusivity of various social classes and backgrounds stems from early Christian beliefs in the importance of performing missionary work among Jews and gentiles in hopes of converting to a new way of life in accordance of gospel standards (Mark 16:15-16, Galatians 5:16-26).
[26]: 120–126 Edward Gibbon argued that the tendency of Christian converts to renounce their family and country, (and their frequent predictions of impending disasters), instilled a feeling of apprehension in their pagan neighbors.
If the Tiber rises as high as the city walls, if the Nile does not send its waters up over the fields, if the heavens give no rain, if there is an earthquake, if there is famine or pestilence, straightway the cry is, 'Away with the Christians to the lions!
[41]: 50 In Joseph Bryant's view, "Nero's mass executions ... set [such] a precedent, and thereafter the mere fact of 'being a Christian' was sufficient for state officials to impose capital punishment".
Thus while the private beliefs of Christians may have been largely immaterial to many Roman elites, this public religious practice was in their estimation critical to the social and political well-being of both the local community and the empire as a whole.
[29]: 135 Superstition had for the Romans a much more powerful and dangerous connotation than it does for much of the Western world today: to them, this term meant a set of religious practices that were not only different, but corrosive to society, "disturbing a man's mind in such a way that he is really going insane" and causing him to lose humanitas (humanity).
Christians' beliefs would not have endeared them to many government officials: they worshipped a convicted criminal, refused to swear by the emperor's genius, harshly criticized Rome in their holy books, and suspiciously conducted their rites in private.
[59]: 205 Richardson points out that the term Christian "only became tangible in documents after the year 70" and that before that time, "believers in Christ were reckoned ethnically and religiously as belonging totally to the Jews".
[62] In the Annals of Tacitus, it reads:...To get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Chrestians[63] by the populace.
Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.
[86] Early church historian Eusebius wrote that the social conflict described by Revelation reflects Domitian's organization of excessive and cruel banishments and executions of Christians, but these claims may be exaggerated or false.
[22]: 35 Often, reference is made to the execution of Titus Flavius Clemens, a Roman consul and cousin of the Emperor, and the banishment of his wife, Flavia Domitilla, to the island of Pandateria.
[99] One of the most notable instances of persecution during the reign of Aurelius occurred in 177 at Lugdunum (present-day Lyons, France), where the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls had been established by Augustus in the late 1st century BC.
[112]In 250 the emperor Decius issued an edict, the text of which has been lost, requiring everyone in the Empire (except Jews, who were exempted) to perform a sacrifice to the gods in the presence of a Roman magistrate and obtain a signed and witnessed certificate, called a libellus, to this effect.
[40] Although the period of enforcement of the edict was only about eighteen months, it was severely traumatic to many Christian communities which had until then lived undisturbed, and left bitter memories of monstrous tyranny.
Roman matrons who would not apostatize were to lose their property and be banished, while civil servants and members of the Emperor's staff and household who refused to sacrifice would be reduced to slavery and sent to work on the Imperial estates.
Galerius, after briefly conferring with his judicial council, with much reluctance pronounced the following sentence: "You have long lived an irreligious life, and have drawn together a number of men bound by an unlawful association, and professed yourself an open enemy to the gods and the religion of Rome; and the pious, most sacred and august Emperors ... have endeavoured in vain to bring you back to conformity with their religious observances; whereas therefore you have been apprehended as principal and ringleader in these infamous crimes, you shall be made an example to those whom you have wickedly associated with you; the authority of law shall be ratified in your blood."
Peter Brown writes that "The failure of the Great Persecution of Diocletian was regarded as a confirmation of a long process of religious self-assertion against the conformism of a pagan empire.
[123][124] Exaggeration and falsification did occur, though mostly in the Middle Ages, and the martyrs did have a powerful impact on early Christian identity, but Dean and theology professor Graydon F. Snyder of Bethany and Chicago Seminaries, uses ancient texts and archeological evidence, (defined as "all evidence of a non-literary nature: ...extant buildings, built–forms, symbols, art, funerary practices, inscriptions, letters, records and even music"), to assert the cult of martyrs did not influence early records because it did not begin until after Constantine.
Maraval goes on to say the Acta and Passiones have preserved enough authentic historical data to allow the modern reader to realize the reality of the persecutions and the ways their communities felt them.
"where there are no linguistic terms to serve as guides, scholars feel free to work with assumptions and highly individual taxonomies about what makes a martyrdom provoked or voluntary.
