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In 186 BC, the Roman senate issued a decree that severely restricted the Bacchanals, ecstatic rites celebrated in honor of Dionysus. Livy records that this persecution was due to the fact that "there was nothing wicked, nothing flagitious, that had not been practiced among them" and that a "greater number were executed than thrown into prison; indeed, the multitude of men and women who ...
A. N. Sherwin-White records that serious discussion of the reasons for Roman persecution of Christians began in 1890 when it produced "20 years of controversy" and three main opinions: first, there was the theory held by most French and Belgian scholars that "there was a general enactment, precisely formulated and valid for the whole empire, which forbade the practice of the Christian religion.
By the late 8th century, the Muslim empire had conquered all of Persia and parts of the Eastern Roman territory including Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. Suddenly parts of the Christian world were under Muslim rule. Over the coming centuries the Muslim nations became some of the most powerful in the Mediterranean basin.
The persecution of al-Hakim and the demolition of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre prompted Pope Sergius IV to issue a call for soldiers to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land, while European Christians engaged in a retaliatory persecution of Jews, whom they conjectured were in some way responsible for al-Hakim's actions. [130]
The persecution of Muslims has been recorded throughout the history of Islam, beginning with its founding by Muhammad in the 7th century. In the early days of Islam in Mecca, pre-Islamic Arabia, the new Muslims were frequently subjected to abuse and persecution by the Meccans, known as the Mushrikun in Islam, who were adherents to polytheism ...
In the Roman Empire, the early church adopted a nonviolent stance when it came to war because the imitation of Jesus's sacrificial life was preferable to it. [2] The concept of "Just War", the belief that limited uses of war were acceptable, originated in the writings of earlier non-Christian Roman and Greek thinkers such as Cicero and Plato.
The Edict of Thessalonica (Greek: Έδικτο της Θεσσαλονίκης), issued on 27 February AD 380 by Theodosius I, made Nicene Christianity [note 1] the state church of the Roman Empire. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] It condemned other Christian creeds such as Arianism as heresies of "foolish madmen," and authorized their punishment .
Map of the Roman Empire with the distribution of Christian congregations of the first three centuries AD. The growth of early Christianity from its obscure origin c. AD 40, with fewer than 1,000 followers, to being the majority religion of the entire Roman Empire by AD 400, has been examined through a wide variety of historiographical approaches.