Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The persecution of pagans under Theodosius I began in 381, after the first couple of years of his reign as co-emperor in the eastern part of the Roman Empire.In the 380s, Theodosius I reiterated the ban of Constantine the Great on animal sacrifices, prohibited haruspicy on animal sacrifice, pioneered the criminalization of magistrates who did not enforce anti-pagan laws, broke up some pagan ...
During the reigns of Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius I anti-pagan policies and their penalties increased. By the end of the period of Antiquity and the institution of the Law Codes of Justinian, there was a shift from the generalized legislation which characterized the Theodosian Code to actions which targeted individual centers of paganism.
Theodosius seems to have adopted a cautious policy toward traditional non-Christian cults, reiterating his Christian predecessors' bans on animal sacrifice, divination, and apostasy, while allowing other pagan practices to be performed publicly and temples to remain open.
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 marble statue of Jupiter, king of the Roman gods. Paganism (from classical Latin pāgānus "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, [1] or ethnic religions other than Judaism.
In court documents released on Monday, the 50-year-old local man maintained his innocence of the 2017 killings and instead claimed that the murders were carried out by a pagan cult hijacked by ...
His popular cult appears to have thrived well into the 4th century, when he became the "whipping boy of pagan worship" in Christian polemic. Vout (2007) remarks his humble origins, untimely death and "resurrection" as theos , and his identification – and sometimes misidentification by later scholarship – with the images and religious ...
Theodosius II enacted two anti-pagan laws in the year 425. The first of these stipulated that all pagan superstition was to be rooted out. [9] The second law barred pagans from pleading a case in court and also disqualified them from serving as soldiers. [10] Theodosius II then left Valentinian III to rule the west and returned to Constantinople.