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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.
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 ...
The Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. [1] In 303, the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rights and demanding that they comply with traditional religious practices.
In the eastern Roman empire, the official persecution lasted intermittently until 313, while in the western Roman empire the persecution went unenforced from 306. [45] According to Lactantius's De mortibus persecutorum ("on the deaths of the persecutors"), Diocletian's junior emperor, the caesar Galerius (r.
Libellus from the Decian persecution 250 AD certifying that the holder has sacrificed to the Roman gods. The edict ordered that everyone in the Empire, with the exception of Jews, must sacrifice and burn incense to the gods and to the well-being of the Emperor in the presence of a Roman magistrate, and get a written certificate, called a libellus, that this had been done, signed by the ...
Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina ( Jerusalem ), when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian church. [ 1 ]
The reign of the emperor Diocletian (284−305) marked the final widespread persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. The most intense period of violence came after Diocletian issued an edict in 303 more strictly enforcing adherence to the traditional religious practices of Rome in conjunction with the Imperial cult.
The Crisis of the Third Century (AD 235–284), was a period of heavy barbarian invasions and migrations into Roman territory. [4]: 19, 22 According to Peter Brown, imperial Rome's system of government was an easy–going system which governed indirectly through the regional, local elites, and was not built to survive the strain of continuous invasions and civil wars.