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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.
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.
[340] After Constantine, the Christianization of the Roman empire continued apace. Under Theodosius I (r. 378–95), Christianity became the state religion. [341] By the 5th century, Christianity was the empire's predominant faith, and filled the same role paganism had at the end of the 3rd century. [342]
[18]: 137 Except for a few rare exceptions, such as the Persian empire under Cyrus and Darius, [19] Denis Lacorne says that examples of religious tolerance in ancient societies, "from ancient Greece to the Roman empire, medieval Spain to the Ottoman Empire and the Venetian Republic", are not examples of tolerance in the modern sense of the term.
Following the adoption of Christianity under the Roman Empire, dissenting religious voices were gradually suppressed by both governments and ecclesiastical authorities [2] —however Christianity did face theological criticisms from other Abrahamic religions like Judaism and Islam in the meantime, such as Maimonides who argued that it was ...
Some innate characteristics of Roman Empire contributed to Christianization: travel was made easier by universal currency, laws, relative internal security and the good roads of the empire. Religious syncretism, Roman political culture, a common language, and Hellenist philosophy made Christianization easier than in places like Persia or China ...
Statements which are contrary to one's religious beliefs do not constitute intolerance. Religious intolerance, rather, occurs when a person or group (e.g., a society, a religious group, a non-religious group) specifically refuses to tolerate the religious convictions and practices of a religious group or individual.