WI the Romans Hadn't Persecuted the Christians?

Yes, the Romans were rather tolerant of most religions that didn't preach outright revolt.

Yeah, I think that sums it up best. The Romans only really persecuted the Druids, and later the Jews when they engaged in rebellion. Christianity was kind of a special case, since while the Romans considered refusal to worship the Emperor to be treason, many Christians did not see themselves as rebels. They were generally willing to follow the law, they just refused to acknowledge the emperor as a god.

The Romans did not persecute Christians just because they practiced Christianity, they persecuted them because they refused to obey the emperor, which was treason. I think that this is an important distinction.

The Romans looked down upon many religions and/or discouraged them (Cults of Isis or Bacchus), but the empire only persecuted groups that it viewed as either a real or potential threat.
 

Philip

Donor
I don't know. Thanks for bringing it up. I will research it. I meant that with Judaism actually surviving 2 major rebellions, the Romans could not destroy their religion.

Suetonius writes:

[Claudius] utterly abolished the cruel and inhuman religion of the Druids among the Gauls, which under Augustus had merely been prohibited to Roman citizens;​

Pliney thought it was a good idea:
[F]or it was the Emperor Tiberius that put down their Druids, and all that tribe of wizards and physicians....Such being the fact, then, we cannot too highly appreciate the obligation that is due to the Roman people, for having put an end to those monstrous rites, in accordance with which, to murder a man was to do an act of the greatest devoutness, and to eat his flesh was to secure the highest blessings of health.​

I meant that with Judaism actually surviving 2 major rebellions, the Romans could not destroy their religion.

Let's not confuse effectiveness with intent.

The Romans did not persecute Christians just because they practiced Christianity, they persecuted them because they refused to obey the emperor, which was treason. I think that this is an important distinction.

It is at the same time an important distinction and a meaningless one. Christianity requires Christians not to participate in the Imperial Cult. It was impossible to be a Christian and not be traitorous. In effect, you distinction is 'They were not persecuted for being Christians, they were persecuted for the inevitable actions of being Christians.'

Why are such excuses not made for the later persecutions of non-Nicene Christians in after Theodosius, of Muslims in re-conquered Spain, of Cathars in France, etc?
 
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archaeogeek

Banned
Tacitus, Annals, xv.44.2-8

Wrote around 112AD about Nero's persecution of Christians in the 60's.

Pliny, Ep. x.96

As wrote around 112AD to the emperor Trajan checking that he was right to allow Christians to recant before he had them executed and explaning how he had had some deaconesses tourtured to find out what Christians did. Trajan relied that he was. (x.97)

The line in Tacitus about Nero's persecution is generally considered a falsification, like Josephus. Too many weird mistakes that fit more the christian version of things (basically Pilate's title is one of the main tip-offs).

Also the Druids weren't "THE religious caste", they were a subsection of it, the summit of its hierarchy.
 

Orry

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The line in Tacitus about Nero's persecution is generally considered a falsification, like Josephus. Too many weird mistakes that fit more the christian version of things (basically Pilate's title is one of the main tip-offs).

So that is why he accuses them of 'hatred of the human race' and describes them as 'criminals who deserve extreme and exemplory punishment'?

Why he talks about them being a 'class hated for their abominations'

Because its all a falsification? I think not.
 
Christians.

The line in Tacitus about Nero's persecution is generally considered a falsification, like Josephus. Too many weird mistakes that fit more the christian version of things (basically Pilate's title is one of the main tip-offs).

Also the Druids weren't "THE religious caste", they were a subsection of it, the summit of its hierarchy.
I agree. In Nero's time, Christianity and Judaism had not completely separted. At that time, they were basically 2 forms of the same religion.
 
Christians.

So that is why he accuses them of 'hatred of the human race' and describes them as 'criminals who deserve extreme and exemplory punishment'?

Why he talks about them being a 'class hated for their abominations'

Because its all a falsification? I think not.
If you are referring to Nero's persecution as actual historical fact, I disagree. At that time, Christianity and Judaism had not sufficiently separated yet. There definitely would not have been many Christians in Rome in Nero's time, and the ones there would still have been considered Jews.
 
The line in Tacitus about Nero's persecution is generally considered a falsification, like Josephus. Too many weird mistakes that fit more the christian version of things (basically Pilate's title is one of the main tip-offs).

Actually, no, it isn't--most agree Tacitus probably wrote it. The bigger question is how accurate is it, and here we're on our own. It seems likely that Tacitus is engaging in hyperbole, and probably hasn't got his facts quite down. It's easy to forget that Tacitus wasn't just a historian--he was also a politician, and his Annals were generally written not only to tell about the past, but to show that Tacitus' politics were particularly correct. In this case, it seems likely that Tacitus is quietly arguing against the present imperial policy towards Christians, and thus is stretching the facts to make them fit the case. (It's likely that Nero's persecutions were in fact aimed at the Zealots, and Tacitus either changed it to Christians to make the parallels stronger, or simply confused the sects. But this is ultimately speculation.)
 

Orry

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If you are referring to Nero's persecution as actual historical fact, I disagree. At that time, Christianity and Judaism had not sufficiently separated yet. There definitely would not have been many Christians in Rome in Nero's time, and the ones there would still have been considered Jews.

Since you are 'definite' I am sure you can provide evidence of that claim.
 
Tacitus, Annals, xv.44.2-8

Wrote around 112AD about Nero's persecution of Christians in the 60's.

The earliest extant manuscript bearing this passage from Cornelius Tacitus, which is kept by the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, is found to have been "corrected" by an 11th century scribe. Ultraviolet has revealed that the "i" in "Christos" and "Christians" was actually scrawled over what used to be an "e". Tacitus, it would seem, was talking about a seperate sect of Jews whom resided in Rome at the time. Chrestus means "the good".

Also, no Christian writer ever conscripted the works of Tacitus to testify to the "persecutions" until the Fifth Century Sulpicius Severus included this passage from Book 15 of the Annals of Tacitus into his writings.




Pliny, Ep. x.96

As wrote around 112AD to the emperor Trajan checking that he was right to allow Christians to recant before he had them executed and explaning how he had had some deaconesses tourtured to find out what Christians did. Trajan relied that he was. (x.97)

The Christians being questioned were held on suspicion of involvement of certain "forbidden political associations". Something not highlighted by Christian historians of the era. The deaconesses were apparently slaves, and the torturing of slaves during questioning and cross-examination was a standard practice of the Roman judicial system. But he admitted that he did not find the confessions he was looking for, apart from "depraved excessive superstition.

In his correspondence with the Emperor Trajan, Pliny was told not to seek them out.
 
Also the Druids weren't "THE religious caste", they were a subsection of it, the summit of its hierarchy.

They may have been the highest-ranking members of the Celtic religious order in society, but unless an encompassing term exists to collectively identify Druids, Bards, Vates and other specialists, some of us have no choice accept to identify the entire Celtic clergy by their best known sub-section.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
They may have been the highest-ranking members of the Celtic religious order in society, but unless an encompassing term exists to collectively identify Druids, Bards, Vates and other specialists, some of us have no choice accept to identify the entire Celtic clergy by their best known sub-section.

Yes but the rest of it mostly survived the purging, there were still bards in Britain when christianity and the saxons were knocking at the door... Which is not the point anyway
 
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Orry

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The earliest extant manuscript bearing this passage from Cornelius Tacitus, which is kept by the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, is found to have been "corrected" by an 11th century scribe. Ultraviolet has revealed that the "i" in "Christos" and "Christians" was actually scrawled over what used to be an "e". Tacitus, it would seem, was talking about a seperate sect of Jews whom resided in Rome at the time. Chrestus means "the good".

Also, no Christian writer ever conscripted the works of Tacitus to testify to the "persecutions" until the Fifth Century Sulpicius Severus included this passage from Book 15 of the Annals of Tacitus into his writings.

An 11th Century 'correction' does not effect a 5th century use.

How widely published was Tacitus? Would Christians of had time and opportunity to access the material before they became the imperial cult? And what text does Severus use?
 
It's really not worth arguing about at this point. There are so many sources pointing this out.

Like what?

The great Carl Sagan said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Claiming that the early persecution of Christians never actually happened, that there weren't many Christians in Rome, or that the Romans couldn't tell the difference between them and the Jews are all pretty extraordinary claims.
 
And just because something is recorded in a Christian source doesn't mean it can simply be written off, any more than you can do the same for a pagan source.

If a Christian historian tried to dismiss De Bello Gallico as pagan propaganda, I'd be quite willing to call them on it.
 
Yes but the rest of it mostly survived the purging, there were still bards in Britain when christianity and the saxons were knocking at the door... Which is not the point anyway

But the Druids did not survive in sufficient numbers to continue directing their resistance against Roman rule in Britain and Gaul after the First Century CE.

The Bards survived on the Celtic Fringe, either because they posed no obvious threat to social order in Roman and later Christianized society, or because due to their proximity to Celtic Ireland, where the traditions were preserved.
 
An 11th Century 'correction' does not effect a 5th century use.

How widely published was Tacitus? Would Christians of had time and opportunity to access the material before they became the imperial cult? And what text does Severus use?

Literacy was not widespread much beyond the Christian clergy after the collapse of Roman authority in the west. Texts were selectively preserved, and even commandeered if they seemed to comport with early Christianity. Any re-editing would have occured later.

The Christian clergy which was intergrated into the state machinery would have had time and opportunity to access material AFTER Constantine's endorsement.

Tacitus was a Roman senator, so any works of his would have circulated quite a bit.

And as I earlier pointed out, its was Book 15 of Annals.
 

Rebel

Banned
Like what?

The great Carl Sagan said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Claiming that the early persecution of Christians never actually happened, that there weren't many Christians in Rome, or that the Romans couldn't tell the difference between them and the Jews are all pretty extraordinary claims.

Well, I only said that they happened on and off rather than as a consistent effort.
 
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