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Romans 3 is the third chapter of the Epistle to the Romans in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It was composed by Paul the Apostle , while he was in Corinth in the mid-50s AD, [ 1 ] [ 2 ] with the help of an amanuensis (secretary), Tertius , who added his own greeting in Romans 16:22 .
The Romans protected the integrity of religions practiced by communities under their rule, seeing it as inherently correct to honor one's ancestral traditions; for this reason the Romans for a long time tolerated the highly exclusive Jewish sect, even though some Romans despised it. [24] It was not so with the early Christian community which ...
The document seems to show that the Roman Empire, as a government entity, did not at this time "seek out" Christians for prosecution or persecution. [28] Although Emperor Trajan gives Pliny specific advice about disregarding anonymous accusations, for example, he was deliberate in not establishing any new rules in regard to the Christians. [6]
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 support of this assertion, Fox argues that thousands of Jews were killed by Romans and it was not something novel. [38] Thus the persecution hardly started before 70 AD, and when it was started by Bar Kokhba, it was not on purely theological grounds but also because of the disloyalty of Christians in the rebellion against the Romans. [38]
Claudia Setzer asserts that, "Jews did not see Christians as clearly separate from their own community until at least the middle of the second century" but most scholars place the "parting of the ways" much earlier, with theological separation occurring immediately. [15] Second Temple Judaism had allowed more than one way to be Jewish.
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But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians ...