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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 ...
There was no empire-wide persecution of Christians until the reign of Decius in the third century. [ web 1 ] As the Roman Empire experienced the Crisis of the Third Century , the emperor Decius enacted measures intended to restore stability and unity, including a requirement that Roman citizens affirm their loyalty through religious ceremonies ...
The category of voluntary martyr began to emerge only in the third century in the context of efforts to justify flight from persecution. [43] The condemnation of voluntary martyrdom is used to justify Clement fleeing the Severan persecution in Alexandria in 202 AD, and the Martyrdom of Polycarp justifies Polycarp's flight on the same grounds ...
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] Because of the persecution, however, a number of Christian communities were riven between those who had complied with imperial authorities (traditores) and those who had refused.
The third century saw the empire's greatest persecution of Christians while also being the critical century of church growth. [384] Schor adds that "Persecutions (like Valerian's) might have thinned the Christian leadership without damaging the network's long-term growth capacity."
In the pivotal twelfth century, Europe began laying the foundation for its gradual transformation from the medieval to the modern. [4]: 154 Feudal lords slowly lost power to the feudal kings as kings began centralizing power into themselves and their nation. Kings built their own armies, instead of relying on their vassals, thereby taking power ...
Saint George before Diocletian, in a 14th-century mural in Ubisi 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 ...