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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.
Christians were viewed as incapable of acting on their obligations as Roman citizens, and his edict in 303 resulted in the Great Persecution. [8] Galerius halted the persecutions with the edict of toleration in 311, which made it a duty for Christians to support the state (res publica) through their own forms of worship. [9]
When Dionysius Exiguus, an Eastern Roman of Scythia Minor, inherited the continuation of those tables for an additional 95 years (in the year 525 AD) he replaced the anno Diocletiani era with one based on the birth of Christ: the anno Domini era. His main goal was to marginalize the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians. [1]
Promulgated in the name of the other official members of the Tetrarchy, the edict marked the end of persecutions against the Christians.. Among other arrangements which we are always accustomed to make for the prosperity and welfare of the republic, we had desired formerly to bring all things into harmony with the ancient laws and public order of the Romans, and to provide that even the ...
[15] However, towards the end of the second year of Decius' reign, "the ferocity of the [anti-Christian] persecution had eased off, and the earlier tradition of tolerance had begun to reassert itself." [15] Christians bore the brunt of the persecution and never forgot the reign of Decius, whom they remembered as "that fierce tyrant". [15]
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.